Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Occupy DC Update

Yesterday was the day when the bid show down between Occupy DC and the Park Service was supposed to take place. At noon yesterday the Park Service was going to start enforcing the no-camping rule at McPherson Square. It just so happens my office is practically across the street from the park.

I went out about 10 minutes after noon. There were more protesters than usual in the park. There were a whole lot of media in the park. But they weren't all that many police in the park. In fact it didn't deem like they were enforcing the no-camping rule at all.

Occupy DC did put up this huge tent over the statue of General McPherson called the tent of dreams. The Occupy DC slogan was let us sleep so we can dream. No one seemed to be removing anything as noted in a Post article:

A good many protesters opted not to remove their stuff at all. As the noon deadline set by the police approached and then passed, the stuff that had enabled the protesters to endure a winter in Washington — the fox-den hidey-holes of cold-weather whatnot — remained defiantly inside tents. To the office dwellers who came to the park to see what would transpire as the deadline approached, the site looked little changed from the encampment that had sprung up in early October. It was muddy and cluttered. Protesters rallied at the center of the square, engaging in call-and-response chants, and digging in their heels for a stand-off with police that, as of mid-afternoon, had not occurred (the mood was reportedly less raucous and more zen over at Freedom Plaza, the site of Washington’s second Occupy encampment).


It remains to be seen what if any impact the no-camping rule is going to have.











3 comments:

Arthur Schenck said...

So, apparently the left isn't much better at spelling than the right…

Jason in DC said...

Which sign are you talking about?

Pour partager ma mode said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.