200 protesters arrested nationwide, but there’s calm in SLC.
Thousands of Occupy Wall Street demonstrators and their supporters took to the streets around the nation Thursday, including in Salt Lake City, to mark two months since the movement’s birth and to signal they aren’t ready to quit, despite the breakup of many of their encampments by police.
In downtown Salt Lake City, about 60 protesters and the curious gathered in front of the Goldman Sachs office at 222 S. Main St. for a noon street theater performance.
Salt Lake Occupiers Deb Henry and Alexis Baigue portrayed Lady Liberty and the "fat cat who murdered democracy and the American dream" in a 12-minute play written by fellow activist Jesse Fruhwirth.
"Ms. Liberty" or "Lib" — as Fat Cat called her — scolded him about Goldman Sachs paying a $40 million settlement for "its sins of manipulating the market during the dot.com bubble."
"Oh that, don’t get the wrong idea about that pay-off," Fat Cat replied.
"I know you little people couldn’t possibly understand, but $40 million dollars is like paying for the express lane on the freeway to us."
Fruhwirth said Thursday’s production, in the works since mid-October, is scene four of a five-act play called "Why Isn’t Anyone Helping Her?!" "Her" symbolizes American democracy.
Occupy SLC’s mock trial, for which there was no verdict, drew a small crowd, many of whom had camped in Pioneer Park until police cleared the area last weekend after the death of a homeless man, due possibly to a drug overdose or carbon monoxide poisoning from a propane stove.
Tara Bueche, a real estate agent who is part of Occupy SLC, said that since Saturday’s shutdown and arrests, the movement here has been regrouping and finding new ways to direct its energies.
"Everything that happened (at Pioneer Park) really shined a lot of light on the issues of the homeless," Bueche said. "While that wasn’t our original goal, that was a positive that came out of it, and we’re not going to let that go back into darkness."
Occupy SLC continues to have a tent presence in downtown at Gallivan Center.
