After Months of Protests, 'Occupy' Looks to Evolve

Recently, young Abigail Garrett traveled throughout a broad swath of the Northeast. The six-year-old daughter of Occupy New Haven member and Hamden resident Dan Garrett joined him on a visit last fall to the Occupy encampment in New York.  Last month, the Garrett family, with one of its epoxy-coated signs on a 10-foot pole, traveled to New Hampshire to ‘occupy’ the primaries there.

In a week where some continued to implore the Occupiers to unite behind a single, coherent message, Patch asked Garrett, a 51-year-old property manager, and other members of Occupy New Haven to each provide one wish that would be the ideal outcome of the occupiers’ campaign.

“I think it would be great if we got political,” Garrett said last week as Abigail and her four-year-old brother Connor frolicked on the ONH encampment on New Haven’s upper green. “The movement is supposed to be apolitical, but it’s got to evolve to that.”

Garrett termed it critical that the occupiers pressure Congress to enact policies that benefit those Americans who are not, by income, among the one percent.

“The Republicans want to give tax breaks to millionaires while our economy is crumbling. I want the people in Congress on the Democratic side to stand up for the majority of Americans.The politicians are the ones who set all the rules in this country,” said a man who has also contacted the office of Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-3rd District) to try to arrange her visit to an ONH meeting.

Trying to Evolve

Occupier Ina Staklo also wants the Occupy movement to evolve.  She called for a fundamental upheaval to overcome what she views as the inequities of the present system.

“It has to be a fundamental upheaval that digs to the very root of this nation’s history,”  said Staklo. The 20-year-old Russian immigrant is a student at the University of New Haven who works at a yarn store and also as a translator. “The class system that this nation has as its foundation is fundamentally immoral.  It is the disease that brings forth the symptoms that we can all plainly see.  Why do people starve in a nation that produces enough food to feed the world?  Why do corporate CEOs see their income steadily rise while the workers that produce their wealth are losing their homes?”

“Our task is to move to build a just economic, psychological and moral construct, by and for the working class. It is in our power to evolve,” Staklo, who traveled last month to Washington to participate in , said.

Protesting in Milford

And an occupier named Erin didn’t miss a beat when asked for her wish.

“People over profits,” said Erin, who has marched in New York and also chairs the ‘comfort’ committee at ONH.  “Corporate greed.  Getting money out of politics.”

“My personal reason is livable wages,” the young woman said.  Erin said she is presently unemployed but had recently earned $8.50 an hour after working for 3 ½ years at a gas station.

Other members of ONH let their actions speak for their wishes.

New Hampshire native Kenny Manteau, who now lives in Branford, traveled to Milford last Sunday evening to take part in a vigil in support of the locked-out employees of the West River Health Care Center and the patients for whom they had formerly cared.  And occupier Don Montano, who lives on the ONH site while working two jobs, helps low-income residents with house repairs.

 “We want them to be aware of what’s going on in this country,” said Garrett when asked why he and his wife Lauren take their children to Occupy events.  “It’s their future.   It is important that they understand that we have conflicts in our country,” he said, adding that Americans resolve their conflicts with protest.

 “I want our family and children to be involved.”