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Foreclose Wall Street, Not My HomeWall Street, Thursday 25th September 2008
This was the last place I had expected to find myself. My film Yellow Gate Women had been selected as one of the entries for The New York Independent Film and Video Festival. I had come to experience the craic* of the New York scene. And it was an amazing experience. We were in the East Village. Inside the festival cinema there was a zealous and missionary passion to promote and encourage independent filmmakers. We all pushed the possibility that the iron fist of the big distributors and monopolistic film companies could be broken. This would lead the way towards real freedom of expression. Meanwhile, outside raged the fury of the media. The headlines of the newspapers, the illuminated rolling news in Times Square, and the booming bulletins of CNN chanted “crash after financial crash,” and “Socialism for the Rich.”
I had never expected such a word to be heard on
American TV to describe American capitalism. Two little stories on the personal level told me by new friends. I met them at the festival. One woman, instead of drawing her pension, chose to invest it. Now it was lost . Another woman had been employed in a legal firm dealing with bankruptcies. She was laid off. The office phone had not rung for six months. The collapse was so total. On the Wednesday I had strolled down Wall Street as a tourist. I was looking out for CEOs jumping from high windows. (There weren’t any, of course. All the buildings now have sealed windows. At least one lesson learned from 1929.) I saw one lone elderly man with pencilled slogans on a bit of torn cardboard: “Food stamps For The Rich: Get Them Working.”
As I was talking to him, my cellphone rang. Code Pink was inviting me to a spontaneous demo in this very spot the next day. So on Thursday I hived myself down there. I found a swarm of angry NewYorkers of every size, shape and political tendency. They handed out yellow slips of printed slogans to us to keep and pass on.
We wagged our finger behind the Code Pink banner: “You Bought It, You Broke It.” The cops looked worried. They did not know where this was going to end. We marched on to Wall Street, taking it over. We completely blocked the entrance to the Stock Exchange. This was at 4pm in the middle of the working week. At that very moment the debate was going on in Washington. Thousands were deluging their Congress members to block the bailout. I had a brief déja-vu of old newsreels. I saw the storming of the Winter Palace in St Petersburg, or whatever.
The might of the mighty dollar and US power will
never be the same again.
Back in Ireland the following week -- fury from the world that the Irish Government is guaranteeing all deposits in Irish Banks to the tune of $400 billion. Freedom at last, we own everything now! We pay, we own. No more homeless. Move into the empty houses. Bombard the health service. Take back the gas from Shell. And let’s all live happy ever after. Margaretta
D’Arcy | |
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Fall
2008
There I
was in my pink jacket. I was linking up with the antiwar women’s
groups, Code Pink and Grannies for Peace. We were bellowing in front
of the world media: “We Pay We Own, Foreclose Wall Street Not My
Home.” 
We roared “Bailout Is Bullshit” (with a picture
of a bull and a steaming turd). “No Deal For Wall Street, New Deal
For Main Street!” “Housing Not Bailout, Schools Not Bailout, Levees
Not Bailout, Healthcare Not Bailout!” 