Anti-graft agitation spreads in US

Anti-Wall Street protests that took shape in New York weeks ago, prompting hundreds of arrests, have spread across the United States with one organiser saying their message had “captured everyone’s imagination.” Demonstrations have sprouted from Los Angeles to Boston, and in plenty of cities in between, led by protesters voicing discontent and anger over such issues as high unemployment, home foreclosures and the 2008 corporate bailouts. The cities included Tampa, Florida; Trenton and Jersey City, New Jersey, Philadelphia, and Norfolk, Virginia, in the East; Chicago and St Louis in the Midwest; Houston, San Antonio and Austin in Texas; Nashville, Tennessee; and Portland, Oregon, Seattle and Los Angeles in the West. President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden also acknowledged the frustration and anger of the protesters on Thursday. “People are frustrated and, you know, the protesters are giving voice to a more broad-based frustration about how our financial system works,” Obama said at a news conference in Washington. Biden, speaking at the Washington Ideas Forum, likened the protest movement to the Tea Party, which sprang to life in 2009 after Obama’s election and has become a powerful conservative grass-roots force helping elect dozens of Republicans to office. “The American people do not think the system is fair,” Biden said. In a speech to social conservatives, House of Representatives Majority Leader Eric Cantor said: “I for one am increasingly concerned about the growing mobs occupying Wall Street and the other cities across the country.” ( From The Gulf Today )