are we watching the beginning or the end? (relaxing in Zuccotti Park early this afternoon)
#OccupyWallStreet is now in its second day, and no one knows where or when it will end.
It seems to be in the nature of grass-roots political uprisings that there should be neither leaders nor defined objectives, and it is clearly true of this one. This should be not be a surprise, and it unlikely to be a liability, especially in the early stages of a popular street protest.
But this one just might become something more than just another protest which will once again frustrate its authors and participants and be ignored or endured by its targets wielding economic and political power.
The remarkable thing about uprisings of any kind - and in any place - may be the fact that they happen at all, and we who enjoy (or do not enjoy) a system which has always seemed impervious to revolution may now be in for a big shock: The Arab Spring may now have become the U.S. Fall. There is clearly general unrest throughout the country, and its physical expression has begun with political action outside the institutions which have frustrated and even defied the wants and needs of most of its citizenry. We do not know how far it will go, but unlike the case of the dissent provoked by the last, Great Depression, this time there appears to be no Roosevelt around to save either the institutions or the citizenry.
tourists staring down Wall Street, flummoxed by the security services' decision to shut down all the streets which approached the shrine
a particularly dangerous-looking revolutionary, and not atypical of the people gathered inside the park
all quiet in the park this afternoon: signs, t-shirts, food, meetings
the agenda for the general assembly just ended
and working groups too
were there hula hoops in Tahrir Square?