Washington protests march into second week
The Occupy DC movement, a fledgling activist group which set up a makeshift headquarters at McPherson Square on K Street one week ago, showed signs of growing as people from across the country headed to join them in the capital.
Sunday more than 200 demonstrators marched to Freedom Plaza, near the White House, and a second demonstration saw a similar crowd head towards Malcolm X Park in northwest Washington.
"There are a lot of people in this country who cannot afford to educate their children and live in an educated society. I don't want to live in a third world country," said Lana Ferree, a science teacher from Pennsylvania.
"We don't need huge corporations, just jobs. But the government is all about Exxon and Wall Street," she added.
Occupy DC's website states the movement is built on the example of Occupy Wall Street, whose activists have continuously camped out in a New York park since September 17. Both groups are angered at rising inequality in the United States, in the wake of the global financial crisis.
"Our focus is on the economy, corporate corruption of our political system, and the negative effects of corporate personhood," Occupy DC, which has deliberately avoided appointing a spokesman, says on its website.
Anthony Allen, 38, a salesman and father of two who lives in Washington and has been at McPherson Square since Thursday, said "the fact that nothing is going right" in the US economy, had led him to protest.
President
Barack
Obama
said
Thursday
that
the
anti-Wall
Street
protests
in
New
York
and
beyond
were
an
expression
of
public
anger
and
frustration
over
the
antics
of
bankers
and
a
moribund
economy,
with
unemployment
at
9.1
percent.
But
Allen
said
the
president
was
also
to
blame.
"I voted for Obama but he sold us a bag of goods that he's nowhere near delivering," Allen added, standing next to a protest banner that read "Welcome to the American autumn," alluding to this year's "Arab Spring" revolutions.
AFP