Occupiers rally in front of Obama campaign headquarters

To commemorate the first night of the Democratic National Convention, Occupy Chicago and other protesters rallied against the Obama administration in front of his campaign headquarters Tuesday.

The marchers started at LaSalle and Jackson and walked to the Prudential building off of Michigan and Randolph, where President Barack Obama’s campaign relations are handled. There, a variety of people took the microphone to speak about their feelings on Obama and the upcoming election.

Many of the participants see similarities between Obama’s policies and how former President George W. Bush conducted the White House. During an introductory speech, one protester accidentally referred to Obama as Bush, provoking chants of “same thing” and “Freudian slip” from the rest of the group.

“If something was wrong under George W. Bush, it is wrong under Barack Obama,” another speaker said. “Murdering people in other countries is not different because a Democrat does it.”

One of the speakers listed off the “Twelve Steps to Overcoming Addiction to Voting for the Lesser of Two Evils” to illustrate the belief that Democrats aren’t necessarily an improvement upon Republicans. Some of the advice said to “remove conflicting bumper stickers” and “get over your romantic feelings for Democrats.”

“We are not going to be voting for Barack Obama in this upcoming election, and personally, I’m going to boycott the whole goddamn thing because they’ve shown that both of these candidates are completely bought off,” a protester said.

Mary Lou Finn, an activist unaffiliated with Occupy, expressed frustration with the major political parties and claimed that Obama and others have made poor foreign policy decisions.

“I haven’t voted for either a Democrat or Republican for president or for Congress since McGovern, and he ran in 1972,” she said. “I’m just sick to death of what we’re doing to some of these countries.”

And while some people refer to Obama as the better option for this year’s election, Finn had a different perspective.

“I think Obama’s the greater evil,” she said. “With the Republicans, it’s always been what you hear, what you see, is what you get. There’s no surprises. With the Democrats, they are able to use the sort of language that, you know, pretties up what they’re going to do. I really see them as the greater evil because they are able to fool more people both here and in Europe.”

Even though Finn isn’t a member of Occupy, she claimed to agree with most of their politics. She isn’t sure if any movement will instill the change she desires, but after forty years of keeping an eye on the United States government, she refuses to be silent.

“I need to find a way to live with this, so at least I did my best to fight it.”