My dear wife and I went downtown this afternoon with a bag of oranges and another of apples. Our plan was to donate the fruit to the several hundred mostly young people who, for the past week, have been occupying a small park in the middle of our commercial district. Calling themselves "The 99 Percent" (the other 1% being the monied elite who pull most of the strings in this country), they are rallying in solidarity with the many groups that have sprung up recently, inspired by Occupy Wall Street.
From a block away, there was no sign of the rally, and I was feeling self conscious with my bulging bag of food. But as we rounded the shoulder of Westlake Center, we could hear drums, an unintelligible amplified voice, and vigorous chants of support.
We found the thousand or so folks at the rally to be much more heterogeneous than expected; there was a mix of people such as you might see almost anywhere about town, a few professional revolutionaries, and a lot of unionists. About two thirds were listening to a rotating group of speakers, and the other third--mostly the young occupiers--were lounging and eating. A lot of pictures were being taken. We walked around the park, listened, watched, and took pictures ourselves, applauded, and left our donation. It was inspiring to see the commitment, good feeling, and energy.
We're back to thinking we might just stick around.
