34 Comments

• eiriamach | Oct 14, 2011, 09:49 AM EDT

  The galling thing about comments like the one hollaback calls "the dumbest thing I have ever read on this website" is their ridiculous claims to be speaking for most other people. As the OWS protests, and the polls that indicate widespread support for the protestors, show, most Americans certainly do NOT identify with or support the Tea Party, which has brought us a virtual shut-down of federal government when we most need action out of Washington DC. falconflash's claims are sheer idiocy and more than just offensive. What is the point of making such outrageously false statements? I hope the Irish IC visitors understand that such comments represent only the lunatic fringe, not the thinking of Irish Americans in general.

• hollabackgurl | Oct 13, 2011, 08:34 PM EDT

  The comment below this one is the dumbest thing I have ever read on this website. Most of Wall Street is honest? FFS. Geroge W Bush presided over a decade of unparalleled thievery and corruption on Wall Street, with tens of millions entering the ranks of the hungry thanks to artificially inflated commodity prices, and millions more displaced from their homes by corruption in the mortgage markets. The Tea Party was created by the billionaire Koch brothers to protect their interests and tax cuts, that is all. It's your own fault if you got suckered by them.

• seanomelbourne | Oct 10, 2011, 07:24 PM EDT

  Geraldo was booed off by protesters with chants of"Fox lies" he scurried away with his tail between his legs.Geraldo is a failed husband,a failed democrat,a failed actor and just an all round failure,so he joined Fox part of the discredited "Newscorp".

• Ratslayer | Oct 10, 2011, 02:09 PM EDT

  Be Afraid, anti-Middle Class, Republican-Tea Bagging traitors, Be VERY Afraid. This is just the beginning.

• McNamara31 | Oct 10, 2011, 12:43 PM EDT

  It was so predictable...Soon after the Occupy Wall St protests began, Fox issued it's talking points to demean this group and say they didn't have a message.I hope by now people are finally seeing just who Fox represents, and who's interest they protect; it's certainly not the middle class.

• citizen69 | Oct 10, 2011, 12:14 PM EDT

  Peter King fears equality? Time to bring the bankers to heel.

• OldMariner | Oct 10, 2011, 11:16 AM EDT

  The big difference between the anti-Vietnam protests of the 60's and of anti-Wall St. ones of today is that the former were predominated by spoiled college kids who, in the case of males, didn't want to serve. That war was criminal and so was the immediate indifference of the anti-protest movement when the draft ended. What's criminal today is the greed of the financial sector with the compliance of a stupid and supine federal government. I commend the Wall St. protestors they are on high moral ground and despite what the talking heads on TV say, they do have a message. Both political parties are equally guilty. Obama, who also collected much money from Wall Street and the financial sector, allowed these crooked bastards to collect bonuses when all he had to do was use the bully pulpit to deny them this lucre. This to me was the defining, moment kick-in-the-ass, moment.

• eiriamach | Oct 10, 2011, 10:30 AM EDT

  The "GOP ignores, condemns or ridicules the demonstrators on Wall Street and across America at its peril," yes, and at our peril too. If King can recall the protests of the 60's/early 70's, then he knows that when the press began to take an interest in the grievances of the protestors, change began to happen. So thanks for writing this article. I hope to read more like it.

• eiriamach | Oct 10, 2011, 10:07 AM EDT

  Most of the condemnation of the Occupy Wall Street movement is coming from the GOP and its supporters. Yet its spontaneous, grassroots origins are similar to those of the Tea Party, which now, effectively, controls the Republican Party - and whose insane intransigence may well lead it to Fianna Fail's fate. The GOP's problem, of course, is that this latter movement took on Wall Street, their deep-pocketed friends, rather than Big Govt., their convenient whipping boy. But we have a dysfunctional government, an economy in deep crisis, a middle class that is rapidly becoming the working poor - and the titans of Wall Street making more money than ever. Yes, we are becoming more like a banana republic and the GOP ignores, condemns or ridicules the demonstrators on Wall Street and across America at its peril.

• hollabackgurl | Oct 10, 2011, 09:47 AM EDT

  Wall Street wrecked the economy three years ago and nobody's been held responsible for that. Not a single person has been indicted or convicted for destroying 20% of our national net worth accumulated over the course of two centuries. The protestors are upset about the fact that Wall Street has iron control over the economic policies of this country, and that one party is a wholly owned subsidiary of Wall Street and the other party caters to them as well.

• kilkennyroots | Oct 10, 2011, 08:17 AM EDT

  The candidate who recognizes that Occupy New York and the Tea Party are saying many of the same things and who can coherently identify the common themes between the two movements will be our next president.

• SingleDonald | Oct 09, 2011, 09:42 PM EDT

  I have met Peter King. He is my Congressman, and I have been to a couple of his rallies, at Mulcahay's, in Wantagh, N.Y. I think he is sincere in fighting for American causes. I wrote him in late 1998, and asked him not to vote to impeach President Bill Clinton. Congressman Peter saw it my way, as Clinton's transgressions didn't rise to the level of impeachment. BTW, I was very happy that the President won at trial, in the Senate, in February, 1999. I know the congressman had Clinton to thank, for something concerning Ireland. Yet, I was pleased with his vote, in the House of Representatives Impeachment Hearings.

• TheOldPerfessor | Oct 09, 2011, 06:56 PM EDT

  Peter King has very good reason to fear the protests in lower Manhattan. Takes air time away from his "Hate the Muslims" campaign, and his overall war against the truth and the Constitution of the United States.

• pilib04 | Oct 09, 2011, 06:17 PM EDT

  To borrow a phrase: Peter King, THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE. Get over yourself.

• pilib04 | Oct 09, 2011, 06:16 PM EDT

  Poor Pete King. Still hung up in the right wing world (who don't like or trust him because the leadership is all anglophiles). Maybe King needs a rest. Did it ever occur to him Occupy Wall Street is no different than the Tea Party. Just a different way of expressing themselves. Also a different point of view.

• seanomelbourne | Oct 09, 2011, 05:52 PM EDT

  King the bankers mate villifying the middle class who were steamrolled by wall street and their favourite sons Bush and co.

• McNamara31 | Oct 09, 2011, 02:50 PM EDT

  Porickseantuny....There's bigger issues here. Wall St and the financial sector invested more than 5 billion dollars on purchasing political "influence" in Washington over the past decade, with 3,000 lobbyists winning deregulation that led directly to the current financial collapse that affected us all.

• NYCsheridan | Oct 09, 2011, 01:49 PM EDT

  Peter King is such a pompous ass. The nerve of him to call others "un-American".

• Porickseantuny | Oct 09, 2011, 01:48 PM EDT

  I doubt that any of the protesters have ever paid income tax. They are so used to having their hands out for entitlements they won't recognize the fact that the upper 10% of the earners pay 70% of the taxes. They compare percentages instead of absolute dollars. When more people have their hands out than those who pay taxes it will be the end of the Republic.

• McNamara31 | Oct 09, 2011, 12:51 PM EDT

  As the efforts of Occupy Wall St shine the light on the many problems facing the student and the middle class, resolution of our combined problems will only occur with proper campaign and financial reform. When presidential candidates have to raise 1 billion dollars for re election and Wall St at the same time is allowed to spend billions of dollars for lobbyists to block needed financial regulations, all are tainted by the existing process. “Maplight” an organization that follows money in politics states Peter King himself receives 91% of his contributions from outside his home congressional district and one of his past major contributors was Goldman Sachs.

• failteroibeard | Oct 09, 2011, 12:28 PM EDT

  Tá sé seo faic a dhéanamh leis na hÉireann nó na hÉireann!

• McNamara31 | Oct 09, 2011, 12:21 PM EDT

  The "real story" in New York this past Wednesday was a dramatic shift from a park once filled with mostly the young, and the college student, to a crowd filled with middle age people who came into the city to support a generation who has had "their futures stolen" by Wall St.I am not speaking only of the union workers who attended the rally; I am talking about the priest who travelled from Scranton Pa who stood to my right, there because he wanted to stand against the social injustice of Wall St against this generation young and old alike. And then there was the retired couple from upstate who wanted to stand with the kids so the media would see this is no longer only a story about the young but also a growing story of the everyday man standing with them. And finally it continues to be a story of a young girl standing on my left who said she was a college student who did “all the right things," got the grades and the scholarships only to have then cut and now she will be unable to attend college in the fall. The real story that Peter King "closes his eyes to" is the American people together were saying they did their job they followed the rules that were once America and they are no longer going to stand quiet while Wall St deals in more “Stolen Futures.”

• wjb1tex | Oct 09, 2011, 11:57 AM EDT

  joan1954 "These people who are protesting against Wall Street are not malcontents, they are American citizens who want jobs who see our financial system as crumbling because American jobs are going overseas" ---------------------------------------------- If you want a job joinng a protest is not the way to go about it. If American jobs are going overseas protest to the corporations or better yet to the government. Wall Street jobs are not being sent to China. However Apple jobs are. Why not protest them. Oh right, they are a "cool" company. Not one of those evil ones.

• seagreen | Oct 09, 2011, 11:44 AM EDT

  Phlutie Phan This has nothing to do with Obama, he is viewed as a non ally with these people. It is people like you that they are against !!! You do not understand This is not about Republicans or Democrats, but rather people that have used this system to the max. Sent the lower income kids off to get their arms and legs blown off (360,000 since 1965) while the profits and stock did just wonderfully, especially with the war profiteers. Haliburton bailed out to Dubai in order to protect their files and records of no bid contracts in Kuwait and Iraq from bein scrutinized by the GAO. KBR,Dyne Corp, and the rest of these Texas patriots did the same. The kingpin of it all (with 5 deferrments from the Vietnam draft) is still in Washington keeping the lid on in case somebody starts talking. This is what wall St. is about...

• CitizenWhy | Oct 09, 2011, 11:14 AM EDT

  Of course Occupy Wall Street will gain political clout because it is promoting the fact that our democracy has been subverted by corporate control and a broken financial system that does not benefit all Americans, instead transferring wealth upward to just the top 10%. Whatever else the Occupy Wall Street crowd is saying, the main message is "Restore Our Democracy."

• joan1954 | Oct 09, 2011, 11:00 AM EDT

  We have been stiffed so much by our politicians whether they be local or national. Used to be when immigrant came they learned English, now we have to learn Spanish if we want a job. I know that game all too well have a great interview and bang while very qualified not qualified because I don't speak Spanish. On the other side when I phone to ask a question the person can't answer the queston because my first language is English and theirs isn't. These people who are protesting against Wall Street are not malcontents, they are American citizens who want jobs who see our financial system as crumbling because American jobs are going overseas. Bring these back, give tax relief to do so and employ Americans especially college graduates who are having the worst time finding jobs, even any job because we are told we are too overqualified.

• PhlutiePhan | Oct 09, 2011, 10:53 AM EDT

  This is not a democratic movement. It is following a classic textbook maneuver from the book of national socialism. Obama can't win fairly, so his operatives are "taking to the streets". Germany in the 40s is only one example.

• CaptainCon | Oct 09, 2011, 10:23 AM EDT

  It hasn't been about 'right' versus 'left' since the fall of the Berlin Wall. It has been about corporations versus nation states- including America. When brave, patriotic, American corporation Halliburton moved its headquarters to the Middle East saying 'thats where the money is' having sucked as much money as it could out of Washington it was showing exactly the level of patriotism in corporations everywhere. You think US corporate boardrooms give a damn about the United States? It cares about the dollar- not the symbols on it.

• hollabackgurl | Oct 09, 2011, 10:22 AM EDT

  All the Republicans are focused on is getting rid of Obama, not growing the economy. Everyone knows it. These kids have no jobs, massive college debt, their middle class parents are becoming the working poor and they know that the Wall Street elites are laughing at them. America's political system has been hijacked by the super rich and the corporations (who are know people, thanks to the right wing Supreme Court) who will continue to squeeze the workers until our transformation into a third rate banana republic is complete.

• seagreen | Oct 09, 2011, 10:15 AM EDT

  King has reason to worry ! If the conversations that I have heard from recent college graduates represent those nationwide. They have no brief for Republicans or Democrats, and feel they are all involved in the sellout of America. They view national members of both party's with contempt, and feel they have been lied to in order to finance educational institutions, while multinational corporations have turned the US into a buisness whorehouse. One girl said "why should I have any loyalty to a country that brings in 3rd nationals to take my job" One kid is now playing hockey in europe, and hoping to acquire citizenship there. Maybe opinions are different elsewhere than those in New England..

• wjb1tex | Oct 09, 2011, 10:14 AM EDT

  They might better take their protests to Washington.Parading in front of Wall Street firms, most of whom are in bed with the goverment won't accomplish anything. Until they define exactly what action they want to take place there will be none. All the feel good catch phrases like income equality, corporate greed,and world peace sound good but where is the formula for achieving results. Speaking of corporate greed why aren't they demonstrating in front of Apple, Facebook, Google, Twitter, Old Navy, IKEA or any of the other hugely succesful corporations of the Now Generation ( if that's the current one )

• CaptainCon | Oct 09, 2011, 10:10 AM EDT

  King is not some kind of defender of American values. He is nothing more than a corporate prostitute with a colon packed with expense account lunches. And that is what you are listening to when people like King open their mouths.

• GeorgeDillon | Oct 09, 2011, 10:06 AM EDT

  Funny how the politicians love popular movements when they take to the street in Arab countries, but call them "malcontents" when they are Americans.

• StokeyBob | Oct 09, 2011, 09:27 AM EDT

  The root reason for the, “Occupy er’s” and the “99% er’s”. Gaze upon it if you dare. Maybe this will help make the danger of fiat money clear. Imagine you and me are setting across from each other. We create enough money to represent all of the world's wealth. Each one of us has one SUPER Dollar in front of him. You own half of everything and so do I. I'm the government though. I get bribed into creating a Central Bank. You're not doing what I want you to be doing so I print up myself eight more SUPER Dollars to manipulate you with. All of a sudden your SUPER Dollar only represents one tenth of the wealth of the world! That isn't the only thing though. You need to get busy and get to work because YOU'VE BEEN STIFFED with the bill for the money I PRINTED UP to get YOU TO DO what I WANTED. That to me represents what has been happening to the economy, and us, and why so many of our occupations just can't keep up with the fake money presses. P.S. No matter how much real money people can put together to build their countries the way they want, there are those that can print up what ever it takes to dictate their way.