Wall St protest army vows long occupation

The Occupy Wall Street movement faced down city chiefs to hang on to its makeshift headquarters, showed its muscle with a big Times Square demonstration and found legions of activists demonstrating in solidarity across the world.

The movement, which has raised nearly $300,000 and boasts storage space loaded with donated supplies in lower Manhattan, shows no signs of going away.

Meanwhile, anti-capitalist protests in the heart of London’s financial district will enter their third day today. Dublin's Occupy Dame Street demonstration also sprang up following the Occupy Wall Street protest in New York a month ago.

There were some signs of tension among the demonstrators at Zuccotti Park in New York, 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, Ohio, 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 alternative 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 US and Europe.

They are filling a cavernous space a block from Wall Street with donated goods to help sustain their nearly month-long occupation of a private park nearby.

They have amassed mounds of blankets, pillows, sleeping bags, cans of food, medical and hygienic supplies – even oddities like a box of knitting wool and 20 pairs of swimming goggles (to shield protesters from pepper-spray attacks). Supporters are shipping about 300 boxes a day, Mr Strekal said.

The space was donated by the United Federation of Teachers, which has offices in the building.

Close to $300,000 in cash also has been donated, through the movement’s website and by people who give money in person at the park, said Bill Dobbs, a press liaison for the movement. The movement has an account at Amalgamated Bank, which bills itself as “the only 100% union-owned bank in the United States”.

Mr Strekal said the donated goods are being stored “for a long-term occupation”.

The movement has become an issue in the Republican presidential primary race and beyond, with politicians from both parties under pressure to weigh in.

President Barack Obama referred to the protests at yesterday’s dedication of a monument for Martin Luther King, saying the civil rights leader “would want us to challenge the excesses of Wall Street without demonising those who work there”.

Many of the largest of Saturday’s protests were in Europe, where protesters involved in long-running demonstrations against austerity measures declared common cause with the Occupy Wall Street movement.

In Rome, hundreds of rioters infiltrated a march by tens of thousands of demonstrators, causing what the mayor estimated was at £886,000 in damage to property.

US cities large and small were “occupied” over the weekend, including Washington DC, Fairbanks, Alaska, Burlington, Vermont, Rapid City, South Dakota, and Cheyenne, Wyoming.

In Cincinnati, Ohio, protesters moved their demonstration out of a park after hearing that a couple were getting their wedding photos taken there – but the bride and groom ended up seeking them out for pictures for posterity.

More than 70 New York protesters were arrested on Saturday, more than 40 of them in Times Square. About 175 people were arrested in Chicago after they refused to leave a park where they were camped and there were about 100 arrests in Arizona after protesters refused police orders to disperse.

About two dozen people were arrested in Denver, Colorado, and in Sacramento, California, anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan was among about 20 people arrested after failing to follow police orders to disperse.