Progress of the occupation

Lots of state police officers were keeping track of today's Occupy Albany rally, including two who told demonstrator Bill Lauritsen he couldn't have his sign in Lafayette Park because it was hanging from a stick -- I guess because the sharp stick could have been used as a weapon, even though Lauritsen showed no sign of doing that. He complied, moving to the sidewalk on Washington Avenue.

Today's event was heavily sponsored by public sector unions, so the speakers included the president of PEF (Ken Brynien) and in the crowd were a couple of lobbyists connected to NYSUT (Billy Easton and Ron Deutsch); and the rhetoric dwelt on opposition to budget cuts as well as support for keeping the millionaire's tax (which is scheduled to expire Dec. 31). The speakers were in front of a Vietnam War memorial, and for a while a banner saying "No millionaire bailout" hung from the sculpted hand of a dead soldier, until someone wisely removed it.

One familiar figure in the crowd, dressed in a suit and tie was Mark Mahoney, until recently the Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial writer for the Glens Falls Post-Star. He was there ex-officio having wandered over on his lunch break from the 1 Elk St. office of the New York State Bar Association, where he now works, and declined to be drawn into comment.

From the park the few hundred occupiers marched up Washington Avenue to Dove Street, where they handed in a message to the New York State Business Council. Jessica Winseki, campaign director for Citizen Action (whose activists were doing much of the organizing for the march) said the message to the Business Council was along the lines of "Stop buying off our government." Those guys who dress up as stereotypical billionaires, including Saratoga County activists Pete Looker and Joe Seeman, were doing their (amusing) act outside, saying "We are the one percent" and "Let them eat cake."

The chant went up, "Hey you millionaires, pay your fair share," as the march headed down State Street back to the Capitol. "How do you fix the deficit?" went another chant, answering itself: "End the wars, tax the rich." In the Capitol, the demonstrators went first as close as they could get to the office of Gov. Andrew Cuomo, then the nearby "War Room," then upstairs to the state Senate, because the Democratic governor and Republican-led Senate are the prime supporters of letting the millionaire's tax expire and thus lowering tax rates on the wealthiest New Yorkers.

"Come out, come out, and face the people that you left out," they chanted to Cuomo, but he didn't. The governor was in Albany County today, quashing a potential Democratic Party revolt at the Desmond hotel and ensuring no resolutions were passed there favoring extension of the millionaire's tax.

There were a woman rabbi and a young woman minister who spoke, and one of the petitions in support of higher taxes on the wealthy quotes New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Another speaker in the War Room had a more radical agenda, calling for "full equality, right now, right now," "pass GENDA now" (a reference to the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act) and opposition to hydrofracking, and ending with the familiar chant "No justice, no peace." He and other speakers had the crowd repeat their words (i.e. the people's mic), but this guy was not getting a strong response.

Outside the Senate chamber, the young lady rev. said "a strong wind is kicking up the dust ... rattling the buildings of power and privilege, and waking those who have been asleep.The wind can't be silenced or bought." The crowd -- the "people's mic" -- repeated her phrases.

Comments

[The stalwart Gazetteer]

No mention of the stalwart Gazetteer reporting by your side. Very disappointed...But good take. I interviewed Bill too, but never thought to ask why he was standing on the periphery. I thought at first it was because he was protesting the protest.

All in all, it seems as though the Occupy movement is slowly being or has already been co-opted by union interests. I was quite dismayed to hear talk already of fielding an 'Occupy' candidate for office, since this is a tried and true way of ensuring special interest will take hold of the reins. I wondered at first if this was the beginning of a social anarchists' revolution. But like most things in our nation, this seems like another call for change that will ultimately be swallowed by the status quo.

[Bob Conner]

It was a delight and pleasure to run into S.G. As for Occupy, there's been a lot of criticism in other towns that the demonstrators don't have a focus or specific demands, but in Albany they do. Keeping the millionaire's tax is a fine issue, much better than anti-hydrofracking, for example. But it's also an issue for the public-sector unions, and even though they're right on this one, it doesn't mean they're right about the more feather-bedding aspects of their agenda.
Keeping the state millionaire's tax also has the advantage of being a bipartisan issue; the GOP does stand in the other camp, but so does the Democratic governor, by far the biggest pol in the state. On the national level, the Occupiers could be co-opted by the Democrats on the tax issue, but in NYS their main obstacle is Andrew Cuomo.

[Matthew]

I think its to simplistic to say the Occupy crowd is being co-opted by "Union" interests.

They share many of the same goals as the Tea Party folk. Namely being ticked that the no one has bothered to prosecute any of the giants for banking fraud when there is DOCUMENTED evidence they were promoting it.

They are also calling for a change to the current corporate welfare state that gives federal subsidies to a multi-trillion dollar company like Exxon Mobil & allows GE, one of the highest profit making companies in the world, to pay no income tax.

They both also call into question & want to change the legally judicial fiction that corporations are "people" & thus have a right buying off our elected officials that do their bidding.

But more importantly, we both want government to address our needs...which overwhelmingly right now is not the debt issue, its not the health care issue, its the lack of jobs. Jobs, jobs, jobs.