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Health & Fitness

Patch Blog: Everything You Know About Who's in the Occupy Movement is Wrong

The Occupy Movement is not primarily composed of lazy bums, as many people seem to believe and the mainstream media suggests.

As I discuss the Occupy Movement with people here in L.A. and in my hometown of Montana, people have certain ideas about the typical person involved in the movement. A fair number of those I’ve come across believe the Occupy Movement is primarily composed of people who don’t want to work, expect the government to take care of them and generally are lazy bums.

This is how I see mainstream media portraying the movement as well. I thought about this and figured maybe it would help to feature somebody in the movement. My friend, Alex C., who grew up in L.A., has a degree in engineering, works for a publicly traded company and has three children enrolled in , recently wrote about his experience with the Occupy Los Angeles Movement.  

Here’s what Alex has to say:

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Autumn 2011 brought me and my family to the frontlines of the Occupy Movement here in Los Angeles when my children asked what was going on at City Hall while riding our bicycles on First Street during CicLAvia. What was all the noise? Why were people camping… in the middle of the city? This was my opportunity to share with my children that what was happening was an example of what this great nation we are fortunate to live in has to offer … our various freedoms, particularly that of expression. 

In December 2010, a young unemployed college graduate in Tunisia, Mohamed Bouazizi, set fire to himself in protest after the police confiscated the produce he was selling from his stall. With his passing came the passing of winter and the outrage that later ensued led to the subsequent blooming of the Arab Spring of 2011. He became the flashpoint that led to an incredible year of pro-democracy uprisings sprouting across the Middle East, like the wildflowers in our local deserts. Mr. Bouazizi sent another wave of change rippling across the globe, very much like the self-immolation of Thich Quang Duc, the Vietnamese Buddhist monk who nearly five decades earlier burned himself to death to protest the repressive government in early 1960s Vietnam.

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These winds of change arrived on our shores when nearly 1,000 people descended upon the financial district of New York City one fateful day in September 2011 to start what has now become the Occupy Movement and with it, the rebirth of an idea. I see this as a mechanism to reinstate the values and principles that our great nation was built upon when originally declared nearly 240 years ago and woven once again into the fabric of the Declaration of the New York City General Assembly at Occupy Wall Street.

I became more interested in the happenings of the Movement and was in attendance the days leading to the eviction from City Hall. I learned, firsthand, that there was more to the Movement than what the Mainstream Media was depicting as a circus of foul smelling, pot-smoking, drum beating dropouts and slackers. I found the encampment full of men and women of all walks—Students, Homemakers, Unemployed and Employed alike. Boomers, Generations X, Y and Z—all sharing the same idea. During my observation of the eviction from city Hall, I found myself interested in looking for ways to participate and I’ve since become involved with the Occupy Media Committee and their Occupied Los Angeles Times assisting with Spanish translations and other assorted tasks.

I hope that my children come to understand that what I am trying doing now, as a part of the Occupy Movement, is to make a difference in the quality of all lives, not just ours. To show them the importance of community and supporting one another in the struggles we share; to be persons of high moral character and integrity; to speak up and act out, nonviolently, when they observe injustices and corruption—just as our Declaration of Independence states:

... that whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness …

We are the 99 percent and you probably are, too. Whether you agree that too much money is consolidated in the hands of too few people, as if we were living in a Kingdom, for example, or you believe it is fine for a handful of families to control the destiny of America and its people, Alex represents the majority of people in the Movement. Alex is part of the 99 percent of people living in America and he’s fighting with American families who see our way of life being destroyed by people who care more for money than about you. 

The Occupy Movement needs you! If you’d like to get involved, if you’d like to donate money to fund the Occupy Newspaper or help with distribution, please contact me.

If you'd like to read the OCCUPIED Los Angeles Times, please click here.

If you'd like to read more about Occupy Los Angeles, please click here.

If you'd like to read more about Occupy Wall Street, please click here.

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