Above photo: Bruce Brisson stands in West Capitol Park Tuesday morning, Jan. 14, 2014, in Albany, N.Y., during a demonstration by the Occupy organization who were looking for reforms in minimum wage legislation, unemployment benefits and food stamps. (Skip Dickstein / Times Union)
Members of the Occupy Albany movement gathered Tuesday to protest aid cuts, network with each other and draw attention to their core message: income inequality.
About 40 attendees met at Westminster Presbyterian Church, a block from the Capitol, including local religious leaders and representatives from the city’s welfare groups. A planned Occupy Albany march was canceled due to rain.
While their numbers might be dwindling, the group’s inner circle remains active. About a dozen still meet weekly, and their convictions appear as mighty as ever.
“We’re here to say the distribution of wealth is enormously skewed, and we can’t go on like that,” said Sister Honora Kinney, a board member of the Homeless Action Committee. She and other nuns from the Albany Province of Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet are regular political activists; they joined thousands last week to protest hydofracking at Gov. Andrew Cuomo‘s State of the State address.
Occupy Albany speakers on Tuesday discussed national controversies over unemployment benefits, food stamps and minimum wage. Local issues were also raised, such as the Fort Edward General Electric Co. plant, which is slated to close. The plant’s 200 jobs will be moved to a non-union plant in Florida.
The rally was called “Freedom from Want,” in reference to the “Four Freedoms” that former President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared as fundamental in his 1941 State of the Union address.
America is far from the ideal Roosevelt expressed, said Tom Heckman, a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War who has been active with Occupy Albany since it began.
“Our numbers aren’t as high,” he said about the group’s efforts, “but the quality of our work is still there.”
