OWS Protesters Chant ‘Follow Those Kids!’ As Small Children Try To Go To School On Wall Street

Tiny Tots, Some As Young As 4, Overwhelmed By Hostility, Crush Of Humanity

November 17, 2011 11:45 PM

Occupy Wall Street protests impact schools

A small boy is seen trying to get through the chaos to his school on Wall Street on Nov. 17, 2011. (Photo: CBS 2)

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NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — They were caught in the middle of madness.

Some grade school students were forced to walk a gauntlet of screaming “Occupy Wall Street” protesters just to get to school on Thursday.

It was a wild day in lower Manhattan for most everyone involved, including elementary school children who had to brave the mayhem just to get to class on the other side of Wall Street.

GALLERY: Occupy Wall Street “Day Of Action”

In the middle of thousands of protestors yelling and chanting — some kicking and screaming – CBS 2’s Emily Smith found little school kids trying to get to class. Nervous parents led them through the barriers on Wall Street. The NYPD helped funnel the children, anything to ease their fears while some protestors chanted “follow those kids!”

“These guys are terrorists, yelling at little kids,” one father said.

“For them it’s horrible. They’re afraid of all the crowds. We’re not even able to get through. They’re just, he’s … very afraid now,” a mother added.

One protester followed a father and his little daughter all the way down the block. As the school day ended just after 3 p.m. children trickled out of Leman Manhattan Prep on Broad Street. Smith heard a 4-year-old boy telling his mom he was scared. He told Smith it looked like a parade.

“There was a parade. It was scary — crowded with school,” the boy said.

“After a while it got so bad some parents couldn’t get their children through and they had to go late,” said Gary Goldenstein of Tribeca.

Some saw the day’s doings as chaos; others saw it differently.

“The parents actually along with teachers were at every entry point into this area, which is fantastic,” said Vicki Pitcock of Tribeca.

School officials said they haven’t had to change school times or cancel class, and are trying to keep it that way.

How far is too far? Please offer your thoughts in the comments section below.

OWS Protesters Chant Follow Those Kids! As Small Children Try To Go To School On Wall Street

CHICKEN LIBERAL

VOTE FOR ME, IF YOU ARE OLD ENOUGH, I WILL TAKE ALL THAT MONEY FROM THOSE FATCATS AND GIVE IT TO YOU .YOU WILL BE ABLE TO PARTY THAN.AND WHEN THE FATCATS BECOME SKINNYCATS THE PARTY WILL BE OVER. BUT WE WONT WORRY ABOUT THAT UNTIL IT COMES….THIIS CHICKEN LIBERAL 2012…GOING WHERE NO LIBERAL HAS GONE BEFORE…TO THE TRUTH!!!
Trevolution

Ha Ha best thing ever. Good to see the corporate mass media is still using their brainwashing spin tactics. Do any of you actually believe it was the Occupiers that caused the problem here? If they were allowed to Occupy Zuccotti in the first place as their first amendment rights allow them to then they wouldn’t have spilled into the streets and disrupted all these people. If anything the children were being harassed by the NYPD’s barriers, without a police presence (specifically one of a proven brutal police department) parents could have weaved their way through the political strife easier because the protesters wouldn’t have been backed into an angry corner that the police decided to march people past. Additionally, who takes their kids through a major protest zone to get to school? There’s more then one way to get onto Wallstreet, and more then one road to take to school in NYC. Its a freaking gridular city. Bad protesters? No bad parenting, bad leadership from the mayor, and bad journalism. Next thing you know they’ll say we are raping virgins, eating kittens, and resurrecting the dead on behalf of Satan. Wake up America, don’t trust the mass media’s lies. When have they ever been “fair and balanced”? Go to a protest and make your own opinions. Don’t hide behind an electronic screen.

ruffsoft

Because the fascist right is demonizing the brave patriots of the OWS, I just wanted to applaud you for seeing through the media propaganda and laptop rebels of the right.

All those making criticism based on media propaganda need to educate themselves by visiting a protest and finding out what is really going on. After such a visit, a person will never again trust the propaganda of the media, which represents the same corporate interests the protesters are protesting against.

All movements begin small, suffer ridicule, demonization (filthy hippies if they are unemployed; craven hypocrites if they are not), and then actual attacks. In the end, we win, as more and more people wake up from the lies of the media and the fascist attempts to silence dissent.

This was the case in terms of the Civil Rights movement and the anti-war movements, which were denounced and attacked, but through steadfast non-violent courage finally earned the respect and support of most Americans.

Iti s interesting to witness the brutal police crackdowns in Egypt (which have become very violent) with the lesser but similar attempts to crack down on the American demonstrators, who are inspired by the Egyptian rebels, and who have now inspired movements in over 80 nations, including the 200K who marched in Rome a week ago.

The laptop critics of the OWS use their distance and anonymity to call for “shooting into the crowd” and “cracking heads” to “end this escalation of madness.” These are the same kind of people who called MLK a commie and traitor and called the anti-war demonstrators terrorists (for opposing war).

There will always be useful idiots to echo the talking points of the corporate media, willing to escalate hysteria and the urge to destroy free speech and assembly, even against their own interests. These are sideline hecklers, secretly envious of those with the courage to stand up to the police state face of the tyranny of the 1%. We can wear their epitets (the word American was used by the British in the 18th Century as an insult to the colonists) as badges of honor.

At 70, I salute and join the OWS as the movement to end the perversion of our economy (plutonomy) and our politics (plutocracy). When money rules, the words of Jefferson are worth remembering: “We must crush the moneyed aristocracy…” before they destroy our nation and our laws, he wrote.

He also wrote: “The banks are more dangerous than than standing armies.”
Today, the critics of the OWS would call Jefferson a dangerous radical for such sentiments. He also predicted that if the banks ever were able to print money, we would all wake up one day and find our homes no longer belonged to us.
This has literally happened. Honor Jefferson’s radicalism: support and join the OWS protesters.

Thanks for your post.

Bill Gioia

Leave the kids alone or face a wrath in jail.
ruffsoft

They are folks like Eric Cantor, John Boehner, Rush Limbaugh, Sean hannity, and the rest of the rightwing who are repeating the class warfare talking point over and over. I assumed you followed the news on this.

We have had class warfare for thousands of years (the Greeks had slaves in their democracy) but when people finally fight back, the phony civil peace is suddenly threatened by “class warfare.” When the House Republicans refused to let the temporary and failed tax cuts for the rich expire but meanwhile cut $832 million from the Emergency Food fund for poor mothers and their children, that is class warfare of the rich on the poor. When the banks used bailout money to give themselves huge bonuses (for wrecking the economy in volume), that is class warfare for it is paid by imposing austerity (ie cutting food and healthcare for the poor, heating for the elderly, etc) on the most vulnerable and least able to fight back,.,

When one industry, drugs, gets 120 billion from the Medicare Part D drug program of free money, that is more than the total of all welfare and foodstamps combined (2 million on welfare, mostly children, and 40 million on foodstamps, as a result of the Bush recession and jobless recovery). The rich industry gets 120 billion a year (and perverts the free market concept) and programs for the poor are cut. That is class warfare. In the past 5 years, black Americans have lost 66% of their wealth, Hispanics have lost 50%, and whites have lost 16%. Meanwhile, CEO salaries are up 20% and profits on Wall St are huge. That is modern class welfare.

Society produces wealth (schools, cops, roads, workers, laws all contribute) and when all of it goes to a tiny sliver of 1/10th of 1% (the millionaires) while the median wage is declining and jobs are being lost and houses foreclosed, that is class warfare.

So fight back! Don’t be a sucker. You are one of the 99% who have done worse while the 1% have tripled their wealth. Stop being a stooge, a useful idiot of the ruling class. Fight back. And if you can’t lend a hand, to quote Dylan, get out of the way.
ruffsoft

Betty, WTF you talkin about? The OWS is unique in its self-government leaderless democracy. We have no masters. It is not greedy to desire justice; it is the better angel of our natures to make personal sacrifices for the sake of justice.

PS: Communism is dead. Even Cuba is converting to a market economy and has released most political prisoners. Are you suggesting that the North Koreans are the masters of the OWS protesters? I have suspected this all along.

I get it. Satire. Very funny.
Robert

Just wondering – which would be viewed as being worse:

OWS protesters chanting things

Tea Party protesters chanting about Communism, waving signs of Hitler and waving their guns all over the place.

You decide.
ArJuna

You people are all idiots. Hardly any of you realize it when you’ve been played. The OWS crowd was a very worthy attempt at exposing the gross manipulation of each and every one of us. Unfortunately this group had little leadership and was quickly co-opted by the powers that be so they could trample on it and use it to their own ends. The outrageous behavior filmed and spread to every news outlet was committed by agents of the same group that OWS aimed to expose. These people have your puny little minds figured all too well. You are played daily and will never come out from your bondage until you wake up. Truly stupid.
ruffsoft

Red-baiting is a standard fascist tactic. It was used against the civil rights movement, the union movement, and the anti-war movement. MLK was called a commie and traitor by the far right. Today, the fascists are out red-baiting the OWS.

robert

Nice to see a few people still haven’t had the RIGHT side of their head brainwashed.

Jon Newman

Great smear job!

Liberal media my arse!
Bowman

U.S. Constitution

Amendment I

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
Russ D

this news story is blatant propaganda. If you are going to say protesters are violent against children, you need to show proof. I see children making it to school while a protest is occurring. I am sure the school knew in advance and decided to stay open for whatever reason. So please show us the video where a protester says “follow those kids”. Then we might believe what you are saying instead of this hearsay.

ruffsoft

Russ D, you are right on. This story is not journalism but an attempt to demonize the OWS by a very rich (13 billion a yr) corporation which with 5 other corporations, controls most of the media in the US. It is corporate propaganda against those seeking to highlight the criminality of the corporate elite and their corruption of our government and democracy.

The links lead to no evidence, there is no audio, no video, no evidence of either threats or harm done. Any parent who cannot understand that in any crowded, noisy situation (like a big sports event or parade), it is natural just to pick the child up and carry them. This is obvioiusly too simple, so suddenly OWS, a global movement of millions (200K marched in Rome last week), is being hostile to 4 yr olds by marching and chanting.

There was no violence, no threats, but it is blown up like an indictment of the entire movement of millions based on no evidence whatsoever. No one was hurt, no one was prevented from getting to class.

Free speech and assembly are noisy and might scare an child, but all these children were with their parents. No one was in danger. This is just BS and red meat thrown to the fascists who want to crack heads and shoot into the.crowds.

Yellow journalism creates Brownshirt reactions. The real victim is the truth.
Those who want war first kill the truth, then demonize their “enemy” and then attack. This is journalistic attack by a corporation which must be very frightened to hide behind 4 yr olds to express their fear and hatred of those who challenge their privilege. If you think about it, it’s actually funny: CBS hides behind 4 yr olds in attack on OWS protesters.

I would take my grandkids (2 and 4) into the OWS environment any time, so long as the police are behaving. Children, if you explain, can enjoy a noisy parade and join in the feeling of solidarity. Or you can use them to hide behind, as all these I hate the OWS protesters are doing. Not one of them is upset about the House Republicans cutting 832 million from the Emergency Food fund for poor mothers and their children. But one propaganda piece from CBS has them drooling with hatred and revenge and outrage! Oh, the little children…you scared them. You should be shot.

Pick the goddamned kids up and explain that the protesters are expressing their feelings about the banks and stop whining about the “madness…and mayhem…and intimidation.” This is much ado about nothing. This is an attempt to shut down First Amendment rights, hiding behind little kids. For shame.

Thankfully, there are enlightened people like you and have functional BS detectors working to counter the herd of ditto heads.

Russ D

Nice that he takes a bunch of AUDIO SAMPLES out of context. How do we know where any of these samples come from? They could be from the 60′s 70′s or even from a Tea Party rally for all we know.
AFAIK Farrakhan is not a leftist, he is a race hate monger and is not welcome at any inclusive OWS rally.

Japes Macfarland

Did you see the latest on Breitbart, I think, which showed your finance committee (or whoever they are and call themselves, who have collected the over $500,000 in donations) staying at the W Hotel for $700 a night? Lol

Communism doesn’t work, genius.

ruffsoft

Protesters exercising free speech and assembly rights are characterized in this corporate media propagnda piece as “screaming….wild…mayhem.” And the harm done? A child says the “parade is scary.” Some parents have to change their path to school, and the school itself says that no one was prevented from attending.
There was no violence, unless free speech is considered violence. No one was hurt. No one was prevented from going to school.

Yet, those who would denounce the protesters, aided by this piece of hatchet journalism (with no factual support) has become the “last straw” for those who hated the protesters from day one, those who feel abandoned by history and
the struggle for justice. Now, they are spewing their hateful (shoot the protesters; chanting is terrorism) rhetoric in a fit of rage against OWS protesters.

Free speech does not become disruption because it makes someone uncomfortable. All serious protest should cause discomfort. OUr First Amendment rights are fundamental, primary to all other rights.

If your child is frightened by expressions of free speech and assembly (a chanting marching crowd), you should educate them about how critical this right is to a democratic society. Those who exaggerate or lie about the violence and “terrorism” of the protesters are planting fear in the children. When the media distorts free expression as a form of child abuse, it’s red meat to the fascists who hate free expression and then vent on discussions forums like this, calling out for shooting into the crowd and calling protesters sub-human.

Don’t feed the fascists. Don’t believe the lies. Keep fighting: change does not come without confronting the forces of the status quo, the police state, the propaganda machine, and the useful idiots of the fascist right who get off on
hating those who struggle for change.

Ghandi and MLK taught us how to win with non-violent resistance. History shows that the defenders of the status quo will use agent provocateurs, police infilitrators, etc to discredit movements by inciting violence and promoting lies about the movement. All this can be overcome. We did it before with the Civil Rights movement and the anti-war movement. This movement has gone global, as the power of the banks and the corporatocracy is global.

From a 70 yr old veteran of previous movements, who was called a n……lover for marching for civil rights and a traitor for marching to end the evil war in Vietnam….wear these insults as a badge of honor and confirmation that your efforts are working to challenge the status quo. Do not confuse the useful i diots of the vulgar right and the police with the forces we are confronting.

Occupy the world. It belongs to the people, not the corporations; to the many, not the elites. And those who heckle on the sidelines with their fascist catcalls:
speak truth to lies, truth to power. And keep speaking and occupying. It’s working. Look at the reaction, proof of hitting a critical nerve in the body of the
corporatocracy.

Occupy the Supreme Court: demand that all justices act ethically and recuse themselves from cases in which they have financial or honorary connections.

Occupy THIS

Hey ruffsoft … you and Obama’s Communist Storm Troopers at OWS can all go to hell … you filthy marxist piece of $h1t.

TC

Man, some of you anti-OWS types have absolutely no class.

Japes Macfarland

To be fair, his harshness (which could be considered a lack of class) was not only equal to, but in direct response to this Ruff fellow’s lack of class, dishonesty and ugly heartlessness.

ruffsoft

The terms far right and radical right have been used by different people in conflicting ways.[25] The term far right is most often used to describe extreme nationalism, religious fundamentalism and sociopolitically “reactionary” groups, as well as the less readily categorized ideologies of fascism and Nazism.[26][27][28][29] The BBC has called politician Pim Fortuyn’s politics (Fortuynism) far right because of his policies on immigration and Muslims.[30] The term far right has been used by some, such as National Public Radio, to describe the rule of Augusto Pinochet in Chile.[31][32] The US Department of Homeland Security defines right-wing extremism as hate groups who target racial, ethnic or religious minorities and may be dedicated to a single issue, such as eradicating homosexuals or barring the immigration of Hispanics.[ (Wikipedia).

If the shoe fits, wear it.
ruffsoft

Hey, Occupy THIS, shove your ugly lies up your a$$hole, whence they came.

Japes Macfarland

Lol! The true Ruf ruff is finally coming out!!
Japes Macfarland

Hey! Ruff! Leave those kids alone!!!

Larry

I don’t agree at all. I have worked my entire life working for corporations. I have earned a very comfortable quality of life thanks to them. Yes, I worked hard to get to the place I enjoy but it is indeed there very monsters, as you call them., that gave me all of this. So as you consume the products of our economy, remember that the corporations produce these things that you thrive on. The issue is not with the corporations but with the system of bribes and favors that consume the attention of our politicians. We should limit terms, reform campaign finance and bring more issues to national votes. Then, and only then, the people will speak.

ruffsoft

The target is not corporations but corporatocracy, a system in which the corporations use their wealth to buy elections, politicians, laws, policies, subsidies, and tax loopoholes, as well as bailouts when they fail.

I am a minority owner of a small corporation (5 employees) and I support OWS for calling out the Wall St rulers who have stolen our wealth and corrupted our democracy. This is not anti-business but anti corruption, anti economic fascism (the merging of the interests of the state and the corporations.).

The goal is democracy, the end of plutocracy, and the dismantling of the corrupt corporatocracy. With success, corporations will be able to compete on a level playing field without the small paying the high taxes while the huge corps pay none and get huge subsidies. The goal is economic justice, which includes the idea that when productivity and profits increase, the new wealth should be shared by both workers, owners, and investors. In the past 30 yrs, the corporatocracy model has funnel all new wealth to the rich while the median wage has dropped by 30%.

The enemy is the corrupt system, not the corporations which have played by fare rules and not participated in the corruption. The evil is systemic.

Corporations did not give you all you have. Society did: the public schools, the highways, the airwaves, the workforce, the laws, the innovations of government such as the internet, GPS, satellite technology, etc. Wealth is created by the entire society and so it is unjust when the wealth all goes to the small elite at the top at the expense of those who helped create it, the teachers and cops and government researchers and the workers.

If over the past 30 yrs, if the wealth of the top 1% had only doubled instead of tripled, they would still be fabulously wealthy and the median wage, which is now 26K, would be around 60K. If the median wage had grown as the top percent’s income grew, the median wage would be over 100K.

That is what we have lost and what we seek to regain, our stolen wealth (thru the system of corporate funding of politics and lobbying), the fruit of our labors.
The rich need this too, for a tapped out middle class with declining wages creates a demand-gap in consumer spending which cuts business, profits, and jobs. A prosperous middle class (this means revised tax structures, strong unions, and full employment) is the engine of economic growth…so even the rich need a rebalancing to boost demand and economic growth.

Inequality ends up hurting everyone by causing economic stagnation and unemployment. The OWS is to protest corportocracy and to promote democracy and shared prosperity, the only sustainable economic model.

It is a waste of time to blame the politicians; we have to go after the corrupters, which are the wealthy corporations and industries. We have to ban all corporate (and union) money in politics, with prison as punishment. This was once the law of the land. As Jefferson said: “We must crush the moneyed aristocracy…” before they defy the nation and the laws. He also said: “The banks are even more dangerous than standing armies.” He would have understood that it is the corporate system, this economic royalty, which threatens our sacred liberty and prosperity. I think you get most of it but fail to include the idea of rooting out the originators of the corrupt system, the banks which finance the corruption and the wars and now own our homes. Jefferson predicted this would happen too.

The issue is the system of economic fascism which perverts our politics and is impoverishing our necessary middle class and dropping more and more into poverty in the richest nation ever in all history. We are out of balance.

Betty

How ironic that OWS’s protest against greedy rich people is driven by greed. OWS’s hypocrisy is breathtaking. To hell with them and their Communist masters.
liz

I never realized how many idiots lived in America. It’s the government, not the banks. I love how protesters are making all of the hard working, educated Americans look barbaric by confirming the American stereotype of savage, fat, uneducated and misbehaved children. I’m only a sixteen year old girl and I’m still more competent and educated than over 3/4′s of these protesters. If I can get a job at sixteen, then you’re not looking hard enough.

Oh and by the why you people are so EASY to manipulate. Way to go for having a mind of your own. Cudos.

ruffsoft

liz, who corrupts government? Follow the money: banks and large corps use legalized bribes to corrupt politicians. You cannot separate the corporate influence from government policy. If you want to have an uncorrupt government, it is necessary to challenge those who corrupt them: the banks and other large corporations.

As for jobs, McDonalds advertised for 62,000 jobs (near minimum wage) and got 1 million applicants. There are not enough jobs for everyone who wants one.
A person with a $2000 a month mortgage cannot afford to take a low-paying job.

It would advise reading a book like Freefall by Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz to get some insight into how the banks, aided by the repeal of Glass-Steagel and the corruption of both lenders and the rating agencies, created the financial meltdown of 2008.

The banks own the government; to end that, we must first challenge the power of the banks and then reform campaign finance. Only then will politicians be able to serve We the People, instead of the corporations which fund them.

Corporatocracy (Mussolini’s term for fascism) is the merging of the interests of the corporations and the government. That is what we have today. To end it, we must challenge the politicians (we can do this by voting the bums out) and the corporate elites (who cannot be voted out so must be confronted with direct citizen activism,, such as the OWS.

Unless you have met and talked with the protesters, your claims about being smarter and better educated are just empty opinion. Do yourself a favor: spend a day at a OWS camp and get to know the people. You will never forget or regret it. This is the great movement of our day. Don’t be a sideline heckler watching history march past you.

What kind of job can you get at 16? Part time/minimum wage? HOw do you pay the rent? Oh, you live with your parents. Hmnnnnnnnnnnnn.

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OWS Protesters Chant ‘Follow Those Kids!’ As Small Children Try To Go To School On Wall Street

Tiny Tots, Some As Young As 4, Overwhelmed By Hostility, Crush Of Humanity

November 17, 2011 11:45 PM

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