Occupy Wall Street protesters stage a Millionaires March
Updated: 2011-10-12 06:47
(Xinhua)
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NEW YORK - Thousands of protesters on Tuesday kicked off a "Millionaires March" to the homes of super riches in NYC's Upper East Side to demonstrate against economic injustice.
The march started close to 1 pm local time and protesters made its way up Park Avenue toward the apartment buildings of five wealthy New Yorkers: NewsCorp CEO Rupert Murdoch, industrialist David Koch, hedge fund manager John Paulson, real estate developer Howard Milstein and JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon.
Protesters chanted "hey you, millionaire, pay your fair share!", "Banks got bailed out, we got sold out" , expressing their request of the extension of New York's two percent "millionaires' tax," which expires in December.
When protesters passed Rupert Murdoch's home on the 59th street, the crowd gathered in front of the building and chanted "enough is enough!" ,"Mr. Murdoch, pay your fair share!"
"The wealth is held by a small group of people, and the middle class can't hang on, eventually you just get the rich and the poor, "a protester named Stuart Singer told Xinhua." We want everyone to pay their fair share, we want a better distribution of the wealth. "
"It's a march on the many of the billionaires in the New York City. They live in the Upper East Side, it is a very exclusive, expensive neighborhood. They live in the suites and they don't have anything to do with rest of us," Costas Panayotakis, a social sciences professor who is among the protesters, told Xinhua reporter.
"I think that's one of the ways to dramatize the inequalities that exist in the American society, and it will continue to exist if we don't protest," he added.
With its epicenter located in Lower Manhattan's Zuccotti Park, the Occupy Wall Street movement is in its fourth week and has spread to more than 150 US major cities. The organizer said that they will hold a large-scale march against banks this Saturday.