Occupy Rapid City has been
gathering on a street corner in downtown Rapid
City in public protest of issues of concern to the
members of the group. The focus for the
every Saturday protests is a discussion that persists at the group’s first and
third Monday meetings each month. Some
members believe that we should try to align the focus with the major issues of
the original Occupy Wall Street group.
Others believe that many other issues are related to those original
protests and therefore it is appropriate to bring these issues to the public’s
attention. Bringing issues to the
public’s attention has always been a major objective of Occupy protests
everywhere.
A local group consensus does exist about the necessity to
continue the protests, even if we can’t agree on how we could narrow their
focus. Observers that stop by to engage
us in conversation or argument often share curiosity that indicates a desire on
the part of these observers to classify and or categorize the protest
participants as members of groups that the observers have established opinions
about. The people that want to label the
group are generally missing a point that our group has an established a
consensus about. We believe that we
represent not just ourselves, but a majority of Americans, the 99%, in our
concern for the need to address the issues stated or implied on the signs we
display each weekend in protest.
We do not mean to suggest that the 99% are in agreement on
these issues. We do try to draw
attention to issues that affect the majority of our fellow citizens. Our goal is to get people to think about
these issues and how they came to be issues.
Another consensus within the group is with regard to the relationship of
many issues of concern in the United
States and the ever increasing economic
inequality. We aren’t talking about getting
hand-outs and freebies as some people might imply. We are talking about the political and
societal environment that has been manipulated and changed over time to favor a
small portion of the population.
The following two books are recommended reading for greater
understanding and insight into the positions of the Occupy movement:
The Price of Inequality: How Today's Divided Society
Endangers Our Future
Joseph E. Stiglitz
New York: W.W. Norton & Co., ©2012
Debt: the first 5,000 years
David Graeber
Brooklyn, N.Y.: Melville House, ©2010
