Community Corner

Occupy Movement Sets Up Camp in Bethlehem

Group of young protesters pitch tents outside City Hall to decry imbalance of wealth and influence.

In the past few years, Ashley Lane of Bethlehem has seen her father lose his job and her family’s home foreclosed upon.

Now, she said, her father holds down two jobs and her stepmother, who had been staying home to raise her younger sisters, is out working to help the family make ends meet.

On Monday, Lane was among a group of about a dozen or so people who had set up camp on Payrow Plaza, next to City Hall. The Occupy Wall Street movement, that in recent weeks has made news and spread across the world, has arrived in Bethlehem.

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Lane said she has held a string of low-paying jobs for five years and currently works as a convenience store clerk in the city. She left the protest at dusk to go to work and said she would do what she had done for the previous two days and return to the camp after her shift ends.

At the age of 21, she said she doesn’t see a future in which she or her sisters will be able to earn a whole lot more than minimum wage.

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College is not something she could see investing “thousands and thousands of dollars” in, she said. Education should be a right for everyone, she said. And even if she did invest the money in getting a degree, there is a good chance there will be no job waiting for her anyway.

“In the words of George Carlin, ‘They call it the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it,’ " Lane said.

It was Day Four for the Christmas City protesters, who had about eight tents set up and between 10 and 18 people at any one time during the early evening hours as dusk arrived.

This was not a loud or boisterous protest. It was laid back, subdued and young. Almost all of the protesters were in their late teens or early 20s. Many seemed to hold the view, like Lane, that there is something deeply flawed about the world they are trying to make their way into.

Those at the encampment sat on chairs or on the ground, talked and played guitars. A few passers by approached to talk to them. They did not approach anyone who did not engage them. A few motorists driving by at Church and New streets honked in support.

The underlying complaints that reportedly drive the protests in New York and other American cities were similar in Bethlehem: that too much of the world’s wealth has been concentrated in too few hands, that many people are suffering because of this and that large, wealthy corporations wield too much power and influence over governments and individual lives.

A solution to the problems seemed more elusive to the group.

While some talked global changes for economic and political systems, others emphasized more local solutions.

Edwin, a 21-year-old from Bethlehem, who did not want to give his last name, said a lot of people could be fed through community gardens rather than seeking government help. “We can take care of our own,” he said.

“I’m not opposed to capitalism. You have to work for what you need,” the struggling young artist said.

“I think it’s way too early in the movement to know what the end game is,” said Andrew Kyriakopoulos, 20-year-old man from Bethlehem who has already experienced one layoff. “Obviously, setting up tents in front of City Hall won’t do anything, but it creates awareness.”


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