I had seen the articles about occupying Wall Street, but hadn't read any of them because I thought, "Well, what can I do? Wall Street is in New York and I'm clear on the other side of the country in California." Then yesterday I read MinistryofTruth's "Michael Moore TORCHES "Class War" meme at #OccupyWallStreet, Day 12 photo blog". I especially liked the clip from Lawrence O'Donnell introducing Michael Moore and discussing what was going on. I loved what O'Donnell said. It is one of the best things I've heard recently. It got me interested.
So, I went to the Occupy Wall Street website and learned that there were demonstrations going on all over the country, even Arcadia! So I checked what was happening in the San Francisco Bay Area. (I live in the South Bay, Campbell/San Jose.) As it turned out, yesterday, September 29, was the day protest was scheduled for San Francisco. I learned this about 10:00 a.m. It was scheduled to start at 3:00 p.m. And so, I decided to go.
I've been sitting here on my internet for over a year now, out of work, on the internet, spending a lot of time here at Daily KOS, at Alternet.com and sometimes (less and less), Salon.com, and writing my representative and senators (all good IMO--Honda, Feinstein and Boxer, especially Mike Honda). Being out of work this long and living alone (except for Mr. Dog and Ms. Cat), I'm getting a little stir-crazy, but don't have much money to do much of anything. So it felt good to actually do something, to have something to do. I've been toying with the idea of volunteering for Mike Honda (his office is less than a mile from my house--since politics is what gets me going, who knows, maybe a job might come of it.) But I haven't done anything yet about that. But yesterday, I did do something. I was one of the We the People protesting Wall Street's crimes against the citizens of this country. And it was a good thing to do.
Since my Mustang was repossessed earlier this year, and I'm currently driving a 27 year-old Toyota with a bad tranny leak, I decided to take the CalTrain. I planned on taking the 1:10 p.m. train, to arrive at 2:30 p.m. to give me enough time to ride the Number 10 bus to the scheduled site, 555 California Avenue.
I missed that train by about 5 minutes. Coulda, shoulda, woulda. But got the 2:10 p.m. train and got the bus in the city about 3:38 p.m. I asked the driver to let me know when we got to Pine and Sansome (where the directions said I should get off an walk a block or two). But, a little more than half-way, I suddenly saw it. There were the protesters! I hit the stop request and walked back to where they were. They had started at 555 California Street, but were now in front of the Chase Bank Building.
Here's the photos I took over the next couple of hours. I tried to get as many signs as I could. The crowd was friendly and positive. The number of police was surprising to me--so many! But there weren't any problems. There were volunteers making sure we didn't block the sidewalk or stray out into the street or get too close to the police. The police were very professional.
The financial people trying to get through the crowd (I assumed they were by their dress--ya know, suits) tried to maintain a low profile and didn't make eye contact. Closer to 5:00 p.m., people, financial workers or others got a little testy sometimes trying to get through the crowd. One chick kinda bumped me outta the way saying loudly "excuse me" and I just responded back, "settle down sister." That's about as much violence as I saw.
There were drums, cow bells, horns, megaphones, "Why is life such a bitch? Cause we don't tax the fucking rich!" is the one chant that sticks out in my mind, but I may be remembering it incorrectly because I saw at the Huffington Post this morning that being phrased as "Why is life a bitch? Cause we don't tax the rich!" I like my version more better.
After about an hour or so, some people did actually enter the Chase Building. The police stood at the door preventing others from coming in, but some were already inside and the police arrested them (or so I read at Huffington Post). That's where I also read that one of the women who entered the bank was being foreclosed on. I listened to another woman named Molly Brooke tell a reporter that Wells Fargo has been trying to foreclose on her for 27 months. She wanted to march on Wells Fargo. She said one application had been rejected because she used the wrong font, said it was an ongoing continual nightmare. Wells Fargo just wants to take her house.
We finally started to march and our organizers told us to stretch it out and slow it down as we crossed intersections-- we had a huge police escort the whole way down to the Port of San Francisco--and we made an impact. I am glad I got up and went. I'm so angry and have been so frustrated, and this was a good way to channel it.
San Jose is scheduled for Monday and I'll be there too. That will be much easier for me--and cost a whole lot less (about $20 for my Caltrain roundtrip).
Anyway, photography is kind of a hobby for me. So yesterday and today are truly a lot more interesting than my days have been for quite a long time.
Yee haw cowgirl!