Occupy Chicago Student Reports

I arrived at the Thompson Center at about 3:10 p.m. There was already a mini stage set up and music was playing until the speakers started to give their speeches. I wish I came a little earlier so I can walk around and see all the different type of people that were there, but even arriving so late I saw many faces. There were a lot more protesters this time than the first time I was set out to do this assignment. They had a lot of union members in bright light reflecting clothing—which I later found out what they were there for. The protesters were already changing in small groups, but the loudest chant was, “What do we want? JOBS! When do we want them? NOW! There seemed to be more focus this time of what their goals were. There were many different signs but the main focus in my opinion was jobs.

Where I was standing was a unique place. I was sort of on the side of the speakers, closer to the building, and the way that the music was bouncing off the walls it sounded like there were speakers behind me and all over the place, I thought that was pretty cool. Some people were even handing out a “chant sheet.” I saw some of the same faces that I saw at the first protest I went to—I wonder if they were on the streets the entire time. There seemed to be a lot of different organization groups. The three speakers were—I thought—well prepared. There was a black woman, a polish woman, and a Hispanic gentleman.  This was to show that this crisis is hitting all races and cultures. My favorite speaker as the army veteran though. The way he talked about veterans the made it made me think how unfair our government treats them.

                After they were finished with their speeches they reminded us that we would go to the bridge and support the people that were there. I did not plan on going to the bridge but they said that we are going there to support the people that would be getting arrested. I had this picture in my mind that it would be a violent, and that the protesters would be out of control, but when I got there it was totally unexpected. They were peacefully sitting on the floor—one facing north, the other facing south and so on—and the cops said something to them before taking them away one by one. They also had the police tape each arrest. It was all so peacefully that it broke my heart that they could do this to the people. From the bridge we marched down LaSalle Street to the Chicago Board of Trade. I liked taking part of the whole protest and March, but once we got to the CBT I stayed for about 30 minutes and left at around 5:40 p.m.  Overall, it was a great experience and I wish that I brought more people with me.

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On Saturday, October 22, 2011 i participated in the Occupy Wall Street protest down town.  As I started walking I started to notice people with posters and signs.  I notice people of different age groups I was stun seeing young people screaming and shouting “Stop Corporate greed”. I had never been in a protest before but this was a great experience because I felt like we were all there for the same reason. Finally, the bottom 99% has risen together.   I felt like we all agreed on having a better education system, jobs, health care ect. It seemed like a big unity and I was shocked with the amount of people that was there.  As we walked down towards Grant Park i notice that many of protesters were students. I was glad to see that they are getting involved in this because this economy is going down the drain. I’m already afraid that I will not be able to find a job when a graduate. If it’s bad right now what can we expect in the coming years?  I also met a very nice lady her name is Susan in which we walked together the whole time. She told me she’s a lawyer but due to the economy, she didn’t have a job. I was glad she was there because the economy is so bad that middle class people don’t have a job either.  How worst can it get? People yelled as they walked their voices were loud enough that I was able to hear them from a few miles away.  I’m glad I went and I will go next weekend, I feel like this movement needs to prove people wrong just like the hippies did when they raised their voice. Unfortunately, before I got to my car I made a stop at Starbucks and I overheard someone say “those people just wasting their time”. I turned around and it was two men, dressed in very nice clothes.  They seemed like they were not part of us. In my opinion they seemed like they had everything that we were asking for.  Hearing their comment just ruin my coffee because how can people say that. I couldn’t believe it but unfortunately I heard them.  However, their comment will not change my mind because the number of people I saw was not just any number. People need to work together to make a change. I was glad to see that many people are fed up with corporate injustices.

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 Movement's for social justice are, by definition, concerned with existentialist thought even if they are not concretely definable as existentialist movements. Occupy Wall Street, like many social justice movements, is one that compels and encourages its participants and those who witness it to consider how we relate to each other and our society. Alienation from our world, gone unnoticed, precludes us from really considering our existence should we even have the luxury under the weight of culture, and capitalist debt-slavery to attempt to subjectively, decide what we would like to make of it.

Self-identity and authenticity are key to existential philosophy. When one does consider their state and realizes it is concocted by a myriad of forces, few of which they have any say in, that person may attempt to identify those forces. The concept of self and being is suddenly thrown into question and anxiety as described by Heidegger - the anxiety of not being able to be sure of anything's validity other than a on-concocted version of our own mind. I believe the Occupy movement has much to do with recognizing the forces that, quite tyrannically, determine our being. People are beginning to notice that the practicality of non-skeptical participation in this nebulous scheme is not practical at all from their own, and newly personal, subjective perspective (it had always been subjective, but who's subjectivity?)

"So long as I am practically engaged, in short, all things appear to have reasons for being, and I, correlatively, experience myself as fully at home in the world." (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/existentialism/) What happens when that engagement is no longer practical or, suddenly, we see that it never has been? The Occupy movement, like many movements for justice, points to our subjective interests, recognizes that our existence has never truly been in pursuit them, and demands that we ("the 99%" in this case) must peruse them having been long denied an authentic "being". The alternative is to continue to exist in what has already been exposed as absurd and false. "Because I am no longer practically engaged, the meaning that had previously inhabited the thing as the density of its being now stares back at me as a mere name, as something I “know” but which no longer claims me. As when one repeats a word until it loses meaning, anxiety undermines the taken-for-granted sense of things. They become absurd." (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/existentialism/)

Certainly, there are a spectrum of views, various points in a spectrum of existential awakenings, within the Occupy movement. There are those who really believe that all that is needed is some "restructuring" and there are those who have deeply awakened to the groundlessness (Heidegger) of of our supposedly practical engagement. Anywhere on the spectrum though, there is an existential question and tension the very least of which is the tension created when the benefits of this practical engagement comes into question and the sense that things are truly rigged grows.

http://people.bu.edu/wwildman/WeirdWildWeb/courses/wphil/lectures/wphil_theme20.htm#Themes in Existentialism


http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/existentialism/

http://www.iep.utm.edu/solipsis/ 

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“BANKS GET BAILED OUT,

CITIZENS GOT SOLD OUT”

I also met Gustavo Alvarez, Chris’s Alvarez brother, which I mentioned in my first paper, who was also there because he had to drop out of college because the government didn’t want to help pay for his tuitions as well. He had told us that on Friday they had over 2,000 supporters on Jackson St. he also mentioned that some of the people protesting are bankers who obviously didn’t agree with what these corporations were doing. “Those who have the most don’t care about the less fortunate. The poor pay more taxes then the rich”, Gustavo said. That is so true. Since I been taking Justice Studies classes I’ve learned that the rich stay rich while the poor stays poor. I had asked him what he felt about the police brutality in New York and he stated that he didn’t understand why that had happened.

“We come in peace; we don’t need or want more problems. All we want is justice. Sometimes we feel that the own police push us to the point to make us act out. They want to make a peaceful protest to send the wrong message and obviously the truth gets skipped due to the media. Police take advantage of their authority as you can see in the situations going on in New York”.

Which brings me to my next point, there is going to be another protest on October 22, 2011 to stop police brutality. And since everyone there thought I was some type of reporter, I was told to tell my whole school to join the cause. I have included a flyer and couple of pictures for your convenience.

By 12:30pm more and more people were coming with their signs and becoming a part of the protest. There were some ladies who were kind enough to bring them cookies. Some had slept and camped outside the building for days, so I could only imagine how hungry they were, which I truly felt bad and had mentioned to my sister that we should had brought them some sort of snacks as well. There were some on roller blades holding their signs too. There were young and old. After almost three hours in a half left but I was really glad I had the opportunity to go let alone become a part of it. I learned a lot and I truly respect all these people for what they are doing. They become the voice of many who can’t and are too afraid to fight for justice.

“PEOPLE OVER PROFIT OCCUPY CHICAGO”

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The United States was formed by violent revolution. It was formed in response to the oppression of colonial rule. In the constitution it is stated that the people have the right to bear arms and form militias for their defense. It does not say that the government has the right to bear arms against the people. While not expressly condoning violence against the state, it cannot be argued that the founding fathers believed in the idea's of violent protest and revolution at all causes.

Today is a different matter. We do not face a Imperial force hindered by a two-month long voyage across the Atlantic; we have come a long way from the musket guerillas that won American freedom in 1776. Now we represent the most scientifically advanced and comprehensive military and intelligence complex in the world. We are a force straight out of Orwellian science fiction. Not only does America fight using space age technology like laser heat rays; in the first two years of the Obama administration, U.S. Predator drones across the world have seen a surge in numbers. In the decade since the passing of the Patriot act, a comprehensive video surveillance system began to be installed across the country, something we in Chicago know as shining blue lights under police cameras. In 2011, authorities announced they had developed a flawed but operable program for facial recognition; combined with the universal popularity of social media, most citizens faces are private property. A surveillance state is not a free one, violating the “innocent until proven guilty” clause of the Constitution. Any administration, with any agenda or lobbying interest, has the power to find and kill anyone anywhere all from a remote location, where a video game operator watches with coffee-infused dispassion.

Our government has acquired force and power never imagined before, even by the likes of Einstein. In spite of these facts the Occupy Wall Street movement has grown to represent active growing protests all across the country, and across the world. These movements are organized movements, with a methodology and technique of civil disobedience that creates the imperative for peace and debate. They are also unfocused, divided and without a uniting cause besides the feeling of financial oppression. It does not yet represent the kind of protest that the comprehensive system demands. The fact yet remains that most of the country is comfortable besides their televisions and microwaves, and although they feel they are being taken advantage of, and think of themselves as “poor people”, still they do not experience true poverty, true oppression, true governmental backlash.

Next week, the government could put out a mandate “temporarily detaining” any protestors as terrorist conspirators. Anyone wearing tie die or speaking out against financial institutions could be thrown into a FEMA camp. If that happened, would the relatively small protests break out into large-scale revolt? All indicators point to a police state being formed over the complacent, employed populace. History is caught in a catch-22 and only a miracle will save us from a new genocide.

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I went to Occupy Chicago on Tuesday October 4th and pass it every so often as I head to my internship.  I was surprised that there weren’t more people because of how much media coverage it had been getting.  There were maybe 15 people on one side of the street talking to camera crews while about 10 people sat on the other side of the street.  No one was shouting or being hostile.  There were police officers standing off to the side of the streets, but they were just smiling and walking around.  There was absolutely no need to be violent with the protestors.

The huge protest hype I heard about was mainly because of New York and Denver.  I think I was expecting to see people chanting and holding up signs, but the only ones there were laid against the curb and held up by people sitting on the ground. It was definitely a peaceful protest.  I asked one woman named Ann why she was there and she said it was because of the “bankers and big-wigs”.  She said that she’s a constant presence on LaSalle Street and is giving her family a voice.  She seemed like such an admirable woman to stand up for what she believes in, day in and day out.

This past Monday there was an incredible march and protest downtown Chicago.  There were hundreds if not thousands of people.  The most amazing part of this is that people of all ages and races came together.  I think there were so many more teenagers because they had Columbus Day off, but it’s the fact that they were there fighting for their beliefs in what was right.  My professor from another class marched with everyone on Columbus Day and saw the imagination of high school students in action. A group dressed up as Robin Hoods and held up signs saying, “We’re taking back the bank”.  I loved it!  I hope that because of the coverage from this past Columbus Day protest, people will become more involved, informed and will take the time out of their lives to make a difference with their voice and presence.

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Today was very crazy in downtown chigo. There is no comparison to the first protest I attended a week ago. This was truly amazing. There were so many people out today it was great.  There were several protest going on today like at 9am-12pm – Peacekeeper/Civil Disobedience Training (37 S. Ashland @Monroe/Ashland) 1:30pm – General Assembly (Jackson/Lasalle) 3:30pm – Student/Activist March departs for Balbo/Michigan (Jackson/Lasalle) 4:00pm – Meeting time for Take Back Chicago marches (See below) ‎There were 4 Helicopters and Over 10,000 people, here in downtown Chicago. I saw a couple of news anchors as well. In the morning there were some stories going around in how the police were on their way to remove everyone and make everyone go home. But luckily many of the protestors didn’t care and refused to leave after all none of us were doing anything wrong.  I saw many with video cameras and many using there camera phones as well. At some point four Union Workers who are not associated with Occupy Chicago were arrested today during the Take Back Chicago March. They have made it clear that they do not condone violence or illegal activities of any sort and they just wanted me to make that clear, in behalf of one of the protestors I had met.

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People chanting, drums going, homemade signs and everyone gathered together for a common goal, job opportunity. Though I didn’t spend much time at the protest due to a busy schedule I managed to take a swing and get a feel for what was to be expected from this weekends protest. Some individuals I spoke too were unemployed as myself.

 Questions in my mind raised as I wondered how may were prior service as myself, how many had degrees? I took a look around and the signs said it all “ Fighting for a fair Freedom”. They sounded off on wasteful spending, and corporate. The ninety nine percent is what they are being called. While the rich are getting richer we are the ones suffering and living in poverty, or living in economic injustice.

What a moving sight to experience in times like today. Some were even arrested in the process of the weekends protest. Hopefully others will hear the voice of the masses of people and it will move them to join or help in any other way. Lets take back Chicago, but even more let’s take back our rights and put a stop to social inequality.

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I went to the protest today, on October 10th. That sentence in and of itself amazes me because of the fact that there were even two major protests in the last two days. I have gone to a number of protests in the past year, and none of them have compared to the magnitude of the protest today. Previously you would be lucky if 100 people were there and on Thursday I went down to the Occupy Chicago protests at the Federal Building there were only about 50 people there. Today there were about 7,500.

            I feel like the growth of the protests says something about how serious all theses issues are. Not only can Chicago get together 7,500 people, but also countries across the world can get together thousands of people all in a fight against similar issues.

            To my knowledge, it is being said, in our corrupt media, that the protests around the world are unorganized, and that people are not united in their ideas. Today there were four protests that all came together and made one protest, and although there might have been four different ideas, they all stemmed from the same place. Their solidarity lies in their frustration with the corruption of the government, the media, banks, and corporate America. All these issues are serious things that need to be brought up, and I have thought that for a long time now.

            Last semester I got involved with a group called North Side Power. We went out and protested Bank of America and their involvement, along with most other banks, with not paying federal taxes, but then getting over 1 billion dollars in tax refunds. It is fact that the banks exported a bunch of jobs to overseas personnel, basically giving away American jobs, and then found loopholes in order to not have to pay taxes on said people. Because of this two major things happened. One, many Americans lost their jobs, and two bankers got a huge tax refund that instead of putting to good use they used as bonuses to what is now being called “the 1%.”

            One other general consensus that people have is that everybody protesting is a young hipster that doesn’t know what they are talking about. Being down at the protest today it was clear that there was representation from every age demographic. People probably twice my age were getting arrested because they were fighting for the same issues as I was. But of course the media doesn’t want to portray this, because that will make people nervous. It’s easier to avoid the subject of how revolutionary these protests have the potential to become by only showing young hipsters. Then again, this isn’t the first time the media has tried to cover up the truth.

            With the majority of people in the United States getting their news from Fox and other corrupt media outlets, its no wonder there aren’t more people aware of major issues in America. I can only hope that these protests continue and “the 99%” is finally heard. It saddens me that so many people are naive to major issues. I am excited for what is to come with the Occupy movements, and other movements that will hopefully get the courage and involvement of the people to be able to address their opinions in mass. After today I am definitely going to be doing my part in joining the movement. All it takes is for us to join one at a time and then use that power to voice our opinions in mass. They can’t ignore us forever.

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Today I decided to attend the Tack Back Chicago Rally Downtown.  When I arrived there was a huge crowd of people standing around. It was a pretty huge crowed when compared to other protests I had attended before. Some people in the crowd were holding puppets, drums, and many had homemade signs. Everyone there was basically protesting for job creation and to protest corporate greed. A lot of people that I spoke to either had low paying jobs, not enough work hours, or no job at all. Many of the unemployed people had degrees or were over the age of 40. A lot of them have been laid off or unemployed for years. All of them seemed to be at wits end. “The people need jobs” is all I heard from everyone I spoke to.

As we marched through the streets many people passing by would just look at us, some would laugh, or others just passed by like they didn’t care. How could anybody not care? There were supporters but I would say there were more people who just didn’t care. You could smell the frustration of the people in the air. Everyone protesting was so passionate about change it seemed like they all are willing to die for it. It was inspiring. The police keeping close eyes on everyone were not too bad. Most of them were treating the protesters with respect but there were a few who treated us like terrorists. Nothing really got out of hand like I expected it to. Some protesters were a bit too passionate but that was to be expected.

We marched until we met up with other crowds and we chanted "The people united will never be defeated” along the way. After it started to get dark I was already tired of walking and I was starting to lose my voice from chanting and talking to people so I decided to go home. All in all it was worth the trip downtown to protest. I found myself with a new found passion to create change in this country. I found a renewed strength and passion for the cause. I hope that this does not stop but only gets bigger. It’s time for a revolution!

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