By Kristine Thomas
Aaron Embree believes there is a misconception by the media and others that the Occupy movements belong to one political party.
“This is not a left or a right movement,” said Embree, who has participated in Occupy Salem. “I believe everyone’s core values are the same, the differences are minor. We all want the same thing, change in the direction our country’s heading.”
Now in cities throughout the U.S. including Portland and Salem, the protests originated on Sept. 17 with Occupy Wall Street.
On its website, it reads Occupy Wall Street “is fighting back against the corrosive power of major banks and multinational corporations over the democratic process, and the role of Wall Street in creating an economic collapse that has caused the greatest recession in generations. The movement aims to expose how the richest 1 percent of people are writing the rules of an unfair global economy that is foreclosing on our future.”
Dylan Barr, 21, is planning Occupy Silverton, beginning at noon Nov. 5 at Town Square Park on Main Street.
He hopes people see from the Silverton demonstration the movement includes people in small towns as well as large cities.
“When people see that, they might realize that this isn’t just dirty hippies camping out in big cities because they have nothing better to do,” he said. “It affects us all.”
Barr and six others shared why they are participating in the Occupy movement.
Dylan Barr
For a couple of years, Dylan Barr has felt a populist movement “of some sort has been waiting to happen. One day, I realized that the Occupy Wall Street movement might be what I was waiting for.”
Barr is a recording engineer, small business owner and student at Clackamas Community College.
While Barr understands the Occupy movement as a whole is difficult to define in terms of political issues, he added there’s so many things people could say the Occupy movement is about.
“I think on the most basic level it’s just about making a presence and showing our politicians and elites of the business community that we really are keeping tabs on them, and that we aren’t afraid to take some time out of our lives to shake things up a little until our demands are heard,” said Barr, who graduated from Silverton High School in 2008.
Barr said the Occupy movement is also about not answering to either of the two political parties. “They no longer can serve us well, and they both cater to the same kind of corporations who fund them, not to the people who elect them,” he said.
Barr invites people to attend the Occupy Silverton rally Nov. 5 at Town Square Park. There will be music and guest speakers, Barr said, adding, the Occupy Silverton rally will focus mostly on the issue of campaign finance reform.
“If we can get the money factor out of elections, politicians will no longer have to cater to their large contributors, and can focus on the people’s needs,” Barr said. “It would also essentially weaken both major parties, giving smaller ones a chance, and giving us more options! That’s a much healthier democracy.”
Beatrice Shapiro
Beatrice Shapiro is no longer ignoring the elephant in the room. And she’s not alone.
The owner of The Ad Barn, Shapiro, 48, has participated in both Occupy Salem and Portland.
“The Occupy movements have finally given us a venue and a voice to express ourselves and be heard,” she said.
One reason she’s participating in the movement is because she has many friends who are unemployed or seriously affected by the economy. Her business has taken a hit.
“I think the Occupy movements have gotten the world’s attention on the right things such as the inequity of our nation’s wealth,” she said. “Voodoo economics isn’t working. The rich are getting richer and the middle class is disappearing.”
She hopes politicians pay attention to what is happening in the Occupy movements and realize many people want politicians to help revive the economy to put Americans back to work, she said.
“People are tired of the decades of polices that have made it easier for the rich to add to their wallets while taking away money from the middle and lower classes,” she said. “I think the Occupy movement is decades of frustration on behalf of citizens who felt helpless and angry at the social and economic inequity. Our country is at a boiling point.”
Wearing a T-shirt reading “Occupy America- Salem, Oregon,” Shapiro said she has received some criticism from people about her involvement in the protests. They say that that people who participate must hate America or aren’t true Americans.
“I think Occupy participants love their country. They don’t think they are entitled to handouts and they are not slackers,” Shapiro said. ”We love this country and we are fearful of the direction it is heading and because we love our country we are trying to save it and that’s why we are out there.”
Molly Ainsley
As Beatrice Shapiro shared her thoughts, Molly Ainsley sat across the table from her taking notes. Ainsley, 65, is the owner of SortaSausage.
When it was her turn to share her reasons for supporting the Occupy movements, she simply said, “Ditto everything Beatrice said.”
The two women said they regularly call or send each other emails to discuss what’s happening in the news.
When she attended the University of Texas, Ainsley said she studied a pyramid where the wealthiest 8 percent of the population had 50 percent of the wealth and were supported by the remaining 92 percent.
“At the time, I thought our economic system is designed to mistreat the poor,” she said. “Our economic system exploits some people so other people can be rich.”
With the wealthiest Americans now owning the majority of wealth, it’s not possible for the working class to support the economy, she said, adding “The stability is gone. It doesn’t exist.”
The drop in consumer spending has hurt the economy, she said.
“If people had money to spend on basic needs, I think it would revive the economy,” Ainsley said. “A true democracy looks at all the people and sees that all the people are taken care of.”
Because large corporations have the attention of politicians, government has ignored the working class, she said.
“I believe the purpose of government is to see that all of its citizens are taken care of and their rights are upheld,” she said. “I believe people have the right to safe housing, food and medical care.”
She thinks the key to reviving the economy is putting people back to work.
Ainsley says she knows many people who have been hit hard by the recession. She supports the jobs bill that has been presented by President Obama.
“I think we have a decent jobs bills in front of us,” she said. “I don’t understand why it is being fought every step of the way.”
“I believe we have lost track of what has made America great and it is its people who are willing to do the work necessary to make America great,” she said.
Greg Franck-Weiby
Greg Franck-Weiby, 61, said he observes the response of people to humanity’s greatest problems is like having “Attention Deficit Disorder.”
He attributes that to how the mainstream media focuses on an issue for a few days, than drops it to move on to the next crisis. The previous issue is forgotten, he said, by all except those who have a special interest in it.
By our attention being continually shifted from one crisis to the next, he said, it “serves the purposes of those whose interests are threatened by solving the problems – who also happen to own the mainstream media corporations.”
He said he thinks a key goal of the Occupy movement is to maintain focus on an issue until “substantive action is taken.”
The fundamental problems facing our country, he said, do not disappear when the media moves on. That is part of the frustration expressed by Occupy movements throughout the U.S. and the world.
“For example, a whole generation now reaching adulthood has learned that climate change is a profoundly dangerous phenomenon, and that the longer people wait to change behavior that causes it, the more extreme will be the measures necessary to affect it – yet nobody seems to be in a hurry to do anything more than mere token efforts,” he said.
Franck-Weiby said it is the ruling class’ tactic to give people new distractions, and then a national inertia will prevent action until enough people forget about it – until the next crisis… and the next crisis.
“More people understand we can no longer afford to shrug it off and muddle through while nothing really changes,” he said.
Randi and Aaron Embree
Randi and Aaron Embree’s family are part of the 99 percent of Americans who “are left behind as the economic division between the rich and the rest of us continues to grow in this country.”
“This has been going on now since Ronald Reagan took office and is truly threatening the America we’ve come to know,” Randi Embree, 57, said.
The Embrees along with their 23-year-old daughter Erika attended the first week of general assemblies before the rally and the march for Occupy Salem on Oct. 10.
Like many participants in the Occupy movements, Randi wants to remove the money from politics for “democracy to work the way it was intended.” She is the office manager for the Oregon Center for Public Policy.
It is her hope Americans who make up the 99 percent “wake up and understand what’s happening and help to reverse some of the terrible changes we’ve seen from the huge stratification of wealth to ending corporate personhood.”
Unemployed, Aaron Embree said he would like to see a reinvestment in America’s infrastructure – everything from its roads and bridges, to its schools to local manufacturing plants. He encourages people to bank with local banks or credit unions. He thinks these steps would create local jobs.
“I think the Occupy movements are starting to focus attention on the issues important to Americans,” Aaron, 60, said. “Something has to be done. People are worried about the future.”
Randi Embree’s participation in the Occupy Salem movement stems from her worries about the future for her children’s generation and how they will find good-paying jobs.
“My daughter has severe epilepsy. She is concerned about health care issues,” Randi said, adding the family did not have medical insurance at one time because they couldn’t afford it while she was caring for her mother, who had Alzheimer’s, and her young daughter.
The Embrees paid for her daughter’s doctor’s visits and her medication out-of-pocket because that was less expensive than health insurance.
“She did have one uninsured hospital stay in 2003 that we finally just paid off last year,” Randi said. “I’ve had great insurance since I’ve been at OCPP, but for Erika, if the provision in the affordable care act were rescinded, she is unsure what she would do.”
A member of the Macleay and Pomona Granges, Randi said the Salem Occupy group adopted the New York General Assembly’s Declarations. She was amazed how similar the declarations were to the 1874 Declarations of Purpose of Patrons of Husbandry of the Grange.
“Since I was so impressed by the declarations I wanted to share with my mostly conservative Grange brothers and sisters at our quarterly county meeting called the Pomona,” Randi said. “I took the chance and read it to them. I wanted them to hear the words and understand how these issues affect us all. This group of older, mostly right-leaning Grangers grasped the meaning of this and immediately requested that I turn the declarations into a resolution that the Pomona Grange could support and adopt.”
“I think this is a real sign that the ideals that are propelling the Occupy movement are representative of the sentiments of the 99 percent,” she said.
David Gortner
His grandchildren and everyone’s grandchildren are the reasons David Gortner supports Occupy Salem.
“Our country is considered a leader in the world but we are failing miserably,” he said. “We have not kept pace with other Western nations. We are the only Western nation without universal healthcare and our schools are suffering and have fallen behind other Western nations.”
In order for there to be a future for younger generations, change needs to take place, said Gortner , who is member of the Unitarian Universalists Church in Salem and a board member for Oregon PeaceWorks. He is retired from working in information technology for large corporations.
He would like to see a shift in the American conscience from money and greed to care and compassion. “I think we are educated to worship money,” he said. “We should be educated to care about each other.”
He doesn’t understand how CEOs can pay themselves millions of dollars a year while they lay off workers. “The investor class is the one getting richer by making bets like they were in Las Vegas gambling,” he said.
To reinvent the American economy, Gortner would like to see a decrease in large corporations to smaller businesses that care about people. There are two books that he has recently read that makes him believe changes in America’s economics are possible.
“My two heroes are David Korten, who wrote Agenda for a New Economy – From Phantom Wealth to Real Wealth and Joel Magnuson, who wrote Mindful Economics, he said. Both authors explain how the current economic crisis the world faces happened and what can be done to change the economy.
The first step should be stopping big businesses’ influence on government, Gortner said. He disagrees with the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on Citizens United vs. Federal Elections Commission, ruling corporations are individuals. “Corporations have bought our government,” he said. “I think people are finally understanding the decisions made by government and businesses have an impact on their lives.”
Despite naysayers who predict the Occupy movement will fade when winter arrives, Gortner believes it has a chance.
Throughout history, he said, it has been the working class who has fought for change – including women’s right to vote, the labor and the Civil Rights movements. The movement, he said, is fighting for economic and social justice for all Americans.
