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Protesters Enter NYC Bank Buildings Before Rally
NEW YORK — Noisy protesters with signs took over three bank building lobbies on Thursday in a prelude to a Wall Street rally by workers and union leaders angry over lost jobs, the taxpayer-funded bailout of financial institutions and questionable lending practices by big banks.
A protester walks with a sign under a large banner during the "Main Street to Wall Street" rally in New York's financial district April 29, 2010. The AFL-CIO and other labor and community groups gathered to protest against Wall Street banks.… Read more »
REUTERS/Mike Segar (UNITED STATES - Tags: CIVIL UNREST POLITICS) Hours
before the scheduled rally, more than 100 people entered a midtown
Manhattan building housing JPMorgan Chase offices. They handed a bank
executive a letter requesting a meeting with the CEO, and chanted "Bust
up big banks!" and "People power!"
A half-hour later, they were calmly escorted outside by officers, who remained expressionless as the protesters chanted, "The police need a raise."
They then walked a few blocks down Park Avenue and crowded into a Wells Fargo and Wachovia building lobby. Police arrived on horseback as curious office workers watched the scene unfold from their windows.
"We're here today to stop the corporate greed that is ruining our neighborhoods," said Andrea Goldman, 59, of Springfield, Mass., who's part of a group called Alliance to Develop Power.
Sign slogans included: "Save Our Jobs" and "Save Our Homes."
The banks did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Thousands of workers and union members were expected at the rally, organized by the AFL-CIO and an association of community groups.
The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, which includes many Wall Street financial institutions, declined to comment.
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33 Comments so far
Show AllDon't these protestors know that Obama "doesn't have the votes"?
Obama not only doesn't have the votes his adm. is full of guys who caused the problem. We will not be set free by the warden of the prison even if the guards help with our jailbreak. We are trapped and the middle classes' savings will be sacrificed on the altar of empire. Please, get a clue and read " The Shock Doctrine " by Ms. Klein. This is what's here and now, today. " When Wall St. & Our Gov't Lie; The Masses Die. " We will be shovelling the dead from the abandoned buildings in two years if this travesty of theft and greed is not overturned. Only a chastened and sympathetic gov't will stop the worst of the economic fallout about to descend on the country I call home.
If the government won't do anything but play nice with the banks, then the people have a duty to gte rid of these dinosaurs.
It occurs to me that since ticker tape is presumably obsolete, appreciative Wall Streeters must toss desktop computers, laptops, notebooks, Blackberries, and iPhones out the window in a festive gesture of admiration.
The elite will sober up a bit when they realize the next phase of trickle down is their blood.
Many unions were represented in the 4 PM rally, but in only moderate numbers each. Perhaps 5 to 10 thousand spirited people came, but it is hard to tell because of the corralling. The crowd was teriffic, all ages, races. Nice people. The turnout was pretty good. The rally not so much.
The slogan was "Tell Wall Street to fix the problem", repeated over and over. That is one of the most ridiculous slogans ever. Wall Street cannot and will not fix itself. Public action and legal coercion are absolutely required. There were some calls for limits on the bankers, but they were tepid and lost. (I was standing back about four blocks away from the podium, as we were not allowed to gather near the podium, but were kept in a narrow channel stretching for many blocks.)
Then there was about an hour of being told to text the word "REFORM" to a certain number. This was repeated literally hundreds of times. "Take out your cell phone and text REFORM". I wanted to take my cell phone out and throw it at Lloyd Blankfien or text the phrase PRISON FOR FRAUDSTERS.
Then the march itself was also successfully cattled into narrow channels by the police. (Perhaps they had Temple Grandin as a consultant?). There was no music. The little bit of spirit came from the Transit Workers Union and a few others. We were not allowed on Wall Street. We marched to the Battery. Then the crowd fizzled out down by the Battery.
It was the usual milling followed by meandering, both physically and in terms of political program. No wonder people do not come to rallies. What cudda and shudda been inspiring was dull. It takes talent to take a lively crowd and bore them to lethargy.
Joe
"Tell Wall Street to fix the problem"
That is absurd.
Effective slogans are difficult to compose. Most Leftists are naive on the subject.
A lot of the Right Wing sloganeers get paid big bucks in PR.
Guy Debord and the Situationists were brilliant sloganeers on the other hand.
The slogan has to fit the context and be very simple.
The problem is that even the radical Left is fuzzy about the agenda.
What was the purpose of the march? How can you design slogans unless you are clear about your purpose?
This slogan sounds like the marchers were asking Wall Streeters to "reform" themselves, which is silly.
Were agent provocateurs in charge of the slogans? Sounds like a turgidity Ralph Nader would come up with: "Please Reform Yourselves Or We Will Be Upset."
How about:
"We want Wall Street's balls" next time around?
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Give Back the F**king Money!
Fix it my aS$. The fix was in Fall of 2008. Wall $treet's not going to fix anything.
Hang em high!
End the wars! But what do we do with all those killers? I know, they can join the T-Party.
Turn your lights on.
But seriously..."Take back the money and put them behind bars." Now that's a slogam.
The banksters are modern day Benedict Arnolds. How's that for a Founding Fathers reference. After all the Brits (read Bankers) were coming up from Brit occupied NYC and Arnold was going to let them thru West Point.
Washington, George that is, had the boys at West Point put a giant chain across the Hudson River, to forestall any inavasion by Arnold and the Redcoats.
Too bad we can't chain Wall Street today.
Peace.
Every now and then you may find the light
In the strangest of places
If you look at it right.
A nice start, but a crisis like this requires something...ummm...a little more pointed to fully express 'We're pissed.' Here's to it.
This wasn't evident at groundlevel but during the early part of the rally, some blocks away, Protestors briefly occupied several banks, in full Union Regalia, kind of driving the point home a bit.
Remember also that this was called and organized by mainstream Union people, these are not Student Protestors, rather older, family types, some with their kids along. The primary significance is that it's the first major outing on Wall Street! I still wonder why ANSWER hasn't done anything. They have the experienced team for mass mobilization and since they are hardcore socialists, IWW, SWP, you'd think that they'd be leading the charge, what happened?
It appears that an ANSWER/IAC related faction has started a group called Bail Out the People, see here: http://bailoutpeople.org/
They have attempted to organize some actions on Wall Street but with limited success. Their next mobilization is a march on Washington, May 8, let's hope that it's a good turnout.
Imagine if the next time a man is caught after stealing $50 at gunpoint; instead of being sent to prison, he is told that his actions are being strongly regulated. He must agree only to threaten to shoot the victim in the leg and to steal only 50% of what the victim has in his/her possession.
Yes, the one who steals at gunpoint should be locked up. In a way, his crime is worse because it directly threatens the ending of an innocent life. In another way the acts of the big bankers is worse because they've stolen thousands, millions, billions out of the motive of greed which can be explained in part as insecure egos in their subculture of keeping up with the millionaire joneses.
In the case of the former, he must be locked up to protect the citizens of the community. But also, the conditions that have led to his felt need must be addressed.
In the case of the latter they must be locked up to protect the citizens of the community. But also, the system that has permitted them to perform that acts of greed must be dismantled.
Break up big banks into small entities that will NEVER be bailed out again. Require all bank activity to be transparent. Hell, not only make clearly observable the derivatives/hedge fund crap; terminate money laundering. Repeal the Commodity Futures Modernization Act. Restore Glass-Steagall and reseparate commercial banking from investment banking.
A hope for real change.
And, oh yeah, confiscate the wealth of those big banksters and to use for human needs like health care, education, and saving the natural environment that just happens to be sustaining our lives.
And how is all this going to come about--through elections and the Democrat Party?
If there is any sense of pride and responsibility in Congress and the Executive branch, they should be ashamed that during their watch, they let bunch of bankers rob the treasury.
One way to re-gain their self respect is to bring charges on these bankers, the Fed Chairman and Hank Paulson and allow the court to decide their fate.
"f there is any sense of pride and responsibility in Congress and the Executive branch, they should be ashamed that during their watch, they let bunch of bankers rob the treasury"
There isn't. So why are you wasting the breath?
They don't really care how you feel.
You are dealing with pathological liars and murderous psychopaths.
Got it?
Who is organizing a carefully planned one day strike--everyone just walks off the job?
Who is planning a National March on Washington To Levitate the Federal Reserve?
Where are the flying squads of picketers following Paulson and Greenspan and Geithener, and Bernanke and the rest wherever they go, wherever they speak?
The Wall Street March is a good start--but it won't work if it is only one day.
How about EVERY DAY?
Greece has a population of only 11 million yet the people are out in the streets to protest these issues in the millions.
One Union alone was able to call on 2 million workers to strike. One wonders if the bailout organized by the EU was to try and head off those strikes and ensure they did not spread across Europe, putting all of the Capitalists at risk.
Where is the National March of the Unemployed on Washington?
This is the real issue and the coming disaster for the country. Sen. Baucus' comment that unemployment is done after 99 weeks but the recovery will take years is going to create a huge disaster. The 15-22 million un-and-under employed will fill the streets and demand work or else. Both parties are truly whistling past the graveyard when they ignore this issue. People will respond to anyone offering food, shelter and a job. Look out, America. " A hungry mob is an angry mob "; being prepared for a long, hot and ugly summer.
Where are the masses of students whose future has just been destroyed?
Their parents must be from the upper income levels and they never had to have a part time job or a summer job.
Some are. Some aren't, but it is irrelevant.
Typically American "Working class" anti-intellectualism is encouraged by the elite to keep their little corporate blue collars feeling superior.
There are arrogant upper-class, intellectually lazy students who know nothing, and never will, and there are students who will go into areas to improve the lot of all.
The vast majority work.
And note that it was the students, not the union hard hats (who were mostly Fascist Jingos), who opposed the Vietnam War, at great cost, including being shot, beat up, arrested and the rest.
So basically--stuff it, ace.
It looks lame in print, but Trumpka lit up the crowd. The lines he repeated were "Less Bull, More Jobs" and "Wall Street, CLEAN UP YOUR MESS".
Maybe it was the presence of High Profile Labor Leaders or maybe it's because we are no longer in the Bush Era, but there was media coverage of the rally and march, dozens of Satelite trucks, I saw at least 3 Standups being shot and reporters working the Man-in-the-Street angle.
And this morning, we hear that criminal charges are being filed on GoldamnSachs, coincidence? Maybe.
Anyway, we marched down Broadway from City Hall to Battery Park, right by the end of Wall Street, engulfing the row of Limos and generally creating a traffic nightmare (or maybe that's just the normal mess at 5:30 in Lower Manhattan).
The 8:07 Metro North was SRO, a long day on my feet.
When the media gives something lots of attention, I always see it as an indication that the ruling class is sympathetic... I wonder if the positive media coverage of this protest indicates that the ruling elite is actually fed up with the more blatant forms of its own corruption.
Thank You!
I wanted to like it, but disagree about the crowd being lit up. Where I was standing, nobody paid attention after the first few minutes of repetition.
Joe
You must have been in the second section, the front section was responsive, though the Speakers went on too long, too many before Trumpka spoke. We were ready to march before the rabbi and the homeless advocates came on.
I think the theme was the problem. Asking Wall Street to clean up their mess is pointless and deliberately blind. Most people have already figured out that they have no intention of doing so, but instead will fight against any restrictions on their practices. They will be abetted by their alumni and paid-off enablers in Washington.
Asking Wall Street to lead the movement to curb Wall Street is illogical. It puts the labor movement in the position of supplicants to the suited sociopaths. It concedes the field to them, as though they were superior in intellect and planning. It robs us, the labor movement, community organizations and our elected representatives, of initiative. The speeches were vague about the remedies. There was little program or content clearly enumerated. Exactly what has to be done?
I believe the rally took the popular energy, anger and intelligence and channeled it into lethargic dependency on someone else to solve the problems. There were no suggestions about bills to support, no information about positions of our politicians, nothing to sink your teeth into.
"Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will." Frederick Douglass.
Joe
"Banks did not respond immediately to request for comment"-- Gee "I wonder why." "I also believe in the tooth fairy theory" of US politics and society as well. "Keep up that great reporting" US mainstream media. Associated "hot air blowing" Press and echo chamber for power elites, I"m talking to you.
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Michael Moore had it right when he talked about this in his documentary feature film, "Capitalism, A Love Story." He said since we have spent so much bailing out the banks we should just say now we own them. That's it-- nationalization, not some airy fairy, loser trust busting Theodore Roosevelt nothing that never worked even then. It was Franklin D Roosevelt's regulation, not busting up the banks that worked. Breaking up the banks will almost surely "work" about the way the "breaking up of the Bell phone company monopoly worked. We'll replace a few monopolies nationally with a few more monopolies regionally and then have an even worse and more uncontrollable mess.
The people should be running the banks, not the other way around. That's real people power.
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Michael Moore had it right when he talked about this in his documentary feature film, "Capitalism, A Love Story." He said since we have spent so much bailing out the banks we should just say now we own them. That's it-- nationalization, not some airy fairy, loser trust busting Theodore Roosevelt nothing that never worked even then. It was Franklin D Roosevelt's regulation, not busting up the banks that worked. Breaking up the banks will almost surely "work" about the way the breaking up of the Bell phone company monopoly "worked." We'll replace a few monopolies nationally with a few more monopolies regionally and then have an even worse and more uncontrollable mess.
The people should be running the banks, not the other way around. That's real people power.
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Please notice on Democracy Now's video coverage there is a Whole lot of Black people wearing Reclaim America tee shirts.
I guess one must think twice when a commentator claims Reclaim America is Always a racist codeword Teabags use.
Slogans must be Lyrical, Simple, Universal, and Powerful.
Wall street is where the Dutch built a wall to keep the wild pigs out of the original New York town.
How about. "Tear Down the Banks"?