Get Ready for Today's Occupy Wall Street Protestapalooza
Occupy Wall Street is looking to roar back after their camp was raided with a big "global day of action" today. Already they've tried to shut down the New York Stock Exchange. Next up: occupying the subways.
Riding the subway may be even more annoying than usual today, as protesters have called on the 99 percent to "occupy the subway" at 3pm at 16 stations throughout New York's City's five boroughs. Maybe this will convince Bloomberg to clean up the subway. Then, at 5pm, protesters plan to march on Foley Square by City Hall, with labor unions, followed by a 7pm march over the Brooklyn Bridge. (Occupy Wall Street's last Brooklyn Bridge march ended up with tons of arrests.)
But right now, hundreds of protesters have reoccupied Zuccotti Park. They briefly took down barriers placed around to control the crowd, and were met with swinging clubs and fists from the NYPD. The situation is rapidly oscillating from "exciting" to "boring." See the oscillating on the livestream, which is the best way of covering live news events ever invented. The livestream operator is just walking around, sometimes buying water or a sandwich, sometimes in the middle of a wild, chanting crowd. Anderson Cooper should livestream next time he goes to a war zone; we'd watch him alternately dodging sniper bullets and heating up a pop tart in his hotel room.
On Twitter, Everyone's chattering about the LRAD sound cannon, a futuristic crowd control device which blasts Kreayshawn's "Gucci Gucci" at protesters to disperse them. The NYPD apparently has one on hand, but it's unclear if it was used this morning. There are rumors that the NYC Department of Education is letting kids out of school early because of today's marches, which the DOE says is false. Sorry, kids! Maybe next day of action.
You may want to follow one of the eight dozen twitter hashtags being used for the Day of Action. But really you can just follow this one: #n17.
[Image via AP]