(Trying to) Occupy Escondido

Local paper warned us there would be an Occupy Escondido rally today at 9am...starting, where else? Starbucks.

The plan was to march to various big banks downtown and shame locals into moving their accounts to smaller banks and credit unions. That’s right, they are promoting free market competition. My buddy W.C. has more on this here. But I digress.

So, I’m thinking, leftist anti-establishment rally in blue-collar Conservative Escondido...I gotta see this. I head down about noon to search them out. I don’t worry about being late because it’s “Occupy”...they’ll at least try to be there all day, right?

But alas, they were no where to be found. Not at B of A. Not at Chase or Wells Fargo. Not in front of City Hall. And not at the Homeless HQ formerly known as Grape Day Park adjacent City Hall. To be honest, I was disappointed. I really wanted to see if they could muster up even half as many folks as the anti-checkpoint crowd (who at least have a defined CAUSE).

Turns out, I really was late...and early. Some out-of-town carpet bagging Occupy turf squatters planned this little shindig to last from 9-11am (um, why call it Occupy, then?). And the actual Escondido Occupy group scheduled their event for 1pm tomorrow...only the liberal North County Times reporter missed the memo.

And if this isn’t sad enough....none of these navel-gazers (thank you, Goddess) know the first thing about Escondido...like the fact that almost NOTHING is open downtown on a Saturday. Especially not most of the banks. The only people they are impacting are the homeless who are very territorial this time of year.

This is running long, but I would like to offer a small PSA. I choose not to belong to any of the big banks. Instead hubbie and I belong to First Republic who offer warm cookies and upholstered seating for all bank transactions....and...drumroll, please.......NO ATM FEES...and...REIMBURSEMENT FOR ALL OTHER BANK ATM FEES. That’s right...take two minutes to shop around and competitive capitalism offers wonderful CHOICES for free thinking grown-ups.

So, I apologize for not getting pictures. But I hear there will be a next time...at Starbucks.