The protest began with four people on the sidewalk in front of the Federal Building last Friday. By Tuesday morning, 31 tents had amassed in Westlake Park—where camping is illegal—as the Occupy Seattle protests grew for their fourth consecutive day. By the time The Stranger went to press, 100 people had established a makeshift hamlet surrounded by chain stores.

How long do they intend to stay?

"As long as we can," said Aliana Bazara, one of the organizers. (She says that the group will announce events for the week at www.OccupySeattle.org.) For now, the Seattle police patrolling the area seem tolerant, but city officials remain mum about how long they'll let the occupation stand.

In solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street protests in New York City, the Seattle protesters' signs, chants, and sentiments are a pastiche of liberal battle cries. They believe what many progressives believe: Runaway corporate greed has sacrificed too many workers, and the US government has deferred its regulatory authority to unscrupulous business interests.

"I'm unemployed and I shouldn't be," said Bazara. "I have a bachelor's degree. I am strong, mentally and physically. I pay taxes and I love my country to death." But she says she's part of the 99 percent of Americans who take a backseat to the wealthiest 1 percent who benefit from proportionately lower taxes.

If you wanted the perfect metaphor for corporations harshing on the proletariat, you didn't have to have to look far. About 15 feet past the tents, past the round-the-clock commissary, and beyond the quartermaster's tent stocked with provisions—including wool socks, umbrellas, and Band-Aids for campers—on Sunday morning it arrived.

A enormous Las Vegas–like stage—sponsored by Target and topped with a banner that declared "Fresh Has Arrived" and the bull's-eye Target logo—plopped down in the plaza surrounded by gigantic fake plastic fruit, gleaming stage lights, a fleet of uniformed Target staff handing out samples, and speakers blaring upbeat soul hits. You couldn't even see the tents behind it.

"Just in time for our protests, they come set up this monstrosity," said Jackson Morgan (holding a "Target Corp. Greed" sign). What's his beef with Target? "It's part of the massive conglomerate of corporations controlling our government and our lives," he lamented. "And then there's the immediate problem of them blocking our shit."