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....

Ronald Reagan on Walesa receiving the 1983 Nobel Prize for Peace:

REAGAN: I’d like to take a moment this afternoon to send a moment of congratulation to one of the world’s greatest labor leaders, Lech Wałęsa. [...] This award demonstrates that the world will always remember and will honor the commitment to freedom and the commitment to free trade unions that Lech Wałęsa and millions of brave Polish people share.