It stared down city officials to hang on to its makeshift headquarters, showed its muscle on Saturday with a big Times Square demonstration and found legions of activists demonstrating in solidarity across the country and around the world.
Could this be the peak for loosely organised protesters, united less by a common cause than by revulsion to what they consider unbridled corporate greed? Or are they just getting started?
There are signs of confidence, but also signs of tension among the demonstrators on Monday at Zuccotti Park, the epicentre of the movement that began a month ago.
They have trouble agreeing on things like whether someone can bring in a sleeping bag, and show little sign of uniting on any policy issues. Some protesters eventually want the movement to rally around a goal, while others insist that isn’t the point.
“We’re moving fast, without a hierarchical structure and lots of gears turning,” said Justin Strekal, a college student and political organiser who travelled from Cleveland to New York to help. “…Egos are clashing, but this is participatory democracy in a little park.”
Even if the protesters were barred from camping in Zuccotti Park, as the property owner and the city briefly threatened to do last week, the movement would continue, Mr. Strekal said. He said activists were working with legal experts to identify alternate sites where the risk of getting kicked out would be relatively low.
Wall Street protesters are intent on hanging on to the momentum they gained from Saturday’s worldwide demonstrations, which drew hundreds of thousands of people, mostly in the U.S. and Europe. They’re filling a cavernous space on Broadway a block from Wall Street with donated goods to help sustain their nearly month-long occupation of the private park nearby. Read more
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