UPDATED:  October 29, 2011 10:04 PM
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‘Occupy’ Protest Leaders Plan National Assembly

Washington–National organizers of Occupy Wall Street are planning to hold a national assembly, according to a CBS-TV report on October 19.

“Occupy” is a growing nationwide movement that has spread overseas, denouncing corporate greed and other disparate issues. Wall Street is New York City’s commercial district.

The proposed assembly venue is Philadelphia, the nation’s birthplace of democracy. The plan is to hold the assembly from Independence Day on July 4 next year, until October, a year after the movement began.

The proposed concluding month is a week before the November 2012 presidential elections, and could potentially affect its outcome.

Vasudha Desikan, a South Asian American Occupy D.C. protester, lamented the economic situation in which “many Asian American families are losing their homes as well as jobs.”

She added: “People have to express their frustration, and say, ‘Enough! We’re not going to take this anymore.’ We need to take this conversation in a public place.”

Occupy D.C. protesters started to camp out on McPherson Square in this capital on October 1. Many D.C. protesters, about 50 of them peacefully parading and chanting on October 7, were students and young professionals.

They handed out flyers to passersby on the busy K Street Northwest in this capital. The flyer reads: “Who is Occupy D.C.? We are citizens, professionals, students, activists, parents, unemployed workers, voters, and the underrepresented who represent the 99%. We are interested in separating money from politics and improving the country’s infrastructure to fix healthcare, education, environment and the economy.”

Filipino American civil rights advocate Jon Melegrito said in a telephone interview on October 13: “A lot of the protesters are young people who are jobless. They feel that they played by the rules, they went to college but now they cannot find a job. But it seems it’s a broad movement, attracting the support of those who do not ordinarily join protests.”

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