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Occupy Wall Street Protestors Plan Another March As Campout Grows In Zuccotti Park
NEW YORK — Saturday marks exactly three weeks since the Occupy Wall Street protest began at Zuccotti Park and with the numbers swelling by the day, the movement has outgrown the area.
People and protestors participating in "Occupy Wall Street" walk around Zuccotti Park in New York, on Friday, October 7, 2011. The three-week-old campout in a lower Manhattan plaza looks like a jumble of tattered sleeping bags, but teams of volunteers working on food, sanitation, health care and other needs keep the shifting population of protesters functioning like an impromptu city within the city. (AP Photo/Andrew Burton) As the protesters awakened to begin their day, a change of venue was on the agenda. The demonstrators feel it’s time to expand and will march to Washington Square Park Saturday afternoon.
“The size of the crowd has quadrupled since a week ago and there’s no more room for people who are trickling in from all over the country every day to join us, so we need elbow room,” said protestor Bill Steyert from Queens.
Showing no signs of diminishing, the Zuccotti Park campout has Mayor Michael Bloomberg also searching for solutions.
Zuccotti Park has 24 hour public access and with hundreds of people now camped out for the third week in a row, the park’s owners are concerned about cleanliness.
Brookfield Office Properties released this statement:
“Sanitation is a growing concern. Normally, the park is cleaned and inspected every weeknight. This process includes power washing, litter removal, landscaping and other maintenance as required. Because many of the protesters refuse to cooperate by adhering to the rules, the park has not been cleaned since Friday, September 16, and as a result, sanitary conditions have reached unacceptable levels.”
Around 200 people have been sleeping in the park with hundreds more coming during the day to protest and volunteer.
“They’re just making life miserable for the working guy,” said bar owner Mike Keane.
“I think it’s important for us to get out of this square, we’re kind of restricted to this,” said Emily Brady from Freehold, New Jersey.
But the protesters say they are doing their best to reduce their noise level in the overnight hours and clean up as well.
“The people that have been here have been cleaning,” said demonstrator Michelle Rafic. “I see them sweeping.”
An effort is being made not to destroy the park. A sign reads, “Please walk around flower beds, not through flower beds. Show these flowers and their homes some respect.”
There are also no bathrooms in the park, so protesters go to nearby businesses like Burger King and McDonald’s. “Anywhere we can go that they won’t throw us out,” said volunteer Katie Cristiano.
A few local sympathizers have even offered protesters their showers.
Supporters have donated food, clothing, medical supplies, soap, razors, books and cash. Some drop off their offerings, while others send them UPS. A local pizzeria will deliver an “occu-pie” if someone orders one.
The Occupy Wall Street movement has also been spreading all over the country, with protests springing up this week in several more cities, including Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Salt Lake City.
As these protests hit the three-week mark, demonstrators say they are emboldened by the growth of their movement.
“It just shows that the movement is sustainable and it’s going to keep growing,” said Tyler Fritsch from Easton, Pennsylvania. “Today, we have the biggest numbers we’ve seen in a while and the day before that, the biggest numbers. It just keeps growing.”
“It’s going to take something like this to get Washington to wake up, for politicians, local and federal alike to really open their eyes and do something about what’s going on in our country,” said Christopher Marshall from Brooklyn. “People are getting upset.”
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30 Comments so far
Show AllThe Movement needs to go beyond occupying and organize for non-violent actions such as a General Strike and boycotts of the Banksters who caused the economic crash.
Bingo!
"End Wall Street corruption
to restore democracy."
Anyone who has money in a commercial bank should withdraw it and deposit it into a credit union. I would love to see a run on the banks. It would bring about a government crackdown, which is just what we need to show everyone the evil of the intertwined banks and the government.
http://lafiga.firedoglake.com/2011/10/06/bank-transfer-day-remember-remember-the-5th-of-november/
I'd rather see the government nationalize the banks and strictly monitor and regulate their activities. In the 1930s, North Dakota established a state bank that handles all the government's accounts and almost all mortgages from around the state. It does not charge high rates or sell the mortgages to other companies, but holds them until they are paid off. Its foreclosure rate is almost zero. It's a wonderful example of what government can do when it has the needs of the people in mind. (Unlike the credit card companies, for instance, who punish the poor with usurious interest rates while providing service at low-or-no cost to those who are able to pay off their balances every 30 days.)
Boycotts, worldwide boycotts, are the ultimate way to bring down the oligarchs. It WILL work...if only people of the most propagandized nation in the history of the world will cooperate.
And I am beginning to be hopeful. Even the comments to a column in today's Times about the $5 fee banks are charging on debit cards showed the rage--and more importantly the activism--the entrenched middle class is starting to engage in. They are, in effect, starting to boycott the banks.
http://community.nytimes.com/comments/www.nytimes.com/2011/10/08/opinion/nocera-revenge-of-the-gougers.html?sort=recommended
ED,
So far so good. This movement, in this moment of time, is doing just fine.
Thomas Gilbert-
Contact Brookfield Office Properties at:
United States Canada Australia
Three World Financial Center
200 Vesey Street, 11th Floor
New York, New York 10281
Tel: 212-417-7000
Fax: 212-417-7214 Brookfield Place
181 Bay Street, Suite 330
Toronto, Ontario M5J 2T3
Tel: 416-369-2300
Fax: 416-369-2301 Level 22, 135 King Street
Sydney NSW 2000
Tel: +61 2 9322 2000
Fax: +61 2 9322 2001
"“They’re just making life miserable for the working guy,” said bar owner Mike Keane." yeah and you think keeping the working class inebriated is what is required? Sure swell for you to exploit their misery but it would be much better for the working class to become wide awake to throw off their oppression and get angry as the Greeks are presently doing.
This is also classic divide-and-conquer "news reporting" by the mainstream media. Using selective quotes to paint a false picture of popular sentiment. We would be naive to expect otherwise in an article from CBS.
Indeed, this movement is growing and it's a beautiful sight!
For anyone who is interested -- the sanitation and cleanliness of Zuccotti Park is a moot issue -- IMO. Everyone helps to pick up any piece of garbage that falls to the ground. People with brooms constantly circulate at Liberty Square.
(Off topic: I'd like to express my thanks to those CDers who took the time, many times over, to explain how to form paragraphs. THANKS!!)
Join the movement!
BRING DOWN THE WALL! OCCUPY WALL STREET!
I'm off to take part in the march!
Good old conservative military town San Diego, had a decent turn out yesterday as well!
One demand:
Direct democracy!
To get money out of politics...
These people simply don't understand the way the system works. Permit me to provide some much-needed enlightenment with a quote from Brian J. Foley of Lawers With Borders:
The Occupy Wall Street movement is misguided and disorganized and poses a danger to the First Amendment, according to Lawyers With Borders Executive Director Brian J. Foley.
“These drugged-out anarchists full of violent intent – and drugs – fail to grasp the most basic tenet of our legal system: Our laws exist to help Wall Street. Hell, Wall Street writes the laws,” Foley said.
The fact that Occupy Wall Street appears to have no leader is also problematic. “First, it reveals a lack of hierarchy, and our laws require that strong people exercise their power over weaker people,” Foley explained.
“Second, if the leader isn’t revealed, how can we destroy the movement by doing an exposé on the leader, full of mischaracterizations short of defamation? Where is this movement’s Julian Assange, its MLK?” Foley asked. “Our corporate media aren’t actually trained to do research, so this is unfair to our journalists.”
Foley also warned that the First Amendment is imperiled. “It’s delicate and can get broken and worn down from too much use by regular people. It’s best left to corporations and PACs,” Foley said.
“If people occupy Wall Street and use up our First Amendment right, how will Wall Street be able to tell us what to think?”
Foley said that drone strikes against the protests “should not be ruled out, as the protesters are merely U.S. citizens.”
Source: http://brianjfoley.net/
LOL :)
Mayor Bloomberg's live in girlfriend, Diana Taylor, is on the board of Brookfield Properties.
CD, why the cBS propaganda featuring the corporate owners trivial cleanliness bitching? There is LOTS of coverage now from the OWS's directly without corporate media middle men. Stop feeding at the media bin of the 1%!
For me, the inclusion of Corporatist articles is very useful because I don't see them any other way.
The Occupiers' own "coverage" is one filter on the events, the Corporatists' is another, and CD's editorial choices are yet another.
Without the Corporatists', CD's filter would be less useful -to me. ;)
If I wanted corporate media b.s. I'd seek out a tee vee. I expect better from CD. How can we have intelligent conversation here if the tone is set by the corporate media articles themselves, and wasting time reacting to their bias, what bollocks. Go here and see what they are actually saying at the councils and see it live without corporate mediation:
http://www.livestream.com/globalrevolution
REALLY CD, guitarist NAILS IT!........pls. consider!
Cop = Completely Oblivious Person
IF there would ever be a reason to be 'Proud American', this is it. To see all these citizens makes my heart jump for joy. My gratitude goes to the 'No more bs for us'-Generation. All others before have failed MISERABLY. Now is the time to free ourselves. ALL issues are on the table. Let's start to dissolve all the military on the planet and use these funds to heal our planet and us (US).
They sure have my moral support! I think it's great.
Common Dreams has a "special coverage" page re "Occupy USA" when most of us who've spent time at these events hear them referred to as Occupy Together events. CD needs to start accepting and publishing first person reports on and opinion pieces on Occupy Together events in the DEEP SOUTH instead of just cities in NYC and California. WE ALSO EXIST HERE IN THE SOUTH AND NEED REVOLUTION AND MORE ATTENTION DRAWN TO OUR REVOLUTIONARIES HERE MORE THAN ALMOST ANY OTHER PART OF THE NATION.
protesting current system is not enough. workers and toiling masses get nowhere if they dont start to build a completely different system and a different type of government. these protests should grow to a movement with the aim of seizing political power and using it for building a new economical-social system.
It is the PEOPLE that need to demand that the BANKS be NATIONALIZED not the government!
Why more centralism, why not local credit unions which are cooperative lander owned profit sharing non banks? Haven't we had enough of the horror show of BOTH state and corporate biggism oppressing us?