Occupy Wall Street Message Spreads to Kauai
On Saturday, Kauai joined what has become a global movement growing out of the Occupy Wall Street protests. As demonstrators took to the streets in London, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Melbourne and cities around the world, Kauai residents made their voices heard too.
Organized by a local grass roots group called Kauai Alliance for Peace and Social Justice, the gathering of more than one hundred protesters occupied the sides of the Kuhio highway in Kapaa for three hours, raising signs denouncing corporate greed, multi-trillion dollar war budgets, economic inequality and unsustainable economic growth.
Unlike protests in Chicago, Denver, Boston and New York, where hundreds of demonstrators have been arrested, beaten and pepper sprayed, or Rome where protests turned violent, the Occupy Kauai demonstration was peaceful and marked by a positive, though determined, spirit.
The five police assigned to the protest, including Kauai County chief of police Darryl Perry, chatted amongst themselves and with protesters, but the overall mood was peaceful.
Rallying around the phrase “human needs, not corporate greed,” organizer and activist Raymond Catania led loud chants of “This is what democracy looks like! This is what democracy feels like!” through a bullhorn as passing cars honked to show support.
Walking amongst the crowd, we asked protesters one question: What is your message to Wall Street and Washington? Here are some of their answers.
The message is that people are tired of the way it’s going. It’s almost like a fairy tale where the emperor has not clothes and that’s how people feel about Wall Street. We want a new direction. I am a registered nurse and I see a lot of people that are unhappy and suffering.
— Jeanie Amas, registered nurse
These are the end of your days. The people will no longer stand up for a privately owned monetary system in the United States. They want to know what we want, what are we asking for — we want this government out completely. We want to start fresh.
— Sharon Boll, independent artist
It’s time to put people’s need before corporate greed. It’s about social and economic justice. People have had enough and they’re standing up. I think this will get bigger and bigger until we make a difference.
— Kipukai Kualii, Kauai county council member
Just to realize they’re making people not happy. People aren’t able to live their lives because they don’t have enough money to live and have housing and health care, and [they] do, the one percent does. How is that fair? I went to school for two years but I had to drop out because of not enough money. I was working two jobs and going to school and it wasn’t enough. That’s the thing — how much college is nowadays. Only the rich are able to go and that’s what keeps them up top. That keeps us down below.
- Sheighlyn Knightly, waitress
I think that war is a profitable experience for certain corporations and that our politicians support that kind of effort. The American people really suffer because of that so we could put our priorities in a different place and put the needs of the people before the profits of these corporations. A corporation can have integrity but a lot of them don’t and our laws allow them to get away with a lot that they shouldn’t.
— Sue Coan, warehouse worker
It’s time to nationalize the Fed so that we all have a fair share of the money. This is really a spiritual revolution, not a political one. People need to learn to take care of each other.
— Kelly Ball, organic gardener/farmer
We’re onto their game. They’ve been trading their toxic derivatives and we’ve seen it and know about it. We want to hold them accountable for it. There’s a lot of lies going on there and we hope we can get the government to prosecute eventually.
— Andy Kass, technical writer
We need to invest in people not corporations and sustainability, not growth. I’m tired of hearing about ‘growth.’ We have to really think about changing the whole system and think about working on a sustainable economy, [being] sustainable environmentally, sustainable energy policy, that’s my message.
— Linda Pascatore, speech pathologist
We’re aware of what’s going on so there can no longer be any secrecy. And when there’s no secrecy any more with Internet, they cannot continue what was going on before. The message is share and bring back the middle class, accountability in corporate culture and banking and ending wars that do not serve people. Why are we fighting? We are one people globally. There should be no wars. There’s got to be some other solution.
— Demos, software developer/inventor
You can give all the theories, you can come up with all the computer programs and derivatives and expanding credit. The fact of the matter is the bill is past due and we all know how badly we’ve been screwed. It’s just a matter now of watching the system collapse. Pay attention because what’s been going on has come to its conclusion and somebody’s got to make some real smart decisions or this is just going to get further and further bad. Pay attention to the people because people have real needs. It’s not just a matter of digital credit. That hasn’t solved anything. If anything, it’s exacerbated everything.
— Johny Zappala, retired
(Regarding the protest) I want people to express their freedoms — freedom of speech, freedom of assembly. But we want to make sure that things are safe so that somebody doesn’t come here and instigate something. The protest is fine, it’s going good, they’re doing well — Kauai style.
— Darryl Perry, chief of police, Kauai county
I don’t have a message for Washington because they are so far away and so out of tune with what’s happening here [in Hawaii] that it doesn’t matter so much. The core message I have to people that are here on this island is to forget about that and get attuned to what they’ve got to be doing here. I think relying on larger and larger systems thousands of miles away is tantamount to ignoring our own life and our own needs here. My message is ‘economic growth is suicide and corporate wages are slavery’ meaning that this idea that everybody’s got to have a job – getta job, getta job – how about going back into your garage and figuring out something [you and] your neighbors need to do? Can you weld? Can you plane some wood? Is there something you can do where you are? That’s where I think the action is going to be increasingly. So the message is really to the people here now that I am with.
— Juan Wilson, architect
Watch a video of the protest here:
