That kind of a New York day-and Jesus too
In NY, the majority of the Occupy May Day actions were calm and orderly, including marching on banks and businesses that they felt were somehow offensive. These ranged from protests around Bank of America and Chipotle, to people marching behind Tom Morello with guitars as a “guitar army”. According to CNBC Net Net:
Whereas the OWS crowd proclaimed “we are the 99 Percent” and “banks got bailed out, we got sold out,” a band of construction workers delivered chants of their own.
“Get-a-job! Get-a-job!” several workers atop a work site repeatedly hollered.
“Get a job! Stop wasting the cops’ time!” yelled another, referring to the large detail of officers clad in riot gear that accompanied the Occupy procession.
“Occupy my b—-!” another offered.
The march grew to perhaps several thousand at its height, when the May 1 immigrants coalition and unions with people getting out of work joined later in the day. But as Net Net noted: “had trouble living up to advanced billing”.
The idea was to shut down the city and have people stay home from work and school, not shop or bank, “a shutdown the likes of which NYC has never seen”. But NYC, with all its typical ability to deal with the odd and strange, continued on in its normal fashion. All bridges and tunnels remained open. Most people went on as before, and somehow, capitalism survived.
While most of the protest was fairly orderly, and no where near as crazed as its brethren on the West Coast, there was one action titled a “wildcat march” for the “adventurous”. Some of occupiers were “bloc-ed up” in all black and raced down the streets, throwing down garbage cans, pulling things into the streets, and causing random damage. Perhaps the most interesting tweet on the violence came from the people who often have to defend those accused of such actions, an NYCLU tweet stream, which noted that “trash cans were thrown, barricades were flung, arrests were made”
But the NYCLU tweeter was concerned, stating the march “was manic and violent, admittedly it was scary, taru[police video unit] was right to film”
Video of the action can be found here
Some pictures of the day:
Use of children:
Trying to “de-arrest” someone:
May 1st Coalition marchers:
And Jesus.
Occupy Oopsie
As the violence began in San Francisco tonight pre MayDay, some Occupy members professed suprise, others shock, some disgust, others disavowed the actions, calling them by “provocateurs”.
After hearing it many times at Occupy associated events, the denial when the criminal actions happen becomes a bit doubtful, although I do believe many were in fact suprised at the level of violence unleashed, because it was not restricted to “state approved” targets. Problem is once you let the genie out of the bottle it has a hard time getting back in. You can’t say to some people, only mess up area A and not Area B.
The Sparrow Media Project, a major part of Occupy Media, the producer of the OWS media pamphlet “Declaration Of Occupation of NYC” among other media efforts, seemed to drop its media face just a bit in a moment of uncharacteristic honesty, noting “Gorgeous Photo of Mission Police Station destruction” at the paint bombed and damaged building:
Sparrow Media has been known for telling people to delete tweets that might be legally harmful to Occupy, as was noted by Foolish Reporter. As Foolish Reporter also noted, Sparrow Media is known for its head, Andrew Stepanian, convicted felon activist.
Occupy the Bay Area: “We Revolt for a life worth living!”
Thought you might like to see some of the “New Propaganda for M1GS” that Occupy the Bay Area is putting out. ”M1GS” is an abbreviation for May 1 General Strike. If you think it was a play on “MIGS”, that was not unintentional, or without purpose. They want to do away with capitalism. And bosses. And work. In fact, they revolt for “a life worth living”. If you will not give them what they want, they are telling you that they will take it.
