(Old Post from Drafts) Occupy Wall Street and Ballarat

I have to stop writing draft posts and just put them up. It looks like I haven't been here for a while, but I have evidence that shows otherwise. This weekend I went down to visit my brother and some family in Victoria - Saturday was spent in Melbourne looking like a photographer and overnight and Sunday we both spent in Ballarat with extended family on my dad's side.

Because I am really falling behind on my current affairs, I had no idea that the 'Occupy Wall Street' support protest was on and so it was a nice surprise to find that we could almost spend an entire day photographing protesters. I found the whole event extremely interesting.

There was a mixture of people there, ranging from old hippies to uni students to various action groups. At the beginning, they seemed to all be supporting the Wall Street protest. They were talking of action against the greed and the corruption of the big banks, directors and politics. But as the day wore on, it became a protest against Max Brenner (the chocolate man, an Israeli food chain) for the fact the company support for the Golani reconnaissance platoon (part of the Israel Defense Forces). I have a sneaking suspicion these guys turned up when the rest decided that they'd done for the day. Anyways, it started a march to the local Max Brenner cafe which became heavily protected by police. Unfortunately, no ultra cool violent protest photos however.

The thing that got me however (during the first protest) was that there was a huge portion of people there who were protesting against capitalist groups and big corporations who had one or a combination of:
1. iPhone
2. Ray Bans
3. Samsung/Apple tablets
4. iMacs
5. Jeans ranging from $150 - $300
6. Hats and sneakers ranging from $70 - $300

I couldn't take them seriously. There were so aggressive with their stand against these corporations but were quite happy to casually forget the ones that they took a particular liking to. And the ones that smoked - I was itching to ask them if they'd ever heard of British American Tobacco.

The sad thing was, the ones who didn't follow all the market bullshit, who were barefoot and smelly, smoking pot and walking around in body paint could have become people who do make a huge difference in the world - lawyers, councilmen, doctors if they had just funneled the energy in the right way. But they didn't, and now no one listens to them.

Protests are always interesting. 99% of them are professional protesters and will do it for the hell of it. Daniel mentioned we should re-create the Pen and Teller episode and carry out a partition to ban "Dihydrogen monoxide", or "DHMO".  DHMO is WATER. H2O. 

Anyways, took some photos and come home. Thinking of finding a protest that's been organised properly and going out to shoot. The ones below are the best ones I could find.