I went down to Occupy Boston Saturday with a libertarian friend of mine out of curiosity. I was actually surprised at how well organized and clean it was. There weren't even cigarrette butts on the ground, there were tin cans all over the place for the butts. The tent area was well organized, with wooden planks laid down between the groupings of tents to act as paths. There was a food tent, medical tent, media tent, library tent, even a tent for religious services. Some people didn't have tents but were instead under plastic sheeting or tarps. While I was there, lots of people pulled their cars over to offer supplies - food, water, sleeping bags, etc.
As of the time I went down Saturday. relations between the city and protesters were still good. The protesters were staying in one space that wasn't disruptive to the city. They made plans with the police in advance for when they would do protest marches so they could make arrangements to close thre streets. The city agreed to pick up their trash and allow them to use nearby public bathrooms. Basically what the city and cops said that as long as they kept it safe and sanitary and not disruptive. They also had to agree to reseed the lawn where they camped out. There were cops there when I went down, but they and the protesters seemed to be getting along.
However, in the news this morning they stated that the area they are occupying has just expanded, as has the scope of their marches, and that previously good relationships between the occupiers and the city/law enforcement has started to break down.
When I was there, which granted, was only for a few hours, everyone was very nice and civil. When people would stop to talk to them, it never got heated, even when they were disagreeing.
I just couldn't really understand the protests. Tents had signs on them with their goals, but everyone seemed to have a different one. One tent would have a stop global warming sign, another a "get out of Iraq/Afghanistan" sign, another complaining about jobs and one after that complaining health care.
There also seemed to be no cohesion in the ideology of people gathered there. There were socialists, capitalist libertarians, Oathkeepers/ Freeman of the Landists, and anarchists all there, standing side by side. The only thing they could seem to agree on was that they were sick of partisan politics, and that they believed that the right/left division of the U.S. was something orchestrated by "them" to keep the common man divided so "they" could seize all the power and control while we were distracted fighting amongst themselves. Who "they" were supposed to be depended on who you asked. Some said it was the Federal Reserve, others the presidency, others Wallstreet, and still others the Illuminati. No one seemed to have any great love for either the Democrat or Republican party. Though there were socialists there, I don't feel that a majority of the protesters there were against capitalism as a general rule (and certainly that wouldn't apply to the libertarians in attendence). Many of them were young people frustrated at the lack of good job opportunities, and lots of people there lamented the increasing rich/poor divide. Shipping jobs overseas also was a big bone of contention.
There also were quite a few homeless people and tramp kids who didn't seem to be there because of politics so much as the safety, shelter, and resources provided by the tent city.
But still, I just couldn't really understand what the point was, or if there was one, since there was no unified ideology. Obviously they all seemed dissatisfied with the current system, but past that, I couldn't figure out what they actually hoped to accomplish.
