NYC residents complain about 'Occupy' protesters (AP)

NEW YORK – New Yorkers who live near the park where anti-Wall Street protesters have been camping out for more than a month are complaining that their quality of life has declined.

At a two-hour meeting Thursday night, some neighbors said protesters urinated in the streets and beat drums in the middle of the night.

"They're defecating on our doorsteps," said Catherine Hughes, a member of the area's community board, a representative panel that helps funnel local concerns to city officials.

Some neighbors who attended the packed meeting called for the protesters to vacate Zuccotti Park, the plaza where protesters have set up their base camp.

But the board voted unanimously for a resolution that recognized the protesters' First Amendment rights while calling for a crackdown on noise and public urination and defecation.

Three local elected officials praised the resolution in a statement Thursday.

U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer and state Sen. Daniel Squadron called the community board's resolution "an attempt to establish a sensible framework that respects the protesters' fundamental rights while addressing the very real quality of life concerns for residents and businesses around Zuccotti Park."

Asked about Occupy Wall Street on WOR Radio on Friday, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the protesters' leaderless structure has made it difficult to negotiate with them.

"It's a little bit complicated by there's nobody to work it out with," Bloomberg said. "You know, there just is not any one group, one ideology, one objective, one person to negotiate with."

Occupy Wall Street spokesman Han Shan, who has served as a liaison between protesters and local elected officials, agreed the protesters needed to be better neighbors.

Shan said Friday that there are ongoing discussions about the drumming, which is officially confined to noon to 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.

One of the drummers, Jackson Leverette, questioned why neighbors would single out the drumming when the plaza, directly across the street from the World Trade Center site, is already noisy.

"When the construction workers are out there it actually drowns out the drums," he said.

The community board also said it opposed the use of force by police or the park's owners to address their concerns.

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Occupy Wall Street becomes NYC tourist stop (AP)

NEW YORK – Shawn Lahey, a ruler factory worker from Poughkeepsie, was watching the show. A dancing man held a pole marked "corporation," attached to a noose marked "financial system" — from which another dancing man was "hanging." Masked drummers provided a thumping soundtrack.

Times Square? Nope. He was all the way down in Manhattan's financial district, where the Occupy Wall Street protesters have camped out for more than a month.

Zuccotti Park has become a hub for more than demonstrators. Visitors, curious to see protest in action, are regular arrivals. Some take photographs of themselves, protesters and their signs in the background. On a typical day they clog the pedestrian traffic in the area, which is often bustling with financial district employees pushing their way through.

"I think it's great — they're trying to make a point," Lahey said, though he added with a wry smile, "... I don't think it'll make any difference. ... The government won't make any changes, because it's all about money."

Jackie Qualizza of Bucyrus, Kansas, challenged protester Art Udeykin, asking him to explain the purpose of the demonstration, which has inspired similar activism in many cities across the nation and around the world.

"Right now, we don't have a goal — except to back away from the system that's not working," replied Udeykin, a 23-year-old Russian-born Iowan. "This is a way to feel free, to feel normal."

Qualizza said she couldn't see herself demonstrating, but added, "I don't disagree with them. The government bailed out everyone, and things are still not working. Something has to change."

The protest against corporate influence in government and wealth inequality has many of the things tourists look for, including photo-worthy moments and even some trinkets. In this case, the T-shirts and buttons offered by protesters are generally free, though they accept donations.

The double-decker buses offering tours of Manhattan pass by on Broadway, with guides pointing out the park site and tourists — in sunny weather — often waving sympathetically at protesters from the top decks.

Wednesday was rainy, but visitors included a group of Chinese tourists accompanied by an interpreter and a guide.

Molly Schwad, a jeweler from Kansas traveling with Qualizza and other friends, said she was surprised by what she saw, compared to the TV coverage of the protest movement.

She saw a rather quiet encampment in the rain, of only about 200 people. At times several hundred people have camped at the park, and some of the demonstrations organized as part of the Occupy Wall Street movement have drawn thousands.

"I thought it was much bigger," Schwad said. "We were afraid there might be violence here."

Marsha Spencer, an unemployed seamstress knitting in the rain at the park Wednesday, gives visitors a view of the protests they may not have expected to see. She returns to her home in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood at night but spends most of each day at the protest.

"When people see a 56-year-old grandmother sitting here, knitting — they pay attention," she said. "... I tell them I'm here because I want things to change for my five grandchildren."

Some visitors echoed her concerns, including Karen Conrad of Johnstown, Pa., who was in New York last week to visit family and stopped by to show her support.

"I'm a middle-class mother and I can't get ahead. If anything, I'm going downward," she said. She said her two children are burdened by debt from college loans and "won't be out of debt until their own children are ready for college probably."

Demonstrator Julian DeMayo, a law student from Montreal bundled up against the wind and rain, said the tourists' attitude toward the protest has changed over the weeks.

"At first, they seemed skeptical, looking at this like it was a circus show," he said. But more recently, he said, many visitors "looked genuinely interested, and inspired. And they seem impressed by the level of infrastructure."

He added, "I think they also see that there's a huge variety of people here — young and old, of all races, from everywhere."

Some nearby businesses are far less enamored of the protesters, and say the hubbub outside their doors is costing them money.

Stacey Tzortzatos, manager of Panini & Co., a casual restaurant that's normally bustling as it serves financial district clients, said the eatery has been losing business because police barricades discourage customers from coming in, and media vans are blocking the view.

But the biggest problem, she said, was protesters coming in to use the bathroom — "30 at a time." She said she put locks on the bathroom doors in response.

"They take showers using the sink, they brush their teeth, and they make a huge mess," she said.

Tzortzatos said she's been harassed and verbally abused by protesters, who have come in eating donated food.

"I was called `evil' for asking whether they were customers, when they came in eating their free pizza, smelling so bad," she said. "It's a constant battle, and it's getting worse as the weeks go by."

Other food venues didn't mind.

"Business is business!" said Alex Gervis, who works behind the counter at Manon, a cafe near Zuccotti Park that sells imported Italian coffee and Belgian chocolates.

He said protesters have come in "six, or even 10, at a time. And as long as they buy something and don't make a mess, we're happy to have them."

The only disruption came several days ago, "when they tried to play guitar," he said. "We can't have that."

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56 Percent: The Most Troubling Number About Occupy Wall Street (ContributorNetwork)

A recent poll has shown that far more people are in agreement with the Occupy Wall Street movement than are opposed to it, even though it remains, going into its fourth week on October 14, a vaguely unfocused and amorphous demonstration against a number of things wrong with America and its government. In fact, according to the Time poll, the protest movement has a favorable rating of 54 percent (as opposed to a 23 percent unfavorable rating). However, even though a majority of Americans agree with those holding signs saying "We Are The 99%" and many of its positions -- such as prosecuting corporate executives responsible for the financial meltdown and raising taxes on millionaires -- 56 percent of the poll's respondents said they believe that the demonstrations will have little impact on American politics in general.

In short, most believe that, although the movement is viewed primarily as a positive entity, its impact will be marginal at best. The government -- and Wall Street -- will continue unabated, as it were. As they were.

That should be even more reason for those who are part of the 99 percent -- ostensibly, those whose income is less than a million dollars per year and the greater part of Occupy Wall Street -- to stand with those that are already demonstrating. The status quo remains static due to inaction and continued silence, and a populist movement is only as powerful as the sum of its individual components and their message. The organizers of Occupy Wall Street are fully aware of this -- as are their opposers.

Since its inception in late September, Occupy Wall Street has grown from a small protest in New York to a nationwide movement, with other "Occupy" protests springing up from Boston to Dallas, Tampa to San Francisco. And as the movement's message of being fed up with government inactivity that favors the rich and powerful, a stagnant economy with a limited jobs market, and a top-down economic system that has exaggerated the gap between the haves and the have-nots over the past couple decades, resonated with more and more individuals, the idea has developed to take the message global on October 15.

At the same time, most corporate controlled media ignored the small protest at first, but as the number of protesters grew (as did their list of grievances) and the demonstrations spread across the country, not only did major media begin covering their individual and collective stories, but those opposed to their message began to sound off as well. Fox News Channel, which had been instrumental in the national organization and rapid dissemination of the (so-called grassroots) tea party's conservative message, painted Occupy Wall Street as a disorganized bunch of anti-capitalists and author Ann Coulter compared them to "Nazis." Rush Limbaugh called them "commies," a White House-driven liberal conspiracy. Even Eric Cantor, Republican House Majority Leader, echoed the Fox New charge and called the protesters a "mob."

Needless to say, Fox News (whose shows are produced, owned, and operated by millionaires) and Limbaugh (a multi-millionaire world unto himself) and Cantor (a multi-millionaire representative from the state of Virginia) see the status quo as a good thing. They are part of the 1 percent that Occupy Wall Street sees as holding too much money and power at the expense of the other 99 percent of the people.

The truth of the matter is: The demands of the protesters would do little to affect the lives of the 1 percent, even if they managed to have a major impact on future legislation solving wage disparities and social inequalities. In the end, the demands are being made to alter the system that relegates the 99 percent to forever being 99 percent or living an existence just a couple of paychecks short of being homeless or without the basic necessities of life. The rich will remain rich, regardless. In the nation with perhaps the highest standard of living in the world, the fact that so many are out of work or working underpaying jobs or working two or three jobs to make ends meet is a shame unto itself. That so many feel the need to rise up and say something about is indicative that laws, regulations, and conditions will have to improve to make the plight and the number of opportunities for upward mobility of the 99 percent improve as well.

But resistance to those improvements is guaranteed. Unfortunately, so is the idea that all the efforts of the protesters will go for naught, the status quo unshaken. And the most troubling aspect of it all: The idea that millions of individuals working in popular concert attempting to eliminate the socioeconomic and sociopolitical disparities that now exist within the American way of life will have little effect.

That 56 percent of Americans believe that the movement will have little impact is a sad testament to how ingrained the the idea of the intractableness of the government and inertia within prevailing socioeconomic systems have become. And if that number does not add resolve to the populist movement to endure until they effect positive change in the lives of the millions of people who comprise the 1 percent, then that same 56 percent will assuredly be correct about the impact of the 99 percent.

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