Obama Provides Justification for Occupy Protesters--After They Heckle Him
(CNSNews.com) - Speaking at Manchester Central High School in Manchester, N.H., on Tuesday, President Barack Obama provided a justification for Occupy movement protesters--after a group of the protesters interrupted his address and heckled him.
The disruption to the president's speach appears on the White House video of the event (see below) and was reported by the Manchester Union Leader.
"There was also a brief commotion early in the President's speech, apparently instigated by supporters of the Occupy movement," the Union Leader said. "A man called out 'mic check,' and a group of people clustered in several parts of the auditorium responded in kind, using the communication method adopted by the Occupy protesters."
The Union Leader reported that the heckler said to Obama: “Mr. President, 4,000 peaceful protesters have been arrested."
Some of the Manchester Central High School students who were in the room then started chanting: "Obama. Obama. Obama."
"Okay, it’s okay. That’s all right," Obama said after the heckling, according to the White House transcript of the speech. "Listen, I’m going to be talking about a whole range of things today, and I appreciate you guys making your point. Let me go ahead and make mine, all right? And I’ll listen to you, you listen to me. All right?"
Later in his speech, Obama expressly invoked the Occupy movement.
"Then there are young people who have gone to college, gotten a whole bunch of debt, and find themselves unable to find opportunity," Obama said.
"So 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 to applause. "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."
The president gave the speech in Manchester to promote his "American Jobs Act" stimulus plan. During the speech, he reiterated his argument that "economists said it would create nearly 2 million jobs."
As CNSNews.com's Fred Lucas has previously reported, given that Mark Zandi, the chief economist for Moody's Analytics has estimated that the American Jobs Act would create 1.9 million jobs, and the White House says the bill would cost of $447 billion, the average cost per job for the president's proposal is $235,263.
Click for Full Text & Video!
