Clancy at Occupy Wall Street

Since Anthony and I were in NYC on Sunday, we decided to go down to Zuccotti Park, formerly the site of Occupy Wall Street. Of course, there were no longer tents there--the police had done away with that some time ago--but there were police. Lots of police. Though there were only a handful of officers visible, the mobile command tower and the numerous vans parked in the area provided the park with that  after-dinner totalitarian flavor that American will most definitely come to taste more and more.

People were apparently free to walk through the park, but I did not see anyone actually do this. Everyone kept to the edges. As Anthony and I skirted our way around, we came across a single protester--an old cop. He stood alone, in uniform, with a cardboard sign telling us that we should watch Inside Job.

The true sign was what we found around the New York Stock Exchange. Surrounded by rows and rows of police barricades, the building loomed not like an impregnable fortress, but like a maltheistic temple. Indeed, there was an unholy reverence in the place, and I half-expected, if I squinted hard enough, to read these words above the entrance: Lasciate ogne speranze, voi ch'entrate.