Here is Middle America at 7 a.m. waking up in Boston’s financial district after a cold, rainy night in a tent — and wondering why its college degrees have not led to jobs. It’s not Hooverville. But I think it represents something real.
There is actually a wide array of causes represented. No obvious central theme has emerged. End the War, Tax the Rich, Socialism … .
Every day I get tweets from the Equal Exchange coffee trike. With the Occupiers of Boston, the curiosity seekers, the media, and the police, there has been a steady demand for coffee. Today’s message was “EEFreeRange EE Free Range Cafe: So busy I can’t get a tweet in edgewise! Trikes are at Charles/MGH and Dewey Sq. Come see us!”
At the Washington Post, Ezra Klein is trying to figure out what it all means. He decided it probably does mean something after he started reading a Tumblr blog called We Are The 99 Percent. He describes the blog as all “grainy pictures of people holding handwritten signs telling their stories, one after the other.
” ‘I am 20K in debt and am paying out of pocket for my current tuition while I start paying back loans with two part time jobs.’
“These are not rants against the system,” Klein continues. “They’re not anarchist manifestos. They’re not calls for a revolution. They’re small stories of people who played by the rules, did what they were told, and now have nothing to show for it. Or, worse, they have tens of thousands in debt to show for it.” Read more.
In the afternoon I went over and read a few signs. Would love your comments on this one: “I couldn’t afford my own politician, so I made this sign.”
It’s 11/6/11, and I just learned about another great source of Occupy signs, at Mother Nature Network. Check out “I’ll believe corporations are people when Texas executes one” here.
Suzanne's Mom's Blog 
I am glad to see this…I liked the follow up article. Thanks for posting!
It’s just so interesting to watch and see how this evolves.
… Just spent some time at “We Are the 99 Percent” Feeling it viscerally.
I think to get anything accomplished other than expressing feelings and describing the situation, we need to think about what we can do: I mean, have a platform, have things we’d like to see happen–and also think of steps we can take to bring them about. Could everyone at Occupy Wall Street pool money and make a bank for one another? (Totally just speaking hypothetically) Must think on this more….
Yes, I have heard others suggest that we need to have something specific we can do. I think the first step is just making the needs a bigger part of the public dialogue.