Occupy Chicago

Today your intrepid reporter grabbed a camera and took the L down to the Loop to check out the Occupy Chicago protest going on in the city's financial district. I've been wondering what to make of the protest, which originated in New York City's Wall Street district and has since spread to literally hundreds of cities around the country.

From afar, the protests seemed unfocused: "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore!"

Oh.

So I went down to talk to people and take some pictures. Here they are, in no particular order. Click on any picture to get a bigger size.

I particularly liked this first one. It's the self-imposed rules everyone must abide by. People drive or walk by and bring bags of apples, sandwiches, coffee, etc. There is a central place where everything is kept.

There were a lot of people with cameras.

This captures almost everyone at the protest, including the cameramen.



"End the Fed" was a popular sign. I was getting just a little suspicious.

The guy lying on his side with his feet in the street was singing something. I agree that money is not speech.

I like the above sign, too.

These people had been there for a while. I talked to the fellow on the right for a few minutes. He was really nice, and was very articulate. He had hitchhiked in from Oregon on his way to New York City. He had to change his party registration back in Oregon in order to vote for Ron Paul. He told me he had to quit school. He was getting food stamps and the government was paying for his education, but he lost his part-time job. If I understood him correctly, he thinks the federal government should be shrunk, power returned to the states, and there should be competition among the states for citizens. He was having a good time. Two nights in a row he was picked up by attractive young women and driven to a place where he could sleep. I wouldn't keep going to New York, either.

I agree with this young man, too. We are so naive.

Well, yeah.



This is an architectural treasure in Chicago, the Continental Illinois Bank Building. According to Wikipedia:

The Continental Illinois National Bank and Trust Company was at one time the seventh-largest bank in the United States as measured by deposits with approximately $40 billion in assets. In 1984, Continental Illinois became the largest ever bank failure in U.S. history, when a run on the bank led to its seizure by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). Continental Illinois retained this dubious distinction until the failure of Washington Mutual in 2008 during the financial crisis of 2008, which ended up being over seven times larger than the failure of Continental Illinois.

Now, as you can see, it is renamed the Bank of America building.

Heh, heh.

The second floor of the bank is absolutely gorgeous, an homage to money. You used to be able to go up there and gawk at the place, which said, very unsubtly, "MONEY LIVES HERE."

Since Bank of America took over, though, the public is not allowed in what was once a very public area of the bank. You cannot take pictures of it. You cannot even see it. A couple of years ago Bank of America bought out my bank. Now they want to charge me $5.00 a month for using my ATM card at Costco. It's part of their "Building Customer Loyalty" program.