NYC residents complain about 'Occupy' protesters (AP)

NEW YORK – New Yorkers who live near the park where anti-Wall Street protesters have been camping out for more than a month are complaining that their quality of life has declined.

At a two-hour meeting Thursday night, some neighbors said protesters urinated in the streets and beat drums in the middle of the night.

"They're defecating on our doorsteps," said Catherine Hughes, a member of the area's community board, a representative panel that helps funnel local concerns to city officials.

Some neighbors who attended the packed meeting called for the protesters to vacate Zuccotti Park, the plaza where protesters have set up their base camp.

But the board voted unanimously for a resolution that recognized the protesters' First Amendment rights while calling for a crackdown on noise and public urination and defecation.

Three local elected officials praised the resolution in a statement Thursday.

U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer and state Sen. Daniel Squadron called the community board's resolution "an attempt to establish a sensible framework that respects the protesters' fundamental rights while addressing the very real quality of life concerns for residents and businesses around Zuccotti Park."

Asked about Occupy Wall Street on WOR Radio on Friday, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the protesters' leaderless structure has made it difficult to negotiate with them.

"It's a little bit complicated by there's nobody to work it out with," Bloomberg said. "You know, there just is not any one group, one ideology, one objective, one person to negotiate with."

Occupy Wall Street spokesman Han Shan, who has served as a liaison between protesters and local elected officials, agreed the protesters needed to be better neighbors.

Shan said Friday that there are ongoing discussions about the drumming, which is officially confined to noon to 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.

One of the drummers, Jackson Leverette, questioned why neighbors would single out the drumming when the plaza, directly across the street from the World Trade Center site, is already noisy.

"When the construction workers are out there it actually drowns out the drums," he said.

The community board also said it opposed the use of force by police or the park's owners to address their concerns.

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AP Interview: Walesa backs Wall Street protesters (AP)

WARSAW, Poland – Poland's former President Lech Walesa says he supports the Occupy Wall Street movement in New York that protests corporate greed.

The Nobel Peace laureate told The Associated Press that he is planning either a visit or a letter to the protesters.

"I am weighing now how and when to best support them, without doing any harm," Walesa said Thursday.

Since mid-September, the protesters have besieged a park near Wall Street to rally against corporate greed, saying that is the main cause for the U.S.'s failing economy. Similar protests are planned across Europe this weekend, including in Poland's capital, Warsaw.

The 68-year-old Walesa said the global economic crisis has made people aware that "we need to change, reform the capitalist system" because we need "more justice, more people's interests, and less money for money's sake."

"We cannot accept a situation when capitalism is making huge money and then does not know what to do with it," Walesa told the AP. "It should invest in new jobs."

"People are most important," he said.

The legendary freedom leader said employees, employers and representatives of state and local governments should get together to work out solutions that would best serve the people and the societies.

"For now, capitalism is working to produce more money but does not see the people," Walesa said. "This problem is getting worse across the world."

Walesa led Poland's anti-communist Solidarity movement that eventually brought democracy and a market economy to the country in 1989. Between 1990-95, he served as the country's first popularly elected president and he now campaigns across the world for global democracy and human rights.

Since communism's fall, Poland has developed into a market economy with a European social safety net. Its economy has grown steadily since joining the European Union in 2004 and it even avoided a recession during the global downturn of 2008-2009 — the only EU country to do so.

However, Poland remains plagued by legacies of communism — like high unemployment of almost 12 percent and low wages — and problems brought by capitalism, like a growing gap between the country's rich and poor.

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Ivy League professors speak to anti-Wall Street protesters (Reuters)

BOSTON (Reuters) – Ivy League professors dropped by anti-Wall Street protest camps in Boston and New York on Friday to school the demonstrators on theories that bolster their demands to end inequality in the American economy.

Part of the Occupy Boston site was temporarily renamed "Free School University" as the crowd gathered at the feet of Brown University international political economy professor Mark Blyth and Boston University international relations professor Kevin Gallagher.

Standing on a wooden crate, they discussed with a crowd of about 50 people the misdeeds of Wall Street and Washington. Future forums were scheduled to address anarchism, psychology and law and privacy rights.

"People have every right to be angry," Blyth said about the Wall Street bailout in 2008, which left banks enjoying huge profits while average Americans suffered under high unemployment and job insecurity with little help from the federal government.

In New York later on Friday, a Columbia University professor was slated to talk to protesters about activism in Greece.

Organizers, who have pledged to stay in the tent village in Boston's financial district indefinitely and possibly into the winter, said they were kicking off what they hoped would become a regular forum for education and discussion.

The crowd was mixed with people versed in economic policies and others struggling to understand how the country will climb out of the financial crisis.

People picking up lunch at nearby food trucks gazed at the protesters, some snapped photos, while others meandered through the camp with their take-out meals.

Stephen Jerome, 50, from Lawrence, Massachusetts came by with his checkbook, donating $500 to the cause.

"These people are here with their hearts and brains and compassion," he said.

Aaron Cohen has been passing by on his lunch hour to show support.

The 61-year-old epidemiologist said he too is worried about his own financial security and that of his three daughters and grandchildren.

"They are starting out farther behind even with our support than when we were at their age," Cohen said. Despite being employed as teachers, student loans leave his daughters, in their 30s, wondering if and when they will be able to buy homes.

Christine and Robert Gerzon, who traveled from Concord, Massachusetts, intend to organize their neighbors to donate supplies to the Boston demonstrators.

The Occupy Wall Street movement that began in New York last month with a few people has expanded to protests across the country with marches and camps taking shape from Tampa, Florida to Portland, Oregan, and Los Angeles to Philadelphia.

Protesters' messages range from anti-corporate sentiments to frustration with the financial system and politicians.

Three weeks after protesters first hunkered down in New York City, the city has spent more than $1.9 million in overtime to dispatch police for crowd control during protests, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said on Friday.

While the ranks of protesters in New York have swelled into the thousands at times, most demonstrations elsewhere have numbered in the hundreds.

An Occupy San Antonio march on Friday attracted about two dozen supporters. Roughly the same number gathered in Washington D.C.'s McPherson Square.

(Additional reporting by Lily Kuo in Washington, D.C. and Jim Forsyth in San Antonio; Editing by Greg McCune)

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