May Day protests across U.S. , Liberal Establishment Bonds Photos and videos

Occupy Wall Street protesters smashed windows in Seattle, were chased through New York streets by police on scooters, and clashed with officers in Oakland on Tuesday in May Day demonstrations intended to revive their movement against economic
injustice.

In Oakland, police in riot gear fired tear gas and flash-bang grenades to disperse protesters who they said threw objects at officers and struck them with corrugated metal shields. City officials said marchers also vandalized two banks, a police van and a news vehicle. Nine were arrested.

"I was standing on the outside and the cops came in, snatched two people in the crowd, beat them and put them in the paddy wagon," Occupy Oakland organizer Caitlin Manning said.

Much of the violence and vandalism was attributed to black-clad anarchist elements within the Occupy movement who have been involved in previous confrontations with police, marring what began as a peaceful anti-Wall Street protest movement.

But the clashes they helped spark last year had also served to inject new life into the protests as demonstrators took up the issue of police brutality following running clashes in Oakland and pepper spray incidents elsewhere in the country.

On Tuesday, as thousands gathered for May Day rallies around the country, McGuinness stood in New York's Bryant Park, handing out literature and chatting up passersby in her new role as an intern for the bastion of the liberal establishment that is the broadcast network Democracy Now.

Over the winter and spring, as Occupy Wall Street largely faded from the headlines, activists in the movement kept busy meeting with members of community groups and other pillars of the traditional left. The ties that have been forged between these two distinct outgrowths of the left signal what many describe as a broad change in the Occupy movement. "We recognized that people have been working for the same changes for centuries," said McGuinness. "And it's obvious that we need to listen to them and take a step back from being the only voice for progressive causes."

To hear McGuinness and others tell it, she is just one of a large number of Occupy activists who have recently joined with community organizations and other progressive groups fighting for the "99-percent" long before Occupy Wall Street popularized the phrase.