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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsBrief requiem for Occupy Los Angeles
Today Alma and I heeded the warnings on television and went down to the Venice Boardwalk rather than going to the 1-Year Anniversary proceedings of Occupy Los Angeles downtown. (Forecasters were predicting dangerously high temperatures inland and even unseasonably high temps along the beaches. They were wrong about the latter.)
To honor Occupy, I wore my 99% T-shirt (generated by the t-shirt operation at the original Occupy Los Angeles that screen printed many t-shirts and distributed them for free). Alma and I walked on the boardwalk for almost 4 hours and not one person had anything to say about the '99%' prominently displayed on my t-shirt. Not one person. Wow!
Oh yeah, and Alma and I saw two separate instances where the destitute were eating discarded food scraps right off the pavement of the boardwalk and one instance of a person fishing through a trashcan to retrieve someone's discarded beverage to drink. This all within spitting distance of beachfront residences that start at $2 million and go up from there.
And to think I actually thought Occupy was going to change things for the better. I actually thought it was going to be my generation's 1848 or 1917. Doesn't look like it. Charles Dickens is spinning in his grave.
Oh yeah, and the LAPD drove their patrol cars up and down the boardwalk (and bike path!) with lights flashing. Who knows why?
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)And what did you do to help? Wear a shirt?
coalition_unwilling
(14,180 posts)two months the encampment stood at City Hall. My efforts went way beyond 'wearing a shirt'.
Is there some reason for your snark?
donheld
(21,311 posts)What ever you did last year was last year. You didn't keep it up. Occupy is not made up of miracle workers.
I've been at it since last October.
cherokeeprogressive
(24,853 posts)Wow that was really a bullshit piece of snark as is the post below.
Those of us who paid attention know you were integral to the goings on at City Hall. Don't let those who don't bring you down. They can't help their ignorance and try to hide it with meanness.
pinboy3niner
(53,339 posts)And some DUers--including Fire Walk With Me, U4ikLefty and I--were with coalition and Alma at some of the protests (and I have photos of them out there, in the streets).
coalition_unwilling
(14,180 posts)really incredible the hair-trigger snarking going on here recently.
The Dickensian 'Best of Times, Worst of Times' thing really got to me today, along with the fact that not one person keyed off the '99%' on my shirt, to say "Oh yeah, I'm also a member of the 99%" maybe or even to mock it. Instead, blank indifference. Really weird.
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)I wasn't around last year, so my knowledge of your participation is limited to this post of yours. And I've seen a LOT of people who just sort of putter around talking the talk without walking a single walk, and then gripe that nothing has changed.
Sorry for coming at you, I was mistaken about your intent.
coalition_unwilling
(14,180 posts)realize that you had not been here last year.
I believe you can still read my entries about Occupy Los Angeles in 2011, in my journal archive, if you are so inclined.
donheld
(21,311 posts)You blame Occupy because someone is still eating out of the garbage. You are such a patriot wearing your Occupy LA shirt, but failing to realize we are in a depression. That is not Occupy's fault. This is your failure not Occupy's.
coalition_unwilling
(14,180 posts)picked discarded food scraps up off the pavement to eat them.) I blame capitalism. That's why my thread was called a 'Requiem' for Occupy. Generally one doesn't blame those for whom one is holding requiems.
No need to respond, unless you're bound to. I'm putting you on ignore for your general all-around boorishiness and assholed-ness.
JI7
(89,247 posts)just people specific groups and individuals may not get credit or people may not directly relate to it doesn't mean they haven't had influence.
the President has come out in support of same sex marriage, yet This election is mostly Hurt Romney because Occupy and others brought attention to these issues. in previous elections it was all about who loves god the most, gays are going to bring down civilization etc.
these attacks were so effective against Romney than Republican Candidates used them against him also. it's part of the reason why he would just get enough to win rather than win big, even towards the end .
coalition_unwilling
(14,180 posts)Obama's future looked uncertain. After Occupy, no one talked about austerity any longer and Romney suffered from being branded as part of the arrogant and elitist 1%. Of course, Romney's own intrinsic sociopathy\psychopathy contributes greatly to his suckitude, much as I'd like to give all the credit to Occupy.
JI7
(89,247 posts)pinboy3niner
(53,339 posts)All reports are that motorists heeded warnings and avoided the 405 (and avoided driving, period), as they did for Carmageddon I last year. (I returned to LAX on Sunday night during the first one, thinking I might not be able to make it home until Monday. As it turned out, driving home to Antelope Valley on the 405 Sunday night was a breeze!)
Local news reports that the Northbound lanes of the 405 already have re-opened early and the Mayor is on TV touting it as a big success.
coalition_unwilling
(14,180 posts)on the Boardwalk today (although fewer vendors and some open spots, typical after Labor Day).
It was actually a really nice day there - great sunset and met some awesome dogs - but seeing the people picking up scraps of food off the pavement really got to Alma and me. Just not used to seeing that level of desperation so up close and personal, I guess, especially amongst all the opulent wealth there in the real estate.
pinboy3niner
(53,339 posts)The crowd will be fairly decent even without us outlanders.
As far as the scavenging goes, my little brother had an apartment on the Venice Beach boardwalk in the '70s and the same thing was going on then.
That that kind of poverty and desperation exists in the shadow of those multi-million dollar homes is the real offense. I was shocked when I lived in the Washington, D.C. area and saw the poverty that exists in the shadow of the marble edifices of our national government.
I interned on Capitol Hill and walked those halls in my three-piece suit while poor, mostly black families were struggling nearby. And in those days, I volunteered with Mitch Snyder in feeding the homeless in D.C. and tutored war refugee kids from Nicaragua and El Salvador in Northern Virginia.
Occupy won't succeed overnight. But the movement goes on, and I take heart from every foreclosure stopped, every account shifted away from the big banks, every immigrant deportation halted or even just made into a cause célèbre. The main thing is to keep fighting, through the success and the failures--and never give up.
tama
(9,137 posts)This is global revolution and various places are at various stages. I among many others track the birth of this revolution back to Zapatista uprising, after which it has spread, intensified and taken many forms, on of which is Occupy movement is just one. It's a long process.
coalition_unwilling
(14,180 posts)today, I don't think you would feel quite so benign. But I do like your perspective!
tama
(9,137 posts)Out of everything competing for your attention you noticed people foraging for food on the street. I've been also dumpster diving, there is no shame in that. What is shameful and criminal is all the food wasted and especially the final insult of putting locks on trash cans.
Street kitchens, community gardens, neighborhood assemblies, social centers, accommodation for homeless, libraries, workshops, local money systems, etc. etc. etc., that's where Occupy is. Grass roots revolution happens at grass roots, people reconnecting and occupying their lives.
pinboy3niner
(53,339 posts)Count your blessings!
When I wear one of my "We are the 99%" shirts I half expect to be accosted by some wingnut (as U4ikLefty and I were accosted by a couple of them when we popped into a Pasadena restaurant for lunch after Occupy the Rose Parade).
Next time, I hope your shirt attracts some kindred souls who will be a nice pick-me-up for you.
coalition_unwilling
(14,180 posts)when I was protesting against Bush by myself back in 2005, IIRC. Guy jumped out of his car and physically assaulted me in front of other eyewitnesses.
After that little episode and receiving a death threat from another unaffiliated local whack job, Alma refused to let me demonstrate by myself again.
But I find myself almost wishing that I had been accosted by some Yahoo today, rather than the total, utter indifference I got.
pinboy3niner
(53,339 posts)...can I borrow Alma?