I was at Occupy Los Angeles all day yesterday and would love to answer questions

6 points by jwesley 14 years ago | 7 comments

pedalpete 14 years ago |

Did you go as a spectator? Or where you actively involved? What do are/were you trying to accomplish, and how successful do you think you were? will you attend more of these events?

jwesley 14 years ago | |

I was there mainly as a spectator, but did get on the mic for about a minute to share a few thoughts. My main goal was to converse with people on a individual level.

My personal goal is to wake people up to the brokenness of our political system and to inspire everyone to change it together. This is only a start but I'm very optimistic.

I will definitely attend more events, but more importantly, I plan on talking to people I know and care about to understand what they think and to help them see why I believe this is so important.

gerds 14 years ago |

How would you describe the fit of the people to the following ideologies: libertarian, anarcho-capitalist, left-anarchist, socialist?

jwesley 14 years ago | |

It's hard to say. There were definitely representatives from every part of that spectrum. I think the important thing to grasp is that this movement transcends ideologies. The main commonality is that people believe the system is broken and want to break the stranglehold of monied interests over the government.

joshontheweb 14 years ago |

How many people are there? Did you get the feeling that there was a lot of steam left in the crowd to keep the protest going or do you think it will peter out soon?

jwesley 14 years ago | |

I would guess 500 or so. I think people still have a lot of enthusiasm, but camping out and taking care of all the practical details is exhausting and that is starting to show. I think it's extremely important that this movement gets moved online and finds a way to exist permanently. The camping at City Hall will eventually end, but I don't think that will be any type of failure of the movement. This is something that will take years to fully manifest itself.

bmelton 14 years ago |

I visited the DC protests, and the main takeaway that I came home with was that most of the people there weren't really sure what they were protesting.

Chants ranged from as vague as 'Tax the rich' to 'Abolish Corporations' to 'Feed the poor'. What do YOU feel is the main purpose of the protest, and did you find that other protesters were in alignment with your ideals or was it as ambiguous as what I witnessed?