'Occupy fever' spreads to Albany | Business

ALBANY - What began in America's commerce capital of Wall Street has sprouted into the streets of Albany. The Occupy Wall Street movement against corporate greed is gaining strength and Albany has now popped up on their map.

Many of the local protestors showed up by design, but others made it there out of shear serendipity. Some were old, some were young, some were unemployed, some were disenfranchised. Another common thread is that the global economy doesn't seem to be working for them.

"If a man has two billion dollars and we take away a billion, he's still a billionaire," said Tim Branfalt. "If you took away half of my money, you'll have three dollars and fifty cents. That's not right. That's not just. And that's what I think we all have in common here -- a yearning, a fire burning for justice."

What Branfalt began with a simple Facebook message exploded into a significant gathering of civil disobedience in Albany's Townshend Park on Sunday night, modeled after the chaos that overtook Wall Street in New York City.

"Our government is corrupt and our democracy is failing," said Britney Summit-Gil of Troy. "It has never been perfect, but now it is run by corporate greed. All of our politicians are bought. If they make it on the ballot, they've already been bought by somebody and they don't work for us any more."

For people who have dedicated their lives to peaceful protests, professional activists intent on changing society and changing the world, events like this have become satisfying.

"It's appealing to me because it's given us a voice, " said Ira McKinley of Albany. "It shows that I'm not a crazy man. Everything I've been saying all these years is what other people have been saying."

They're going into their third week of demonstrations near Wall Street and protestors say they're just getting started. This weekend as many as 700 were arrested during a march across the Brooklyn Bridge despite no single leader or stated objective.

"The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer," said Summit-Gil. "It's a perpetual motion machine that we're not going to be able to stop unless we get out in the streets and start telling the powers that be what we think."

"Our founding fathers did an act of civil disobedience when they threw the tea into the harbor," said McKinley. "These people are doing the same thing. They're speaking out."

It's unclear at this point whether more protests will take place locally. The New York City demonstration began with fewer than a dozen college students and has mushroomed significantly and spread across the country. Protestors are determined to stay as long as they can.