Brief requiem for Occupy Los Angeles [View all]
Today Alma and I heeded the warnings on television and went down to the Venice Boardwalk rather than going to the 1-Year Anniversary proceedings of Occupy Los Angeles downtown. (Forecasters were predicting dangerously high temperatures inland and even unseasonably high temps along the beaches. They were wrong about the latter.)
To honor Occupy, I wore my 99% T-shirt (generated by the t-shirt operation at the original Occupy Los Angeles that screen printed many t-shirts and distributed them for free). Alma and I walked on the boardwalk for almost 4 hours and not one person had anything to say about the '99%' prominently displayed on my t-shirt. Not one person. Wow!
Oh yeah, and Alma and I saw two separate instances where the destitute were eating discarded food scraps right off the pavement of the boardwalk and one instance of a person fishing through a trashcan to retrieve someone's discarded beverage to drink. This all within spitting distance of beachfront residences that start at $2 million and go up from there.
And to think I actually thought Occupy was going to change things for the better. I actually thought it was going to be my generation's 1848 or 1917. Doesn't look like it. Charles Dickens is spinning in his grave.
Oh yeah, and the LAPD drove their patrol cars up and down the boardwalk (and bike path!) with lights flashing. Who knows why?
= new reply since forum marked as read