Occupy - Clayton?

Heretofore I haven't written about this event, but as Occupy Wall Street goes on, I am taking a little exception to my personal ban on political items on my blog.

As the summer's wrangling over raising the debt ceiling went on and on, I thought "this is no way to operate a country."  The debt ceiling had been raised many times under Pres. Geo. Bush, without comment and seemingly rubber-stamped by Congress.  Frankly, I hadn't even heard anything about these things till summer of 2011.

Two things seemed obvious:  that it was detrimental to our nation NOT to raise the debt ceiling, and that Republicans were doing this to make Obama look bad.  The debt situation is bad, for sure.  But not raising the debt ceiling was only going to make things worse, not better.

Therefore, on the day of the vote, Aug. 1, I responded to a Move On email to appear at Sen. Roy Blunt's office to protest the way this whole thing went down in the weeks leading up to the vote.  It was one of the hottest days of the summer, a melting one hundred degrees or so.  I took metrolink from the studio into Clayton and walked to the office building housing Sen. Blunt's offices arriving exactly at the noon time set for the protest.

Unsurprisingly, there were only a handful of other "protesters" on the scene already - less than 10 of us.  Old hippies, I guess - only two people were younger than myself.  There was a black woman of in her forties, along with her twenty something son.  There was an older man with walking stick accompanied by his gray haired wife in a denim jumper.  There was a fit looking older woman with a backpack.  There was a woman about my age who said she'd never attended such a thing, but was upset about how things had evolved.

Here's the surprise.  As I walked up to the office building, I was met in the lobby by a Clayton policeman who asked me why I was there.  I responded that I was going to Sen. Blunt's office.  He said I would not be allowed on the elevator.  In fact, I would have to leave the whole building.  It was "private property" and I had not been invited to enter.  I was trespassing, to quote him.  And he had back-up, to keep me out.  There were a total of roughly twenty uniformed policemen in the lobby, lining the steps of the building, in cars parked on the street, all armed with weapons and walkie-talkies. 

Yes, it did surprise me.  My right to speak my piece as a constituent of a duly elected public servant was deemed worthy of a phalanx of policemen to deny.

Money talks, and the voices of regular people are stifled.  I don't know if Occupy Wall Street will have any effect or not.  I didn't think my appearance at Blunt's office would have any real affect.  I wanted my voice heard, regardless, tiny and puny though it is.  Is that too much to ask?