Occupier Hands Note to Obama

By David Jackson, USA Today

23 November 11

e know why those protesters heckled President Obama yesterday in New Hampshire.

After the president's speech, one of the hecklers handed Obama a note criticizing his "silence" over the arrest of "over 4,000 peaceful protesters" at Occupy Wall Street-type movements across the country.

Thanks to Associated Press photographer Charles Dharapak, we can read the entire note:

"Mr. President: Over 4,000 peaceful protesters have been arrested. While bankers continue to destroy the American economy. You must stop the assault on our 1st amendment rights. Your silence sends a message that police brutality is acceptable. Banks got bailed out. We got sold out."

A group of protesters began yelling at Obama about those arrests at the start of his speech in Manchester, NH. The president's backers began countering with chants of "Fired up, ready to go!" and "Obama! Obama!"

"That's OK, that's OK," Obama told his supporters.

Turning to the protesters, Obama said, "Listen, I'm going to be talking about a whole range of things today."

"And I appreciate you guys making your point," he said. "Let me go ahead and make mine, all right?"

"And I'll listen to you - you listen to me. All right?"

The speech went on without further interruption - and Obama referred to the Occupy movement.

"A lot of the folks who have been down in New York and all across the country, in the Occupy movement, there is a profound sense of frustration," he said. "There is a profound sense of frustration about the fact that the essence of the American Dream - which is if you work hard, if you stick to it, that you can make it - feels like that's slipping away. And it's not the way things are supposed to be. Not here. Not in America."

(photo: Charles Dharapak/AP)