Washington, January 26: US President Barack Obama has ignored the growing Occupy Movement in his State of the Union Address, drawing criticism from protesters listening to him in their camps.
Obama delivered his State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night, but he did not specifically refer to the Occupy Wall Street movement in the annual speech.
A group of “Occupy DC” protesters issued a “State of the 99%” in response to the State of the Union address, reading it out loud in front of the White House.
“Never in our lifetimes have so many hard-working Americans faced so many difficulties, so many uncertainties, so many indignities in Occupy camps around the country we find Americans from all walks of life,” protesters said in their speech.
Obama in his speech referred to income inequality in the US, prompting some analysts to say that the address had been affected by the demands of the protesters.
The Occupy Wall Street movement first began when a group of demonstrators gathered in New York’s financial district to protest against the unjust distribution of wealth in the country and the excessive influence of big corporations on US policies.
Despite police crackdown and mass arrests, the Occupy movement, which grew out of the Occupy Wall Street movement, has now spread to many major US cities as well as to Australia, Britain, Germany, Italy, Spain, Ireland, Portugal, and other countries.
——Agencies