Occupation, well not really

The Occupy Seattle protest is a part of what is know known as the Occupy Movement, it and the others around the country are designed to give the appearance of a sustained popular movement. It is a false impression.

The Occupy movement is a rag tag collection of leftist groups using the very real popular disaffection of the American people with the TARP and other forms of corporate bailouts (something the Tea Parties protested against years ago) to promote their ideals of “Change”.

I went to the Occupy Seattle Protest on both Friday and Saturday. On Friday I learned they planned to have some Unions come and join them, they also planned at least two acts of civil disobedience. I guess I could start by point out the difference between a Union and non-union protest…

Union	Non-Union

On Friday there were about 60 people

Today it was about 3,000* Unions, Socialist Communist and Anarchist (*this estimate is from the live stream)

I made a sign and joined the march,

“In America the only thing keeping me down is the this man” (points @ me)

“I too am the 99%”

The front says its about personal responsibility, the 1% does not keep me from being what I want to be, the 1% does not keep me down, only I can do that. We’ve had the rich (and the poor) with us always, yet still great people have risen up from the ranks of the “99%”. Even slaves have risen to greatness. No its not a them v us thing here, it’s a me me me thing here.

The back was meant to point out that within the true 99% most do not wish to overthrow the system. This movement only truly represent a small portion of the 99%.

 

There has been some talk that the Tea Party and the Occupy movement have a lot in common. At first I rejected this ideal but now that I’ve been there I have to say it’s true, to a point.

Update: Occupy (Mark Taylor-Canfield) and the Tea Party (Keli Carender) together at last on “The Bill Radke Treatment” (25 min audio).

The Tea Party wanted to stop the bailouts, to let the natural ebb and flow of the free market do its job, not to overthrow the system. The fact is the real anger should be at the politicians who rigged the system, as well as the corrupt people who bribed them.

Yet there are very real differences in the goals

and in the reasons for their anger.

In short we agree on the problem not the solution.

Now on to The first planned acts of civil disobedience, a march to and take over of Chase bank @ 3:00, but wait! its Saturday the bank closes at 1:00, oh well

That didn’t work, so they marched up Pike, down Pine, then back up Pike. Holding a sit in at Pike and 2nd for about 20 minutes then back to Westlake Park to sit in on 4th Ave.

The second act of disobedience is the setting up of tents in defiance of park rules and a deal made with the city allowing them to use City Hall for this purpose.

The park closes at 10 it is expected that the police will order the protesters  to leave then, and arrest anyone who doesn’t leave and remove their tents. I couldn’t stay for that but it’s on a live stream

Before I go, here are a few of my favorite pictures.

I made a short video from Friday, still need to edit todays footage I’ll update when its done.

Update: A quick hula-hoop video, just for fun.

Update: I forgot to link to the Flickr set.

Update: The city didn’t move in to take down the tents until Monday morning, 8 arrest over 150 tents removed, no reports on the smell.