COMMENTARY
The Occupy Movement has to be a bit careful that the argument is not between OWS and the police ... but this is what the images that are spreading virally is showing. The deeper reality is that the confrontation is between Occupy Movement protesters who have issues with the catastrophic imbalance between those that control wealth and power and the rest of society. Some people in the rest of society have been adversely affected by the greedy kleptcratic behavior of greedy bankers, entrepreneurs, politicians and others who have operated on the premise that greed is good, and as long as I get mine, then anything goes. The result is a socio-economic compact that has broken and a developing firestorm of protest.

But the storm of protest is not between protester and police ... it is against a system and those that control the system. It is significant that those that control the system have been conspicuous by their absence, and I would imagine that in due course, if the leaders of the infamous 1% do not start a process that engages in meaningful dialog in response to the protesters' concern, then there will be an escalation that the leaders would prefer to avoid.

Peter Burgess

Protester bloodied in Zuccotti Park around noon, 17th November 2011

Scenes from Occupy Wall Street's Day of Action

Police officers shove demonstrators affiliated with the Occupy Wall Street movement as they block the entrance to the New York Stock Exchange on Broad Street today. Two days after the encampment that sparked the global Occupy protest movement was cleared by authorities, demonstrators marched through New York's financial district and promised a national day of action with mass gatherings in other cities. / Mary Altaffer/The Associated Press

IMAGE Police officers arrest a demonstrator affiliated with the Occupy Wall Street movement today in New York City. Hundreds of Occupy demonstrators marched through New York's financial district and staged sit-ins in the streets near the New York Stock Exchange, promising a national day of action with mass gatherings in other cities. / Mary Altaffer/The Associated Press

NEW YORK — Today's Day of Action marking Occupy Wall Street's first two months was planned before police cleared out the tents, sleeping bags and generators in Zuccotti Park early Tuesday. But it took on more urgency as a reaction to police crackdowns at Occupy sites across the country and to show the movement has legs beyond its base camp.

The plan this morning was to converge on Wall Street as bankers and traders arrived for work. This afternoon, activists are gathering at 16 major transportation hubs around the five boroughs. They will take their protest of corporate greed and economic inequality to subway riders before a major rally with labor unions at Foley Square near City Hall.

As they marched through lower Manhattan this morning, protesters were met with a heavy police presence in the financial district.

Barricades and police lines kept the chanting crowds away from their main target — the New York Stock Exchange — and traffic was at a standstill as the crowds clogged the streets around Broadway. Several protesters who sat in the street were dragged away and arrested and skirmishes with police broke out in several spots.

By midmorning, the activists had fanned out throughout the financial district in pockets of protest, near Trinity Church, outside a Chase Bank and back at Zuccotti Park.

Just after noon, helmeted NYPD officers entered the park to a chorus of boos and removed several metal barriers that had been stockpiled. A few protesters yelled 'How does it feel to be a corporate dog?'

One was Vinson Weeks, a state parks employee joining Occupy Wall Street for the first time today because he was on furlough. The furlough highlighted for him the schism between the few haves and the many have-nots.

'The government at this point is so top-heavy,' said Weeks, a Kings Park, Long Island, resident who works at Jones Beach. 'Taking away my pay as a mechanic? How is that fair?'

He said he was also inspired to show up by the police crackdown and believed it has energized the movement.

'They cleared them out but we're just going to come back stronger,' he said.

Moments later, police stopped a large rental truck on Broadway near the park, removed the driver and checked the cargo. An NYPD officer drove the truck away, with several protesters in pursuit.

When it was parked south of Exchange Plaza, a woman who was in the truck acknowledged it contained military tents for Occupy Wall Street — items banned from the park — but insisted police had no right to search the truck or take it.

As a crowd formed, dozens of cops lined the street near the truck. One protester scuffled with an officer, was wrestled to the ground and led away in handcuffs.