Occupy Logan comes to campus
The occupation movements now spreading across the U.S. and other parts of the globe have landed a small following in Logan, led in part by two USU students.
“I compare our movement a lot to the civil rights movement,” said Zakk Lanphear, a sophomore majoring in sociology. “We see this big, social renaissance almost with political knowledge where people are becoming politically informed on a huge scale. We haven’t seen that since the ‘60s.”
“We just have been doing protests, demonstrations every few days,” said Justin Jerez, a junior majoring in philosophy. “We don’t actually have a permanent occupation.”
Jerez said though several protests have been held, so only six or seven people attended each event.
Lanphear said the purpose of Occupy Logan is to raise awareness of issues affecting everyone.
“Each individual has their own idea of what’s wrong with the government,” he said. “It’s a pretty diverse group. It’s more just people protesting against the broken system.”
Lanphear said the Occupy Logan movement does not have a specific political agenda or a specific list of complaints.
“We just want to get people motivated to — to get out there and vote — to realize there’s a problem and to look into why, and then formulate their opinions on how to fix it,” he said.
“I think once people become motivated, they’ll teach themselves and do the research themselves,” Jerez said.
However, Lanphear said, many occupiers across the U.S. are focused on the issue of corruption at the corporate and federal government levels.
“The main thing is corporate corruption, the collusion between big business and the government — getting things like bailouts,” he said, listing more reasons for the protests. “For some people it’s fueling the military industrial complex, the federal reserve, but overall it’s dealing with the unbalance of power between rich, powerful.”
Jerez said there is a disparity between politicians and corporate executives and the “average, everyday American whose vote doesn’t really matter that much.” He said average Americans have little influence on U.S. foreign policy or the economy.
Lanphear said government bailouts, U.S. tax policy and U.S. drug policy all illustrate elected officials abusing their power to promote their own interests.
“It’s become so pervasive that it’s hard to find a section of our government, any sector that isn’t infiltrated, that isn’t so subversive somehow in corrupt usage of their elected power,” Lanphear said.
The movement is off to a slow start so far, Lanphear said, with only a few people coming to events. The group’s Facebook and Twitter accounts, however, are growing, he said.
“We’re taking a grass roots approach to it, talking to people on an individual basis —
getting names, numbers — trying to spread it by word of mouth.”
Right now that’s our biggest goal,” he said, “is to organize and form a membership base — kind of get people aware that we exist as an occupying movement here in Logan. Because it is a rather unique place for an occupying movement here in Logan.”
“So we want to get people to know that it is here,” he continued, “and from that point, once we have a membership base of, you know — numbers, email addresses — start instituting programs to get people educated.”
Jerez said he plans to organize social events like potluck dinners and sign-making parties to accompany the group’s protests.
Lanphear said he’s talking with USU organizations like Students for a Sensible Drug Policy and members of the LGBT community, as well as political groups on campus, to find people interested in joining.
The movement also seeks to demonstrate that participants of the occupation movements are not what media portray them to be, Lanphear said.
“They basically portray us as hippies,” he said.
Instead, he said, the majority of participants in the occupation movements are average, ordinary citizens who are scared and looking for solutions.
Jerez said the Occupy Logan movement is more targeted toward problems in federal government than local issues, though he said it wouldn’t be a big leap for the movement to focus more locally.
“For now it’s mostly just national, federal issues,” he said. “The problems that we have and that we’re protesting about and talking about with the Occupy movement aren’t really there on a local level. I mean, we don’t have, you know, the controlling of the economy by corporations — the starting of wars over personal interests. Things like that don’t happen in Logan, Utah.”
Lanphear said, “I think as we grow, we’re definitely going to look a lot more at our local issues. Once we get a member base and start these political discussions we’re going to see a lot more people voicing their concerns about Logan.”
Jerez said the group will hold an occupation at Walmart this Saturday.
On the
group’s Facebook page, one member said he was disappointed with the amount of activity so far.
“Since moving to Logan from Salt Lake, where there is an “active” occupy group, I’ve been sorely disappointed in the turn out for demonstrations, meetings or events. Granted, I do understand that it is Logan after all and we’re doing what we can to educate and indoctrinate others, but every person who says they are a part of something should at least participate, a little bit, in my opinion,” he said.
So far, Lanphear said, the group has not encountered any problems with local police or city officials.
– robmjepson@gmail.com