Friday, October 7, 2011

Celebrities and Unions Join 'Occupy Wall Street' Movement


Celebrities who had already jumped onboard the "Occupy Wall Street' bandwagon include the names of actress Susan Sarandon, actor Mark Ruffalo, filmmaker Michael Moore, and rapper Lupe Fiasco.

"Gossip Girl"'s Penn Badgley has now participated in at least two protest gatherings. In one instance, he carried a sign that read: "Bring Back The Glass Steagall Act!! No To Corporate Greed!"

Tim Robbins, Sarandon’s longtime former companion, appeared at a demonstration outside the Federal Courthouse in lower Manhattan's Foley Square.

“This is what an actual grassroots movement looks like,” Robbins told the Financial Times.

But is the movement really as authentic as Robbins described?

"Occupy Wall Street" may have started as a grassroots effort, but the labor unions appear to be in the process of taking over the anti-capitalist movement. Transit workers united with protestors at Zuccotti Park earlier in the week, with the blessings of Transit Workers Union President John Samuelsen.

Samuelsen expressed the desire that the protests would “bring change to the state capitals, and in particular, change to Washington.” He decried the “unfair burden” on working families and hung the blame for it on the backs of the “wealthiest folks in the country, who are getting off scot-free.”

Labor groups made their protest participation manifest in other parts of the country as well, including Boston, Massachusetts and Seattle, Washington.

-James Hirsen

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