Apologies for the lack of pictures; I am not much of a shutterbug. But I did see one hilarious sign:
In Kapitalist Amerika, bank robs you!
Mine said this on one side:
Congress shall make no law abridging the right of the people to peacably assemble.
The other side said this:
Occupy Wall St.
America seems to have forgotten the lessons from its first Goldman-AIG...errr...Gilded Age.
My shortcomings as a photographer notwithstanding, there is lots of footage and pictures from other people at the youtube channel. Hopefully, they will have video of yesterday's jam up soon. Actually, there were two jams...one spot had some serious blues harmonica drum jams going on. On the other side, this guy actually had a backpack amp and was rockin' out with his guitar. God, I love Portland!
While I was enjoying the music, I had the honor to be singled out by a fellow OWPer to receive one of his "Occupy" tags. It was just "Occupy" written in black marker on some masking tape, but hey. So I decided the perfect place for it was covering the Columbia logo on my fleecy bit, right underneath my rainbow 99% button I bought at the protest kick-off. Yeah!
I might have had the most fun tootling traffic, though. There were two other people there with signs and we all just stood there cheering cars on as they honked in support. And omg...the way the car horns echo up and down the plaza is just delightful! It was there that I also saw the greatest thing ever: a car pulled up with a delivery of food for everyone. Like, five people volunteered to help her carry it the minute she opened her trunk.
Then another car pulled up, kind of like they had a question. So I asked if they needed help and they asked me about the camp and who's running it and well...we all know there's no easy answer there. hahaha. So I muttered about the website kind of being a clearing house for info and that if they wanted to volunteer, there are information and sign-up booths in the center area, etc. Then they specifically asked about donating food and how to go about that. I told them to just show up with it and take it to the center ring, especially non-perishables.
They were two older gentlemen, from somewhere in Eastern Europe, I suspect. Their English was accented and somewhat jumbled. Yet there they were, asking how to support and donate to Occupy Portland. Not your stereotypical grungy protester types at all. And there they were. It was really a very mundane exchange, but my conversation with them was deeply moving, regardless.
Because this isn't just a bunch of < insert stereotypes of protesters here >. This is truly the 99%, from all walks of life here in America. The woman who showed up with food was older and obviously middle class, at least. The crowd itself was a hodge podge of long hairs, suits, grandmas, dreadies, kids (they even have a kids camp area with toys!), your average working people, business people, dogs, and even a guy in uniform. Women you'd expect to encounter in Macy's were thanking us for being there as they left for the evening.
It's so !@#$%& awesome. And there are things you can do to help, even if you cannot make the protest yourself. Obviously, I don't know what the deal is for all the cities, but I'm guessing each camp has some online homebase, as Occupy Portland does. If you are a fellow Cascadian, please visit occupypdx.org for info and updates. There is also a list of needed supplies there, some of which are all the obvious things:
socks, esp wool and fleece
tarps
batteries
toilet paper
hand sanitizer gel
bathroom wipes
garbage bags
shelving/storage bins
blankets
coolers
coffee supplies
The extended list includes computer hardware, building materials, and supplies needed for the medical tent, etc. If you can facilitate the donation of any needed items, that would be awesome! Also, you can find a lot in craigslist's free section and, of course, there are all kinds of good and cheap kitchen supplies and clothes to be found in places like Value Village and Goodwill.
We are the 99% and we are too big to fail or be failed.