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On 2-month anniversary, 400 Occupiers arrested
Updated 7:00 p.m. ET
NEW YORK - Occupy Wall Street protesters clogged streets and tied up traffic around the U.S. on Thursday to mark two months since the movement's birth and signal they aren't ready to quit, despite the breakup of many of their encampments by police. Nearly 400 people were arrested, most of them in New York.
The marches were for the most part peaceful, with only scattered clashes between police and demonstrators. Most of the arrests were for blocking streets, the traffic disruptions were brief, and the turnout, at least in New York, fell well short of what police had been expecting.
Still, Deputy New York Police Commissioner Paul Browne tells WCBS Radio about 300 Occupy Wall Street demonstrators have been arrested today. That number includes a symbolic 99 at the Brooklyn Bridge. Browne says 7 NYPD officers have been injured today, none seriously.
Chanting "All day, all week, shut down Wall Street," more than 1,000 demonstrators gathered near the New York Stock Exchange and sat down in several intersections. Helmeted police broke up some of the gatherings, and operations at the stock market were not disrupted.
The street demonstration came two days after police cleared 200 people from New York's Zuccotti Park, shutting down the encampment that served as headquarters of the Occupy movement.
"This is a critical moment for the movement given what happened the other night," said Paul Knick, a software engineer from Montclair, N.J., as he marched through the financial district. "It seems like there's a concerted effort to stop the movement, and I'm here to make sure that doesn't happen."
Some people detained in New York were bloodied during the arrests. One man was taken into custody for throwing liquid, possibly vinegar, into the faces of several police officers, authorities said. Many demonstrators were carrying vinegar as an antidote for pepper spray.
A police officer needed stitches on his hand after he was hit with a piece of thrown glass, police said.
Later, the crowd split up for rallies elsewhere in the city. Some also planned to head into the subways, then march over the Brooklyn Bridge.
In Los Angeles, about 500 sympathizers, many of them union members, marched downtown between the Bank of America tower and Wells Fargo Plaza, chanting, "Banks got bailed out, we got sold out." More than two dozen people were arrested.
Demonstrations were also planned or under way in such cities as Washington, St. Louis and Kansas City, Mo. Police arrested 21 demonstrators in Las Vegas, and 20 were led away in plastic handcuffs in Portland, Ore., for sitting down on a bridge.
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In Albany, N.Y., about 250 protesters from Buffalo, Rochester and other encampments arrived by bus to join a demonstration in a downtown park.
The street demonstrations marked two months since the Occupy movement sprang to life in New York on Sept. 17. They were planned well before police raided a number of encampments over the past few days, but were seen by some activists as a way to demonstrate their resolve in the wake of the crackdown.
A police officers swings a baton stick into a crowd of people affiliated with the Occupy Wall Street Movement during at the intersection of Exchange Place and Beaver Street in the Financial District on Nov. 17, 2011 in New York City.
/ Getty ImagesMayor Michael Bloomberg said police had been expecting as many as 10,000 protesters based on what activists had been saying online. But he said there had been "minimal disruption."
The demonstrators included actor-director Andre Gregory, who said he hoped the movement would lead to national action on economic injustice.
"It's a possible beginning of something positive," he said.
Some onlookers applauded the demonstrators from open windows. Others yelled, "Get a job!"
"I don't understand their logic," said Adam Lieberman, as he struggled to navigate police barricades on his way to work at JPMorgan Chase. "When you go into business, you go into business to make as much money as you can. And that's what banks do. They're trying to make a profit."
Gene Williams, a bond trader, joked that he was "one of the bad guys" but said he empathized with the demonstrators: "The fact of the matter is, there is a schism between the rich and the poor, and it's getting wider."
The confrontations followed early-morning arrests in other cities. In Dallas, police evicted dozens of protesters near City Hall, citing health and safety reasons. Eighteen protesters were arrested. Two demonstrators were arrested and about 20 tents removed at the University of California, Berkeley.
City officials and demonstrators were trying to decide their next step in Philadelphia, where about 100 protesters were ordered on Wednesday to clear out immediately to make way for a long-planned $50 million plaza renovation at City Hall. Union leaders pressed the demonstrators to leave, saying construction jobs were stake.
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Exactly, so why are the Occupy not focused on the corruption in Wasington that got us into this mess?
Corruption in Washington didn't get us into this mess: Wall Street and the banks always devising ways to accumulate ever more amounts of money caused this mess.
They created the housing crisis, credit default swaps, "sub-prime mortgages" and every other BS "financial product" that nearly destroyed America's economy.
The Tea Party formed in opposition of the Bail Outs, but you were listening to the Leftist Media calling them racists, and neocons.
The Tea party wants to rid Washington of the corruption. The occupy wants to blindly swing at anyone more successful than themselves.
The Tea Party formed when Obama won the election, and Fox News thought that it was a good strategy to create an 'oppose the government' group.
Just look at oil prices, insurance costs, tax bresks to the rich, and a whole list of things that indicate otherwise.
We should be paying More Attention to the up coming wars being created by the ---US/NATO/ISRAEL/& SAUDI ARABIA
"This great evil. Where does it come from? How'd it steal into the world? What seed, what root did it grow from? Who's doing this?
Who's killing us? Robbing us of life and light. Mocking us with the sight of what we might've known. Does our ruin benefit the earth? Does it help the grass to grow, the sun to shine?
Is this darkness in you, too? Have you passed through this night?"
How many non-occupiers are addicted to capitalism? To money? To selfishness and greed?
You can run but you can't hide.
Occupy a desk.
www.occupyholestreet.com
Graphic Commentary on The Sticky Truth
Which doesn't mean Occupy should succumb to the "advice" offered by corporate crook controlled "news" sources and politicians. Appoint a leader, construct a platform, develop and agenda, start wheeling and dealing, compromising on principle, to get what portions of what you want that accommodate the greedy wishes of the crooks you are opposing. There is an ages old adage, "Whatever your enemy wants you to do, don't do it!" Historically, the general trend of such movements has been that, whenever they began to follw the advice of the criminals they condemned, they lost their purity and ended up just another one of them. With the opportunity open for a leader, some craven, self-seeking, charismatic fraud will step up and charm at least the more gullible into fllowing them. They won't aim to please everyone, just enough to be able to form a political base. Seeing the integrity of the movement erode, the true believers will depart, leaving only the dullards and their appointed Fuhrer. Who will then proceed to dicker away everything the movement was supposed to stand for, while dancing and eating richly at dinner parties on corporate crooks' yachts!
Which doesn't mean there shouldn't be action taken to restore to the public their rightful mandate in the society they help make and work to support. But Occupy should not be a means to that end. It must be something undertaken by the entire populace as a whole.
And election is not the answer! No matter how many quislings say it is! If election was the answer, there wouldn't be a problem to be answered! No candidate the parties ever put forward ever had platforms that more than halfway satisfied their constituents. And once elected, none of them ever kept any promises, or benefited anyone except the corporate rich! The corporate crooks tell the party bosses how they want things to go, tparty bosses decide who they want in power doing the cororations' will, then they juggle the numbers from "boards of electiuon" to "elect" the individual they choose! And a third party cannot necessarily be painted as a legitimate solution. Putting the people's welfare in the hands of yet another corporate crook claiming to be a Populist is just as insipid as trusting the crooks already in office! And, besides, anyone who isn't willing to admit the present system of "election" is a massive swindle is no one to place any reliance upon!
It can be suggested to hit the corporations in the pocketbook, but even that has dangers. Hold back on purchasing and the corporations will lay off "rank and file" workers before cutting CEO salaries, then they will raise prices to cover the CEO salaries. And just trying tossing off all corporations by growing all your own food and making all your own clothes and see how soon it will be before the government sends out inspectors who are ordered to tell you you aren't doing it hygienically and issues fines. And if you try to completely give up the money system, see how willing government will be to accept barter for property taxes or fees.
In the end, the entire system is wired to try to make the public utterly, absolutely and completely dependent on the corporations! They will everything they can to thwart any alteration that benefits the "rank and file" If you only mouth off, they ignore you; if you take action and physcially try to change things, they call you a "terrorist"! There is no middle ground of accommodation! They see the "rank and file" as existing only to service their getting richer! And government is there only to help them!
It may not sound fair, but, in fact, it was permitted by too many people sitting back and wallowing in the false luxury and cushy lifestlye the corporations said they were providing. In reality, they only wanted to make the public soft and dependent, while, secretly, they installed booby taps to try to keep people from changing things!
One of the few available avenues left is God. Quite literally, the Almighty. Invoked, He can act to eliminate the unfairness, and in a way that would be obviously His doing, so no one could accuse a handful of "terrorists" of being \to blame! But, the people who will benefit by this act to help them must be worthy of it! And that may be at least as great a hurdle as dismantling the system the criminals have already put in place!
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That part I totally agree with.