Occupy San Diego

Two classmates and I attended the San Diego Civic Center in Downtown San Diego on Monday November 14, 2011 around 7:00 p.m. We did not know what to expect when we headed to the plaza where Occupy San Diego was taking place. As we approached the San Diego Civic Center we passed a group of homeless people that were camping out on the grass area. I noticed food being served, sleeping bags all over the place, and someone in the group yelled out “traders”. I looked behind me to see who they were referring to, but to my surprise they were referring to us. It was interesting to see that a homeless person would judge us by the way we looked because as a homeless person I would think he or she would be more sensitive of doing that- since they experience that daily.

In the plaza there were about 30 occupant protesters and 8 police officers that kept doing their rounds around the plaza. The police officers did not really say anything, but I noticed that some of the occupants were very disrespectful towards them by calling them names. When we arrived there was a meeting where protesters would speak up and voiced their opinion. One of the occupants said that he wants change in our country and wants the rich to stop getting richer. He is concerned of what is going to become of our future. Another protester said that he decided to join Occupy San Diego because he was tired of Corporate America taking over and that the 1% should not have control over the 99% of the people. He thinks is not fair that 99% of the people in our country are struggling because they cannot get jobs or jobs that pay enough in order to survive. Then a person named Zombie said it was time for the different committees to come up and make their announcements. There were different committees such as education, art, finance, security, and media. I liked that they had these different committees but they seemed to be not well organized. They all seem to have different reasons for being there and the common goal seems to get lost.

Marx’s Conflict theory is that there is conflict between two classes such as the ruling class and the subject class. The ruling class would be Corporate American and the powerful politicians and the subject class would be the rest of the people. Inequality is occurring in our country and is shown by some of this people that are currently unemployed and cannot get jobs. However, many of the people that are protesters at Occupy San Diego seemed to have been homeless for a very long time and have joined the Occupy movement to stay safe and get some free food. I look forward to see what will happen in the next months to see if anything has changed.