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[xxxnightrainxxx]

About a week and a half ago I drove up to DC and went to the Occupy DC movement, not as a protester but an onlooker. It was crazy. And I really do mean crazy. People all over the place. Police. Protesters. Onlookers. Media. It was chaos

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[xxxnightrainxxx]

Here in America, we have rights. One of those is to protest. In our constitution it states that, should the people disagree with the government, they have the right to over throw it. But everything should be taken into the context in which it is written, and this- just like in religion- is something people tend to overlook. That was written in a time when we were desperately trying to get away from a Monarchical system and in some ways, still had a threat of the British taking back over. We are long passed that now. But the thing is, we can only protest so far and so long. When I was in DC, the protestors were gathered in locations that were of no real harm to the people around them. They were peaceful. And they weren't blocking the flow of traffic or anything like that. But the government wants to contain it. This could perhaps come from past experiences. During the Great Depression, things called Hoovervills emerged. These were encampments set up by veterans of the first world war who wanted to get the bonuses that they were promised in hopes that it would help them out of their desperate situations. The government hadn't given them because...well...they didn't have the money to at the time. So from all over the country people came, some alone and some with families, and set up encampments to protest. It started out just as the occupy movement in DC is. It was peaceful and non obstructive. But as time went on, more and more people showed up and became a huge issue, blocking off streets, keeping people from getting to work, and in many cases erupting into violence. The authorities fear such a thing happening again, so they want to shut it down. Of course, this is always going to cause conflict and people to get more angry.

As for the authorities...I wouldn't necessarily say they acted as if they were entitled to things they didn't deserve. Most of them were simply there because that's what they were ordered to do. They weren't really given a choice. Honestly, most of them looked like they didn't want to be there- and who could blame them seeing as it was cold and raining? A lot of them are a part of what is defined as the "99%" as well, they just, like myself, don't see the way those people are going about it as exactly the best answer- or they just don't care. Really, I think they just want peace.

Honestly, many of the people I saw and talked to make me think of Marx. See, Marx had this idea that everyone that was a proletariat, being those who were not bourgeois (those who were in power. The rich ones. The 1%), were alienated and exploitated. Even if they didn't feel as if they were, he said they were. That the system was corrupt and would only lead to a furthering of the situation- rich getting richer and poor getting poorer. He believed that the only way the people would be better, reach utopia, was if they rose up and demanded that things go to equal grounds. To some extent, this seems good, but on many levels it's also bad.

Really, no matter what society or social structure there is, there will always be people who feel as if it is unjust- and there will always be aspects that really are unfair. It's just a matter of whether or not the people want to continue as they are, working as hard as they can to reach the top, or if people want to speak out and try to change it. The idea has always existed and it probably always will. People are always talking about it and having some sort of movement on it, but sometimes it gets bigger than others. I really think part of it has to do with the Arab Spring- the massive amount of revolutions that have been happening in the Arab countries. It's inspiring in some ways, and people will follow what they see around them, even if they think they aren't.

Sorry, I didn't intend for this to get so long. As a matter of fact, it made me separate it out because it was more than double the character limit. A combination of theory classes, social welfare classes, and politics classes kinda' combined themselves.