Protests inspired by the "Occupy Wall Street" encampment in New York City continued to expand this weekend with protests taking place in Philadelphia, Atlanta, Chicago, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, San Francisco and Oakland, among others. Many of the protests have led to arrests. After about 500 protesters gathered during the day in front of the Iowa Statehouse in Des Moines, renaming the capitol complex "People’s Park," police arrested 32 people after they spent the night in the park. Also over the weekend, in Washington, D.C., the National Air and Space Museum was closed Saturday afternoon after security guards used pepper spray to repel more than 100 demonstrators protesting an exhibit on drones. Afterward, an assistant editor with the conservative publication The American Spectator wrote online he had infiltrated the group and provoked guards to pepper spray the crowd. Back in New York City, thousands of protesters marched from their base in the Financial District, where the "Occupy Wall Street" encampment is entering its fourth week, to Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village. Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek addressed demonstrators Sunday at Zuccotti Park. "They tell you are we are dreamers. The true dreamers are those who think things can go on indefinitely the way they are. We are not dreamers," Žižek says. "We are the awakening, from a dream which is turning into a nightmare. We are not destroying anything. We are only witnessing how the system is destroying itself." Transcript
As the "Occupy" movement expands from the "Occupy Wall Street" protest in New York City throughout the United States, we look at its historical significance. "This is an incredibly significant moment in U.S. history," says Dorian Warren of Columbia University. "It might be a turning point, because this is the first time we’ve seen an emergence of a populist movement on the left since the 1930s." We also speak to Firedoglake blogger Kevin Gosztola, who has been reporting from the occupations in Chicago, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. Transcript
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