This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Oct. 14, 2011 - Some people might regard OccupySTL movement in downtown St. Louis as just another tent city, not unlike the one the homeless erected on the riverfront north of downtown. But the tents that went up recently in downtown's Kiener Plaza are for a different kind of gathering.
Its members, who tend to be savvy in the ways of social media, encompass a range of economic classes. They're concerned, though, about how the economic downturn is affecting the middle class in particular. About 50 people were on hand early Thursday evening, an offshoot of a larger movement called Occupy Wall Street. What follows is a closer look at four of those faces.
Michael Lobel: 'Our country started with a social movement'
With his striking red hair and beard, Michael Lobel stood out early Thursday evening in the sparse OccupySTL crowd in Kiener Plaza. The sidewalks were Cardinal red, filled with pedestrians hurrying a few blocks south to Busch Stadium. But baseball was hardly the talk of the town for Lobel.
He was fixated on the sights and sounds in his immediate surroundings, the tents and laptops and jeans-clad young people, some of them patting dogs or fingering guitars or discussing a movement that some link to larger events in U.S. history.
"One of the great things I got from my education is a knowledge of what ingredients were needed for growing and maintaining a social movement," says Lobel, 22, a graduate of Northwestern University with a degree in American Studies.
"Within moments of being here, I saw a lot of the really necessary ingredients. Our country started with a social movement, just like here, people gathering in a single space, just talking to each, sharing ideas and building something concrete from those ideas."
Like many others in OccupySTL, however, he isn't sure about the outcome. He hopes the interaction will build hope for those worrying about their economic security. He came here after attending Burning Man, an annual event held each Labor Day weekend in Nevada's Black Rock Desert, about 120 miles north of Reno. Though that event was much larger, with 60,000 in attendance, Lobel likened it to the OccupySTL gathering because people in both locations were talking about building social movements to effect change.
Lobel is a sojourner, stopping at various places across the country before he decides where, how and when he wants to settle down. He seems to shun materialism in favor of leading a simple life. To put a roof over his head, he says he has been a chef and has done internet consulting work. But a full-time job isn't on his radar. It helps, he says, that his parents back in a Maryland suburb of Washington, D.C., are keeping him covered with health insurance for now.
"I finally know that all I really need to survive in the world is just myself," he says. "That's my form of security."
His next stop? New Orleans.
Rebecca Depriest: 'the Rest of Us Are Left with Nothing'
Three-year-old Caleb DePriest apparently assumes his mom, Rebecca, has kept her promise to take him to the park on this late afternoon. As he roamed Kiener Plaza, it never occurred to him that he wasn't so much in the middle of a park but part of a political event called OccupySTL.
While her son busied himself with toys, DePriest, 21, wasted no time explaining why she had traveled from St. Charles County to join OccupySTL. Like many others, she had learned about this movement by chatting with friends through social media. What she was hearing about the economy and Wall Street, whether true or not, struck a chord.
"We're here talking about corporate greed because I'm really concerned about whether we are going to maintain our way of life," she says. "I'm basically working two jobs, including one at a 24-hour fitness center. But I would love to get financially free enough to be able to spend more time with my son."
Like many others, she says she is unsure what needs to be done, "but I just want to let people who are in control to know we know what they are doing and we're not going to just stand by and blindly let our rights be taken from us."
A big part of the discussion, she says, is that most of the wealth is now held by a few "and the rest of us are left with nothing." That feeling is why she isn't surprised that people are beginning to organize.
"It was inevitable, and I'm really excited to see where it goes. It's really important for people to unite at this time and worry about taking care of each other and not just themselves."
She grew up in St. Peters and still lives in St. Charles County. Other than being in Kiener to give voice to OccupySTL, she saw the visit as a chance to get out with Caleb.
"He's been running around and his energy is up. He's been enjoying it here."
Mike Baldwin: 'We Need to Get Money out of Politics'
Mike Baldwin's day job involves working with teens on the north side. One minute he's showing them the way to construction careers. The next, he's helping them take a trip to China. On Thursday evening, Baldwin, 54, is realizing that life isn't clicking for many young people who have college degrees but no good jobs and who don't even bother to dream of visiting China.
Still, he is unsure that the larger society understands the plight of the educated young still unable to enter the economic mainstream -- or those who are part of the OccupySTL movement.
"A lot of my less radical friends think this is a group of hippies, jobless bums who want to get a bunch of handouts," he says. "But if they come down here, there will find lots of aspiring young people who want their democracy again."
One message from this movement, he said, is "we need to get money out of politics. That's first and foremost, prosecute people who have committed financial crimes that have caused our country to collapse economically."
With master's degrees in social work and education, Baldwin says he began to pay attention to the Occupy Wall Street movement and to wonder whether something similar would take hold in St. Louis. "I identify with a lot of the demands of Occupy Wall Street. I think that the thing that got me most interested was corporate control of politicians and our whole process of democracy and those who have the most power in society now."
He's not surprised that people are joining the Occupy Wall Street movement.
"I started thinking about a year ago that we as a country were reaching a tipping point where there would be all out revolution because there are so many disinfrenchised, unemployed and underemployed people with college loans that they can't pay. I was happy to see that Occupy Wall Street was such a strong, nonviolent, peaceful resistance event."
Mackenzie Marks: 'I Want to Have a Voice'
When Mackenzie Marks, 21, thinks of her future, she tends to see a dead end, no college degree, no good paying job and little hope of achieving either. The thoughts lured Mackenzie, a restaurant server, to join downtown's OccupySTL movement.
"I'm down here because I want to have a voice in a system that I'm supposed to be part of," she says. "I wanted to be around a lot of people who are as fed up as I am. I have $6 in my pocket and I'm just getting out of a job where I work 40 hours a week."
Because she doesn't want to be saddled with a big college loan, she says she dropped out of Webster University after two years because she couldn't afford the tuition.
"There should be jobs that pay living wages, jobs that offer health insurance, and there should be jobs for everyone. A lot of people are way worse off than me. I still have a home that I can go to and I get health insurance through my dad's job. But I'm still just fed up, want to see change and want to be around people who want to see change as well."
How sure is she that OccupySTL, and similar movements, will bear fruit?
"It's really hard to explain what will happen because this is so new. But what I think is important is to use it to make people aware that they do have a voice, a place and a chance to express themselves. It could make people aware of what's going on instead of standing idly by and allowing more things to happen to them."
Her only disappointment, also voiced by many others, is "I sure would like to see more people down here."