Posted on 11/01/2011 3:10:35 PM PDT by zipper
I visited the Occupy San Francisco camp (Justin Herman Park) on the 29th -- there was a rally at 3 p.m., as there is every Saturday. About 1500 people were in the march around the downtown area of San Francisco. The pictures are from this rally. Please distribute freely.
-- there is no definite leadership, as with most of the Occupy camps. There are "facilitators" who make announcements or recite material over a megaphone, to be repeated by their audience.
-- they don't have a specific list of demands endorsed by the entire movement, but the "second bill of rights" signs betray their desire to redistribute wealth from someone they envy to themselves. Socialism is a central theme, with many anti-capitalist or pro-socialist signs. There is usually a central repository for signs in the camp so anyone can join them or carry any sign. The homemade signs are usually made in the camp.
-- I don't think most of them have violent tendencies at the San Francisco yet, but not all camps are the same. The San Francisco camp at Justin Herman Plaza always has a heavy police presence, and so does Zuccotti Park near Wall Street (I've been to both). But the Oakland camp at Frank Ogawa Plaza has NO police and some violent elements in their ranks, including Black Panthers, ex-cons, mentally ill homeless, anarchists. Not to mention the mayor, Jean Quan, is weak and inconsistent.
-- their uniform is "grunge". If you look clean and groomed, you might look like you don't belong.
Front of the rally, though there appeared to many who joined the march that weren't campers -- there were many more marchers than the camp could possibly hold (likely a couple of hundred in the camp at night):
tent city:
information booth, note Marxism Conference flyer:
dope-smokers at edge of camp, just a hundred feet from police:
"second Bill of Rights" sign in camp:
The rally at one of the stops in a park downtown:
One of many signs advocating socialism:
protesters pause for a photo op:
Another "second Bill of Rights":
(photo is clean version) several naked men marched in the rally in plain view with no clothes on -- eeeewwwww! I saw one woman bystander cover her child's eyes -- wish I had a pic of that too.
lunatics on parade
For sure.
Mark Levin calls them “Parasites On Parade”.
Great report! ‘specially the last pic. You should hook up with Zombietime.
All these folks need to move to Cuba their socialist dream and find out that it does not work. Or pick up a newspaper and read about Greece and how they have run that country into the ground.
Isn’t San Francisco already about as “occupied” by these people as a place can be?
Great pics! Keep it up and you can be the next Zombie!
The gratuitous nudity made me chuckle. “Hmm, how can I get those damned Wall Street types and middle-America bourgeoisie to take our cause seriously? I know: STRIP!”
Do you mean the blogger “Zombie” from Pajamas Media? He is doing a helluva job with the Oakland camp.
http://pjmedia.com/zombie/2011/10/24/is-occupy-oakland-as-bad-as-they-say/2/
Drunkards, drug addicts, prostitutes and queers.
I credit you for an iron-cast stomach. There is NO way I’d ever go near there, not even for the FREE REPUBLIC. The nausea induced by looking at these people, let alone in the nude, is different than the kind a good barf would cure.
I live in New York, home of the original protest. My roommate, whose work occasionally takes her to the Wall Street area, has had trouble getting on & off the trains.
Great photography, BTW. Too bad your camera had to be ruined.
I might have to post some more from the Oakland and Wall Street occupations on another thread — the one at Zuccotti Park (Wall Street area) is a total circus.
PelosiVille.
It’s not pretty.
One and the same.
Another FReeper astutely called Zombie a ‘National Treasure’.
My camera still smells like bleach.
reincarnation of Beatniks
Excellent find, scary similarities. As we know the American Nazi Party has endorsed #Occupy.
Hasn't affordable homes been acccomplished with the housing market collapse, or do they want another collapse as well?
They had one speaker at a stop during the rally who spoke about her home being foreclosed on — that’s their focus. Another speaker said he was being evicted from his home but wasn’t leaving until the Sheriff took him away, and even then he would go back with a lock-cutter and “re-occupy” his home.
He got wild cheers from the occupanistas, as you might expect.
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