I spent my morning at Freedom Plaza in Washington DC for the beginning of the October 2011 rally. While the event is heavily focused on ending our highly unpopular and expensive wars, it is also about economic justice and stopping the corporate control of government that is destroying the country for the other 99 percent. This was a protest not just against the Republican policies that started under George W. Bush, but also the policies that Barack Obama chooses to continue and expand on a daily basis.

The atmosphere at Freedom Plaza was all about real policy and not partisan politics. Signs or t-shirts supporting any particular candidate were extremely rare. I saw at most two or three Obama 2012 t-shirts or signs among the hundreds in attendance, fewer than the five or six Ron Paul images I witnessed. There seems to be an acknowledgement that true change requires a movement and no one politician can serve as a substitute for that movement.

After the jump are some pictures I took at the October 2011 event: