Occupy D.C. targets lobbyists' offices

Police get ready to arrest Occupy DC demonstrators who blocked K Street in downtown Washington, Wednesday Dec. 7, 2011. / AP Photo

WASHINGTON - More than five dozen protesters upset about what they call corporate greed and the excessive influence of money in politics were arrested Wednesday after shutting down K Street, home to many of Washington's lobbying firms, in a mass demonstration that snarled midday traffic in the nation's capital.

The arrests came hours after police swept through a protest camp in San Francisco with just a five-minute warning, arresting at least 85 people and took down about 100 tents in an overnight raid.

Demonstrators from across the U.S. converged for the Washington march that included participants from Occupy Wall Street encampments as well as other groups, including unions, sympathetic to their message of income inequality.

Organizers said they expected several thousand people in Washington this week for days of activism, almost three months after the movement against economic disparity and perceived corporate greed began with Occupy Wall Street in New York.

Police arrested 62 people by 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, said spokeswoman Gwendolyn Crump. All but one were for obstructing a public highway, and the other was for a misdemeanor assault on a police officer.

About three dozen protesters were carried into police vans after lying down in the middle of a busy intersection and ignoring repeated orders to move. Their supporters on the sidewalk chanted, "This is what democracy looks like!" and "We are the 99 percent."

Police dismantle Occupy camp in San Francisco
Occupy protests: Month 3
Occupyers warn of a winter of discontent

Earlier, 11 protesters affiliated with the American Dream Movement, which advocates for the working class, were arrested and charged with obstructing a public highway.

Later Wednesday, about a dozen more were arrested at the Supreme Court.

The arrests appeared to be the most since Occupy DC assembled earlier this fall at McPherson Square, just blocks from the White House. The group's relationship with police has been generally peaceful.

Teresa Law, 50, said she came to protest against corporate America and because jobs that the government promised would be created have not appeared.

"I've nothing against the rich. I've something against a greedy man," Law said.

Police have removed Occupy camps in a number of U.S. cities, using pepper spray and tear gas in some cases to get protesters to leave.

In San Francisco, about two dozen officers in riot gear remained at daybreak Wednesday after the overnight raid, blocking access as trash crews raked up paper and plastic bottles and removed chairs and other belongings that had accumulated at the protest camp over the past two months. City officials previously declared the site a public health nuisance.

Police didn't immediately say how many people were in the plaza at the time, but campers put the estimate at 150.

Richard Kriedler with Occupy SF said some protesters were injured in the sweep, but he didn't have details.

"This is a very emotional town. We have anarchists, we have very emotional people that this is not going to go over well with, and this could have been handled a lot better," he said.

In a statement, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee said the city had taken a "measured and balanced approach," including making an alternate site available to protesters. That site — an abandoned school — included a parking lot where the protesters could maintain their encampment, a classroom for meetings, and two bathrooms.

The city had taken out a six-month lease on the property and offered to send city trucks to help the occupiers move to the new location. It had given the protesters until Dec. 1 to leave the plaza.

[FP1970]

Why don't they go occupy the embassies of nations like Mexico, China, India and Pakistan that are so interested in swamping America through immigration?
The protesters know perfectly well (or they should know) that mass immigration (both legal and illegal) is driving down wages and drying up prospects for all American workers, be they blue collar, white collar or whatever. They should also know that foreign gov'ts, esp. Mexio lobby relentlessly to get as many of their people as possible onto U.S. soil. Mexican consulates all over America do all they can to help illegal immigrants undermine American immigration law and cowardly U.S. politicians consistently look the other way.

[bloggerJoe]

Our National Parks threatened!! Please Help!! Call, email, or fax your Representative or Senator and DEMAND that the National Park Service be made to ENFORCE ITS OWN rules!
New research (not reported in the media) shows that the space now claimed exclusively by the group "Occupy DC" is in fact a NATIONAL PARK!
Even worse, the National Park Service is failing to enforce ITS OWN RULES that prohibit camping and sleeping in this public park. The rule is 36 Code of Federal Regulations 7.96(g) found here: http://cfr.vlex.com/vid/7-96-national-capital-region-19768726.
DON'T BE FOOLED by clever legal arguments about the First Amendment. The First Amendment simply does not grant the right to set up a tent city in a public park as a form of protest! The SUPREME COURT said that over 20 years ago! See "Clark v. Community for Creative Nonviolence" here: http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0468_0288_ZS.html
Make no mistake - letting the Park Service break its own rules for one special interest group threatens OUR NATIONAL PARKS. Would you like to see a SHANTY TOWN on the rim of the GRAND CANYON? How about a SQUATTER VILLAGE around OLD FAITHFUL?
Please call, email, or fax your Representative or Senator and DEMAND that the National Park Service be made to ENFORCE ITS OWN rules!

[BShred]

This is about living under the dictatorship of the same political elite who forced slavery and racism upon us.

Currently, with media, political correctness, and education, these people (social conservative nuts) are no longer able to directly state their contempt of blacks, hispanics, asians and arabs like they were in colonial times, but make no mistake about it. Tracing the history of bigotry and hatred from then to now, you can see the path clear as day. Republicans today may convince you that their lineage is from the progressive populist republicans like Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt (who actually cared about THE PEOPLE when strengthening the economy and business), but bigotry and racism actually took root in the democratic party, initially the most evil bigoted socially conservative political organization in our country's history (wikipedia "southern democrat" and you will see). From there, they did everything in their power to stamp out women's rights, then civil rights, and when the democratic succumbed eventually signing the civil rights act, they left en-masse to take over the republican party. The republican party WAS NOT a bad political organization before it was taken over by the southern democrats. But since then, it has become socially conservative, religiously extreme, and racist. Pro-business and pro-economy has been morphed into another method of taking away your human rights and making people slaves so they can grow rich off your toil and poverty. And the economic effects are the same as they were during slave-times.

Consider this statement: "slaves are there to do the work the rest of us southerners are too good for and it allows us white men to live as aristocracy". Doesn't this sound similar to "Chinese/Mexicans are there to do the work that us Americans don't want to do and it frees us Americans for more intellectual/globalized occupations"? Both of these are statements the social conservative loves and it hides what is really happening economically. The lowest caste working as slaves, and poor people in the US supposedly of a higher social status unable to participate economically because they're more expensive to employ and don't get hired... all while elites grow rich from doing nothing. Racist social conservatives are famous for hiding behind the constitution to justify their actions, and of glorifying the conditions of the poor, and saying "this is the NATURAL condition of society". But all in all these are just evil power-hungry politicians who want to take your life away for their own benefit.

[Zann-Zel]

And I thought y'all said it was over! They were gone! Wishful thinking on your part I guess!


Check out what they're doing here! : )

http://www.truth-out.org/occupy-our-homes/1323268606

[ammo17]

it makes me feel good that someone has finally brought attention to these pimps that our buying and selling the politicians as they were prostitutes.

[speakthetrut]

politicians = prostitutes

[ladyjazzy]

Go to the White House and occypy that and Congress and the Senate!!OCCUPY THE LIARS IN DC!!!!!

[sandiegopete]

Clearly you are on the side of the lobbyists against the American people. Why are you so supportive of corruption in our government?

[RobAla]

To "occupy" supporters, I want to ask this question: Who is most at fault for corporation and union lobbyists buying votes from politicians; the lobbyists or the politicians who allow, promote, and encourage lobbyists to purchase votes for campaign donations?

Politicians in Washington are in power, and they have the capability to change the way things are done there. Lobbyists are (whether you like it or not) are only playing by the rules established by the politicians in office. Washington is the problem.

[aghast101]

GOPeconomicterror, Will you ever have something constructive to say?

[venusvegasvada]

I hope the politicians across this country are watching this.

This is your doing. You politicians are the ones that need to get it together. If you had your act together in the first place it would never have come to this.

It's not going to get better until you get a handle on it.

[train99]

"I've nothing against the rich. I've something against a greedy man".
-
I wonder what that's supposed to mean.