- For a lot of the folks who have been in New York and all across the country in the Occupy movement, there is a profound sense of frustration about the fact that the essence of the American dream, which is if you work hard, if you stick to it that, you can make it, feels like that’s slipping away. And that’s not the way things are supposed to be. Not here. Not in America.
- President Obama • Responding to an interruption by Occupy protesters during a jobs speech in New Hampshire. After protesters “human-mic’d” themselves into the President’s attention (“Mr. President, more than 4,000 peaceful protesters have been arrested…”), he gave the above response, which seems both significant and somewhat lacking. That the President would directly address the protesters and cast himself on their side, in a way, speaks to the now nearly unstoppable influence the Occupy movement is having on the public discourse. At the same time, though, what Obama chose to say was fairly customary “American dream” rhetoric that didn’t address their specifically stated concern over the arrests of their comrades. source