Occupy San Diego

There was a trail of colored chalk on the floor along with tents with signs that read "We are 99%" in City Hall downtown San Diego. People with different ideals came together to support the growing movement of "Occupy San Diego" to demand change in the currently corrupt government system. Many protesters have been camping out for days now, trying to organize a potential occupation to make progress in their cause for justice.

On midday Tuesday October 11 2011 protesters occupying City Hall where shaken up by the attempted suicide of a former companion that was part of the 99% group. After participating in the movement a homeless veteran jumped off a building in City Hall without any particular reason. Monica Teran a protester in the movement said "Nobody knew his name, it’s sad that we don’t know him at all because he was a big part of the 99%". The 99% group is the slogan for their cause, in which protesters recognizing themselves with this occupation. Aside from the current tragedy many protesters were simply hanging around, as the day before they had a General Assembly Committee to discuss further actions for the movement. Monica also stated that they were thinking of ways to make the meetings more productive, "We talked about how to run meetings more efficiently, and how to organize questions and ideas to make it smoother". With so many different people in the occupation it can be hard to get things across especially to a large crowd. "People would interrupt because there are so many people with opinions" said Monica who assisted at yesterday’s meeting.　　

One important contributor to the movement is Jordan Hammond a 28 year old protester who has been participating before the movement was even started here in San Diego. Jordan was following the "Occupy Wall-Street" movement in order to prepare for the same cause down here. "I’ve been camping since the first day" Jordan said inspired by the protester across the country. "I knew it was important but I didn’t think it was going to be big" stated Jordan also sharing that the amount of protesters has grown from 1225 people to 1350 in the past week. The reason for the outburst of protesters is because people are tired of being neglected by the government. While big corporations receive financial assistance the working class continues to lose their homes and find it hard to survive. As Jordan stated "We are specifically here to push out corporations so they don’t dominate the democracy" which has gathered hundreds of people to participate in the movement. There are currently different groups representing the cause from anarchist to teacher unions. Sometimes even Democratic Party members come to discuss initiatives. As Jordan said "It’s a conversation we have to have as a country".

In all, the demonstration has been peaceful, although there is constant security by a big number of police officers, this protest seems to be undercontrol. As the police refused to give a statement on the restrictions and their management of the protest, there has been respectful arguments with visitors. When an Attorney Entrepreneur came to the protest people argued their personal ideologies with him while he discussed his point of view. Rick Burgoon of age 50 came to investigate the reasons for the protest, "I am very interested in what is going on" he said. In his opinion he also stated that "There is an incredible amount of passion, diverse concepts, broad base ideas, but perhaps lacking full awareness of what amount of discipline is required to get the movement across". With his presence many protesters came to have a discussion on the broad base of their movement. Rick gave suggestions to them such as to listen to "Ed Rendell" a former democratic mayor of Philadelphia. Rick also said that the protesters need to "Take passion and put it into action".

With definite action this group known as the 99% is looking to make drastic change in the democratic system. With numbers of participants growing daily and recieving great support from the public it doesn't seem like any of the 99% will be going home anytime soon. Although there is a lot to do like organizing and unifying among the different groups people like Monica want this situation to change, "The reason I am hear is because humanity is suffering. I see people sleeping in the street; humanity shouldn’t have to suffer because there is enough for everyone". The passion is there it’s only a matter of time before the movement starts to make progress towards improving the lives of the American people.