Cincinnati, OH -The nationwide movement that began in New York seems to have made its way to Cincinnati, Ohio. Several hundred protesters were gathered on Fountain Square in the heart of downtown, and the focus was clearly of economic concern. Placards were homemade with sentiments such as: “We are too big to fail; Waterboard Wall Street; Honk if you’re tired of families being one paycheck away from financial ruin,” and “How much does a Congressman cost?”
There were several speakers that the crowd gathered to hear such as Alice Gerdeman of Intercommunity for Justice and Peace, Jason Dean of Coalition for the Homeless, and Aliya Rahman, a self-proclaimed community organizer based in the financially underprivileged Over the Rhine area of Cincinnati. Below are a few highlights of Cincinnati’s Occupy Wall Street event.
Sr. Alice Gerdeman of Intercommunity for Justice and Peace said to the crowd, “Now when you think about our economy, and you think about armies, and you think about jobs and you think about what we want, three or four billion dollars makes a big difference.”
According to her rough estimate, that breaks down to about 345 million dollars per day which she argued could be used to fix roads, bridges, and sewers; hire teachers, social workers, and organizers and provide food.
Gerdeman added that, “Spending four billion on war means that each tax payer is paying about 11 thousand on war.”
The crowd applauded wildly as she continued that if the 11 thousand were given back to every person who needs help, all those people could buy healthcare, put it toward their homes in foreclosure or put it toward their rent, their electric bill or water bill when these things are in danger of being cut off.
A protester shouted at her, “Where would that money come from?” Implying that it is taken from taxpayers and simply being redirected from war to another purpose.
Ignoring his question, Gerdeman went on to tell the crowd that the money could also be used to fix up homes in the poorer parts of the city, bridges in disrepair and even to bring about the use of solar power.
Acknowledging that there have been multiple mainstream media reports stating that Occupy Wall Street protesters don’t have a message and don’t know what they are protesting about, she stated, “Our message is clear: we are discontented people; we don’t like what we see around us; we don’t feel like there is justice in our society and we want to be just people. That’s what we want.”
The crowd applauded wildly in response to the demands that she articulated.
“In my church tradition we have a very simple rule,” Gerdeman explained. “It says if you want to check whether or not a society is just, look at the poor. Are their conditions getting worse, or better? The rich amply take care of themselves. It used to be that the middle class could take care of themselves. I think we can change it now and say look at the middle class: are their conditions getting better or worse? It’s not just the poor we need to think about anymore. And when their conditions get worse, our country is falling further away from social justice. That horrifies me. That shames me. We long have lived in a country that we have said that these people are unjust. These people are war-like. These people don’t know what it’s like to be in the world we live in. We’re at the top of the list now.”
She closed by challenging the crowd to remain active for the cause.
Jason Dean of Coalition for the Homeless pointed out to the crowd to take notice of where they were located that day: Fountain Square. He claimed that “Fountain Square, for many years, has been the place where citizens gather; where citizens organize; where citizens speak up; where citizens take over. But guess what? There’s a company in our midst that controls this square. The city has given them control.”
He went on to speak about 3CDC (www.3cdc.org) and referred to it as, “privatized government” and that “none of us got a chance to elect them. Did you ever vote for them?”
The crowd responded to the question with a resounding, “No!”
He went on to point out that, “They decide the way many of us live.” He detailed how 3CDC has taken over Over the Rhine and renamed it “The Gateway Corridor,” building up what was a blighted area with many “fancy restaurants, stores and brightly colored buildings.” He warned the crowd not to accept this building up as “progress” because there were people who were living there previously who were “kicked out” and that “millions of units of affordable housing was lost” so that this progress could be made.
He advised the people against buying into the idea that the improvements were related to cleaning up the area when people were being pushed out. In a candid moment of honesty, he went on to admit that he felt “convicted” because it was necessary to get a permit from 3CDC for Occupy Wall Street to gather on Fountain Square. He pointed out that if the crowd wanted to continue to “occupy” that they must “overthrow” 3CDC, clarifying that what he meant by the term was that 3CDC was “operating as if they are our government. They are not. We are our government.”
Aliya Rahman said that she lives and works in Over the Rhine as a community organizer. She reminisced for a moment about how she and a group of about 150 marched around the Hilton back in April to protest a meeting of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).
She went on to acknowledge that she came back from the New York Occupy Wall Street protest last night and that she has heard the reports that Occupy Wall Street’s focus is unclear. She pointed out that she feels that the demands are very clear, using a question to begin articulating that focus: “What do you think ‘We are the 99 percent’ means?”
The crowd grew deathly quiet as she continued the thought: “It translates to there are so many of us, and disregarding our most basic needs to cater to a small radical minority is absolutely no way to run a functioning country.”
Upon hearing her definition, the crowd erupted into thunderous applause and cheering.
She went on to encourage the crowd to give “our elected officials, both those who don’t agree with us and those who do, but have been afraid to say something out loud, we are giving our permission and support to enact no economic policy unless it contains deliberate provisions to change this messed up situation we’re in, where 1 percent of the population controls so much of our wealth!”
Again, the crowd applauded and cheered enthusiastically.
Rahman went on to point out that she feels that Ohio elected officials need to be given permission and support by those who are a part of Occupy Wall Street in Cincinnati to, “end the 2005 tax cuts, use that money to create jobs for everyone and reinvest in the public services that this once great state needs to get back on its feet.”
More cheering and applause from the crowd.
She insisted that Ohio’s congress needed to stop talking tax cuts and instead, come up with “new forms of [tax] revenue to put our brothers and sisters back to work and to keep them fed, educated and out of prison…we got into this mess because of human decisions, and we can get out of this mess because of human decisions.”
She closed by insisting that, “We are the people who will teach this country to live up to the image it has created of itself as a fair and just democracy, because we are the people who have not seen that happen, and for some reason, we are still here fighting with no reason to believe that we will win, but we are here together.”
If the Ohio slogan “Heart of it all” is any indication of the eventual direction of Occupy Wall Street, and it actually becomes a full fledged movement, it would seem that Occupy Wall Street may end up taking on a focus of attempting to bring an end to what its members perceive as economic and social injustices, and working toward the redistribution of whatever wealth people might presently have left.
