About three dozen people turned out for Saturday’s initial meeting of Occupy Red Bank at Marine Park, an event led by Connor Walby, center below. (Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Any expectations that a gathering dubbed Occupy Red Bank would attract throngs of longterm visitors similar to those protesting near Wall Street in Manhattan and elsewhere around the world proved mistaken Saturday.
Instead, a brief, low-key assemblage of about three-dozen people lived up, or down, to billing, as nothing more than an opportunity for participants to air concerns about economic and political trends, and to agree to meet again.
“The strength of this is what we agree on,” Connor Walby, who in his word “facilitated” the discussion, told the attendees arrayed in a loose circle on a concrete pad in Marine Park. “We agree that this is a broken system.”
Inspired by the month-old Occupy Wall Street movement, the session aimed for, and delivered, a rancor-free merging of frustrations over income equality and the influence of big money in politics.
One participant urged those in attendance to read Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States,” while another reported on what he’d seen over five consecutive days of visiting the OWS camp in Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan. A third suggested everyone participate in a November 9 national effort to overturn the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizen’s United decision, which found that political spending by corporations and unions is protected by the First Amendment.
A suggestion that the group reach out to elected officials in an effort to work within the political system was met with polite pushback. “I think what you do is create something that frightens the politicians,” said one man.
“Nobody got angry today,” Walby said afterward, as clusters of participants broke into working groups to formulate strategy on topics such as legal issues, media outreach and more. “We all agree there’s something wrong with the economic system of the world. This was a really successful event.”
