I attended the “End the Fed” rally in downtown NY on 11/22.  Here’s what happened:

• I show up around 12:00.  I walk down to Liberty St. from Penn Station
• There were about 5 people there with signs complaining about the cold
• The area was completely dead so we hung out on the Chase Bank steps
• More people begin to show up
• The cops go zipping backwards down one-way streets to see what’s going on
• Eventually we decide to walk down the the Seaport as we have about 25 people and nothing is going on where we were
• We march and chant our way to the seaport
• More people show up
• We march back to the federal reserve
• We decide to march to WTC.  Cops on scooters follow us.
• At WTC the truthers start talking about 9/11
• We march back to the Fed
• More people show up
• We march to a building south of the Fed and hang out on the steps making speeches
• We march back to the fed
• We decide to march up Broadway.  Cops on scooters repeatedly ask us to watch out for pedestrians, we comply.  The cops do a good job blocking traffic for us.  I’d estimate we’re about 150 strong
• We march up to 20 something street and stop in a park
• We continue to make speeches
• Things look like they’re breaking up so I thank the police, get a burger and march up to the Port Authority bus terminal around 4:00PM

We handed out a lot of flyers.  I handed out several “Freedom in Chains!  Dissent in Cages!”flyers to the protesters involved.  I got to talk a little with them about left libertarianism and ways they can work outside of the system to fix things.  Some of them thought I was a nut job.  People don’t seem to get it when you tell them to just break the law.  I saw several MLP people that I hadn’t seen in a while.  I don’t recall their names, but they brought bubble guns and filled the frosty air with frozen soap spheres.  We handed out a bunch of flyers and filled some clipboards with emails of protesters.

Here are some slogans I heard and saw during the rally and my views on them:

• Wake Up!  End the Fed! - Rhythmically it is important to have a precursor to the group chant so people know when to come it.  That being said, “Wake Up” seems like talking down to people.
• I don’t know but I’ve been told.  Our money is not backed by gold. - Interesting
• It’s not federal and there are no reserves! - I liked this one
• The Federal Reserve is as federal as Federal Express - I liked this too
• Throw out the moneychangers - Nice.  Bankers = scum.
• No more bailouts - We should have worked this angle more.  Most of the people we met didn’t even know what the fed was, but many were opposed to the bailout.
• Ron Paul! - this event was mostly Campaign for Liberty so this is to be expected.  It’s also very easy to dump your hope into one person.
• Sound Money Now! - Pretty good, but I think the people hearing it may not know what it means.  That’s where the flyers come in.

Here is a pretty good video compilation of what went on:

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