Global Day of Rage: Hundreds of Thousands March Against Inequity, Big Banks, as Occupy Movement Grows

From Buenos Aires to Toronto, Kuala Lumpur to London, hundreds of thousands of people rallied on Saturday in a global day of action against corporate greed and budget cutbacks, demanding better living conditions and a more equitable distribution of wealth and resources. Protests reportedly took place in 1,500 cities, including 100 cities in the United States—all in solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street movement that launched one month ago in New York City.

It’s been a month since thousands answered a call to occupy Wall Street here in New York City, and as of this weekend, the movement has gone global. On Saturday, as thousands marched in New York’s Times Square, people also took to the streets in more than a thousand cities in more than 80 countries. From Buenos Aires to Toronto, Kuala Lumpur to London, people rallied against corporate greed and budget cutbacks, demanding better living conditions and a more equitable distribution of wealth and resources. They were answering a global call to action that’s also coincided with the Group of 20, or G20, meeting in Paris, where finance ministers and bankers are considering naming 50 banks as systemically important to the global economy and in need of, quote, "extra capital."

In Athens, Greece, as the country braces for a general strike, thousands of people gathered in the center of the city in Syntagma Square to protest austerity measures and corporate greed.

Elsewhere in Europe, tens of thousands of protesters filled Madrid’s Sol Square, where the indignados movement, the movement of the indigant, first began five months ago over austerity measures and high unemployment.

Meanwhile, in Rome, reports say as many as 200,000 people joined the global day of rage against bankers and corrupt politicians. The march was peaceful until police fired tear gas and water cannons in an attempt to disperse hundreds of protesters who set cars on fire and broke windows. Tiziana Bellucci was—from Rome, expressed optimism about the possible outcome of the day’s protests.

The main focuses are basically the same that are everywhere else in the world. We are trying to say that this system is not working. It is spoiling us. It is destroying our opportunities about the present and the future. We know that, a lot of people are losing their jobs. They know that they are not going to find a better way to—for their life, to live. We know that our universities are getting closed for the opportunities, that there’s a lot of people who are not going in it to be there in the immediate future, and the same for education. There’s a whole system. In Italy, we’re talking about bribery, which is like exactly in your face. It’s not like in other places where it is hidden, but it’s completely unveiled.

So, there’s a lot of anger. And there’s a lot of unions and association and parties trying to join their forces and to propose something different and to kick this government out of the way. The problem is that, trying to put all these forces together, that there was—there was a mistake, because it was not clear at a certain point that we had to make a nonviolent statement. And there were people trying to use the march—and they actually did that—to protect themselves, because they wanted to make a major fight and major clashes, which is definitely not—it is something that is not useful, and it’s trying—it is already having these some consequences, bad consequences. It is going belittle the whole movement. It’s really sad. It’s really a bad situation.

Tokyo to protest in solidarity with our brothers and sisters at the Wall Street occupation. We wanted to join the 99 percenters in demonstrating our solidarity with stopping the corporate greed around the world. The people at this protest were representing many different points of view, including resistance to nuclear power, resistance to declining working conditions in Japan, as well as resistance to the TPP free trade—so-called free trade protocol. It was exciting. It was really wonderful. And I was deeply inspired by it.

It was really inspiring to read the news and watch programs like this, learning about the Occupy Wall Street movement. As a result, in this protest, it wasn’t only Japanese workers there, but foreign workers. And for the first time.

Well, the common thread is corporate greed. Corporate greed is what fuels industries like the nuclear power industry. And this is—even people in our union—we have people in our union who support nuclear power, but even people in our union who do still agree that corporations must be accountable, must be accountable for making our energy safe, making our environment clean. And so, it’s about making sure that we don’t fuel our energy policy with corporate greed. We need to fuel our energy policy and our labor policy with a desire to improve human flourishing in countries like Japan and the United States.

As far as the linking up is concerned, it needs to be a global, democratic movement, if we’re going to confront the evils of the nuclear power industry, if we’re going to confront the evils of unfair working conditions and unfair free—so-called free trade, free trade agreements, that just challenge our ability to have fair labor standards and fair environmental standards.