Politics & Government

(Gallery and Video) Occupy Iowa City Takes Over College Green Park

More than 200 people gathered in College Green Park on Friday night in solidarity with the "Occupy" movement that started in New York last month.

Occupy Wall Street has now officially spread to Iowa City.

Between 200 and 300 people from all over Eastern Iowa gathered in for "Occupy Iowa City" Friday night, expressing frustration with the state of the country, with corporate control of their lives, and with the great disparity of wealth between the richest one percent of income earners and the rest of the nation.

"The system is not working," said Jeanne Green, 57, of Lone Tree, as she held a sign proclaiming "Tax the Rich" at the edge of a nearby street, receiving supportive honks from passing motorists.

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Green, who works at in Iowa City, said her two children who have graduated college are struggling to find good work in today's economy.

"That's not the American Dream, that's not why I encouraged them to go to college," Green said.

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The crowd of people included the employed, the underemployed, and unemployed; local politicians, college students, children and the elderly. All there for different reasons, but all, apparently, with a common sense that many things in the country are broken, and need to be fixed.

The with the ongoing protest that originally started last month in New York as a critique of the financial sector's role in the meltdown of the world economy in 2008.

Some of the protestors said they intended to stay indefinitely as a show of support for the cause.

They claimed a section in the east side of the park with tables, chairs, signs and at least 15 tents to mark their territory. Earlier in the day, the  changed their tune by saying they would not attempt to push protestors out of the park when it closed at 11 p.m. 

Still, the group will have to solve some basic needs, such as bathrooms, cooking, warmth and safety, if they are to succeed with a lengthy occupation. People had been stopping by throughout the evening with bags of groceries, baked goods and other supplies, said Shay O'Reilly, a recent UI graduate.

"As long as it takes," Hannah Staley, 19, a University of Iowa sophomore, said of how long she plans to stay. "I personally am here because I am tired of how things are, and it will be worth the effort of figuring out what it takes to stay out here."

Boyfriend and girlfriend, Ricardo Mantilla and Misty Rebik, of Iowa City, were one pair who said they planned on staying on together as long as it takes to get congress and the president to respond to the movement's message.

"End the tax breaks for the corporations and use that money to rebuild our infrastructure," said Mantilla.

Rebik agreed, iPhone in hand, sitting next to the red tent where she was planning on spending the night.

"We don't have a debt problem in this country, we have a revenue problem," she said. "I don't necessarily have a problem with a fair, equivalent tax rate for everyone, but the fact is that things aren't fair right now."

Late night, the crowd was subdued.

By midnight, around 50 people were settled in for the night. Some had gone to sleep, and others huddled around the park's gazebo, occassionally fielding questions from intoxicated students walking through. 

"The way the economy has been handled, the way the bailouts have been handled," Jared Krauss, 21, a University of Iowa junior answered two people who identified themselves as college students as to why he is protesting. "We are paying for tuition for college, and there are supposed to be jobs there for us, and they're not there."

The protest itself was civil, at least the early goings. The movement is leaderless, and decisions about the occupation were made through majority decisions at a general assembly at the center of the park, with the crowd amplifying each speaker's suggestion by repeating what they just said, with each decision receiving approval or disapproval through a smattering of hand signals.

And the decisions, for a movement that has been portrayed by some national media outlets as either ineffectual or dangerous, were exeedingly polite. Alcohol and drugs were prohibited by group fiat; the protest mission statement was left intentionally vague to welcome people of varying political beliefs; the city and the police were recognized for allowing the protest to peacebly occur; and groups were established to provide food to those who stayed and clean up after they have gone, down to the last cigarette butt.

Clarence Johnson, a database administrator from Iowa City who attended the event, said it might appear from the outside like the movement has no clear goals, but that this is in fact intentional. He said that since the movement already brought together hundreds of people to talk about the nation's problems already fulfills a part of its purpose.

"If they had a list of demands, or a leadership structure, this would allow people to automatically prescreen themselves out because of the one part of it they don't agree with," Johnson said. "Regardless of where you stand on the political spectrum, we can all agree that there are real issues that need to be dealt with."


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