Occupy Wall Street Takes Refuge in NY Office Building, Wishes Media Would Stop Asking About Goals

Last week CNNMoney.com anchor Poppy Harlow received an exclusive tour of Occupy Wall Street’s New York office and showed that while the protesters are gone from Zuccotti Park, they haven’t stopped practicing their left-wing brand of activism.

The office, which is located in the Manhattan Financial District, just a few blocks from their former encampment at Zuccotti Park, is being paid for by an anonymous donor, according to an Occupy spokesperson. One volunteer, Megan Hayes, told Harlow that the office is not a headquarters and that “we would still get the same amount of work done with or without this office space.” But as Harlow noted, the office space has allowed the Occupy movement to take on a more professional look with a finance committee handling donations, a communications team managing the information flow and a housing group that helps protesters who have no place to go after being evicted from Zuccotti Park.

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Another volunteer tried to defend the space by telling Harlow that “People recognized that there was a need for some sort of space to get work done that requires Internet, that requires electricity, that requires security and safety, that requires indoor space.” That seems to contradict what Hayes told Harlow about getting work done with or without the space, but then again the Occupy movement is full of contradictions. When asked about where the movement will be in six months and what its goals are, volunteer Brett Goldberg told Harlow that “It would be wonderful if the media stopped looking for demands because I think you will be unsatisfied.” Added Goldberg, “Many of us in the movement don’t want a list of demands because that is empowering someone else to create a change for us.” In other words, if they told the media what their real goals were, it would show that they are nothing more than a group of hard-core leftists who have no use for capitalism or America and think that socialism is a far better solution, but they can’t sell that idea to the general public. In fact if they want to be taken seriously, they should become more like the Tea Party. They should behave responsibly, clean up after themselves, run candidates with a clear agenda and try to win seats in Congress. Instead, the Occupy movement has been rife with violence, anti-Semitism, disruption of the lives of ordinary people and small businesses, while so far failing to come up with a coherent plan or candidates running proudly under the Occupy banner. CNN had a golden opportunity to ask some tough questions of the movement with regard to funding, organizational support and what their real goals are but instead just gave them a pass while peeking behind the door.