Okay .. I feel like a frickin' spy ...
I arrived at the demonstration site during which time their website's calendar said they'd be there .. and no one was there. I waited awhile, but by midway through the time they should have been there, no one showed, so I left.
Later in the evening I visited their camp. They were there. I looked at their "information" table, but there were no handouts for me to take. I walked further, to the corner of the street (they were camped on one corner of a fairly busy intersection on the edge of the city hall grass). There a man came up to me and introduced himself.
I asked about the action, and he said that was Thursday (though even today the website still says it was scheduled for yesterday, Friday).
He began to tell me all about the reason they were there. To sum it up, it's all about bad corporate behavior, from the securities frauds and banks not using their bailout and charging excessive transaction fees through health care insurance company everythings to off-shoring ... if you could imagine anything a corporation could do that would end up harming individuals, that's what it's all about.
He then gave me some literature and we talked some more.
Then I went to the orientation that was underway. A woman was talking to a couple of new people and I sat down with them. They all introduced themselves. The woman, a speech therapist who had once done quite well financially, was presenting the hand signals used to convey approval, disapproval, wrap it up, point of clarification, etc. during general assemblies. She said it was to keep verbal interruptions and noise interruptions of who was speaking to a minimum. Even applause is replaced by "spirit fingers", just to keep noise distractions down.
After orientation, which was orientation to behavior in general assembly meetings, they had a general assembly. I sat through it for about an hour. A leader (not sure his title, they all have titles designating their assigned responsibilities at the camp) directed the format. It was mostly about mundane camp management tactics and mechanics. A presentation by each titled person responsible for each element of their "city" gave a presentation. This included those in charge of actions, and they presented the action for the next day, and how to work well with the police and site security people.
I left before the meeting finished, as it was cold .. and quite frankly I'm bored by admin.
I did talk with a number of people prior to the general assembly. They come from all over the personal appearance and philosophy map, and it's clear that not everyone there would approve of every measure of the "99 Percent Declaration" handout they gave me.
I didn't see anyone who was stereotypically '60s hippie or the like. Most looked and spoke fairly average. What did stand out was that they were dressed in very casual keep-warm clothing, and I couldn't really tell who was wearing somewhat raggish clothes because that kept them warm and absorbed the dirt of camping well or who was just really poor and out of work.
Some people I spoke with were still working, had tried to change careers, but did so late in life and no company would hire them.
A number still had jobs, and one titled person who spoke had been gone for awhile due to job and family responsibilities.
Not once did anyone mention "socialism" or "left wing" this or that. However, at one point in listening to the first man he said that both the right and left are bought and paid for in Washington by corporate money, and he added that one is completely bought and the other is almost completely bought. He didn't say which was "almost" completely bought, but I would assume he meant the left.
I told him my main concern that affects my small business more than anything is the off-shoring and in-sourcing, and I alluded to the rogue elephants of capitalism, that a number had taken things to extremes in this regard and they needed to be reigned in. His response was that they all do it, and that there are far too many of them to single them out, and that it's simply the nature of the corporate construct to behave badly toward individuals, workers and consumers, in the name of greed.
So it's clear that they see the matter as we pretty much figured, that it's corporations-politicians vs workers-consumers, and the corporations-politicians must change in the name of fairness.
Again, I was given two handouts.
One was a basic one-page "What is Occupy". It answered that question, presented why you should care, how America is oppressive (merely alluding to an incident of police brutality during a demo), and what you can do (write your rep, join an Occupy committe, info about the website and when the next action was).
I had asked a few what they thought needed to be done. They really didn't know. The first man said we are unorganized, merely following website guidelines that tells about national Occupy and how to set up and manage a tent city and do actions and stay connected. But he also said that so many people had asked about "what do we actually do about the problems" that they're forming an Occupy brain-storming committe to discuss the how to's.
However, their second handout, The 99 Percent Declaration" made it very clear that the 99% people (whom I thought were fairly close to being one and the same with the Occupy people or so closely affiliated there might as well be a one-to-one membership alliance between the two) most certainlly have a plan of action.
The 99 Percent Declaration presents their plan to create a National General Assembly of the 99% comprised of two (elected) delegates from each congressional district -- one male and one female -- to meet on 7/4/12 in Philadelphia. They will create a redress of grievances to represent the desires of all of the 99% "party"? to be submitted to Congress, The President, and the Supreme Court.
As to the content of the redress of grievances, the handout contained those suggested by the working group, which are:
Elimination of the corporate state.
Rejection of the Citizens United Case
Elimination of Private Contributions to Politicians (can't also be employed by a company while serving in office, no corporate funding of campaigns ...)
Effect Term Limits
Enact a fair tax code
Healthcare for all
Protection for the planet (anti-pollution)
National Debt Reduction
Jobs for all American (including some goernment jobs programs like WPA and CCC)
Student Loan Forgiveness
Immigration reform, including passage of the DREAM Act (and other amnesty type things)
Ending the perpetual war for profit
Reforming public education
Ending Outsourcing
End currency manipulation
Banking and securities reform
Foreclosure moratorium
Ending the Federal Reserve Bank
Abolish the electoral college
End the war in Afghanistan
Each of these points had a paragraph that went into a little bit of detail.
Clearly this is mostly a left-leaning proposal with just a few centrist points (ending outsourcing). In actual function it would add support for Obama and Dems running for Congress.
I guess I wasn't too surprised by anything, except for how normal most of the people were -- no radicals behaving radically.
It's really all about a strong reaction to being burned in some way by corporations, corporations that simply aren't responsible to the people like our government is supposed to be.
However, their points on immigration reform and the like indicate that they sometimes don't see some of the problems that contribute to their plight, and that they're mostly a left-wing reaction.
I ended up wondering if their presentation of left-wing was the same as representing the American underdog.
