[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NK7I1uC-ZsA]

The Matthew Filipowicz Show came by and talked to some of the 99% camped out on Dewey Sq. Want to know why we’re here? Listen.

We liked this article in this morning’s Herald so much, we’ll just repost the whole thing, despite the actual number for Friday night’s over-nighters being closer to 60. 

BY Margery Eagan

OK, so only 40 or so mostly 20-somethings braved downpours Friday night to camp out in mud at Boston’s Federal Reserve Bank with Occupy Boston, our local branch of the nationwide group that’s protesting Wall Street greed.

And OK, among them was barefooted Charlie Hatch, 25, of Beverly, whose laminated “Ailments Helped by Seaweed Therapy” listed every disease known to man. And his own seaweed packets were available for purchase for $3.

Remember: The Tea Party started small and kooky, too.

The Occupy Boston crowd had reached nearly 1,000 Friday night. Neither the bad-weather defections nor Charlie’s seaweed passion made him wrong yesterday when he said he showed up because “nobody’s really in control and it’s scary for this country.” It’s particularly scary when you’re 20-something, up to your neck in college loans and unable to find a job.

Boston, in fact, had several modest protests this weekend. Twenty-four protesters were arrested peaceably Friday night at Bank of America’s front door. They were mad both about the bank’s foreclosures and its charging customers $5 per month to use bank-issued debit cards to get access to their own money.

Right to the City, a nationwide advocacy group for those with low incomes, planned a neighborhood sit-it yesterday at a Fowler Street home in Dorchester they claim was foreclosed on illegally by Deutsche Bank. Occupy Boston was planning an evening march to the Hynes convention center.

Something’s happening here and across the country, despite repeated dismissals of these protesters as the usual, disorganized and dizzy suspects in their “Arrest Bush and Cheney” T-shirts. They aren’t focused, critics say. They’re leaderless, tiny in numbers; a “bunch of spoiled brats” said the New York Daily News about the Occupy Wall Street protesters this week.

Well, I’ll take spoiled brats over the rest of us complacent sheep who just lie down and take what’s happened here: that is, a corrupt Wall Street that bankrupted millions of Americans, through no fault of their own. The financiers not only escape prosecution but get bailed out by taxpayers. Now these same financiers are underwriting campaigns of politicians who are supposed to fix this mess to benefit the public, not the high-rollers who stuff their campaign chests.

Without millions more spoiled brats — and their parents — fighting back, I doubt anything will change.

It was widely reported this week that the 12 congressional members of the deficit-fixing so-called super-committee have received at least $41 million in campaign contributions from financiers over the years. And super-committee members have more than two dozen current or former aides who have represented Wall Street as lobbyists.

The Herald reported just yesterday that one Republican consultant expects each side in the Scott Brown Senate race to spend close to $30 million.

I wonder: How much access and influence and even votes can all those millions buy?

Standing in the mud yesterday, Occupy Boston’s Nadeem Mazen, 28, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate and Cambridge small businessman, said he got involved because money is corrupting our system in ways we’ve never, ever seen it do before. Nadeem Mazen is right.

Photos by Tullianography

It was an exciting, busy, and wet day two in Dewey Square. Our camp underwent an incredible transformation, and we’re settling into it nicely. The Food Working Group will continue to serve snacks and salads tonight, but there is nothing else planned. Here’s the schedule for tomorrow:

• 8:30 am – Tactical Working Group meeting
• 10:30 am – Morning General Assembly (GA)
• 3:00 pm – Legal training with the Legal Working Group
• 3:00 pm – Hot meal
• 7:00 pm – Evening GA
• TBD – Squatting and outdoor camping training with the Medical Working Group
• TBD – Facilitator training with Direct Action Working Group (time announced at morning GA
• TBD – The Arts and Culture Working Group would like to begin organizing weekly shows and movie nights; please go to the community center tent if you are interested.

In addition, some of the working groups have announcements:

• Medic volunteers. The Medical Working Group needs more of ’em; please go to the medical tent if you are interested.
• White board. The Direct Action Working Group has a new one up in the section of camp where GA is usually held.
• ACLU. The Legal Working Group will no longer be using their phone number. If you are arrested please call the Massachusetts chapter of the National Lawyers Guild at 617-227-7335; if you are participating in direct action (like a march), please write this number somewhere on your body in indelible ink.
• Pizza. The Food Working Group would really like some donations of it for tomorrow’s hot meal at 3 pm.

Finally, we are in need of the following items:

• Pizza, especially during tomorrow’s hot meal at 3 pm (see above)
  
• Coffee maker
• Other liquid beverages 
• Pallets
• Tiny pad locks
• Hangable Lanterns
• Stakes
• Bunjie cord
• Tents
• Canopies
• Lumber
• Tools
• Water equipment
• Fire extinguisher
• Fire retardant products
• Cough drops with vitamin C
• Niquil

That’s all, for now. Sleep well, Boston, and we’ll see you tomorrow morning in occupied Dewey Square.

Dewey Square’s residents woke up a little soggy this morning as a result of last night’s rain, but no worse for wear.

As the day progressed, the occupiers came together to organize the layout of their new space, planning the logistics of how the various groups’ headquarters and sleeping tents would be best arranged to make this mini-city operational.

Tents were reorganized and adjusted with the food distribution center in the center, and as the Metro’s Steve Annear put it, “The ‘Occupy’ project seems to be one of those things that happens as it goes along.”

While there were concerns about electricity (which the Greenway Conservancy generously helped out with), it was a generally smooth and surprisingly well-organized process, and the infrastructure was about 95% complete by the lead up to the night’s General Assembly.

Message and the list of demands for the protest (mostly revolving around the themes of ending corporate personhood, government accountability and related topics) were the theme of the second half of the General Assembly. Although it was interrupted by a quick downpour, which inspired a call for more ponchos, there were close to 400 people at the meeting.

Photo by Courtney Sacco