"People sporting North Face backpacks while holding signs decrying corporatism."

[Robb]

Oy.

On the upside, there's a link to Rosanne Barr's speech in the article, not half bad.

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2011/09/the_occupy_wall_street_protest.html">The ‘Occupy Wall Street’ Protests Drew Hundreds, Snarled Traffic

It wasn't Tahrir Square, exactly, but the anti-Wall Street demonstration that began on Saturday succeeded in disrupting the Monday morning commutes of the area's workers. The J/Z Broad Street subway stop was shut down this morning, and the large police presence, along with chanting, meant that Wall Streeters had to pass a gauntlet of sorts to get to the office this morning. The turnout was lower than the organizers hoped for — "hundreds" seems to be the unofficial consensus for now, compared with the hoped-for 20,000.

When I stopped by mid-afternoon on Saturday, the crowd gathered in front of the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian was a fairly compact one. There were anarchists in dreads, sure, but there were also people sporting North Face backpacks while holding signs decrying corporatism. At the last minute, the city had decided to block off certain sections of Wall Street near the stock exchange and Federal Reserve from the protestors. The crowd was well-mannered and mostly youthful — when one speaker asked the crowd to make some noise if they worked more than one job, the response was loud. When he followed up by asking if they'd paid more than $1 in taxes over the past year, the crowd was confused, silent. Had they?

The sprinkling of older protestors seemed more outspoken than the rest, though, or at least more media-savvy. Veterans of protests past, holding signs eagerly spoke to the many reporters holding cameras. Luis Vazquez, a middle-aged UAW employee from Ann Arbor, upon seeing my reporter's notebook, eagerly serenaded me with a version of "America the Beautiful," tweaked to criticize Wall Street. He was heartened to see young people "finally" getting angry enough to protest, he said.

But the initial showing disappointed some of those young people. One 24-year-old from East Harlem, who gave her name only as Genai, said she came out because, "I don't like where America is. I wanted to see what would happen today." She'd been living in Austin, Texas, during the Arab Spring, where there had been massive demonstrations in support of the Tahrir Square protests. She'd been expecting something on the order of that, and the relatively small crowd on Saturday seemed like a bit of a letdown. "I'm withholding judgment, though," she said delicately....

Read more: http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2011/09/the_occupy_wall_street_protest.html

[Earth_First]

1. I wear Patagonia, Mountain Hardware, Keen and Marmot...

It's quality outdoor equipment/clothing.

I work outdoors. I play outdoors.

Does that make my disagreement of corporate personhood/greed/profits/tax evasion any less valid?

[Webster Green]

10. Same here.

I work outdoors, and play outdoors too. My bad-ass Wesco leather boots cost $500. I don't feel guilty about it. They're 100% American owned and made. I buy a lot of my other clothes and stuff at thrift stores.

[applegrove]

2. Do you guys have Mountain Equipment Co-op in the USA? It is a great outdoor gear co-op from

British Columbia.

[Puregonzo1188]

3. We all live currently within a capitalist system whether we like it or not.

Even if we find that objectionable, that's still the reality we live in and unless we are a complete hermit, which really doesn't contribute to any positive change, we're caught in that.

That's why the "Oh you wear clothes or eat food or have a house you're so hypocritical for being anti-capitalist" (or in this case anti-corporatist) is so fallacious.

[sudopod]

4. Would you like it better if they were wearing bread hats and you could see their ribs? nt

[RetroLounge]

5. Yes, he would.

RL

[sudopod]

6. But not artisan bread. That would be too much. nt

[RetroLounge]

7. of course.

Don't want to overdo it...

RL

[sudopod]

9. So that everyone else has context. :3

[RetroLounge]

16. ...

:rofl:

RL

[Robb]

17. I can't see his ribs.

So they mean to occupy Wall Street until the bankers are replaced with a military ruling council? :shrug:

[Luminous Animal]

8. Right. They should have sewn their own backpacks.

Better yet, grown the cotton, spun the thread, wove the fabric, etc. etc.

[Nye Bevan]

11. I only drive a Lexus because I need a reliable car to get to anti-capitalist demos (nt)

[sudopod]

12. You're a mets fan, no one cares what you drive.

the only thing you've ever protested is the cost of 8-oz cups of beer.

[DrunkenBoat]

13. I hate comments like that. Are they supposed to wear corn husks & carry handmade string bags?

Just how do you propose that "pure" people cloth themselves in 2011?

Just the flip side of the phoney-baloney "Change the world by shopping purely" crap.

Everything in modern america is made by corporations.

[sudopod]

14. Sack cloth and organically grown ashes. nt

[jpgray]

15. Changed my mind

No need to pile on.

[Township75]

18. It's the same as Rick Perry bashing the US govt, but then wanting their help

with disasters.