“We are the 99%! We will be heard! There are criminals on Wall Street who walk free, there are protesters in jail…There’s something wrong with this system. We are the 99%! We will be heard!”
He handled it graciously by smiling throughout and then by asking them if they feel better. He was also sure to point out his agreement with the Occupy Wall St. movement, saying,
“I’m very much involved with the 99. I’ve been condemning the 1%…the people on Wall street got the bailouts and you guys got stuck with the bill and I think that’s where the problem is.”
Daily events include lunchtime and afternoon drive protests and a weekly General Assembly at 5:30pm in Central Sq. Other upcoming events include one before Ron Paul’s speech Monday afternoon at Keene State, and a visit from the Occupy Manch folks this Sunday at 1pm in Central Sq.
Attendance at general assemblies have been increasing each week recently with more college kids this week than I’ve ever seen doing any activism in Keene, ever!
Occupy New Hampshire survived four complete nights as an intentional community. The first two in Victory and the final two-plus in Veterans Park had such a spurious air about them. The environment created by the occupation was that of a foreign presence upon a national ground. A presence foreign in that it was a horizontally organized competitor to the established order in Manchester. And while the occupiers were claiming no ground but that which they’d camped upon (and demonstrated a willingness to shuffle between parks to accommodate previously scheduled events), it still seemed so apparent, and would be confirmed through arrests, that there was something fundamentally challenging to the status quo by people camping out in a park that they are forced to pay for.
The quiet Elm Street in front of Veterans Park on October 19, approx. 2:00am.
I spent two long periods of time at the occupation (more…)
In his latest episode of More Politically Alert, State Representative Steve Vaillancourt (R – Manchester), a libertarian opponent of Occupy NH, debates State Representative Seth Cohn (R – Canterbury), a libertarian member of Occupy NH. The discussion starts at around 10:45.
Vaillancourt, prolific media producer that he is, has also posted a blog about his experience at the redistricting committee hearing in Keene last Tuesday: Joy And Sorrow On The Redistricting Front. (See earlier Free Keene coverage.) Fun fact: I’ve never understood the appeal of the B-52’s.
