

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


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pedalpete
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?

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jwesley
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.

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

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jwesley
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.

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joshontheweb
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?

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jwesley
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.

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bmelton
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?

