"Occupy Wall Street, Occupy State Street, Occupy Everything and Never Give It Back!"

That's the chant at one point in this video — shot by Meade and me, edited by me — of the Occupy Madison protest at the Capitol Square today here in Madison, Wisconsin. The Dane County Farmers' Market was going on at the same time and, as you'll see, one farmer-vendor takes action.



ADDED: These protesters have a variety of topics, but they keep coming back to Monsanto and GMO. At 1:50, when the chant is "Organic feed/Is what we need," a Farmers' Market vendor — who has walked right up to them — retorts "What we need is for you to get out of here!" She continues: "We can't make any money with you guys yelling around here and scaring the customers! Get out of here!"



We can hear a protester respond: "Aw, the customers. Yeah, baby." There are a few other negative-sounding words from the protesters, which I can't make out, other than the one who taunts her for wearing a Bucks jacket. (What's wrong with liking the Milwaukee Bucks in Madison? Did he confuse the Bucks with the Bulls?)

But within 5 seconds, the protesters begin walking off, with a few (female) cries of "We're sorry" and "I apologize." I'm not sure how sincere they were. It felt kind of like George Harrison saying "Sorry we hurt your field, mister" in "Hard Day's Night."

Anyway, it was good of them to stop damaging the farmers' business and amusingly out of line with "Occupy Everything and Never Give It Back!" They gave it back. Thanks. You know, there's a real problem with this Occupy [Your City] protest format: It doesn't have an exit strategy. You come, you conquer, and then time passes, protesters get dirty and ugly, internal divisions crack them up, the nearby residents get disgusted, the local businesses get mad, and then what? There's isn't going to be a revolution. It's not Egypt. In the end, they'll have to break up and go home. Or hope the cops come in and bust them up so they can end with a bang.