Protesters occupy Doylestown, PA
Christina Kristofic
State and Main streets have a steady stream of visitors who appear to be able to support all the little stores.
Even in this recession, people come to town in Mercedes, BMWs, Lexuses and SUVs. Men stroll through town in neatly pressed chinos and women carry designer handbags. And everyone seems to own a smartphone and an iPod — and maybe even an iPad.
Doylestown seems to many to be insulated from the recession. It seems like the perfect little town.
It’s the town many other towns want to be.
So it’s one of the last places you’d expect to see people protesting corporations and Wall Street.
But people in Doylestown are struggling just as much as people everywhere else, said Marlene Pray, a community activist and Democratic Doylestown Council candidate who organized an Occupy Doylestown rally on Thursday.
“I have yet to meet someone who doesn’t know somebody who is impacted by the economic crisis,” Pray said. “I know people who are unemployed. I have many, many friends who are a paycheck or an emergency away from losing housing.”
Pray and about 150 others gathered at State and Main streets — the center of activity in Doylestown — to say this recession cannot stand.
“They say cutbacks, we say fight back,” they chanted.
“The people united will never be defeated.”
“Don’t cut teachers. Don’t cut cops. Collect the taxes from the top.”
They stood in the rain under the Starbucks sign (one of few corporate businesses in Doylestown) in solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street protesters and thousands of others around the world. They wore simple jeans and T-shirts or oxford shirts with the sleeves rolled up under their raincoats. They carried signs denouncing corporations for their greed, telling people to support local businesses, demanding increased taxes for the wealthy “1 percent,” and calling for an end to the war.
“There’s a basic injustice in the tax system,” said Charlie Sweeney, 63, of Warminster. “Everybody is paying for infrastructure — roads, police. Business disproportionately benefits from these things.”
And some business owners benefit too much, the protesters said.
“The thing that first upset me were severance packages CEOs were getting from major corporations,” said Kevin Fitzgerald, 60, of Harleysville.
Fitzgerald carried a sign with the photos of big bank CEOs with pig noses. He said, “They accepted a lot of TARP money and they’re holding on to it. They’re sitting on large piles of cash not doing what they promised to do.”
Meanwhile, the protesters said, there are people struggling to find jobs and make ends meet.
“There’s a lot of wealth in this country and it’s not distributed evenly,” said Joe Covell, 26, of East Rockhill.
Covell said he graduated from college in 2008 and hasn’t been able to find anything other than a telemarketing job.
Brandon Strauss, 20, of Doylestown Township, said he’s going to college full-time and working two jobs. He’s studying biology — specifically, forensic entomology — and he’s worried he won’t be able to find a job when he graduates.
Strauss said he knows many people his age who are taking out loans to pay for college. They’re going to college so they can find jobs later. And they’re afraid they won’t be able to find jobs when they finish and they won’t be able to repay their debt.
“I’m here for all the college students who are afraid,” said Strauss.
Other protesters said they were worried about losing the jobs they have.
Deb Reblock, a 51-year-old school bus driver from Hilltown, said she’s been working for Central Bucks School District for 25 years and she thought she had “a decent job with decent wages.”
Now, the school district is “boiling it down to a bottom line number,” she said.
Central Bucks wants to outsource much of its transportation department to First Student. Reblock said First Student pays less and offers fewer benefits: “We’d be working to pay for our health care. How are we supposed to support our families? Pay our taxes?”
Her husband, 63-year-old Rich Reblock, drives a concrete truck and said the company he works for has been cutting hours, overtime and benefits. He’s not bringing home as much money as he used to.
There’s little any of them feel they can do but protest and hope people hear them.
“The 99 percent doesn’t have the money to pay lobbyists and pay politicians,” Strauss said.
“History has shown when enough people go outside, speak for what’s right and what they believe in, then you have change. ... It may take 99 percent (of the country) until they get the message that we’re tired of the political agendas.”
Christina Kristofic: 215-345-3079;
email, ckristofic@phillyburbs.com;
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Oct. 14, 2011