Protest movement continues on Wall Street

Occupy Wall Street, the month old protest movement sweeping the country and largely organized on social networking sites, almost became the largest protest that never happened.
Nearly two-thousand protestors converged on New York’s financial district Sept. 17 only to discover the object of their scorn safeguarded by a few dozen police officers behind a metal barricade. These public sidewalks, where protestors had planned on spending the night, were off limits to all but a few men in business suits. When protestors staged a sit in near the barricade, at least one was arrested and the rest were encouraged to move on.
“I arrived at noon and the entire pit of Wall Street was already blocked off and barricaded,” said Melanie Butler, an activist with Code Pink in Brooklyn. “When I asked to pass through as a pedestrian I was told the entire financial district was frozen. When I asked why they were preventing peaceful protest I was told if I wanted to protest I had to go about five blocks down.”
Instead, many protestors gathered in Bowling Green Park, near the “Charging Bull” monument. Police promptly responded by erecting a series of barricades around the bull, while a group of about 20 young people formed an impromptu circle and started practicing yoga.
“We were practicing yoga, and on a larger scale I think we were practicing peace,” said Alex Seaman, a yoga instructor from Charleston, South Carolina. “Since I started practicing yoga the hardest obstacle I’ve faced is to bring yoga off the mat and into the street. I’m not here to protest against anything, but rather to enjoy the community building these types of gatherings encourage that is the opposite of cooperate greed.”
Others gathered on the steps of the National Museum of the American Indian, where a group of ...