Occupy Wall Street has been going on for awhile now and I have wanted to check out and photograph the San Francisco contingent. I finally made it to the City yesterday and visited the encampment located at the Embarcadero, across from the Ferry Building. The time frame in which I visited was rather quiet. The protesters were holding their daily assembly to discuss ideas and upcoming actions. There appeared to be about 40-50 people at the assembly and a couple dozen others strewn throughout the encampment. I didn't stay long and the pictures I took were not fiery, but instead show the quieter, almost mundane part of the protest.
Before the pictures, I want to offer my brief opinion of the protest and what it means. My view is based mostly on news reports and articles, as well as my one visit to the one protest site. I think it is important to remember that these protest are going on all over the country and even other parts of the world. Overall, I agree with the basic premise of the protest. There is too much inequality in wealth and it is becoming greater. No matter your political opinions or state in life, I find it hard to believe that most people don't agree with this. Unless of course you are part of the super rich. I think the protest are a success in the fact that it brings this inequality to the forefront of public view. The downfall of these protest is in the many other issues being protested and the state of some of the protesters. There seems to be many different and often confusing issues being addressed. There also seems to be many "protesters" that are protesting little more than good hygiene and not being on drugs. I can attest to this first hand with what I saw yesterday. Those who oppose the protest and view its participants as entitled and lazy are sure to site these people as insincere and rightfully so.
However, what is being lost is that many of these people are sincere and have intelligent, well thought out things to say. There is a growing inequality and these people are aware enough to point it out. That is not to say that they do not have good lives. Most of us do have very good lives, but that doesn't mean it can't be better. My feeling is that the most important point of all of this is that no matter what the reason or level of competency, there is a growing amount of people that are dissatisfied enough to sleep in the streets and show their dissatisfaction. There has been violence at some of the protests, most recently in Oakland. It would be easy to dismiss this as criminal activity, but I think it might be indicative of something more troubling. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting restless. I am no historian, but isn't this the basis for the fall of most of the great civilizations throughout history? I do not really think that the US is going to fall into anarchy, but I think it wise to listen to the people willing to sleep in the streets to get their point across. No matter what it is.
Thank you for reading my opinions and please check out my Occupy SF pictures below. Take care.
