Pam Garrison
Dave Waggenheim
Phillip Crowe
OCCUPY EUGENE ORGANIZER; NURSE
VIVA VEGETARIAN GRILL; FOOD DONOR TO
OCCUPIER; POET
OCCUPY EUGENE PROTESTS
What do Occupy Eugene and the Occupy
movement represent to you?
It represents a people’s movement standing up and
saying that this country is not going in a direction that’s
helpful for the people, and I think it’s generally about
economics but it’s about a lot of other things: It’s about
classism; it’s about ageism; it’s about sexism; it’s about
gender identity issues.
I was around in the ‘60s. I was against the Vietnam
War; my boyfriend from high school was killed in it, and
so I started doing all this stuff, and we thought we had
accomplished so much. We fought so hard for feminism
and all this stuff and then gradually throughout the years
my generation became the yuppies and did all this stuff,
and we started seeing the pendulum swing all the way
back and everything’s falling apart. What I see is where
the pendulum stops swinging, and we’re going to start
going back, and I think it’s necessary. For me, I’m just so
excited that the younger generation is here, and that’s why
I’m trying to help. I remember when I was that age, and
we had older people help I felt really good about that, so I
just wanted to be able to do that for this generation.
What is your role and why did you become
directly involved?
I work in the medical tent and in the sobriety tent and
I’m also the liaison between medical and peacekeepers,
because I’m an RN. I’ve been working with most of the
peacekeepers here for about 10 years since the Iraq War
started; we’ve done a lot of protests; we’ve been arrested
together. It’s a really strong group of my generation. We
started hearing about this and we started meeting and
asking as a group of the elder activists what we could do,
and we started going to the general assemblies and we
each found our way to fi t in.
What do you hope the Occupy movement will
change?
I think I want it change the attitude of apathy. People
think they can’t help it, the dishonesty, the way people
vote. We’ve been voting in people who aren’t what we
thought they were, and I believe that Barack Obama is one
of those. I think he might have been that person but when
he got in offi ce he couldn’t be, because there’s just so much
corruption. And I think it’s just really important for us to
try through the system and outside of the system — we
can’t do it all in the system and that’s the mistake we’ve
been making within the Iraq War. It was too much inside
the system, and it’s just been continuous killing. And now
I think they’re talking about going to Iran and I’m thinking
“This has got to stop.” I also do it for my grandchildren who
are little children and I want them to have more than this.
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What do Occupy Eugene and the Occupy
movement represent to you?
Specifi cally as a local business owner and part of the
community, it’s just a really good expression of ideas, the
thoughts of what’s kind of going on in our society right
now and with politics and the fi nancial side of things. As a
local, small business I think I can relate 100 percent with
what all those posters and sayings are saying. When you
compare a small business to a large corporate behemoth
there’s a lot of imbalance. So in a way you can kind of
project that up to the working class man, to the movers
and shakers on Wall Street getting paid millions on the
backs of normal taxpayers and hardcore workers. It’s a
great movement. I support it. As someone who’s busy I
want to support it any way I can.
Why did you get involved directly, and what are
you doing or have you done?
I thought it seemed to be a movement ramping up,
and I wanted to fi nd a way to contribute, either time or
product, to kind of show the people out there that they
were supported by all kinds of people in the community.
I don’t have a lot of time to donate so I fi gured I’d just
donate food, and I thought it translates really well. So, for
two hours we were giving out food nonstop until we were
all out. We gave away about 200 sandwiches. Everyone
was real psyched.
What do you hope Occupy Eugene will change?
I hope that it will send a message to everybody in the
Eugene community that if there are things that we’re
unhappy with, we can mobilize and come together as a
solid voice and work to change things. It may not happen
immediately or overnight, but as this movement attracted
a lot of attention and continues to attract a lot of attention
I think the main message is that people are not content and
they want to speak out instead of just being silent and just
taking it. If a few things can change as a result, I’d call it
a huge success. Or even if it gives people more confi dence
to speak out the next time we go to war, or some crazy
thing that’s just ridiculous, people will be like, “I
remember when all these people camped out and created
a scene, we can do it again.” I hope that’s the message it
sends, that we can create a scene and start a conversation.
What do Occupy Eugene and the Occupy
movement represent to you?
To me — and I can only reiterate that I can only speak
for myself and not for the whole occupation — Occupy
Eugene and the whole Occupy movement represents a
shining example of taking into your own control our own
governance and being a shining example of our democracy
in practice.
Why did you get involved directly and what are
you doing?
I saw a system of mass inequality. There are a few key
points that I see as being my key issues. One of them is
the forgiveness of student loan debt. We have an extremely
inequitable university and college system, and in order
for democracy to work, we should have free education
as a human right so that people can plug in where they
have the passion and also have the knowledge and skill
sets to do so. Our current education system creates wage
slaves, people who are in debt $40,000, $50,000 or more
sometimes and often given jobs that cannot pay that debt
back. So they don’t have the same leg-up on life as those
who go to school and have it paid for them.
Secondly, I am defi nitely interested in ending corporate
personhood. I’ve been working with We the People–
Eugene on this topic. Right now corporations have the
same free speech rights as individuals, which seems
ludicrous to me because they have very limited liability
and their general motive is not a holistic one, it’s based
upon making profi t.
Thirdly, I’d like to see a fourth branch of the
government to serve as the voice of the people, as a
check-balance for the other branches of the government —
judicial, legislative and executive. My demands in general
are for a more equitable society, one in which people can
actually have the American dream.
I have a few different roles here but my key issue is
morale. I am a poet and spoken word artist and I lend my
abilities in terms of helping keep morale up. I also helped
organize shows here to help keep morale up.
What do you hope the Occupy movement will
change?
What I hope to see change is apathy. What I
am noticing is that in the ’60s, the college students
spearheaded a movement. Here there have been some
students who have come down here and showed interest,
and it’s not just the students. In general we have a general
feeling of apathy.
The idea is to go from the I, you, he, she or it to the we.
To have social responsibility.
EUGENE WEEKLY NOVEMBER 10, 2011 13