It seems germane to discuss this now, with the 2012 General Elections looming only a few short weeks ahead.
I’d like to write a little bit about elections, my experience with third party politics, and why I won’t be voting for incumbent President Barack Obama in this November.
On Saturday, October 15th, Manhattan saw two very large protests: one rather spirited one in Times Square, and another nearly-as-spirited one in Washington Square park (near NYU).
The feeling in Wash Sq Park is electric. You can just tell something big is about to happen
#occupywallstreet
And it totally was.
Rather than my usual longform style of writing, I’m going to simply recap the series of tweets that I and others posted, along with some videos.
At General Assembly in Zuccotti Park that night, an announcement was made that there would be a second general assembly at 10pm in Washington Square that night, and that people should bring sleeping gear. As we had seen earlier, Washington Square closes at midnight, by decree of Parks & Recreation, so the conflict was imminent.
The past two weekends I have gone to the Occupy Wallstreet protests in downtown New York City (I’ve talked briefly about the history leading up to it previously). The experience has been absolutely phenomenal. I’ve met so many amazing people, from all walks of life, and witnessed the early days of what I believe will become a very important period for the country in which I live.
I have had some discussions / arguments with people on the internet (SIWOTI is a foul temptress), and while some of them are about the movement in general, many of them are a mischaracterization of the occupiers themselves. There are others that have been genuinely interested or curious as to what’s going on. For both of these groups, and anyone else, I’ll go over what I’ve found there.
You know how on Facebook you can click “Like” on any particular item you find pleasing to your eye? A post, a note, a photo, a weird comment; a game, sports team, product, place, celebrity, bizarre habit, fetish, whatever? You can “Like(tm)” as many things as you want in ANY category; over time, certain things become clearly “more liked” than others.
Imagine, for a moment, that you could do this in an Election.