Solidarnosc! Lech Walesa occupies Wall Street UPDATED

I'm reposting this because it received few views. Lech Walesa is a formidable figure in the history of freedom. He deserves better. His presence at the Occupy Wall Street protests says everything you need to know about the OWS movement. Anyone who was around when the heroic Walesa prevailed in Poland cannot help but be buoyed by his support of this modern revolution. If the media was doing its job, profiles of Walesa should be all over the airwaves and newspapers. Alas, the once champion of freedom it seems is largely forgotten among our press corps (or more likely, he's supporting a cause not friendly to their shared world view).

You can't get much better than that. 

Solidarity hero Lech Walesa is flying to New York to show his support for the Occupy Wall Street protesters. 

"How could I not respond," Walesa told a Polish newspaper Wednesday. "The thousands of people gathered near Wall Street are worried about the fate of their future, the fate of their country. This is something I understand." 

A former shipyard worker who led Poland's successful revolt against Soviet communism, Walesa said "capitalism is in crisis" and not just in America. 

"This is a worldwide problem," he told the Lublin-based Dziennik Wschodni newspaper. "The Wall Street protesters have focused a magnifying glass on the problem."

UPDATE: The Hill adds:

Great news for the real America. One of history's great leaders for jobs, workers and freedom is now supporting the Occupy Wall Street protest. Lech Walesa has now weighed in, big time, for the good guys. Meanwhile, one of the most powerful and noble forces in American and global affairs, former Vice President Al Gore, has given the movement a major public blast of support. 

The Tea Party movement, which is losing support throughout the nation, is baffled and confused by the real Tea Party movement that represents the great American tradition and the great American heartland: Occupy Wall Street. 

Amy Kremer, the chairwoman of Tea Party Express, is actually doing interviews endorsing bank and Wall Street abuses! The banks are doing nothing wrong, she says!! The problem is not Wall Street, she claims! It is those trying to reform banks and Wall Street, she asserts, who are the problem!

UPDATE II: Walesa's solidarity with Occupy Wall Street has heads exploding in wingnutland. Rightbloggers can't wrap their heads around Walesa championing what they see as a threat to their way of life. It's amusing to see them proverbially scratching their heads over something that is so obvious to the rest of us.

UPDATE III: While Lech Walesa has supported Occupy Wall Street, an Andrew Breitbart blog is ranting that the blog intervened on behalf of Walesa and the result is that the Polish hero has changed his mind and decided not to attend OWS. Dig this bit of self-aggrandizing, yet totally without any proof, statement from Breitbart's Big Government:

Using biggovernment.com plus other news sources, rapidly we painted an accurate picture of the groups training, leading, and organizing the “movement.” The movement is organized by anarchists, Code Pink, the American Communist movement, jihadists, anti-Israel, socialist, and anti- free enterprise interests. OWS folks are politically to the left of President Barack Obama. 

At the Lech Walesa Institute Foundation in Warsaw, they were thankful to receive this information.  

Based on our discussion and intervention, President Walesa is not going to get involved with the OWS. He is not comfortable with the “organizations” behind the movement. It was not a difficult discussion. 

Got that? No quotes from anyone at the Lech Walesa Institute Foundation, let alone the man himself. That hasn't stopped rightbloggers from jumping on the story and even sending commenters this way. Knowing Breitbart's loose history with facts and his propensity for fudging reality to fit his ideology, I'll wait for reputable sources to report the facts. So far, the Foundation has nothing on its website regarding this bit of 'news'. I fired off an email to the Foundation. I'll let you know its response.

Cross posted at Sister Sage's Musings.