Occupy & then some

I went to Occupy SD on Monday. Not sure why, however I seemed to find all
the people that were from other states, homeless and no clear opinion on what
they felt should happen or how to go about it.

One gentleman from New Mexico said he was learning a lot, however I did question what exactly he was learning. He seemed to think that all the banks and the entire financial system was going to fall apart and everybody that had a mortgage would get kicked out of their house. That was interesting to me because it really tells the story of the depression and how that stemmed to current laws regarding mortgages and loans. The run on the banks in the great depression caused the banks to call all loans. It didn't matter if were making you payments, they just called the loans. This cannot happen today because the law does not allow it. The man also has been homeless for 44 years and he says by choice, does not do drugs and has not had any alcohol in over 13 years. He feels most comfortable that way.

I spoke with another gentleman from Oregon who was also homeless and he said at this point he just wanted to get the money to go home to Michigan where his mother was. He also said he was a former Marine and when I started to tell him about all the services available in San Diego he started to say that there were issues with his status and problems with the government not acknowledging the was former military etc. Another interesting twist is that he identifies as transgender, has a female name but clearly looks male. He said he is taking hormones and
on top of that has a heart condition and carries around medicine for that. I told him we also had a supportive LGBT community in here. It felt like he was looking for a response that was less than favorable when he told me this.

At the end I spoke with one of the Sergeants from SD Police Department. He understands that there is a reason to protest, however he also thinks they are losing steam. He stated that they are leaderless and proud of the fact, however didn't think they would make much of an effect on anything without one. I have to agree with that.

I also participated in the discussion at school on Tuesday. It was helpful to be able to talk about things and not feel like anybody had to get angry if we didn’t agree or call names. I have experienced that on a couple of closed groups on Facebook that are political in nature. Sadly it seems to come from a more conservative side that gets derogatory and ugly. Makes me think they feel threatened.

Looking at this from a Conflict Theory perspective....While the Occupy side is trying to (has in some cases) create conflict I am not sure they will make much change without picking a direction
and having some sort of leadership. It doesn't really matter what issues they start with, just pick a couple and go, otherwise in the long run I think they will be ignored and written off. There also needs to be dialogue on the laws that are currently in place and the fact we don't enforce them. We need to use the framework of Conflict Theory as stated in the HB Robbins book to assess the issues and develop interventions if we hope to make changes. Conflict does not need to be violent, mean, name calling or demeaning to either side. It is normal and can be managed to
create positive outcomes.

The next year should be very interesting with the elections and the economic turmoil across the world.

-Mindy