Next stop for Occupy protesters: Rose Parade
Update-I did not want to paste too much from the Times. It must be noted that Occupy has negotiated a deal with pasadena PD, they march last behind all the floats.
By Catherine Saillant and Richard Winton, Los Angeles Times
December 22, 2011
The Rose Parade has long been a magnet for protesters looking for global attention for their causes and grievances.
Native Americans once threw a balloon filled with red paint onto the parade route to represent the spilling of Indian blood. AIDS activists interrupted the parade by staging a sit-in. One year, a Pasadena mayor wore a “Tournament of Racists” t-shirt to protest what he saw as the parade’s lack of ethnic diversity.
But this year, Tournament of Roses organizers and Pasadena police are gearing up for something different as Occupy protesters, fresh from their encampments across the country, plan to converge on Pasadena. Like activists in the past, they are hoping to widen their impact with an estimated domestic TV audience of 50 million people and about 700,000 people along the route.