The OWS crowd is calling for a general strike tomorrow and for people to refrain from shopping and going to school.

Oh - and they want you to stay away from evil banks too.

The pro-poverty group also plans bank blockades, and an "after party" of evening actions. It looks like a full day ahead for the OWS group.

Bloomberg:

In New York, Occupy Wall Street will join scores of labor organizations observing May 1, traditionally recognized as International Workers' Day. They plan marches from Union Square to Lower Manhattan and a "pop-up occupation" of Bryant Park on Sixth Avenue, across the street from Bank of America's Corp.'s 55-story tower.

"We call upon people to refrain from shopping, walk out of class, take the day off of work and other creative forms of resistance disrupting the status quo," organizers said in an April 26 e-mail.

Occupy groups across the U.S. have protested economic disparity, decrying high foreclosure and unemployment rates that hurt average Americans while bankers and financial executives received bonuses and taxpayer-funded bailouts. In the past six months, similar groups, using social media and other tools, have sprung up in Europe, Asia and Latin America.

[...]

Banks have pooled resources and cooperated to gather intelligence after learning of plans to picket 99 institutions and companies, followed by what organizers have described as an 8 p.m. "radical after-party" in an undetermined Financial District location.

"If the banks anticipate outrage from everyday citizens, it's revealing of their own guilt," said Shane Patrick, a member of the Occupy Wall Street press team. "If they hadn't been participating in maneuvers that sent the economy into the ditch, we wouldn't even be having this conversation."

If banks are "guilty" of anything, it is preparing to resist the vandalism and mayhem caused by the radicals in OWS. Protecting property - and the health and safety of their employees and customers - from the ravages of the modern day Visigoths and anarchists in the OWS movement is simple prudence. Not acknowledging the danger is either disingenuous or naive.

I'm sure the usual tactics of trying to provoke the police into a violent response will be used, and the media will report every demonstration as proof of the "power" of this movement - even though the numbers of protestors are likely to be as paltry as they were over the winter.

In short, we've seen it all before. And we're likely to keep seeing it as long as the press gives outsized attention to these reprobates and miscreants who resent their betters and have nothing to do except complain about how miserable their lives are.