I'm from a small town about 3 hours north of LA. Our Occupy for the first few weeks was some marches and standing in from of BofA in this town of 30K. The 99% turned out and horns were a honking like crazy. Never saw a single finger salute. One Saturday we had 400 marching around the downtown shopping area. Amazing, even our local right leaning paper and TV station had positive stories. Occupy was here and folks had stated to express their anger and discontent. "The Banks got bailed out, we got sold out" rang through the town. Then a week ago some young men decided to start a camp in front of the Courthouse. Now camps have been set up before, like in opposition to wars. However, after a few days the homeless started to take over the camp. Hey, free food. Some one broke an arm while trying to stop a thief in the middle of the night. Well, things have been downhill ever since. The group who had been organizing the marches has split up over whether or not to "support" the camp. The campers have little knowledge of the OWS issues. I tried talking to one and he was trying to get me to believe it all the Feds fault. Sadly, he was to strung out to have a rational discussion with on any topic.
I'm mad at having had OWS highjacked by these kids. I see them as victims of Corporatism that refuses to properly fund mental health and other services that could get these kids off the street and leading better lives.
OWS has changed the conversation I just hope the RW doesn't get to change the conversation again. It seems to me that what's happening in so many camps is really a demonstration of how big some of our social problems are.
I'm looking for the next phase of Occupy to join. I think it might just be to get our good progressive Congress rep re-elected.
On The Night Occupy Los Angeles Tore Itself In Two
I'm from a small town about 3 hours north of LA. Our Occupy for the first few weeks was some marches and standing in from of BofA in this town of 30K. The 99% turned out and horns were a honking like crazy. Never saw a single finger salute. One Saturday we had 400 marching around the downtown shopping area. Amazing, even our local right leaning paper and TV station had positive stories. Occupy was here and folks had stated to express their anger and discontent. "The Banks got bailed out, we got sold out" rang through the town. Then a week ago some young men decided to start a camp in front of the Courthouse. Now camps have been set up before, like in opposition to wars. However, after a few days the homeless started to take over the camp. Hey, free food. Some one broke an arm while trying to stop a thief in the middle of the night. Well, things have been downhill ever since. The group who had been organizing the marches has split up over whether or not to "support" the camp. The campers have little knowledge of the OWS issues. I tried talking to one and he was trying to get me to believe it all the Feds fault. Sadly, he was to strung out to have a rational discussion with on any topic.
I'm mad at having had OWS highjacked by these kids. I see them as victims of Corporatism that refuses to properly fund mental health and other services that could get these kids off the street and leading better lives.
OWS has changed the conversation I just hope the RW doesn't get to change the conversation again. It seems to me that what's happening in so many camps is really a demonstration of how big some of our social problems are.
I'm looking for the next phase of Occupy to join. I think it might just be to get our good progressive Congress rep re-elected.