The cops attacked as the activists marched up Seventh Avenue at 29th Street, arresting some for marching when they should be walking, a crime that may soon be punishable by the crazed new National Defense Authorization Act measure treating the homeland as a battlefield.
The crowd then broke into smaller guerrilla-style groups, darting in and out of various streets, and ending up in a packed Times Square on a Saturday night at the height of the Christmas shopping season. This march was spontaneous, powered by the power of surprise. The police actually chased some out-of-towners out of Times Square to try to cut them off at the pass, but failed.
Before the men in Blue, led by men in White, could reassert their version of Law and Order, and while shoppers and tourists watched, the occupiers began "mic-checking," with individual after individual shouting out "Why I Occupy," and offering personal statements and testimony that were repeated several times.
In this way, individual members of the movement, from every class, color and gender, spoke with eloquence about their reasons for protesting -- personal reasons and social reasons, national reasons and global reasons, economic reasons and political reasons reached out to thousands.
They had to electrify whoever was watching. Their passion and sincerity was there for all to see. I watched the Live Stream of the event on a computer in Harlem and was moved, at some points, to tears by how articulate and reasonable they were. They later left the square and returned to Zuccotti Park for a late-night General Assembly meeting.
Not only was this the best show on Broadway's "Great White Way" for that hour, but it proved the correctness of a political claim, asserted in one of the OWS signs written after the police raided Zuccotti Park.
It reads: "It's So Not Over."
Cross-posted from Consortium News
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