☛ The Atlantic / In Focus: “Occupy Wall Street, 7 Weeks In” November 3, 2011. Caption for this particular photo reads as follow: “Tents at the Occupy Wall Street protest weather a snowstorm in Zuccotti Park, Saturday, October 29, 2011, in New York. The first snowstorm of the season was a test of the protesters resolve as they huddle in tents and prepare for an increasingly difficult winter with donated food and clothing. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)”

Here’s the introduction to this new “photo essay” (43 photos) by Alan Taylor:

“Seven weeks into Occupy Wall Street, the movement continues in locations both large and small. There have been recent clashes between protesters and police in several cities, most notably Oakland, California. Some of the first protesters arrested in New York are due to appear in court today, facing charges related to mass arrests made earlier in Manhattan and on the Brooklyn Bridge. Meanwhile, financial support has been pouring in. OWS organizers have raised more than half a million dollars and are now struggling to manage such a large pool of donations. Gathered here are recent scenes from the Occupy movement across the U.S. and overseas.”

I’m taking the opportunity to archive a couple of quotes for future references.
First, an interview by Forbes with Kalle Lasn, publisher and editor of Adbusters magazine which initiated the movement last July (with the publication of the now famous ballerina balancing on the “Charging Bull” sculpture – see The Link: “The Ballerina and the Bull” by Laura Beetson, Oct. 11, 2011):

Rapoza: Seriously? Everyone thinks their movement is the one to really change things.
Lasn: You can’t think too rationally about this. These movements are best understood years after they are gone. We have a long history of movements that have just fizzled out, but I think this time it’s different. This movement has an edge. First, it is a global moment. We are all living in dire times. We are all facing major tipping points around the world. We are faced with a political crisis in the U.S. and concern that the U.S., with no help from Washington, is now in irreversible decline. The economy is surely in decline. So people see this, young people see this, and they wonder what their future holds for them given those circumstances. The future doesn’t compute. The backbone of the movement that helped end the Vietnam war was the fact that young people were faced with the draft. Their bodies were on the line. They could get scooped up from wherever they were and sent to Vietnam to killed by the Viet Cong. When your future is on the line, when your kids’ future is on the line, people will fight for what they want. Occupy Wall Street says our future is on the line. Is there a chance that this will all fizzle out? Yes, but I think over time we will pull it off and are getting our point across.(Forbes: “The Brains Behind ‘Occupy Wall Street'” by Kenneth Rapoza, October 14, 2011).

I found the next quote by searching for the terms “we are here to stay”. There are many more examples of the same sort:

“We are here to stay. We are here just like we were here yesterday and the day before yesterday and the day before that, it really doesn’t matter to us that our permit has run out, we feel like this is a public square, we are the public and we are occupying this square so we will stay here,”said Medea Benjamin, a co-founder of activist group Code Pink. (The Telegraph: “Occupy Wall Street protests gain momentum across US” by Alastair Good, Oct. 11, 2011).

The last one is a transcript I made from the video “Hot Chicks of Occupy Wall Street” by Steven Greenstreet. This video stired up a controversy so feel free not to follow the link or, better yet, read about it over at the Wall Street Journal (“‘Hot Chicks’ video a sensation among protest-watchers”, Oct. 20, 2011) and at Salon.com (“‘Hot Chicks of Occupy Wall Street’ creator defends film” by Emma Mustich, Oct. 19, 2011). What interest me isn’t the filmmaker point of view. It’s the testimony from a young woman which follow similar lines as the two other quotes I selected:

I think we all deserve better than this. We’re not gonna stop until we see action, positive action, real change. You know Ghandi said: ‘Be the change that you want to see’. That’s what we’re fucking doing.

Previously: “The averageness of communication (Martin Heidegger, 1927)”