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Pattaya street punks face-off at a well known pub in Pattaya. A drive by shoot out follows near Big-C. Bullets fly but nobody is injured or dead.
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In a joint operation involving the Department of Special Investigations (DSI), Pattaya Police, the Narcotics Suppression Bureau, the Banglamung District Licensing Unit and Police volunteers, a raid…
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Thousands of anti-corporate demonstrators backed for the first time in large numbers by trade unions poured into New York’s financial district, raising the stakes in a more than two-weeks long street revolt.
At least 5,000 people, with streams of reinforcements arriving all the time, crammed into Foley Square in lower Manhattan, where the city’s courts and government buildings are located. They then marched toward Wall Street.
Union officials estimated the number at 8,000 to 12,000 and it was clearly the biggest protest yet for the fledgling movement.
The mood was festive, with some even bringing babies, but there was also defiance as the crowd chanted: “This is what democracy looks like!”
What started last month as a ragtag sit-in protest against corporate influence and social inequality was transformed into a bigger, more serious event with the arrival of major unions including the AFL-CIO, United Auto Workers, Transit Workers, and teachers’ union.
Unions brought numbers and organizational skills to the rally, which, unlike others staged throughout the Occupy Wall Street protest, was authorized by the police.
And in another sign that the initial, youth-led campaign of civil disobedience had gained momentum, Democratic politicians for the first time voiced support for what some analysts are starting to herald as a potential left-wing rival to the conservative Tea Party movement.
A similar demonstration, with a focus on protesting the US war to subdue the Taliban in Afghanistan, was planned for Thursday in Washington.
In New York, crowds banging drums and carrying signs like “Save our Republic” and “Equality, democracy, revolution,” crammed into the narrow, teeming streets around the financial district, symbolic headquarters of the US financial system.
Chanting “we are 99 percent,” the loosely woven coalition of protesters flooded through lower Manhattan, watched by large numbers of police, who did nothing to intervene, other than to keep traffic flowing.
“More numbers, more power, more publicity,” said Kelly Wells, 26, who said she came all the way from Oregon on the US west coast to join the peaceful street rebellion.
However, police made clear that Wall Street itself was off limits, barricading the famous thoroughfare leading to the New York Stock Exchange to all but residents and local employees.
Protestors have a huge list of grievances, ranging from the mountain of US student debt to shrinking retirement benefits for the elderly, as the United States struggles to regain its once powerful economic stride.
“Something is wrong in America,” said Charles Jenkins, director of Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union, who spoke to the crowd from a makeshift podium. “When students went out of college and they can’t find a job, something is wrong.”
The protesters’ main anger is directed at corporate influence in politics and the government bailout of financial institutions in 2008. It also comes against a backdrop of dismay at the lack of leadership from either President Barack Obama’s Democrats or the opposition Republicans a year from a presidential election.
“I think everyone out here feels robbed. They are struggling to make a living, to keep a roof over their heads, they’re struggling to pay student loans,” Lindsey Personette, a 29-year-old dancer, said.
“This is a revolution. This is not going to go away. It’s only going to get bigger.”
As the protests — ignored initially by much of the media — grabbed growing attention, New York’s liberal congresswoman, Louise Slaughter, gave the demonstrations her blessing.
“I’m so proud to see the Occupy Wall Street movement standing up to this rampant corporate greed and peacefully participating in our democracy,” she said in a statement.
Also joining the protest movement were students, who, according to the Occupywallst.org website were staging a national walkout.
The march was backed by members of the United Federation of Teachers, which represents most of New York’s public school teachers, as well as the Workers United and Transport Workers, which represents many of the city’s bus drivers.
The Professional Staff Congress-CUNY (PSC-CUNY), which represents more than 20,000 professors and staff at the City University of New York, also gave its support.
The movement has had widening support, with franchises cropping up in towns and major cities across the United States, in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and elsewhere.
The Washington protest dubbed Stop the Machine shows signs of similar levels of organization to New York, with a website http://october2011.org/statement, and preparations for people to camp out in the capital starting Thursday.
As anti-corporate demonstrations spread across the United States, the protesters claim they are inspired by the revolutions in the Middle East, but protests over economic grievances in Europe would be a closer comparison.
When anti-capitalist activists first unfolded sleeping bags and brandished handmade placards in a small park near Wall Street two weeks ago, they said they were following the example of Egyptian protesters in Tahrir Square.
In reality, the differences outweighed any similarities: numbers of protesters were tiny compared to Cairo, no one was attempting to bring down the government, and there was zero risk of being shot by security forces.
Yet, as the Occupy Wall Street protest entered its third week Monday, it is being taken more seriously. Similar sit-in demonstrations have popped up from Boston to Chicago and Los Angeles and this week the New York protest expects to swell with support from trade unions.
So what do these would-be revolutionaries want?
Ask 10 of the mostly young, often well-educated demonstrators bedding down in Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park and you might get 10 different answers.
Anger over the government bailouts of big Wall Street institutions, joblessness, student debt, global warming, police brutality: these are just for a start.
Finding a leader to speak for the group is harder still.
Even one man who could be clearly seen organizing logistics in the camp refused to admit he was in a position of responsibility.
“Everyone has a different reason and goal for being here,” Anthony, 28, said.
His own, rather esoteric aim was to turn the camp around the corner from the New York Stock Exchange into permanent utopia: “a safe space autonomous from the rules from outside.”
But as their numbers grow, the US protesters could yet coalesce into something more resembling a genuine protest movement.
In Los Angeles, some 300 people have been demonstrating since Saturday. In Boston, about 100 people were camped out.
In Chicago, where some 50 people have been camped in the financial district for 11 days, grievances were as diverse as in New York, but the determination was as strong.
“It took Vietnam to get people my age into the street and we changed things. I’m seeing the same thing happening here. It always starts small, but time will tell. All great movements start from scratch,” says Eleanor Buckley, 61, who came with water and food for the mostly young protesters.
Probably the closet parallels are not in Tahrir Square but Europe, where simmering frustration and anger at the fallout from recession and financial crises have spilled onto the street.
Spain has seen mass protests dubbed the “indignant” movement against politicians’ handling of the economy. Last month, thousands of leftists demanded a referendum to be held on a plan to enshrine balanced budgets in the constitution.
Similar street demos have spread across Italy, while Greece has seen major unrest as young people and government employees facing cuts in jobs, pensions and salaries take over public buildings.
A little further away, angry crowds are challenging the government with tent cities in Israel.
Apart from heavy use of social networking sites, all the demonstrations from Los Angeles to Tel Aviv share bitterness at what is seen as the disconnect between governments and ordinary people in an era of stressed budgets and economic uncertainty.
Even the riots and looting this summer in London and elsewhere in Britain are seen as being fueled by hopelessness.
In America, similar worries are reinforced by leftists’ disillusion with President Barack Obama and anger on both sides of the political aisle at the political and business elite.
On Monday, even George Soros, one of the world’s richest men, expressed support for the protesters, saying they had been provoked by “bumper” bonuses paid by Wall Street banks.
“I think I can sympathize with their views,” he said.
The Wall Street protesters had trouble getting media coverage when they began their sit-in. Not any longer — even if their goals are still hard to define.
“It’s becoming impossible to ignore and we’re still here,” Anthony, the organizer at Zuccotti Park, said.
Hundreds of young activists protesting the Wall Street bailout and corporate influence in US politics defied police for a ninth day and said arrests over the weekend strengthened their resolve.
The rag-tag protest even got a boost late Monday with a surprise visit by Michael Moore, the highly successful leftwing documentary filmmaker.
“I am so impressed by what I see here. You have done something very important and very historic,” Moore said to cheers.
Earlier, more than 200 demonstrators marched from their camp at Zuccotti Park, in the heart of Manhattan’s financial district, to the New York Stock Exchange. Banging drums and blowing whistles, they chanted: “Banks got bailed out, we got sold out.”
All along their route they were accompanied by dozens of police, including senior commanders. There were no arrests.
The protest dubbed Occupy Wall Street kicked off September 17, targeting corporate greed and political influence, the government bailouts for banks during the 2008 financial crisis, capital punishment, and a litany of other grievances.
The huge crowds organizers hoped for never materialized, but between 200 and 300 protesters have remained camped in Zuccotti Park ever since.
It is one of the longest street protests in New York in recent memory and an especially unusual event in lower Manhattan, among the most heavily policed neighborhoods in the world.
On Saturday, the standoff between the noisy, but peaceful demonstrators and large numbers of New York Police Department officers deployed to monitor them turned ugly.
Police arrested more than 80 people after a crowd marched north to the bustling Union Square neighborhood.
According to the NYPD, the protesters were impeding traffic and some resisted arrest and had to be manhandled.
According to protesters, police were in some cases brutally excessive.
Video shot of the clash and posted on several news websites and the protesters’ https://occupywallst.org/ site shows a senior officer in a white shirt spraying Mace into the faces of two women who appear to pose no threat.
The spraying of the women turned into a public relations setback for police and a boost for the protesters, who until this weekend had been largely ignored by mainstream US media. By Monday, TV networks including Fox News were reporting from the protest camp.
“Everyone is pretty upset by the violence, but it did help us. It got the word out,” said one protester, Steve Smith, 24. “It brought people to us, brought donations to us.”
One of the more active participants in this officially leaderless protest, Ryan Hoffman, 26, said: “If anything, I think what happened on Saturday made us stronger.”
Nine days into the demonstration, Zuccotti Park has taken on the air of a well-run hippy camp.
There is an elaborate field kitchen, a library of donated books, a table where legal advice can be sought, and while not marching on Monday the protesters busied themselves in committee meetings, drum playing or listening to a jazz band.
All decisions are made through committees and a general assembly.
No one is able to say what protesters will do if police decide to clear them out. In a sign that patience is running thin, the private owners of Zuccotti Park put up a new sign over the weekend banning just about everything that happens in the space.
Under the list of activities prohibited are: “camping and/or the erecting of tents or other structures,” “lying down on the ground,” “use of bicycles, skateboards and roller blades.”
The park, says the shiny new sign, is “for passive recreation.”
However, the demonstrators, who have no clear goals other than to raise grievances, are adamant that they’ll stay.
“I feel so strongly about this,” Caitlin Mosiniak, 20, said, tears welling up. “What I want is more people joining us, getting out of the bubble they’re in.”
Hoffman would only say that the issue of what to do if the police move in had been discussed in secret. “We have a relocation plan. There is a plan for those who wish to be defiant and there is a plan for those who wish to leave.”
