The movement that began on Wall Street and then spread worldwide has been in the process of re-inventing itself over the last few months and local meetings have been taking place to bring the movement's expression of protest and promotion of change directly to neighborhoods.
Locally Occupy West Seattle has been percolating for a few months now and on March 13th, 2012, the movement will deliver its first rally. Calling it their “birth,” the movement has chosen to introduce itself on March 13th for several reason all of them surrounding CHASE Bank.
In a press release the group said:
"1) This is the same day of national Occupy actions against CHASE, originally called for by Occupy Atlanta. Many newer Occupy Neighborhood groups all around Seattle, will be joining other groups across Washington & our nation protesting in solidarity. There will be a march through the West Seattle Junction to the local CHASE branch..
2) It’s JP Morgan CHASE CEO Jamie Dimon’s birthday. There will be a “celebration” for Mr. Dimon with cake, balloons, and music.
3) This is the same day the “CHASE 5” will have their trial. Back in November Occupy Seattle held a day of action to correspond with the visit to Seattle by Jamie Dimon. On this day 5 brave occupiers chained themselves inside a local branch of CHASE, and were arrested. These 5 protesters will be having their day in court on the 13th. Occupy West Seattle wants to support for the "CHASE 5"
The event is scheduled to start at 4 p.m. Occupiers will meet in the Junction on the corner of Alaska & California Ave. for a parade to the local CHASE branch, where the "celebration" will take place in conjunction with a community picket line. This is intended to be a peaceful action that will be fun for the whole family.
In response to questions from the West Seattle Herald a group spokesperson said that the meeting attendance," has been far greater than any of us anticipated. I would estimate average attendance ranging from 25-30 people per week."
This is just the beginning of the group's activism, "We are working on a few other actions within the community for sure."
Though in recent years West Seattle has seen a demographic shift with the increase in condominiums and apartments the group said, "The demographics have been a little bit older on average than the Occupy Seattle crowd. That's not to say there aren't younger participants just that there is a higher concentration of retirement age people involved in West Seattle compared to downtown. We have had children with their parents, we have had college aged kids, young adults, middle aged, and retirement aged. It really runs the spectrum. The group is very positive and lots of ideas are being addressed and bounced off each other."
