Occupy SLO demonstrators rally at Farmer's Market

Posted: Oct 6, 2011 10:52 PM by Ariel Wesler
Updated: Oct 10, 2011 12:09 AM

There are multiple updates to this story. Please click here to get the latest information.

Occupy SLO demonstrators rally at Farmer's Market

The anti-Wall Street protests have made their way to San Luis Obispo. The "Occupy Wall Street" protests began in New York City on September 17. Since then hundreds of demonstrations have popped up across the country. Many people are expressing their anger over corporate greed and economic inequality.

"You are the 99%! You are the 99 percent," protestors shouted.

They marched through Farmer's Market making their message loud and clear.

"If you paid taxes, you paid more than GE," they chanted.

People have poured into the streets in cities like Portland, Oregon, Washington DC, and Los Angeles as part of a growing grassroots campaign.

"This is spreading across the country and the fact that it's in San Luis Obispo is incredible," said Sean Ellenson, a Cal Poly student, who was part of the rally.

While the turn out was smaller on the Central Coast, the messages are the same.

"There's an imbalance, a severe imbalance and it needs to be changed," said Jeremy Kastner of San Luis Obispo.

"People's needs not corporate greed," they shouted.

The "Occupy" movements aren't targeting the government as much as corporations, who demonstrators believe have all the control and aren't paying their fair share.

"They're way too rich to even care. They're getting a lot of money," Kastner said.

"Meanwhile, our education, we're cutting more and more and more and more," Ellenson said.

But Marc Scheivle, who was enjoying Farmer's Market says the demonstrators have the wrong idea about big business.

"They build bigger companies, more jobs. You take the money away from them by taxing them, they can't do that. They're going to hoard their money," Scheivle said.

"If you're not the richest one percent that's making billions of dollars, millions and millions of dollars a year, then you're part of this," Ellenson said.

The message seems to be getting through to the White House. President Obama said the U.S. must have a strong financial sector in order to grow and be successful. However, he said Thursday the financial regulation bill he supported will ensure tougher oversight of the industry.

For more information on the protests nationwide, click here.