"I'm gonna get as much media down here as I can so everyone will know what's going on." Michael Moore was trying to make his way through the scrum in Zuccotti Park after a fifteen minute appearance on MSNBC. Moore professed that he'd do everything he could amid shouts of "Move to Cuba!" and "We love you Michael!" before speeding away in his waiting SUV. Meanwhile, the majority of the several hundred protestors stationed in the park met in a General Assembly, and continued the slow work of hashing out finite goals for the ongoing occupation of Wall Street.
A clean-cut man with a staid-looking laptop bag slung over his shoulder looked slightly out of place, peering into the circle of deliberating demonstrators. Dave works in IT across the street at One Liberty Plaza. "I'm still trying to figure out what they're about, but it's definitely interesting," he said. "We really haven't been hearing much out of the media about it, and its progressed since they first came here. It's a lot more organized." He continued, "Those videos of the NYPD [pepper-spraying protestors] speak for themselves." Are the protests a water cooler topic? "Not really, nobody really pays any attention." He told us he'd consider marching with the group this Saturday, before heading home to the Upper East Side.
82-year-old Beth Lamont ignored the two news vans idling next to the MSNBC crew to hold up a sign that mocked capitalism's promise that a "rising tide lifts all boats." Her apartment near the World Trade Center site was about to begin the foreclosure process, after the September 11 attacks dried up income to her four rental properties, and she was forced to liquidate her savings to stay afloat. "Us old folks need to get off our rockers and say something about the inequality in the country," she said. "I'm using my good health and what little sanity I have left to say something."
