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Subscribe to RSSAs the Occupy Wall Street movement comes out of hibernation, a day of protests are planned around the nation. MSNBC's Richard Lui reports.
Updated at 03:38 A.M. ET: Protesters across the world marched through the streets Tuesday toting signs, playing instruments and wearing costumes to rally against austerity measures, call for more jobs and seek greater immigrants' rights on May Day.
Marches turned violent in Oakland and San Francisco, where a protester was throwing what appeared to be bricks and metal rods from the roof of a building into the crowd of demonstrators, reporters, and police - injuring at least one person, according to NBC Bay Area.
In Seattle, protesters dressed in black smashed windows and police pepper-sprayed some in the crowds.
In the United States, the protests are seen as the biggest test for the Occupy movement since many of its camps were shuttered late last year. Occupiers in more than 100 cities across the country were expected to protest on the day that traditionally celebrates workers’ rights.
In New York, demonstrators held a “free university,” and a “guitarmy” led a march.
“It was a long, energetic day with scores and scores of events and protests that is another step in building a movement for economic justice,” said Bill Dobbs of the Occupy Wall Street public relations team. “Occupy has re-blossomed in over 100 cities."
Occupy Cleveland cancels protest, distances itself from alleged bomb plot
Earlier Tuesday, about 1,000 Occupy protesters gathered in New York's Bryant Park, home to the main city library, with hundreds assembling the “guitarmy” and making posters before they left to march downtown. Chanting "Out of the stores, into the streets" and "Banks got bailed out; we got sold out," they filed down Manhattan’s iconic Fifth Avenue.
“There's too much fear for the general public to actually want to strike. They don’t want to lose their job. ... We haven’t reached that tipping point where people are more frightened for some place to live," said Robby McGeddon, 47, a tech worker carrying a maypole for May Day. "It will get to the tipping point but right now we're just practicing."
Miranda Leitsinger / msnbc.com
A protester representing the Musicians Union in New York's Union Square calls for eliminating "sour notes."
Of the protest, Daphne Carr, 33, co-organizer of the Occupy Music Working Group, said: “We're trying to find new, positive community-building ways to engage and protest and be a part of the burgeoning civil dialogue about what this country should be doing."
She also noted that music making "has been eroded from our public sphere so we're taking and re-claiming the right to play music publicly together in the streets, in the parks, without permits.”
The crowd swelled to a few thousand later in the day in Union Square as immigrant rights groups and unions representing teachers, transport workers, nurses, musicians as wells as others joined in a lively afternoon of art and music.
But the day was not without its detractors: at least one man heckled protesters and another yelled “Get a job!” as he elbowed his way through the crowd.
That didn’t get the protesters’ spirits down.
"This is like the resurgence of the Occupy Wall Street movement," said photographer Joel Simpson, 65, of Union, N.J., as the "guitarmy" sang "This land is your land" nearby. Though most of New York City didn't know the May Day protest was going on, he said, the movement "touches public consciousness in a very broad way and politicians have to at least pay lip service to it."
The New York protesters then streamed downtown, in an early evening march heading past the former Occupy Wall Street home, Zuccotti Park, to Bowling Green park near the southern tip of Manhattan. Occupy sent out a text message saying 30,000 people were in the streets, though it was not possible to determine how many were and police do not give crowd estimates. At one point, the protest appeared to stretch about 15 city blocks.
“We’re not so fragile that a day is going to make or break things but this was you know, a great … step,” Dobbs said, noting that the “organizing that goes on day-to-day and week-to-week is just as important in building a long-term sustainable movement.”
New York police reported 15 arrests by late afternoon for disorderly conduct and resisting arrest, the New York Daily News reported. Several demonstrators were caught carrying hammers but there was little vandalism, police said. Later Tuesday, Occupy said more arrests had been made.
Elsewhere:
Oakland police and May Day protesters face off. Watch video courtesy of KNTV.
San Francisco: Police armed with non-lethal pellet or bean bag guns aimed them at a protester who was throwing objects from the roof of the building, located at 888 Turk St, according to NBC Bay Area. The protester, dressed in black with a handkerchief covering his face, was throwing what appeared to be bricks and metal rods into the crowd of demonstrators, reporters, and police. Police spokesman Sgt. Michael Andraychak told NBC News the individual threw several items off the roof for several minutes, including two bricks and pipes. One brick struck a person and hit them in the head. The injured person refused treatment from medical personnel. NBC News reported that the rooftop protester was arrested and taken into custody.
Oakland, Calif.: Protesters playing cat-and-mouse with police pounded on windows of banks and other businesses, SFGate.com reported. After surrounding a downtown Bank of America branch, protesters chanted, "Oakland is the people's town; strike, occupy, shut it down." they also gathered at a Wells Fargo bank branch. Police later confronted demonstrators marching through downtown. Video by NBCBayArea.com showed at least one protester being dragged away by police. Protesters hurled items including a paint bomb at police and windows out of a police van, NBCBayArea.com reported. Police fired tear gas and flash-bang grenades before the skirmishing crowd dispersed. Police arrested at least four people.
Jim Seida / msnbc.com
Police tape off a Wells Fargo Bank in Seattle Tuesday after protesters broke the banks windows during a May Day march.
Seattle: Windows were broken and police arrested a handful of protesters as about 100 marched in downtown, NBC station KING reported. Many marchers were dressed in dark clothes, wearing face makeup and carrying sticks, live TV video showed. Police pepper-sprayed several protesters as problems developed. KING reported numerous tires slashed and large amounts of glass on the ground from vehicles and buildings, including the federal courthouse, smashed by protesters. Peaceful protesters remained at the downtown Westlake Plaza, where speeches and concerts continued, KING reported.
John Brecher / msnbc.com
Trumpeter Opaulo Mekkelsen marched with the Movitas Marching Band in Seattle. He said he was motivated by immigrants' rights.
"Part of me, I want to understand where they're coming from and then they pull something like this," said Sam, who would not give his last name, as he saw the back window of his car smashed out by protesters. Sam was on holiday from his home in British Columbia. "I'm from Canada," he said, "imagine the impression this gives me of the United States."
At an afternoon press conference, Mayor Mike McGinn said a group known as the “Black Block” did extensive damage to the Federal Courthouse, then moved on to block traffic. The mayor signed a proclamation authorizing police to seize from protesters any items that could be used as weapons, KING reported. Evening marches and protests were planned.
A group of May Day protesters dressed in black clothes and wearing face makeup smashed windows in downtown Seattle. Video courtesy KING.
Photoblog: May Day protests turn violent in Seattle
San Francisco: Golden Gate ferry workers picketed ferry terminals in the North Bay, but union organizers canceled a protest on the Golden Gate Bridge to give support to the ferry workers, the Oakland Tribune reported. However, scores of California Highway Patrol officers with helmets and batons lined the bridge and gathered around the toll plaza just in case. Bridge traffic was not disrupted.
Albany, N.Y.: State police arrested two men who set up a table without a permit in Lafayette Park, where Occupy protesters assembled Tuesday, the Times Union newspaper reported.
Jim Seida / msnbc.com
Sam (who declined to give his last name), left, speaks to local media after protesters in a May Day march in downtown Seattle smashed out the rear window of his car on 6th Avenue. "Part of me, I want to understand where they're coming from and then they pull something like this," he said. Sam was on holiday from his home in British Columbia, Canada. "I'm from Canada," he said, "Imagine the impression this gives me of the United States."
Chicago: Protesters and union supporters held rallies and marches with little disruption to the business district, the Chicago Tribune reported. Police Superintendent
Denver: Nearly 200 people marched downtown before turning onto the 16th Street pedestrian mall, blocking mall buses and traffic as they walked. The marchers also stopped in front of the Federal Reserve Bank. Police did not interfere, and only one person reportedly was arrested.
Los Angeles: Several demonstrators were taken into custody during a protest on Century Boulevard near the entrance to Los Angeles International Airport as union members, workers, immigrant-rights activists and others demonstrated for better-paying jobs to changes in immigration laws, NBCLosAngeles.com reported. However, about 2,000 police officers prepared to deploy early at a staging area in Elysian Park before a ralliers were to converge downtown Tuesday evening. Los Angeles County activated its Emergency Operations Center.
Dorian Warren, an assistant professor of political science at Columbia University, said he thought Tuesday would be the “biggest test since the fall of where Occupy is.”
Occupy activists fear becoming Democrats' 'pet'
“I think it’s still alive and thriving. I don’t think it’s going anywhere soon,” he said. “But I think after [Tuesday] we’ll know whether or not they were hibernating all winter and now they’ve re-emerged, or if they’ve died out.”
Occupy held protests during the spring on student debt and worker rights. They also have been working on a rollout of new versions of outreach web sites to facilitate coordination among different Occupy outfits. But a lot of effort has been focused on holding a May Day that will make a splash.
“Many activists have been working toward May Day for months and so they’ve decided to make it a test of strength,” said Todd Gitlin, a former leader of the 1960s-era group Students for a Democratic Society who has just published a book on Occupy. He added: “A lot of people in the larger society don’t think the movement still exists, so there’s some need to prove to them that it does exist.”
Occupy Wall Street has struggled during the last months without a camp, with some members starting their own groups while keeping a loose affiliation to the movement.
“It’s become fractured over time and I think people point a lot to that to the breakup of Zuccotti Park, and the natural disagreements that people had came more to the fore when people were separated and people formed their own circles upon which they continued. But it wasn’t the circle of great diversity that was right there at Zuccotti Park and people could grow from,” said William Johnsen, a 63-year-old veteran activist from Staten Island, N.Y. “It’s obviously a long-term process right now which will ultimately change into something else.”
Lefteris Pitarakis / AP
Workers and activists rally on May Day.
But Konrad Cukla, a 23-year-old graduate student who has been helping with Occupy May Day planning, said that since the park shut, occupiers have been engaging in key coalition building work, such as with immigrant rights groups in the city.
“All the labor unions have come together and for the first time are going to have a unified march with immigrant rights groups and Occupy,” he said as he walked with a musical band of occupiers -- the Rude Mechanical Orchestra -- dressed in green and black on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue. “I think the movement is evolving, it's taking on more concrete allies and issues, engaging more with labor struggles -- also just expanding its horizons and bringing more people into the movement."
Rain City Superheroes: Midnight Jack, left, El Caballero, center, and Phoenix Jones relax Tuesday at a downtown Seattle Starbucks.
The Associated Press and msnbc.com's Jim Gold contributed to this report. Follow Jim Gold at msnbc.com on Facebook here.
More content from msnbc.com and NBC News:
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I listened to one of the leaders of this movement, a socialist Doctor, Dr Margaret Flowers who told Blane Bonpane on his program on radical leftist KPFK Pacifica radio in Los Angeles that this movement is aimed at destroying Capitalism and instituting a new "people's democracy".
http://archive.kpfk.org/parchive/m3u.php?mp3fil=37320
http://officeoftheamericas.wordpress.com/2011/10/08/occupy-together/
OWS reminds me of an old joke
two college students talking about todays activities and the first says what are you doing today?
the second says first i'm going to the free VD clinic for tests,then i'm going to apply for my free government grant extension,then i'm going to get my free food stamps and then apply for additional welfare... then after that i'm going to the rally to protest this f'd up country we live in....
sounds like the OWS to me
Skip; Your iognorance3 is showing. You know nothing about the OWS movement. Get back on your knees under the boardroom table.
i wonder if any of these idiots realize what communism really is
How can it be that 99% of the comments in this discussion are ripping the occupiers that claim to represent the 99%?
they dont represent us...what is so hard for you to figure that out!
Howdy; It's because most of the commenters a paid trolls that got off their knees long enough to get on this board. The rest are true right wingers that are too stupid to know that they are being used.
Hmmmm cdo8 must be off it's medication...
Ah yes, something else that our nutcase leftists are borrowing from the old regime communist Russians.... Come on liberals, tell me that I am just another uneducated conservative that cannot understand how wonderful things would be if you could just rule the country....
My prediction... more murders and more violence...mark my words...this movement will actually hurt obama and his entitlest agenda...so "go occupy!!!"...
i do not care for communism do not want it !! right now though capitalism has tip the scales and sold this country out for profit !! hopefully they will bring these jobs back as things change in those countries and their costs rise !! but if they do not this country is going to tank !! period !!
MAYDAY the communist holiday! can't understand why after winning the cold war during the Reagan days we have to put up with this OWS, union,liberal... B.S. this is only a group of liberal thugs trying very hard to take away good hard working peoples money and rights....god bless america while it still stands after another four years of obama i doubt it will be still standing!!!!!!
skip, and I suppose those same liberals, unions, etc is responsible for two unpaid wars, lost 401K's, homes being forclosed on, etc etc. If so, then why did the govt, under President Bush, and President Obama bail out the banks and Wall St?
This mess, the economic mess started before I was born. Read some history on the laws passed since 1980, up to today. Then maybe you might, I doubt it, just might realize a few things. The economy crashed, companies are not hiring the older workers who got laid off. They are hiring younger people with some job experience in a chosen field.
No doubt some people got degrees in the wrong subjects. And nobody will/would hire them now. But the fact remains, they are fellow Americans. Call them any names you want if that makes you feel important. And this country will still be standing and regaining it's strength after Obama serves four more years.
Explain how Mitt care was great when he was governor, and Obama based his health care bill after Mittcare. Etch a Sketch was for Mittcare before he was against it. The religious Taliban wants smaller govt except when it comes to controlling a womens reproductive rights. Then they want their govt involved.
And May Day was not always a communist holiday, read the history of May day in this country, not the political spoutings, but the real history. Any day or holiday can be made into something completely different than what it orginally was. But keep the deflection going, some day it might pass muster.
Skip; How about a proven example of a liberal thug that tried to take away any thing that was yours. Oh, you can't can you. Your stupidity is showing.
sally you don't realize how bad it is going to be once all this obama care peplosi care(you don't have to read the bill)goes into effect.. and the economy has gone bad before at least once every decade for years i just hope i'm not around when my grandchildren have to pay the bill on all this past 4 years spending and the previous years spending its going to be horrible!!!! each of us owes $150,000 now without interest and if i die before i pay mine it goes to the next generation!!!! when i don't make enough money i don't spend more i just cut back on everything and just pay for essentials.... senators and congressmen are leasing $1000.00 a month cars on my tab is that essential??? is that responsible???? i think not and as far as the history of mayday i know it has had many past meanings but the most recent is the commies day!!!!!
cdo8 my medical has gone from a $10 co-pay to a $50 co-pay because of obama care. my boss owns a small company and he pays 100 % of the medical!!! if this liberal BS is so good why is it that the unions are exempt,congress is exempt and 2500 or more companies are exempt.....must be a real good plan!!! my moms insurance has gone up more than 50% and shes on a fixed retirement pay....tell me how good all this is again
Maggot infestations, skin rashes, rapes, robbery, deaths.....ALL AT "OCCUPY".
On second thought........don't stop them!
I'm laughing........I'm laughing some more..........
Bernie: Stupid, Fools being used by the rich, unable to think for themselves, brainwashed idiots, all on the right wing.
Happy Mayday!!!
Now go celebrate by pepper spraying a protestor!!!
FIVE SURE PREDICTIONS FOR THE SECOND HALF OF 2012:
1. Obamacare shot down by The Supreme Court 7-2.
2. The Arizona immigration bill upheld 7-1.
3. Obama carries only 12 states in November.
4. The lunatic left blames Rush, "Teaturds", "FUX NEWS" and a tsunami for their loses.
5. The Cubs will not win the 2012 World Series.
BOOK IT..........!
LOL I like your vision Bernie!!!
Boot Bozo in 2012!
Dream on Dev. The Republican primaries have shown what clowns they have on that side of the aisle.
Unlike you cdo8, I won't be face down in my own vomit from last nights drinking binge on election day...
Dev. That made a lot of sense. Who was it that had a drinking binge last night? You or me?
Think about it cdo8, but try not to burn out your last 12 braincells---
May Day is the primary day of protests for collectivists worldwide. If OWS can only attract 1,000 or 2,000 protesters to their rally on this most auspicious of days then how much influence can their other efforts possibly make? Let's see, they won't even align with the Democrat party in the electoral process and they're now fragmenting back into the myriad of special interest groups from which they sprang.
The original OWS group ethos was to keep their goals intentionally broad, generic and non-specific in order to attract as many little single-interest groups as possible. That has turned out to be as much of a weakness as it was ever a strength. That's why we're now seeing offshoots like Occupy Pets Rights and Occupy Spring Cleaning groups splitting off.
The collective OWS movements were ONLY newsworthy on those occasions when they disrupted the civil order and broke private property laws. Go back and read the news coverage. The ratio of reports on demonstration activity vs all other aspects of the OWS movement was about 20:1. On those days late in the campaign when they weren't causing a ruckus then there was almost no media coverage of their activities. Except for the professional activists and outside of those violent confrontations, nobody else really cares what they do.
The main enemy of the OWS movement is not The Man. It's public apathy. Step aside, hipster; I've only got 30 minutes for lunch and I need to order a Big Mac.
I think they're irrelevant, except in their role as providing us with an ongoing comedy. It's kinda like watching the buffoonery on Animal Planet's "Whale Wars". Neither gang can do anything right and neither accomplishes a darn thing for all their efforts. Not one whale saved, not one law re-written.
LMAO. At you.
Granting the fact they are very broad and non-specific, but to me it seems they are protesting against the crooks who got our country into this economic mess. Several times, innocent people were arrested as protesters, when they weren't protesting, just going about their everyday business.
Makes for good headlines and a rap sheet, doesn't it? If they are protesting against the injustice that's been done to the American people, I'm all for it. I am NOT in favor of property damage, blocking traffic, etc. A lot of them are highly educated, some in the wrong fields, some in good fields. But there are no jobs if you are an older worker, or a young worker without any job experience. Yet they see the CEO's, board of directors, etc still raping the American people. And getting huge bonus's and stock options for doing it. Pure GREED on some parts, if not all parts.
They may be irrelevant, up to a point, and yes, they do give us comedy, just like Mitt and Frothy did. And everyone forgets the real problems this country is facing. United we stand, divided we fall. And we have very skillfully been divided. The only remaining question: will we fall?
More of the true goals of OWS from their own words
#OWS Direct Action
Blog of the Direct Action Working Group
Victories will surely be won on May 1st but let us not forget that in our lifetimes there will always be space for the pursuit of justice, space for empowerment, somewhere to break free from the chains of alienation and state repression. A better world is not one bound by unity bred in a finite example of achievement — we will always need to confront and dismantle hierarchical power where we see it, we will always need to work on fulfilling the foundation of an anti-oppressive culture.
Organizers of this week of actions say,
[We] aim to bring huge number of groups and individuals from all across the city to fight together in diverse ways to tie together the many issues we face – from cuts to social services in the city budget, to austerity in general, to the systems that cause them - in a global movement emerging to resist them and create something new instead.
Targeted epicenters of evil include war, police, environmental degradation, homes, jobs, education, and immigration.
To get involved in the organizing of these post-strike actions, attend the next organizing meeting: Thursday, May 3rd, at 6 PM at 256 W. 38th Street on the 12th floor!
(Hopefully you won’t have to, though, because capitalism is collapsing in T-minus two days…right?)
Posted in Actions, Announcement
http://da.nycga.net/
Larry; Sounds like a good set of goals to me.;
cdo8
glad to see you finally admit you are a socialist who wants to do away with capitalism
Happy Communism/Labor Union/Socialism Day! Nothing is as exciting as celebrating the history of ideologies for societal mediocrity that always lead to national bankruptcy and class warfare! Let the
goodaverage times roll! Woo Hoo! :-)The freak show continues.
To all the may day occupiers, I would like you to know, I shoved one of you into a telephone pole this morning as hard as I could and I caused the young man I shoved great pain when I additionally punched him in the side of the head. I only wish I could have hurt him more. Why did I do this? Because I am an unemployed, taxpaying american who was BLOCKED ENTRANCE into a job interview by this young man. This is a warning to every occupier out there. If you place another finger on me, or impede my physical freedom, I will take your life and I am willing to sit in a jail cell for it. I despise you and wish you death you traitorous sacks of human waste.
Good job Frank!! I hope you busted it's melon!
Frank; You sound like a sick puzzy.
I haven't seen where OWS is/was protesting in front of Freddie and Fannie? Have they been down in front of the GSA building yelling and cursing at them for wasting so much of our tax dollars in Vegas and other vacation destinations? Have they protested in front of the headquarters of the large insurance suppliers (BCBS, United Health) that I now have to pay higher premiums to because other taxpayers and I now have the privilege of subsidizing the 26 and under crowd (OWS)?
Spring has sprung, the vermin crawled out from under their rocks. A few more hours and May 1st is over. The moron media will have no reason to instigate these fools and give them the publicity they crave but which only serves to alienate even more of the general productive public.
My big question with the Occupy Movement and all the time and money spent planning and actually "occupying" is...where is the money coming from? Who takes care of their houses and yards etc.? Pays their bills? They're not homeless. hmmm...I can't occupy anything except my desk at work and then my studio where I teach music (second job). If I don't occupy either of those places I won't have my small condo to occupy! Maybe I'm missing something here.
OK, but we have freedom here right to protest, or are we the new China?--I mean why does the rich/politicians order the police to arrest regular people, not very different from the same situation in China. Regular people have no power, including elections all paid for by the rich, as a fact, and only the "well connected" need to run for anything, even as a simple town super!---Get real people, and stop the hypocrisy!
As opposed to a protest with some meaning (Vietnam, for instance) many of these folks have been interviewed and cannot give an intelligent answer. Just a stereotypical bunch of losers for the most part, with no common goal or solution, except their own warped/abstract socialism concept. Anti-oppressive culture blah blah blah. What a bunch of whiners....no solutions, many with no jobs, but ready to party or join a protest, even if many of them cannot pin down what it is they are participating in!
skipper; You better watch out these losers may someday make your childrens lives a little better.
"The essence of all slavery consists in taking the product of another's
labor by force. It is immaterial whether this force be founded upon
ownership of the slave or ownership of the money that he must get to
live"
Then the federal government is a slave owner. Taxed Enough Already!
Hey Merridian, how do your taxes compare to the rest of the world. Don't know do you?
It doesn't matter what they are elsewhere. It's that millions of us believe we have a marxist, oppressive tax system that is contrary to liberty
OWS....
You DON'T represent me. OWS, you DON'T deserve what I have worked for. OWS, you can have what I OWN when you pry it from my cold dead hands.
If you want what I have, work for it. Don't try to take what I have worked for.
DON'T ask me to support YOU in the low life style YOU want. WORK to improve your own life.
Don't blame me for YOUR taking excessive loans for degrees that have no value in the real world.
Very simple concepts when you think about it. Of course, that's making the assumption you have the ability to formulate an original thought.
I applaud OWS. They've managed to gather together without having faux news or the right wing freedom works do their organizing for them like the tea baggers did.
OWS is demanding justice and an equal voice for the people as opposed to having billionaires and corporate heads lay down the law for everyone.
BTW, did you hear the majority of the UK's Culture Committee report on phone hacking found Rupert Murdoch is unfit to head a major corporation.
Those on the left would love to get rid of Fox news, the only news organization that tells both sides of a story.
Murdoch? really?
It is a constant source of amazement, that, these people don't realize how truly irrelevant they are.
I get the impression that some posters feel that everyone would agree with them if it weren't for Fox News.
The OWS protesters are the worst that America has to offer; they want the government to give them everything and are willing to give up their personal freedom to have it. There are many places on this planet they could live with their distorted philosophy, but not in America!!
why don't you move there and help beautify America