Jade Bulecza reported for WALB yesterday, Occupy Valdosta protests issues,

The occupy wall street movement that’s spreading around the country arrived in south Georgia.

That’s her with the big camera in front of the palm tree, come to see what democracy looks like.

More than 100 demonstrators marched through the streets of Valdosta Friday.

They’re protesting issues from corporate greed to unemployment all the way down to local issues including school consolidation.

There you have it: WALB links school consolidation to corporate greed.

How’s this for an ad linked to Martin Luther King Jr.?

Sam Allen says Vote No School Consolidation at the Martin Luther King Monument
Videos and pictures of Occupy Valdosta by John S. Quarterman
for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange

Back to Jade Bulecza:

They were chanting “they got bailed out we got sold out.”

Yep, like this.

Occupy Valdosta protesters chanted as they marched down Patterson Street. They made their first stop at Bank of America to protest the debit card fees, but no one there came out to acknowledge them.

“We’re here trying to make money and the banks are trying to take more money from us,” said Erin Hurley.

Jade Bulecza also managed to find one protester who wouldn’t give his name, and then found a self-identified right wing bystander to comment. I must ask her next time I see her: does her editor make her do stuff like that, or does she do it on her own?

That part of her story drew the expected commentary on the WALB website:

“We want, we want, we want”. Tell us your name! Don’t you want to be recognized for your noble actions?

From someone identifying herself only as “LuLu”.

More appropriate would be to ask why nobody associated with Bank of America was willing to talk to any of the reporters. That may be why WALB had to resort to random bystanders.

To jump ahead to the Chamber of Commerce for a moment, WALB reported this gem:

The president says 86 percent of the members are small business owners.

“We are the 99,” said Myrna Ballard.

That Myrna Ballard! She’s such a card.

But thanks again to Myrna Ballard for being willing to come out and greet us, unlike Bank of America.

Dean Poling also came out to talk at the VDT, as you can see in the WALB video. Hm, that doesn’t seem to be linked to the WALB text story anymore. Not to worry: we have local video, which will be up soon.

The conclusion of the WALB story:

From 11 to 1 Saturday Occupy Valdosta will meet at the MLK monument and talk about how they can make a difference in the community.

Topics such as Tony Daniels mentioned yesterday: Make the Industrial Authority be accounted. Come pick your topic.

-jsq

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