Monday, October 3, 2011
News Mood at Occupy Wall Street Increasingly Anti-Police
Posted by Henry Stewart on Mon, Oct 3, 2011 at 9:48 AM
Protestors chanted "racist, sexist, anti-gay! NYPD go away!" as they walked in a line led by three members of Grannies for Peace. At the rally outside 1 Police Plaza, speakers criticized recent and past actions of the police. (Last Monday, Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna deployed pepper spray, apparently unprovoked, on several women and then, in a separate incident, on a news photographer.) The cops have prohibited the protestors from using sound amplifiers like megaphones, so demonstrators are employing a system called the People's Microphone: a speaker says a few words, which are repeated in shouts by those nearby, which are repeated by those a little farther back, until it has passed in a wave through the whole crowd. (It's charming but, ultimately, an exhausting way to communicate.) Speakers also asked the crowd to remain calm and peaceful, which it did—no one was arrested; much of the crowd marched back down to Zuccotti Park when the speeches ended shortly after 7 p.m. (Another march on Saturday across the Brooklyn Bridge resulted in the arrests of 700 people, the AP reported.)
Earlier in the day at the park, a crowd of hundreds grew over the afternoon into thousands. Many in the park said it was the largest attendance they'd seen since the protests began almost two weeks ago. Some were Radiohead fans responding to rumors earlier in the day that the band would play at 4 p.m. Some were press. ("There's probably $25 million of camera equipment in here," one reporter cracked to me.)
A halal-food vendor, a smoothie cart and several hot dog guys surrounded the park, but deeper into its heart there was a food station with milk crates full of canned goods, plastic tubs of apples, bowls of candy, pots of black beans and corn cobs, and of course several jars of peanut butter. Nearby are the camps of the few hundred people who are living in the park, the true occupiers with their messes of tarps, cardboard, blankets and mattresses. Many slept through the afternoon. A few of them looked like ordinary, non-revolutionary homeless people.
There were drummers at the west and east ends of the park, acoustic guitar players scattered throughout. There was a topless woman and several dogs. A truck bearing the WikiLeaks logo circled the site. Clumps of brightly colored flowers are scattered throughout. And it's loud, of course, a mix of indecipherable shouting from the People's Microphone, banged drums, strummed strings, the squeaks of breaking buses, revolutionary chatter, chopping helicopter blades, the honks of isolated horns.
Some are also urging the movement to broaden. Their new slogan? "Occupy Everything."
Comments (6)
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dislikereally Denny Mui? Football playoffs mean more to you than your own economic freedom?! absolutely Ludicrious!
It’s important to note disparities in the system but it is also important to address how we as a society can agree to bring about changes to those things that grieve us and perhaps the mainstream media is right in this one respect- at the moment, no concrete plan or idea has been fostered as to how to exact changes in a very one sided system, and certainly waiting for the powers that be to come up with some watered down ideas hardly constitutes for much change, but then again at least the act of creating dissent and bringing awareness to what ails greater society is a good sign.
Perhaps what then is needed next is a constituency of those individuals who work within media, medicine, insurance, education,finance and politics and so forth to propose ideas that will go some way in addressing the legitimate grievances of greater society-and to bring back some checking of the system and evening of the playing field. But should we hold our breath?
http://scallywagandvagabond.com/2011/10/fi…
