NNU Welcomes Occupy Wall Street Protests
And the Nurses Who Have Led the Campaign to
Tax Wall Street to Heal America You?ve made history, and we are continuing to make history every day.
Nurses provided a spark that is now catching on fire across the nation. The media and protest spotlight is now on Wall Street and the devastation that bankers and investment firms wreaked on our economy and to families in Main Street communities across America.
Now, we are thrilled to see thousands more in the streets, with the heroic Occupy Wall Street campaign encamped in New York ? very near where 1,000 RNs marched in June ? and in Boston, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Minneapolis, Seattle, and numerous other cities.
Another angle of the now-notorious video of NYPD Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna needlessly pepper-spraying a group of corralled Occupy Wall Street protesters shows some surprising collateral damage. As reported previously by one of the women hit in the face, a "blue-shirt" cop standing nearby can be heard shouting, "He just ****ing maced us," before wiping his eyes at the 1:30 mark in the clip
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As for Bologna, it turns out he is facing legal action stemming from the 2004 demonstrations at the Republican National Convention, where he stands accused of wrongful arrest and civil rights violations.
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Of the NYPD's show of force last weekend, the New York Times reports today:
The police's actions suggested the flip side of a force trained to fight terrorism, in a city whose police commissioner acknowledges the ownership of a gun big enough to take down a plane, but that may appear less nimble in dealing with the likes of the Wall Street protesters. So even as the members of Occupy Wall Street seem unorganized and, at times, uninformed, their continued presence creates a vexing problem for the Police Department.
An anonymous police official confirmed Officer Bologna's identity, telling the Times, "He did his job and now he's concerned for the safety of his family." The Police Department's chief spokesman Paul J. Browne said the pepper spray was "used sparingly."
It's no surprise that we're seeing protests on Wall Street, in Washington, and all across America. Just look at the poll numbers: an overwhelming three out of every four Americans support the "Buffett Rule," President Obama's proposal to ensure that millionaires and billionaires don't pay lower tax rates than the rest of us do.
Even two-thirds of all Republicans and 63 percent of global investors agree with this common-sense proposal. And so does Warren Buffett himself, the billionaire investor who recently noted that he pays a lower tax rate than his secretary.
But the magic number that really matters is 7 -- and that's the number of yes votes for the Buffett Rule that we need from the 12-member congressional "super committee" tasked with reducing our deficit.
Already, in partnership with our friends at Democracy For America, you and more than 55,000 people have contacted the super committee directly through our website, urging them to endorse the Buffett Rule. Thank you so much for speaking out!
But we need to keep the pressure on -- and that means we need you to ask your friends to add their voices too.
Ask your friends to contact the super committee in support of the Buffett Rule today:
People all across the country are standing up and speaking out against the overwhelming corruptive influence of corporations on our government and on our lives.
The current economic crisis didn't happen by accident. It happened because of corporate greed, and the reckless financial deregulation lobbied for by Wall Street and the big banks. The credit crisis that they caused triggered our worst recession since the Great Depression.
That's why I'm so encouraged by what we're seeing with these protests. The public is demanding accountability from Wall Street, from the big corporations, and from some of the millionaires and billionaires who got us into this mess.
It's time for them to pay their fair share to help get us out of it -- and that's why we need the super committee to adopt President Obama's proposed Buffett Rule.
The cavalry has arrived in Lower Manhattan. Representatives from no fewer than 15 of the country's largest labor unions will join the Occupy Wall Street protesters for a mass rally and march today in New York City.
The AFL-CIO, United Auto Workers, and Transit Workers' Union are among the groups expected to stand in solidarity with the hundreds of mostly young men and women who have spent the better part of three weeks sleeping, eating, and organizing from Zuccotti Square.
ABC News' live blog of the rally.
Their arrival is being touted as a watershed moment for the "Occupy" movement, which has now seen copycat protests spring up across the country. And while the specific demands of the "occupiers" remain wide-ranging, the presence of the unions ? implicitly inclined to making more direct demands ? may sharpen their focus.
Today's action is scheduled to begin at 3 p.m. ET, when the protesters in Zuccotti Square march approximately one mile north to Foley Square, where they will be met by community and labor leaders. Then, at 4:30 p.m., they plan to match together back down toward Wall Street. They do not yet have a city-issued permit for the gathering, but are now pursuing one.
The "Union March" is expected to be the movement's largest yet and there is the potential for a significant number of arrests. The New York Police Department booked an estimated 700 protesters Saturday as they attempted to cross the Brooklyn Bridge, bringing the total number arrested to over 1,000 in less than three weeks.
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, speaking at a retirement community in Florida yesterday, denounced the movement. "I think it's dangerous, this class warfare," he said.
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I'll believe corporations are persons when Texas executes one.: LBJ's Ghost
And you think one is better than the other??? You poor naive fool.
or I think you should, what party is the primary supporter of ending mandatory binding arbitration which is all about businesses talking power away from the people and destroying the basic principles of our country - the justice system
it sure isn't the republicans helping us out here......
same when it came to healthcare, the best the republicans could do is present a bill that would have made it even worse for consumers.....
the republicans were all about calling ending any tax cut a tax increase as well as closing any loophole a tax increase and were 100% against letting any tax cuts expire..... until the recent one that helped mainly the middle class, then they couldn't give a **** about it....
I think you need to wake up.... the democrats are far from perfect for sure.... but at least they tend to help the average man every once and a while while the republicans are all about creating a multi tiered society of haves and have-nots.
And you think one is better than the other??? You poor naive fool.
Almost every politician has some sick twisted need or they wouldn't seek office. Given a choice between the Party of No and their illegitimate junior league collection of lemmings I or the Party of FDR, Kennedy & Obama I see no ethical choice but one.
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I'll believe corporations are persons when Texas executes one.: LBJ's Ghost
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