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April 23rd, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda
This Earth Day weekend, #Occupy Wall Street loosed a series of colorful environmental protests; the movement aimed to push back against a ritual that it views as neutered and grossly commercialized. To some, it was a bid to reignite the sort of activist spirit that birthed Earth Day in the first place.
On Saturday, OWS staged a ‘melt-in’ at Grand Central Station, where New York City holds its official Earth Day festivities: there are booths for various green product hockers, organic food stands, and a series of talks sponsored by Toshiba, ConEd, and others.
But the action began in the middle of Grand Central itself, where a couple dozen of protesters spontaneously collapsed to the floor in the middle of the main concourse. They were immediately swarmed by police, and warned that they’d be arrested if they didn’t stand up—typical of Occupy actions these days, there was at least one officer present for every protester, and many were decked out in full-on riot gear.
Back on their feet, the protesters rallied and began bellowing a few of the movement’s best-known chants. Inside those cavernous halls, the small throng sounded more like an spirited mob. The protesters moved just outside the concourse, where they disrupted a panel talk, denouncing its corporate ties and naming Toshiba in a cycle of chants. The group then marched through the series of booths and vendors, to cheers and applause from participants (and a lone ‘thumbs down’ from a surly-looking passerby).
Brian Merchant/CC BY 3.0
The protest was small and brief, but enthusiastic. There were no arrests.
The next day, Earth Day proper, #Occupy again sprung into action. First up was an action termed the ‘Jazz Funeral for the Death of the Earth as we Know It’, which was a lot more fun than the tongue-in-cheek title let on. A crowd of forty or so occupiers gathered around a BP gas station in downtown Manhattan, in the pouring rain, and railed against the ongoing injustices resulting from the Gulf Spill (it was the disaster’s two-year anniversary).
Some protesters covered themselves in black makeup, and others carried posters with pictures of oil-soaked wildlife. Imani Brown, a New Orleans native and longtime Occupy organizer, issued a brief polemic against BP, and expounded on the extensive damage done by the spill. Then, a poncho-covered jazz band—including trumpet, tuba, and marching drums—began playing a dirge, and the crowd began heading north to Union Square. The band eventually picked up the tempo, and protesters dance/marched up Broadway, turning heads and pulling a small police contingent in tow.
Brian Merchant/CC BY 3.0
After a rally at Union Square, where the cluster of dedicated protesters braved increasingly stormy conditions to listen to speakers discuss the less-spotlighted social justice elements of environmentalism—how pollution, waste, climate change all hurt the poor the most—they took off eastward, eventually halting at the Highline. There, the occupiers dropped a banner to protest the proposed Spectra gas pipeline that would pump natural gas obtained from fracking into New York City.
Brian Merchant/CC BY 3.0
All told, it was a promising run in Occupy Wall Street’s fledgling campaign to underscore the link between the planet’s woes and the 1%. The crowds weren’t anywhere near as large as the pre-eviction OWS marches of 2011, but there was a vigor and creativity on display that was enough to inspire hope that Occupy may yet become a powerful force for environmental justice. The spring is young, after all.
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