I just got back from checking in on the Occupy Bend camp down on Wall Street.
Things are in full swing as the loosely organized group prepares for its rally and march tomorrow, which begins at noon at Brandis Square (corner of Greenwood and Newport avenues) in accordance with other such protests happening around the country.
Occupy Bend protestor Kyle Jackson was the first person to set up a tent on the piece of land that the city OKed for the protestors and he says he’ll be one of the last, if not the last, to leave.
“What we’re wondering now is if we have the support to actually occupy [the spot]. We may transition from camping to actually occupying,” says Jackson.
The city has said that if the protestors remain beyond tomorrow, they’d be considered trespassers.
Also at the site this afternoon was Meg Brookover, who has been protesting the U.S. involvement in wars for the past five years with the local Code Pink group on Fridays at Brandis Square. Her group will be there tomorrow for the rally.
After the march, protestors will be meeting at the camp to further discuss issues. It’s tough to estimate the amount of people who will show up for tomorrow’s event, but they’re guessing as many as 600 could turn out. Others think it could be closer to 1,000.
This article appears in Oct 27 – Nov 2, 2011.
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The occupiers should have all the support of the community! Most of us are of the 99% and we all need to make our presence known.
Lets see, given Bends population and assuming they are the 99% there should be over 70,000 people there tomorrow!
99% of the 99% have no clue why we are in the mess that we are in.
If the Federal Reserve didn’t encourage speculation with cheap money and our politicans didn’t “bail out” Wall Street, we wouldn’t have the problems that we have now.
Blaming Wall Street (or anyone else for that matter) for accepting benefits from government is a lot like blaming a toddler for taking too many sips out of their fathers glass of scotch on the rocks. There wouldn’t be a problem if the father was doing making the right decisions.
We need to Occupy the White House. This is all on Bush/Greenspan and Obama/Bernanke.
This my be unorganized, but it does get people talking, and that my be the biggest accomplishment of this whole movement. There are MANY issues which need to be addressed, this country has more than one propblem and many to blame. It’s a long long dark tunnel we are in with really no light at it’s end BUT if we talk, even if we disagree sooner or later we will find some answers. If we don’t talk about things then that is the same as not admitting that there is a problem and there are many. We all need to speak up and out, it’s the only way we can be heard. Silence does not make any noise and we need to make noise to be heard. If 99% of us speak then the 1% will have to listen.
On Obama’s watch Federal spending is the highest since WWII, the Federal deficit is the highest since just after WWII, employment is the lowest since 1983, home ownership is the lowest since 1965, and government dependency is the highest in history. Occupy Bend should be protesting Obama and his big government tax and spend policies that have killed the economy.
These people are appealing to the government to fix their problems when the government is the problem.Our government has been hijacked by the illegal federal reserve,a private banking cartel owned by the Rothschilds the Rockefellers,warburgs,schiffs and some others.We dont have capitalism any more,we have corporatism,or fascism.Look at Obama’s cabinet,Goldman Sachs,just like bush.Goldman Sachs is a Rothschild front corporation.If you don’t believe me do your own research.
Everything is fine! Keep watching television.
More accurately, these protesters are standing out in the cold whining because they have $100,000 student loans, and just found out that their 4 year degrees in some liberal arts degree only gets them a $25k a year job.
I guess all of you have jobs and everyone you know does too? What happens if you lose that, or someone in your family does……no one is asking for a hand out, just a chance…I was unemployed for almost 2 years and I have a stack of applications that were never answered, it’s not so easy out there, PLUS that is not all that everyone is unhappy about. You give our President way too much credit or power, he’s one man against many, and those many hate him, how do you work with people like that. As far as the $ tag on everything, I think we need to take into consideration the price of things these days whether it’s the food we eat or the wars we fight, seems it all costs way more than it did in the past, perhaps too many hands in the pie…….but with all this said you still don’t seem to think much of the people who are out there standing up for all of us…..why don’t you stop critizing and come up with some ideas…….and WE are the government, yes there are problems with our representatives on both sides, but what the 99%’s are doing is talking about what has been said over many kitchen tables, only now they are taking it out into the open where we can all look at it and think of ways to fix it……..perhaps something good will come of this, let’s just keep the conversation going and see what happens, or are you afraid ?