Occupy Protestors Demonstrating Against Foreclosure
Photo by JacobRuff
Hundreds of Occupy demonstrators thumped through the financial district of New York City trying to block the traders from going to the New York Stock Exchange. They had declared that it would a day of action with mass demonstrations and gathering in other cities across the country.
This action stepped up two days following the clearing up of their camping site by the authorities. This had been their symbolic protest against inequality in incomes and greed of the corporate sector. Across the Atlantic and the world the protest had picked up.
The anger seemed to spill beyond the park as hundreds pushed back the metal barricades encircling the area that had been put up by the police. The demonstrators were seen over the television pushing each other back and forth before the barricades were once more were put back in place.
The crowd clogged the streets as they chanted “All day, all week, shut down Wall Street”! According to police reports nearly fifty to sixty persons were arrested. Some of them were sitting a block away from Wall Street and were adamant about not moving. The police hit some but the majority went back.
The New York Stock Exchange opened timely and was not affected by the protests said a spokesperson of the exchange, Rich Adamonis.
The pan American action day had been chalked out even before the city and park authorities descended on the encampment in Zuccotti Park that started off two months previously. Tents, tarpaulins and sleeping bags were cleared out. Camps of the same type have surfaced across the country but pressure has been stepped up by the authorities who are arguing that these camps are causing health and safety problems.
One of the protestors, Paul Knick aged forty four said, “This is a critical moment for the movement given what happened the other night. It seems like there’s a concerted effort to stop the moment, and I’m here to make sure that doesn’t happen”.
Till now the protests have been peaceful and the people are being allowed to go to their work places. On Twitter, New York Civil Liberties Union wrote, “Someone brought a box of doughnuts for the cops. No takers but the cops smiled”.
Fifty seven years old Gene Williams who was passing by said although he himself was “one of the bad guys” the protestors were targeting, he sympathized with them. He said, “They have a point in a lot of ways. The fact of the matter is, there is a schism between the rich and the poor and it’s getting wider”.
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