Occupy DC said
12 of its members were arrested Wednesday while protesting outside the offices
of agriculture giant Monsanto as part of a national day to "shut down the
corporations."
The group was
protesting in solidarity with Occupy Portland, which called for a national day
of action to shut down corporations with ties to the American Legislative
Exchange Council. According to Occupy Portland's Call to Action statement, ALEC
"is a prime example of the way corporations buy off legislators and craft
legislation that serves the interests of corporations and not
people."
D.C. Police
Officer William Farr said early Wednesday that about 50 people came to
Monsanto's offices at 13th and I streets and tried to block off the doors. Farr
said that the protesters were on public space and that people who work in the
building were able to enter it.
But later,
protesters blocked the doors to the building -- forming a line around all
entrances -- and scuffled with police outside, Occupiers said on Twitter. Police
threatened demonstrators with arrest if they did not move from the doors,
eventually taking a dozen protesters into custody, Occupiers said. Ten were
arrested for blocking the entrance. Two others were charged with crossing a
police line. Among the arrested was an American University student conducting a
survey on police brutality, they said.
Protesters
chanted phrases including "Monsanto and ALEC, corporations are making us sick."
Some protesters were holding signs reading, “Stop
Corporations.”
Occupier Brian
Eister said the group arrived at the building around 7:20 a.m. Wednesday. He
said the group chose to protest outside of Monsanto, the agriculture and
biotechnological giant that protesters said "is doing more to make a sustainable
world impossible than almost any corporation on the planet." Washington
examiner
The Occupy Wall
Street demonstration started out on September 17 with around a dozen college
students spending days and nights in Zuccotti Park, a private plaza off
Broadway. It has grown sizably; however, both in New York City and elsewhere as
people across the country, from Boston to Los Angeles, display their solidarity
in similar protests. Huffington Post The
demonstrators protest against an unequal distribution of wealth wherein one
percent of the American population benefits from the capitalism system, while
the other ninety-nine percent is exploited. The protesters say they are that
ninety-nine percent. Dowser "We are the 99
percent that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1 percent."
That is the motto of Occupy Wall Street, a "leaderless resistance movement"
aiming to take back democracy in a time of corporate control and increasing
powerlessness of individual people to affect change in government. Neon
Tommy
DT/KA
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