'Occupy St. Augustine' is Saturday at the Plaza
Posted: November 4, 2011 - 12:29am
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By PETER GUINTA
peter.guinta@staugustine.com
Downtown’s Plaza de la Constitucion will become the base camp Saturday for “Occupy St. Augustine,” a national phenomenon featuring musicians, political speakers and demonstrators focused on discussing the country’s growing economic inequity.
If you go, expect pointed political posters, curious tourists, students and other young people, a Tea Party picket line and — to keep the peace — several St. Augustine police officers.
Terry Buckenmeyer, one of the many organizers, said the event starts at 1 p.m. and ends 5 p.m.
“We want people to discourse with respect and dignity,” he said. “It’s kind of funny that the Tea Party wants to picket us. In other places, the Tea Party was part of it.”
Buckenmeyer believes the occupy movements across the nation have lasted so long because there are no leaders shouting, “Follow me!” and more groups of concerned people working out the agendas and actions with consensus.
“This is something new. Whatever it turns into, it’s a kick in the butt for democracy,” he said.
Bloggers supporting the initial movement, “Occupy Wall Street,” wrote on line this week that 105 U.S. cities have had “occupations” and that 50,000 people are in the streets of New York. Wall Street has been occupied consistently for a month.
Buckenmeyer said he attended the Occupy Jacksonville rally recently and saw a sign saying, “The beginning is coming!”
He added, “I believe in that.”
The occupiers, who call themselves the 99 percent, aren’t asking for anything but justice, they say.
Most share a frustration with gridlock in Washington, D.C., high-paid lobbyists writing the laws, government bailouts for banks and corporations “too big to fail” and the top 1 percent of earners in this country who collect million-dollar bonuses while laying people off from work.
Aubrey Skillman, a local organizer, has said, “They control the laws and the laws are in favor of that 1 percent. We just want it to be fair.”
Other complaints include the stranglehold on government by the pharmaceutical and agriculture industries, rampant stock market manipulation and mass foreclosures of h
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