Tahoe residents protest in mini occupy movement
By Kathryn Reed
Lake Tahoe residents may not protest by the hundreds or thousands like larger areas, but they were part of Friday’s nationwide solidarity movement that is part of the larger Occupy Wall Street movement which started two months ago.
Horns honked and fists pumped from the vehicles that passed the approximately 20 people who were in front of Heavenly Village carrying signs that read: “Remove $$$ from politics”, “Bail me out”, “We are the 99%”, and “End corporate personhood”.
Michele Sterling at Occupy Lake Tahoe on Nov. 17.
Michele Sterling spent her lunch break showing her support.
“I feel it’s time we stood up for ourselves. The disparity of income is growing more and more each year,” Sterling, a bus driver with Lake Tahoe Unified School District, said.
This was the second demonstration of what organizer Tracy Africa hopes will be regular gatherings in South Lake Tahoe. Last week’s demonstration at Bank of America had about 16 supporters. The goal is to have a weekly event.
Occupy Tahoe is on Facebook. Notices of future meetings as well as demonstrations will be posted there as well as through Meet Up and Move On.
Heavenly Village was picked more for its location and being a high trafficked area, Africa said, than the fact it is anchored by two Marriott properties that are separated by Vail Resorts-owned Heavenly Gondola.
“If you come here, you should go to the local businesses,” Africa said.
While corporate America is well represented at the village, as well as the casinos down the street that were in view of the demonstrators, corporate employees were lining up to enjoy the perk their employer was giving them. Heavenly employees could ski for three hours Nov. 17.
Demonstrators in South Lake Tahoe show their allegiance.
The irony seemed to go unnoticed by the protestors – that many of the 99 percent they are marching for would rather ski than walk along Highway 50 carrying a sign.
Africa said the Tahoe group supports the goals of Occupy Wall Street:
• More jobs.
• More health care.
• Fix the political process.
• Remove corporations from the government.
• Reduce the political influence of the wealthy.
• Economic justice.
• Punish the criminals who caused the Wall Street crash.
• Greater regulation of the banks.
• Greater regulation of the market.
• Tax the wealthy and use the money for education.
• Free speech without fear of penalty.
• Stop making wars and focus on peace.
But some of those out on this bitingly cold and windy day believe so strongly about what is going that they drove from the North Shore to participate because they said the people on the other end of the lake have yet to organize.
Trudy Lesem and Gwen Rosser came down from Tahoe Vista for the Nov. 17 peaceful demonstration.
Gwen Fox-Tyson came from Kings Beach to show her support. Photos/Kathryn Reed
“I feel the country is going in the wrong direction. Politicians are being bought by big corporations and money corrupts,” Lesem said. “Things must change if we are going to continue to be a thriving democracy.”
Rosser said, “People who are fed up with conditions need to make changes. I (wondered) for a long time — Where is all the anger?”
Frustration, more than anger, was the emotion expressed by those in South Tahoe during the noon-4pm event.
Gwyn Fox-Tyson of Kings Beach wants to get rid what she calls freeloaders as well as not having politicians in bed with big business.
“The American people can’t fulfill their dreams anymore,” Fox-Tyson said.
a big THANK YOU to everyone that had the time to go and show your support for the 99% of us that are out here. My husband and I hope to be able to participate in a future gathering. Its important that the 1% know that we are here, even in small town USA. Kudos to you all!!!
Re: the sign in the background of the photo: Corporate Personhood can end when Union personhood ends.
You are so well programmed.
Corporations are doing more to take your money and take away your rights than the government.
They just have a much more sophisticated ad campaign.
Anyone else see GE’s tax filings recently? How much in taxes do you think they paid?
Fulfill our dreams? Heck, I’ll be happy to fulfill my financial obligations next year. The cost of our health insurance will be twice what it was this year, thanks to a CORPORATE decision, and us on a fixed income.
BUT, at least we HAVE insurance, and we are deeply grateful for that. We’re struggling to get by, but at least we’re getting by. Our home is paid for and we have the medical care we need. We’re down to one car, but it’s running great. We can’t afford cable, but we’re able to see most of what interests us through our antenna. We don’t have a digital TV, but the converter box works almost all the time.
We’re part of the 99%, but we’re doing better than a lot of people. We have much to celebrate this Thanksgiving. We’ll be feasting with family next week, but also remembering those who will go hungry and who will seek the warmth of a bus station to get through the night.
So called “crony capitalism” is wrong too. GE has been in bed with Obama all along, and other politicians as well I’m sure. As are many of the union bosses. It all needs to stop, but the way OWS is going about it is all wrong.
The “99%” does have a say. VOTE, for Pete’s sake!
So sorry I wasn’t able to attend the “99%” festivities. I’m a “Maker”, not a “Taker” so I am part of the “53%” who actually pay federal income taxes. Consequently I was at work all day Thursday. I wonder how it is the indolent 47% of non-self-supporting, non taxpaying, fleabagger OWS protestors can afford to lay about all day, smoke big bowls and bang on plastic buckets… all with no visible means of support?
Why don’t they get a job and occupy themselves?
Why don’t your friends who received all those tax cuts create some jobs? That’s why they got those tax cuts right?
HA HA! Charade you are.
Pigs on the wing.
The Obama administration is utterly clueless about how free market captialistic economies actully function. They’re like a farmer who can’t understand out why starving his cows (over-taxation) and exposing them to inclement weather (over regulation) and predators (excessive litigation) does not induce them to produce more milk.
America cannot survive four more years of Obama.
The One Percent gained 300% in wealth over the past 30 years while the Middle Class gained 30% and the Poor Class gained nothing. This is not “class warfare” it is more like “class slaughter.” The Rich always hoard their wealth. This so-called “capitalists” monopoly game has been played out over and over through out the centuries since before the Pharaohs. Eventually, the poor masses rise up against the “Aristocracy” or in this case Greedy Wall Street Con Men and “so called” Bankers that get every penny of government welfare and protection without any real risk of loosing. Thank you to all Occupy Wall Street Protesters exposing the unmitigated Greed and Corruption of our Plutocracy.
About the OWS crowd, Social Commetator Marybeth Hicks writes:
“Life isn’t fair. The concept of justice – that everyone should be treated fairly – is a worthy and worthwhile moral imperative on which our nation was founded. But justice and economic equality are not the same. Or, as Mick Jagger said, “You can’t always get what you want.” No matter how you try to “level the playing field,” some people have better luck, skills, talents or connections that land them in better places. Some seem to have all the advantages in life but squander them, others play the modest hand they’re dealt and make up the difference in hard work and perseverance and some find jobs on Wall Street and eventually buy houses in the Hamptons. Is it fair? Stupid question.
• Nothing is “free.” Protesting with signs that seek “free” college degrees and “free” health care make you look like idiots because colleges and hospitals don’t operate on rainbows and sunshine. There is no magic money machine to tap for your meandering educational careers and “slow paths” to adulthood and the 53 percent of taxpaying Americans owe you neither a degree nor an annual physical.While I’m pointing out this obvious fact, here are a few other things that are not free: overtime for police officers and municipal workers, trash hauling, repairs to fixtures and property, condoms, Band-Aids and the food that inexplicably appears on the tables in your makeshift protest kitchens. Real people with real dollars are underwriting your civic temper tantrum.
• Your word is your bond. When you demonstrate to eliminate student loan debt, you are advocating precisely the lack of integrity you decry in others. Loans are made based on solemn promises to repay them. No one forces you to borrow money; you are free to choose educational pursuits that don’t require loans or to seek technical or vocational training that allows you to support yourself and your ongoing educational goals. Also, for the record, being a college student is not a state of victimization. It’s a privilege that billions of young people around the globe would die for – literally.
• A protest is not a party. On Saturday in New York, while making a mad dash from my cab to the door of my hotel to avoid you, I saw what isn’t evident in the newsreel footage of your demonstrations: Most of you are doing this only for attention and fun. Serious people in a sober pursuit of social and political change don’t dance jigs down Sixth Avenue like attendees of a Renaissance festival. You look foolish, you smell gross, you are clearly high and you don’t seem to realize that all around you are people who deem you irrelevant.
• There are reasons you haven’t found jobs. The truth? Your tattooed necks, gauged ears, facial piercings and dirty dreadlocks are off-putting. Nonconformity for the sake of nonconformity isn’t a virtue. Occupy reality: Only 4 percent of college graduates are out of work. If you are among that 4 percent, find a mirror and face the problem. It’s not them. It’s you.”
Fox News is retarded.*
Exhibit A:
http://gawker.com/5861688/its-a-food-product-essentially-fox-news-starts-spinning-pepper-spray-cops
I am sure we have a lot of you Fox News viewers on here judging the people who are taking it upon themselves to point out a major injustice.
*No offense to those born with a mental disability. The word is being used in the same sense as used in the sentence ‘the plant’s growth was retarded by a lack of nutrients’
Marxists argue that new wealth is created through work; therefore, if someone gains wealth that he did not work for, then someone else works and does not receive the full wealth created by his work. In other words, that “someone else” is exploited. In this way, the capitalist might turn a large profit by exploiting workers.
Sound familiar?
Hello Tahoe folks?
The link below is a direct link to Occupy Tahoe Movement. We will rally in front of Heavenly Villages tomorrow DEC 8th at 12pm. Come join us. have your voices heard!
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Occupy-SLT/296622727034636