Anti-corporate protesters display banners and placards as they take part in “Occupy DC” protest against corporation at the Freedom Plaza in Washington, DC, on October 6, 2011. Protests against corporate power in the US took root in Washington on Thursday, with several hundred people occupying Freedom Plaza outside city hall to demand progressive reform. The Stop the Machine rally — midway between the Capitol and the White House — echoed the demands of the Occupy Wall Street movement in New York that Thursday drew more than 5,000 people as well as labor-union support.