On Monday, Day 17 of the Occupy Wall Street demonstration, about a hundred protesters, dressed as corporate zombies with white face paint, ambled past the New York Stock Exchange clutching fistfuls of Monopoly money.
This march of the undead was meant to demonstrate the soullessness of Wall Street that is, ahem, eating the American middle class alive. Another reason was to bring a lighter side to the protest, which was anything but fun this weekend when 700 protesters were arrested during a march on the Brooklyn Bridge.
The Village Voice caught up with a Zombie officiando named Matt in Zucotti Park who put the zombie protesters in their proper sociopolitical context:
"Zombies have been used throughout history to point out poignant sociopolitical issues we have in this society," he explained. "The guy who started zombie movies in general, George A. Romero, all of his movies have been sociopolitical commentary ranging from sexism and racism in the '50s, commercialism in the '60s and '70s with Dawn of the Dead, then right up to imperialism and military escalation with Day of the Dead. So I think it's really poignant to me, although people maybe see it as a little bit silly."
Meanwhile, Occupy Wall Street protests are popping up in other cities across the world. According to The New York Daily News, demonstrations in the United States are scheduled for Boston, Atlanta, Denver, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Baltimore and Boise
And overseas, Meanwhile, activists are organizing in Prague; Frankfurt; Toronto; Melbourne, Australia; Tokyo, and Cork, Ireland.
More than 1,000 people are signed up to march on the London Stock Exchange on Saturday, October 15.
