Solidarity with Occupy Oakland

On Tuesday October 25th, about one hundred demonstrators of “Occupy Oakland” were arrested and their encampment was torn down. Several were injured including Scott Olsen, an Iraq war veteran, who is in now in critical condition after being struck in the head with a tear gas canister, rubber bullet, or some other implement fired from riot police.

Last night at 9 p.m., Occupy Wall Street marched up Broadway to Union Square as a symbol of solidarity with those who were violently evicted. (We also allocated one hundred tents and $20,000 of our funds to pay for bail, and medical services.)

The march was mostly peaceful, but the crowd was far from docile. When the NYPD attempted to cordon us off with orange netting, many protesters barged through, lifting and ducking under the orange netting. I watched a crowd of protesters wrest a fellow protester from the hands of a cop. There were a dozen arrests.

A tour of Zuccotti Park (Part II)

In the week I’ve been here, the site of the occupation has changed considerably. There are now street signs (Bakunin Ave, Jefferson, Trotsky, etc.), there is a “Kids Safe Zone” and now almost everyone is sleeping in tents, rather than in sleeping bags with tarps pulled over. Anyway, here are a few more pics of the park.

Comfort station: offering everything from toothpaste, sleeping bags, and tarps to clothes.

The empathy booth advises on how to deal with problems in a non-confrontational manner.

The cigarette rolling station.

The anarchist booth.

The community rules. (Click on picture to enlarge.)

The kitchen, now with tarp cover.

Sanitation department. Lots of cleaning supplies: brooms, mops, buckets, etc.

There is now a children’s safe zone.

Lots of cool technology. There is a live stream of video and audio of the park. They also put up a twitter feed on a large screen via a projector, so we can read what’s being said at the General Assembly meetings.

Info booth.

The Occupied Wall Street Journal.

Press team.

When the real Fox News shows up, much of the crowd chants, “Fox New Lies! Fox News Lies” I heard a couple people mutter something about tarring and feathering Geraldo Rivera when he came through.

The many initiatives of Occupy Wall Street

It seems like everyone is here for a different reason: for better treatment of animals, for better education, for climate change, for the end of wars, etc., etc. While everyone may know what they’re here to accomplish, as a whole, there is no clear message, no clear agenda, and no clear solution. I have more thoughts on the matter, but for now, here are some of today’s signs.

While I do sympathize with this movement (and did feel some desire to cull out some of the more asinine signs), I want, more than anything, to give as accurate a picture of this movement as possible. So here they are, uncensored.