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Lacy MacAuley is on her mobile phone from Lower Manhattan, cold, tired and hoarse from chanting.
"I've been leading the cheers,'' she said Monday night, referring to the protests in the financial heart of America.
Lacy MacAuley is on her mobile phone from Lower Manhattan, cold, tired and hoarse from chanting.

The American activist, known to Torontonians as the petite redhead who was tackled and dragged into a police van during the G20 protests of 2010, was one of the dogged demonstrators still camping out and attempting to "Occupy Wall Street."
On Saturday, about 1,000 showed up to protest that 40 per cent of the wealth in the U.S. is held by one per cent of the people, and a record one in seven Americans live in poverty, the highest rate in the industrialized world.
They want to know why the banks get bailouts, bankers get bonuses while ordinary citizens are losing their homes and jobs.
"There's something very wrong with our system as it is, there's something very wrong with our financial system," says MacAuley, who works for a Washington-based think-tank. "Few people have so much -- and there are so many people who are really hurting."
Despite financial support from those following #OccupyWallStreet and #OurWallStreet on Twitter -- including stacks of pizzas and other food donations made via local restaurant websites -- the occupation seemed to be losing steam.
On Monday, actor/comic Roseanne Barr spoke to the crowd. Criticizing the right-wing media and those fighting tax increases for millionaires, she said to wild cheers: "We will simply combine capitalism and socialism and create people-ism."
By Tuesday night, the protestors had dwindled to about 150 -- although their numbers were higher during the day.
The New York Police Department has made as many as 12 arrests. As it is legal to sleep on New York City sidewalks for political protests, police appear to have resorted to arresting people for using a megaphone without a permit, for wearing masks, for chalking sayings by Mahatma Gandhi on the sidewalk, and for protecting communication equipment from the rain with a tarp.
Civil rights attorneys say they are seeking consensus from the occupation participants to get temporary restraining orders to protect the protestors' first amendment rights of assembly.
Speaking to US Days of Rage, one of the organizing activist groups, lawyer Sam Cohen said "We believe that the NYPD has been applying the law incorrectly in an attempt to disrupt the occupation."
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
Lacy MacAuley is on her mobile phone from Lower Manhattan, cold, tired and hoarse from chanting.

The American activist, known to Torontonians as the petite redhead who was tackled and dragged into a police van during the G20 protests of 2010, was one of the dogged demonstrators still camping out and attempting to "Occupy Wall Street."
On Saturday, about 1,000 showed up to protest that 40 per cent of the wealth in the U.S. is held by one per cent of the people, and a record one in seven Americans live in poverty, the highest rate in the industrialized world.
They want to know why the banks get bailouts, bankers get bonuses while ordinary citizens are losing their homes and jobs.
"There's something very wrong with our system as it is, there's something very wrong with our financial system," says MacAuley, who works for a Washington-based think-tank. "Few people have so much -- and there are so many people who are really hurting."
Despite financial support from those following #OccupyWallStreet and #OurWallStreet on Twitter -- including stacks of pizzas and other food donations made via local restaurant websites -- the occupation seemed to be losing steam.
On Monday, actor/comic Roseanne Barr spoke to the crowd. Criticizing the right-wing media and those fighting tax increases for millionaires, she said to wild cheers: "We will simply combine capitalism and socialism and create people-ism."
By Tuesday night, the protestors had dwindled to about 150 -- although their numbers were higher during the day.
The New York Police Department has made as many as 12 arrests. As it is legal to sleep on New York City sidewalks for political protests, police appear to have resorted to arresting people for using a megaphone without a permit, for wearing masks, for chalking sayings by Mahatma Gandhi on the sidewalk, and for protecting communication equipment from the rain with a tarp.
Civil rights attorneys say they are seeking consensus from the occupation participants to get temporary restraining orders to protect the protestors' first amendment rights of assembly.
Speaking to US Days of Rage, one of the organizing activist groups, lawyer Sam Cohen said "We believe that the NYPD has been applying the law incorrectly in an attempt to disrupt the occupation."
Lacy MacAuley is on her mobile phone from Lower Manhattan, cold, tired and hoarse from chanting.

The American activist, known to Torontonians as the petite redhead who was tackled and dragged into a police van during the G20 protests of 2010, was one of the dogged demonstrators still camping out and attempting to "Occupy Wall Street."
On Saturday, about 1,000 showed up to protest that 40 per cent of the wealth in the U.S. is held by one per cent of the people, and a record one in seven Americans live in poverty, the highest rate in the industrialized world.
They want to know why the banks get bailouts, bankers get bonuses while ordinary citizens are losing their homes and jobs.
"There's something very wrong with our system as it is, there's something very wrong with our financial system," says MacAuley, who works for a Washington-based think-tank. "Few people have so much -- and there are so many people who are really hurting."
Despite financial support from those following #OccupyWallStreet and #OurWallStreet on Twitter -- including stacks of pizzas and other food donations made via local restaurant websites -- the occupation seemed to be losing steam.
On Monday, actor/comic Roseanne Barr spoke to the crowd. Criticizing the right-wing media and those fighting tax increases for millionaires, she said to wild cheers: "We will simply combine capitalism and socialism and create people-ism."
By Tuesday night, the protestors had dwindled to about 150 -- although their numbers were higher during the day.
The New York Police Department has made as many as 12 arrests. As it is legal to sleep on New York City sidewalks for political protests, police appear to have resorted to arresting people for using a megaphone without a permit, for wearing masks, for chalking sayings by Mahatma Gandhi on the sidewalk, and for protecting communication equipment from the rain with a tarp.
Civil rights attorneys say they are seeking consensus from the occupation participants to get temporary restraining orders to protect the protestors' first amendment rights of assembly.
Speaking to US Days of Rage, one of the organizing activist groups, lawyer Sam Cohen said "We believe that the NYPD has been applying the law incorrectly in an attempt to disrupt the occupation."