Group participates in national demonstration
MARQUETTE -- You've heard about the Tea party, and the Occupy Movement. Saturday another community action agency demonstrated outside of the Marquette County Courthouse.
They say it's time to 'Wake Up and Stand Up.' The group held an intervention, and Uncle Sam was their target.
"The government no longer listens to any of us, it's all driven by money that comes from all sorts of sources, but mostly corporate," says demonstrator George Girod.
The Marquette chapter of the Coffee Party was created earlier this year, they meet a couple times a month to plan and discuss how to achieve their goals.
Once a year, along with chapters across the country, they'll stage national demonstrations like Saturday's.
They're fighting for campaign finance reform, Wall Street and tax code reform. Similar goals of the Occupy Movement, but the two are not connected.
"We're focusing more on work within the system, and making the system work," said Girod. "They're focusing more on expressing needs, demonstrating."
To fix the problem, they'd like an amendment to block corporate money from elections. They say locally, people need to be more involved in the election process.
"Effective democracy requires everyone's participation," said demonstrator Heidi Gould.
Saturday there were about a dozen from the Coffee Party outside the courthouse. They say they need more numbers, but that isn't easy.
"The reasons we don't have more people standing, gathering is because most of us are employed, we have to work two or three jobs just to keep food on the table," said demonstrator Amy Conover.
The Marquette Coffee Party does have a facebook page where more information is available.
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