For all the hand-wringing by cable news and pundits about what the Occupy Wall Street protests are actually about, there was a pretty anti-corporate message at the protests Wednesday in downtown Manhattan. But despite the overarching opposition to the financial sector’s political influence, some of the protesters dismissed the need to have a unified message in the demonstrations.
Protesters marched from Occupy Wall Street’s base in Zuccotti Park to meet up with union organizers a few blocks away in Foley Square, where the march was then set to head to the financial district. Along the way there were chants of “We got sold out/banks got bailed out” and “Hey hey, ho ho, Wall Street greed has got to go.”
People carried signs with messages like “people before profits,” “greed is killing earth,” “corporate $ out of politics” and “due to recent budget cuts, the light at the end of the tunnel has been turned off.” One had a picture of JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon that said “Wall Street Robber Banker.”
Along the way, the protesters were cheered by passengers on a double decker siteseeing bus that had stopped at a light. One man sold t-shirts with President Obama’s face crossed out.
Clusters of police officers directed traffic and stood watch, perhaps looking to intimidate marchers who might remember the mass arrests on the Brooklyn Bridge last Saturday.
But there were also marchers with signs like “Dear NYPD — join us. You are also the 99%.”
Over in Foley Square, waiting for the rest of the marchers, a speaker from the Transit Workers Union referenced the questions over what it is the Occupy Wall Street protesters want. “They want jobs!” he said. “We the people want jobs.”
“Three years after Wall Street was bailed out Main Street is still waiting to get bailed out,” he said.
Pete Sikora of the Communications Workers of America agreed that it was all about the economy, though for a slightly different reason. “We need to support prosecuting Wall Street fraud,” he told TPM.
Sikora added that just because the people there have different causes doesn’t mean they don’t know what they’re fighting for. “Multiple goals doesn’t mean you don’t have a clear direction,” he said, adding: “It doesn’t mean you’re unfocused.”
Ramon Rodriguez, the Education Coordinator for 1199SEIU, said that the overarching theme was the “basic inequality in our society that’s got to change.” For the critics, he invited them to bring their own ideas about what they should be fighting for. “I have more trust in the youth,” Rodriguez said “than I do in the people in power. I think that’s what we need now, is the ideal and the idealism.”
Leo Torrui, an organizer for Health Professionals and Allied Employees in New Jersey, said that the demonstration was about people who are “taking the brunt” of the financial crisis, and that there is a unity there. But, he added, the fact that there’s been “an outpouring from all different sectors of society” and there’s no centralized leadership “shows that it is grassroots.”
And don’t worry — lest people stop comparing Occupy Wall Street to tea partiers, there was the requisite man wrapped in a “don’t tread on me flag.”
