CHICAGO–(ENEWSPF)–October 22, 2011. I am very proud to say that I volunteered to get arrested early this morning, October 16 2011, when the Chicago Police Department moved in on Occupy Chicago’s camp at Grant Park. I got to spend more than a good few hours in a holding cell with about twenty other protesters, getting to know each other well, sharing knowledge and experiences, organizing further and discussing/debating several topics in a jail cell General Assembly. (Normal GAs are at about seven every night, come check it out.) It all went down very peacefully—there was no use of violence by any side, and in fact, it took so long to arrest us all (about 175 protesters were arrested) that I got to spend probably an hour talking to two former Marines, both Iraq veterans, now in the CPD. We chatted about everything from our time in the Marines, some about my subsequent visits to the Middle East, and what this movement is really about. The Marines seemed to actually respect what we are doing, and a few other police were excitedly listening. It really looks like the Chicago Police are on our side, but just carrying out orders—orders which we are working diligently to change by pressuring Rahm Emmanuel (feel free to join in +1-312-744-3300). Our struggle is not with them, but with the few who are greedily controlling so much in America, frankly the 1% that has acquired 40% of the nation’s wealth, with a few outspoken exceptions supporting us. While we certainly are the 99%, we remind ourselves that we are also the 100%, and that’s all we want the bankers and corporations, who have managed to control Congress and shift almost all the tax laws in their favor, to realize—that we need to all be here for each other now, and not just for ourselves. America needs help right now, and we can easily be here to help each other, but the ones who work so hard to control the tax laws by hiring lobbyists to ensure loopholes and non-enforcement clauses only seem to work so hard for themselves. We are working to get our democracy into the hands of the American people, and from there, the American people can figure it out. I truly believe that if our collective will was honestly reflected in our policy, foreign and domestic, our country and the world would be almost an infinitely better place, and that’s why I’m involved—because I’ve seen much of what the world is, and I cannot just sit back and be taken along with it, but instead I only feel right if I am working to change it, as I have been for many years now.
