Community Corner

Black Friday In Downtown Martinez Was Occupied

A small but noisy group held signs and wore American flag body suits.

Last Friday, on the biggest shopping day of the year, downtown Martinez was occupied. A group of eight people carried banners, two of them dressed in American flag body suits. They were gathered in Main Street Plaza; the idea was to hold the occupation near Bank of America. The reality, though, was that the protestors provided visual distraction and discussion topics for the one downtown store that had any sort of ongoing foot traffic that day – Starbucks.

Dan Phillips, the defacto leader of the Occupy Martinez movement, at first used his bullhorn to share his thoughts with shoppers and coffee drinkers. But pretty soon the police arrived and informed him that there was no amplification allowed on Main Street without a permit. So Phillips took to shouting.

Absent a bullhorn, the most he could do for an extended length of time was shout “hey!” to passing cars and people. Not that the shouting was necessary – though it was the biggest shopping day of the year, it was a typical holiday in downtown Martinez. That is to say, it was very quiet. Most of the people out and about were downtown residents, though one family did take a look at the protest and decided to head to Benicia.

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One protestor handed me a flyer.
“Speak out about corporate greed,” it read in part. “Speak out about the growing gap between the wealthy one percent and all the rest of us, everyday people – the 99 percent. Speak out about the economic war against we, the citizens, the 99 percent. Why do corporate CEOs and other upper management continue to get raises, bonuses, separation packages, comprehensive health care, take breaks while we face massive job layoffs, rising costs in health care, continuous home foreclosures, cutbacks in the education of our children, rising tuition rates for our students, cutbacks in services for senior citizens and the disabled?”

A few passing motorists gave the protestors their views about the event with their middle finger. At least one driver allegedly yelled a racial epithet at the lone African American protestor. Several others honked in seeming support of the rally.

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After a couple of hours, the whole thing came to an end and Main Street fell quiet once more. Given the day and the lack of shoppers, it might well have been a quiet despair for those who own businesses there.

For a couple of hours, at least, the Occupy Martinez movement did bring some bodies downtown. Whether they spent any money or not is unknown. It’s likely, though, that not one of them used the Bank of America ATM machine.


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