Pictures of Occupy Wall Street

I took a walk to Wall Street Friday to check out the occupation. Plenty of tourists did the same. The encampment is small. I'd say a couple of hundred people at most. At the West entrance to the park, I encountered the inevitable drum circle. Same thing as the Sunday afternoon session on the Green in Woodstock.

Like everybody else, I'm trying to figure out what the occupation is about. I encountered the sign below just behind the drum circle.

I'm not aware of any government assaults on unions, or racist attacks on Muslim, immigrants and people of color, but maybe I missed them. The United National Antiwar Coalition's website features a live webcam of the occupation.

The kitchen was a little bare when I passed by. Note the U.S. flag shoved upside down in the pumpkin in the foreground. In the background, you can see volunteer food preparers wearing plastic gloves.

Occupation is hard work. The occupiers have to get their rest somehow. The kids (and most of them look to be college kids) sprawled on sleeping bags all over the park. From the scent wafting through the breeze, I'd say some very high quality weed was being smoked. In fact, I saw a couple of joints being passed.

The above picture has everything! These young people are reading about themselves in the New York Post. Note the guitar. One of the young men has covered up his face with a bandanna, emulating a Latin style revolutionary. And, of course, in the background you can see a banner featuring Che Guevara, Fidel Castro's executioner. That romantic fantasy seems to always appeal to the young.

I'd heard that student loan debt was one of the major complaints of the occupiers. So, I was glad that I ran into this young man. He wants justice! He doesn't want to pay his student loans! As I walked through the crowd, I encountered a bewildering mess of causes.

This guy seems a little out of date with his (her?) obsession with nuclear war. And, what an outfit! He's put together elements of the Grim Reaper and Darth Vader. I don't know how he stands to wear this outfit all day, but occupation demands sacrifice.

The media was out in force. Multiple interviews were in progress all over the park. TV reporters interviewed occupiers. Occupiers interviewed other occupiers. Tourists took pictures and shot video. I listened to the O'Reilly show on Fox tonight, and Geraldo Rivera discussed his brief appearance at the occupation. Trucks and vans with satellite dishes on their roofs ringed the site.

Of course, at any lefty event, the great villains must be cursed. So, I wasn't surprised to encounter this poster denouncing Fox News and the Tea Party. Earlier in the day, the demonstrators marched to Rupert Murdoch's mansion to curse him. Murdoch owns Fox News.

Don't ask me what it's all about. Looks a lot like the antiwar demonstrations of the late sixties. The causes haven't changed much. The demonstrators, then and now, are mostly kids.

Back at the office, my co-workers were betting that winter will chase the occupiers out of the park, and send them packing home. We'll see.

Comments

[Tom Murtha]

The Wall Street protestors are about participatory democracy and economic justice.

Sure, it is easy to ridicule and dismiss a ragtag and diverse group. It's going to be harder to ignore them as this movement grows. The challenge is to listen and to recognize the root causes of why the root protestors are there.

[Shouting Thomas]

Who's ignoring them? I just did a post with a bunch of pictures.

I'd like to understand the "root causes," but I can't make any sense out of the wildly disparate causes I encountered at the encampment.

How is "participatory democracy" different from electoral democracy?

What in the world is "economic justice?"

The OWS people have received far more media coverage, and far more favorable media coverage than the Tea Party. The Tea Party has consistently produced larger numbers of people and it has a coherent platform.

[class factotum]

That's right! The people who wore the white masks (like the guy in the first photo) in "V for Vendetta" were protesting not a totalitarian government but those mean banks who were making them repay their student loans! V for Victory, Dude!

[Elizabeth]

Hmmm. . . maybe this is a net plus for the economy, if it's a draw for tourists to come into the city!

[JorgXMcKie]

Shouting Thomas, ever since the 'protests' of the '60s, "participatory democracy" has meant rule by the emotional, ignorant majority of a crowd of young people and old Leftists shouting down anyone who is rational and/or disagrees with them. They do this because they can't win enough elections to get what they want when people learn about both them and their 'demands'.

Hope this helps.

[JorgXMcKie]

Oh. And "economic justice" is when you take money someone else has earned legally [by government force {or at least illegitimate force as the govt deliberately looks the other way}, otherwise it is just that rotten 'charity' that Lefties whine about] and give it to someone who has done nothing to earn it except exist [you can put a great many govt bureaucrats in that category].