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An Occupy Wall Street protester demonstrates in Foley Square in New York City - Source: Reuters -
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The Occupy Wall Street protesters have the best manners you will encounter in New York.
Often portrayed as a chanting rabble when they're mobbed up, in person they're generally quietly spoken, and very polite.
They may not always use 'please' and 'thank you', but they listen when you speak. They talk in measured tones. They're disciplined.
In Times Square last weekend, there was -by general assent - 5000 people at 7pm.
Two hours and a few arrests later the place had been returned to the tourists who imagine that it's somehow representative of New York.
At night, Times Square resembles a casino, and thus evokes an aspect of America.
Demographically, it represents New Jersey, or Pennsylvania. Most New Yorkers I know would rather stab themselves in the eyes with knitting needles than walk through there. We didn't come here to be with ordinary people.
In fact the protest there was symbolic, and the demonstrators knew that.
They are innocent, and poised; they seem even more so because the benchmark for courtesy in this town is abysmally low.
As a customer, one must beg certain taxi drivers to stop yakking on their cell phones (or worse texting) while driving, and certain barmaids at certain joints (okay, the Coffee Shop in Union Square) to pause the conversation about their modeling career long enough to condescend to refill your tumbler of whisky and soda.
At parties people will look through you as if you were a phantom, should they calculate you're of reduced status and thus social usefulness. Once they determine what your wages might be, small talk takes on a quality that is best described as glassy-eyed.
Ach! Blow your nose on your pinafore sleeve, that's just life in the big city!
If the gentle ingénues of Occupy Wall Street OWS really are as nice as they seem, do they stand a chance of actually changing the status quo? It's unlikely.
As one ex 60s radical observed to me, the movement isn't really anything yet. It needs time to grow and take shape.
Given the intense diversity of views, and the fast approach of cold weather, this may prove difficult. And there needs to be a connection with underclass groups, say, the people who got Hispanic workers on the streets of NYC some years ago in the hope of pushing immigration reform. The protesters have grace; they need muscle.
At the Times Square demo, one of the youngsters asked me if I was with Fox news. The information that we were with NZ TV produced a sort of cheerful bewilderment. They went back to their gig, and I to mine.
They have a great deal of energy, and the police can seem very riled up. It sometimes feels like a game of tag between a sweating uncle and a lay about kid with long hair.
Two very silly tourist ladies got caught up in an altercation between them. "Follow us now!" roared my cameraman. Pushing through the bodies, we made our escape. It was a sign of how quickly the dynamic may alter at a protest.
It had been reported that OWS would -by this time - have produced a figurehead and a set of demands. Compliant fellow that I am, I also expected this would happen. No such leader has emerged; no concrete set of demands has been stated. But things have changed at Zucotti Park, where they're camped out.
The protesters now have a 'good neighbour' committee. The OWS site agrees that 'while drumming is important' it must be curtailed.
Drumming, which used to take place 10 hours a day, has been reduced to 2 hours daily. Keith Moon must be rolling in his grave; I doubt Lenin, reclining the in revolutionary paradise, is particularly approving either.
With today's news the Goldman Sachs made its second-ever loss in a storied, lengthy and bejeweled lifespan (causing the New York Times to wonder if the financial sector might be facing a genuine realignment), the auguries for the Occupy Wall Street protesters are good.
A recent poll suggests that by a margin of three to one, New Yorkers approved of what they were doing. The question remains: What are they doing?
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