Plymouth Students Occupy Manchester

The momentum from the Occupy Wall Street campaign in Manhattan has spread throughout New England cities. The newest installment of the protest was held in Manchester, New Hampshire last Saturday in Veterans Memorial Park (as well as on the green on Main Street, thanks to the lone dissenter in downtown Plymouth that same afternoon).

Roughly 300 protesters flocked to Elm Street in downtown Manchester to take part in the first day of the occupation. The group was a mixture of the www.OccupyNH.org team, eager college students, labor unions, nearby churches, and curious locals, all gathering to take part in another segment of the countries fastest growing organized protest movement.

The Manchester occupation operates in the same fashion as their Manhattan counterparts, offering the same open discussions, services, and event planning, as well as adopting the same systems of communications such as the now famous echo-speech giving technique and intricate hand signals.

In the group's open forum discussions, the woes with government ranged from environmental stability to US foreign policy. Many discussions also included local government policy, such as the Northern Pass debate, as well as increasing school tuition within the New Hampshire university system. A group from University of New Hampshire that called themselves "Occupy UNH," were present to show their dissatisfaction with the in-state university system. 

Ben DiZoglio, an organizer for Occupy NH and a PSU almnus says, "the important thing here, like all the other protests, is it gives everyone a voice." Occupy NH is now trying to set up for long-term protesters by collecting donations. The group has already received donations to rent port-o-pottys and to feed and provide shelter to long term campers, but more donations are needed to sustain what many would like to see become a larger movement in Manchester.

Many Plymouth students were on site for the opening occupation. Students from Common Ground, Ending Genocide Around the World, and many other Plymouth organizations were taking part in the protest.

Stephanie Aubert, a senior at PSU, has been involved with the movement since its beginnings. "This is a safe place for all political ideologies," Aubert said, "because everyone is upset with so many different issues, this is a perfect way to have peaceful discussions."

Aubert, like many PSU students, has been giving up her spare time to protest in New York City, Boston, and Providence as the protests continue to grow.

Occupy New Hampshire has many dedicated, full time, protesters who are about to embark on a movement without a set ending, anticipating the bitterly cold New England seasons on the horizon.