Saturday, October 22, 2011

Occupy Raleigh

I just posted a minute ago, but completely forgot to mention that my middle son has gotten involved in the "Occupy" movement.  I'm proud of him for reading about things, making up his mind on what he believes and acting on it.  When I was his age, I would have been there too.  I think a revolution is coming - I'm just praying that it's a peaceful one.  It's time for things to change.

I'm thinking of the things I can do that can have an impact on the fat-cats.  First, I'm trying to find a Credit Union that I qualify to join.  I'm going to take my money out of the for-profit bank and put it in the not-for-profit Credit Union.  I know my few pennies won't mean much, but I've heard that this trend is happening all over the country.  I think this is a good thing.

I got my retirement account statement today and it was incredibly discouraging.  I've been having them take huge percentages of my pay and put it in the retirement account to try and make up for the fact that I had NO retirement account until 9 years ago.  It seems, this year they have not only managed to lose every penny they've taken from my paycheck, but an equal amount from what I had previously accumulated.  Sheila is not happy with the brokers.  If they're just going to flush it down the loo, I ought to just keep it and have fun with it.  Is this irresponsible?  Well, it would be if the account was actually making money, but to decide not to let them gamble with any more of my money...I think that's a fine call.  I'll pay off my debts faster so that when and if I do retire I'll be in a more comfortable position.  I think I'm also going to see if they can't redistribute what they do have.  Right now, they're way too heavily into stocks.  I'd feel a lot better about something less volatile (and less Wall Street related).  Wonder if I can get them to just invest it in gold for me?  LOL  I'm pretty sure that was NOT an option on the chart.  CDs were though.  That might be the safest bet.  I'm not feeling like the system is particularly trustworthy anymore.

So anyway, while there have been incidents in other cities, Raleigh had a total of 20 arrests in the last 2 weeks, and 19 of them were the traditional "sit in a circle and let yourself be arrested to make a point" sort of arrests.  (One was a lady trying to get back on the Capitol grounds after they locked the gate).  Nothing at all this week.  The city sent out only one policeman, who the occupiers proceeded to essentially adopt.  They nicknamed him "The Babysitter".  They are still not allowing bullhorns or microphones, so the protesters are still doing the "human microphone" thing, which seems to be working quite well.

There are reports that a number of Armed Forces personnel, particularly Marines, who have seen what is happening in the cities are going to the occupations in full uniform to protect the rights of the citizens to protest.  They are not actively getting involved, just getting in-between the protesters and those who are attacking them.  It is refreshing to see that the Marines are still on the side of the people of the USA, and protecting our rights.  It's very sad when the police start to become the "bad guys" again... but there they seem to be headed.

Okay, enough chatter.  Now I really DO have to go.

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