Money Clash Divides Occupy Protesters

'I've seen this coming for a while': protester
By Neal Colgrass,  Newser Staff
Posted Nov 14, 2011 6:32 PM CST
Financial Division Leads to Clash in Occupy Wall Street
Rabbi Chaim Gruber checks phone messages as he walks through the encampment at Zuccotti Park on Monday, Nov. 14, 2011, in New York.   (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)

Occupy Wall Street seems to have its own 1%: Over the past few days, a fracture has opened between leaders of the movement who control its cash and tent-dwellers who are feeling rather frosty and forgotten, MSNBC reports. The divide led to yelling and jockeying at a general assembly meeting yesterday about financial transparency. “I’ve seen this coming for a while, the occupier versus non-occupier,” one protester told a crowd in the camp.

By that description, "occupiers" are outsiders who speak up at Occupy money meetings; "non-occupiers" are the disenfranchised protesters who see little money being spent to keep them clean and happy on cold November nights. "We need direct access to monetary funds … to metro cards, to laundry money,” says one. For now, an Occupy PR man says the airing of grievances is a good thing: “It’s a valuable lesson in how crucial working together and consensus is.” (More Occupy Wall Street stories.)

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