Another blurry night in Zuccotti Park. Credit: Andy Haynes
Another blurry night in Zuccotti Park.
  • Andy Haynes
  • Another blurry night in Zuccotti Park.

I returned to Zuccotti Park Sunday night, and Jesus Christ (I’m saying his name in vain) they’re still there!

I’m told 740 of them got arrested at Saturday’s march. All but about a dozen were released overnight, with most being charged with disturbing the peace. Word in the park is that those still being held are thought by the NYPD to be the organizers.

My feeling was that yesterday’s march was a failure. But the protest organizers I spoke to felt that it was worth it, since it had garnered national attention for their cause—and more numbers.

It seems like everyone at Zuccotti is now digging in and looking at something more long term, which is great. But I still don’t know what owning a block of park is going to do to stop Wall Street. Especially when you’re definitely not stopping Wall Street from doing business.

There are marches with Labor Unions set for Wednesday, so hopefully that will help. Still, if this is just going to stay about where it is in terms of size and clarity of objectives, I don’t know how much anyone’s going to care in a month or so.

22 replies on “Sunday at the Wall Street Protests”

  1. Why wasn’t anyone concerned about “clarity of purpose” for the Teabaggers? Or is it only movements that aren’t “corporate approved” that the question gets brought up?

  2. I think the sheer fact that they had 740 people get arrested is pretty impressive. I’m tired of people cawing about their putative lack of goals – they’re aiming much higher than that, they want a just society. That leaves space for a different set of specific goals in every community, with a rhetorical framework that connects them all. Too narrow a set of goals would imply that there’s a winning strategy and I don’t think they’re in it to win it, I think they’re in it for a long term cultural shift towards a more humane society. Bravo!

  3. @1, the teabaggers had clarity. Stupid clarity, but clarity nonetheless: “no taxes”. And bear in mind that while the teabaggers were to a certain extent “successful”, since they got their chosen ones elected to a bunch of things, their long term result is failure, as they have destroyed the Republican Party — just as these well-meaning but vacuous kids may yet do to the Democrats. Which wouldn’t bother them one bit, but it does me. These people are basically Naderites.

  4. Okay, so this is what I’m hearing now, “Yeah, man. We don’t want no stinkin’ goals. We want a paradigm shift. A paradigm shift of JUSTICE!”

    Good luck with that. It’s mental slacktivism. Show up, shout some vague slogans, but don’t put in the hard work of having a platform.

  7. There is an affiliated protest taking place at Westlake Plaza. It’s called Occupy Seattle.

    Could the Stranger send someone down to Westlake to do a few stories about the protest here in town? The events in NYC sure are exciting. Alot of people can’t go to NYC right now, but they can make it downtown. And if we start discussing what we can do here in town, we might be able to make a positive and constructive contribution to the message the NYC protests are trying to bring across.

  9. @3, Fnarf. They have brought more attention to the issue of inequality in America than you have. Chill out and wait and see what happens – you know a lot about music and stuff, but you can’t predict the future.

  11. Why haven’t these kids solved all our problems yet!? HURRY UP DAMMIT! I may give Barack Obama 7.999999999 years to legalize gay marriage, but you lil bitches better have Wall Street reformed by sundown!

  12. Andy – Don’t think it was a failure. Shit is going viral on social networks. More and more know about this, in part because of the bridge arrests. 700+ people? That’s nuts, and stupid. We know.

  13. My franchises that sell maps to rich people’s mansions with details on how their security systems work are expanding like wildfire.

    next up, my franchise for Build Your Own Torch and Proper Use of a Combat Pitchfork will IPO.

  14. Poor fnarf. Someone rained on his DNC lovefest parade. Sniff.
    But seriously, fnarf, this movement is gaining traction precisely because the Democratic Party has failed to deliver a cohesive message themselves. They have failed to convince anyone that they stand for anything. What is going on in the streets of NYC, Seattle, Boston, Portland, LA, etc. is in large part a mass response to a feeling of powerless created by the Democratic Party’s inability to represent those who they allege to represent. It is a response to the wide spread impression that The Democratic Party has turned it’s back on anyone making less than a comfortable upper-middle class wage. So, frankly, the dems have no one but themselves to blame.

  15. @14, and the alternative to the Dems is the Republicans, NOT THESE PROTESTERS. So good luck with that! Let’s see how much social justice you get under Prez Perry, right?

    See, another thing the teabaggers had going for them was realistic goals. Again, stupid goals, but realistic ones. That is to say, ELECT PEOPLE THEY AGREE WITH.

    See? Simple message, practical strategy.

    These protesters aren’t doing that. They’re saying things like “overturn the corporate personhood decision”. Great, but how? A lack of familiarity with what the Supreme Court is and how it works is not going to be much help. Unless you’re planning on removing the Supreme Court, in which case, uh…vote Democrat?

    Or overthrow the government. But if you’re planning on overthrowing the government, guess what? Approximately zero percent support, that’s what.

    That’s of course what a lot of these people think they want, to overthrow the government. We’ve seen them here: “the system is broken, we have to work outside the system”. But there is nothing outside of the system.

    If you’re trying to persuade Democratic public officials to act more progressively, you are — again — stumbling up against reality. Republican House. It’s a simple fact: YOU HAVE OPPONENTS. You are not the 99%; you’re more like the 45%. You might have more success if you could change the membership of the House. Good news — you can! If you live in a swing district. But these protesters aren’t going to swing any votes their way.

  16. Thank you explaining that so much better than I could, FnarF. If a protest was what it took to overturn a Supreme Court decision, Roe vs. Wade would have been overturned a long, long time ago. No, the way to do it is with legislation, chipping away at something bit by bit, tenaciously attacking your enemies at every turn, putting up billboards, exhaustively trying to turn people to your point of view, demanding that politicians support your cause if they’ll get any support in turn, and having a single-minded obsession with a predetermined “victory.”

    It’s how pro-lifers have chipped away at reproductive rights. It’s how LGBT activists have been gaining us rights. It’s how you make change. The protest draws attention, but it’s that goal–that tenacious hunger–that matters so much more. If you’re drawing attention to a protest without that force behind it, you’re not doing much.

  17. don’t mind Pol pot. He and his buddies sit together in a run down storefront in the CD jerking off to marxist pamphlets and trying to out radical one another.

  19. Fnarf, there is indeed life outside the system. In fact, more and more people live there everyday, now that we have somewhere between 18% and 20% unemployment, and somewhere around 40% with no health insurance.
    Look, I get that the lack of demands and actionable items is a downside. It’s a brand new movement – It has only existed in any form since September 17th. They are engaging in direct democracy with each other, trying to narrow down their grievances to something that is on some level both actionable and modern media friendly. Part of the problem with that is that the problems are so varied and systemic, it is difficult to come up with one pithy slogan. The teabaggers had it easy in this regard – they didn’t actually do any thinking on their own; they went forth screaming “no taxes” with out understanding the hidden part of the agenda, (No taxes on the Koch Brothers), and with an entire mass media machine pimping their message 24/7. (FOX, Limbaugh, Beck, CNN, etc.)
    Is this going to change anything systemic in the near future? No, probably not. Has it inspired a new generation of activists? Yes, it seems to have done that. Has it put the grievances of the unheard in the media? Yes, it is beginning to do that. Will they push the national conversation more to the left? Again, it appears that they are beginning to have that effect. Are these small victories important? Yes, I would argue that they are.
    The choice is not entirely binary, Fnarf. You can have forces working within and without the system simultaneously, and in moments of great struggle they can and do find common ground. That is how history operates. Bottom line is if the democrats actually want to win elections, they need to move to the left. Alot.

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