Text and videos by Sohrab Saadat Ladjevardi
I got up this morning at 5:10 am. Turned the TV on to find out what was happening with the Occupy Wall Street movement downtown at Liberty Plaza or Zuccotti Park. This morning at 7am Mayor Bloomberg wanted to clean Zuccotti Park, and use a new set of rules (including no lying down and no sleeping bags) which were designed to end the Occupation of Wall Street for good. NY Channel 1 reported that nothing important had happened. So I got the feeling there was no reason for me to hurry. To arrive at 7am sharp was good enough. I prepared breakfast for myself and my wife. When I finished brushing my teeth, charged my Iphone, got into my jeans…got on the 1 at 79th Street. Changed to the 3 at 72nd Street and arrived at Wall Street at 6:55am and 7am sharp, I was finally there.
When I woke up I felt to take my horn with me, but before leaving I changed my mind. My prirority was to DoobeeDoo the event and not to energize the protestors with my horn. I felt my horn wasn’t necessary because I knew they were hyped anyway, and they had drummers around who would support them anyway. Later I found out that I was right!
When I arrived at the park I could feel the tension and anxiety of the people around me. I was wondering should I go inside or stay outside. But my samurai heart told me to go inside and be close to my new brothers and sisters. Instead of my sword I had my umbrella with me which I would have used in case a cop would harm an innocent person. But fortunately this wasn’t necessary. I checked out the whole park, tried to find out what poeple were doing. People were advised not to go out of the park because they might not get in again, and reminded those who would stay that they might be arrested. Cool, I thought. It was very interesting to listen to the protestors’ conversations. Of course inside you could watch the major media, such as CNN, RT, CBS and indie media in action, reporting and interviewing people. I even texted to some friends to come and show their support to the protestors.
There was only once a scary situation at the entrance when police tried to enter the park at the entrance who were immiediatly blocked by the protestors’ bodies. Around 7:30 we people in the park were informed by the movement’s spokesmen and women that the owner of the park refrained from any kind of agressive actions to kick people out which meant V-I-C-T-O-R-Y for them. I felt so good about this anouncement that I almost cried.
When it was really clear that the police wouldn’t try to invade the park, people cooled down. I decided to hang out there for a little while and walked through the park to find out whether there was really no threat around. Accidently I got aware of a middle-eastern looking guy who was being interviewed by a couple of people talking passinonately. I approached this group and found out that the interviewee was Noah Fischer who seemed to start this movement. Listen to what he said in the video below.
It’s a shame I couldn’t meet any Iranians of the NY Green Movement (members of the Iraninan pro democracy movement). They should be here too, promoting their movement!
In the videos below you can see who was there, what was happening, how the weather was, how the park looked, some music, some protestors in costumes and their messages, how the cops looked, and much more.
