One of our favorite images from today's protest was a fabulous visual representation of Goldman Sachs, depicted as writer Matt Taibbi so richly described in Rolling Stone:

"The world's most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money."

Every couple of minutes the squid would wrap its tentacles around a globe on a stick, adding to the hilarity of the image. Other rally visuals included with "wanted" posters for Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein, as well as other handmade signs expressing taxpayers' desire for Congress to take immediate action on real financial reform:

Check out a photo slideshow of the protest:



Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein memorably said in an interview that he and the team at Goldman are "doing God's work." At today's protest, Reverend Tony Pierce, Board President of the Central Illinois Organizing Project, made a point to set the record straight on what God's work really is.

"When Goldman Sachs and Mr. Blankfein crashed our economy by inflating the housing bubble, that wasn't God's work. When they took $10 billion in bailouts--instead of using that money to stop foreclosures, to help the homeless and to rebuild local economies, when they instead used that money to enrich themselves--that's not God's work.

"When they're paying themselves $23 billion in bonuses, that's not God's work. In fact, I don't even believe by that action they even know what God's work is."

Public Citizen President Robert Weissman rallied protesters with his stark truth on how bailed out banks and the financial industry continue to try to buy Congress and fight reform:

Even though they've crashed the national economy, even though they've destroyed their own industry, even though they've taken trillions of dollars from public support to stay in business, nothing has changed in the way that Wall Street does business: They are still showering money on Congress.

Weissman revealed to the crowd that Wall Street has deluged roughly 2.5 times more money on members of Congress who sit on the financial services & banking committee than other members of Congress. This money results in bigtime payouts from Congress and the Treasury Department. "Because after all, you don't go to Wall Street to do God's work, you go to Wall Street for money," said Weissman.

The protest ended with the delivery of a poster-sized letter addressed to Blankfein proposing use their anticipated $23 billion bonus pool to help families facing foreclosure.

For a Twitterific recap of the action, check out our live tweets from the ground: