Politics – Occupy Wall Street Protests & Organization
November 27th, 2011 § 2 Comments
It’s been on my mind for a while. I’ve tried my best to find out things about it to the best of my availability, and now its time for me to write my opinion on it.
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The major question that has everyone guessing and talking is what in the world is this organization/movement about?
“Occupy Wall Street is a people-powered movement that began on September 17, 2011 in Liberty Square in Manhattan’s Financial District in New York City. The organization is trying to fight against the power of major banks and multinational corporations over the democratic process, and the role of Wall Street in creating an economic collapse that has caused the greatest recession in generations. The movement is inspired by popular uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, and aims to expose how the richest 1% of people are writing the rules of an unfair global economy that is foreclosing on our future.” – Occupywallst.org
They have claimed that, based on statistics, over 99% of the population is below poverty, no longer middle class, and is treated unfairly by the wealthy, hence the growing and popular site We Are The 99%.
Strangers take a picture of themselves holding a sheet of paper over their faces, telling their story of just how badly they are affected by the economy.
Here are some websites with the gist of what this large movement is about:
http://occupywallst.org/
http://www.reddit.com/r/occupywallstreet
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupy_Wall_Street
This movement has expanded across the globe, over 100 cities having had their own movements towards their governments that have affected their financial stability and futures.
It has caused disruption for major cities everywhere, New York being the major player having in these conflicts. Scandals and stories of how the crowds have been treated are appearing in the news daily, such as the incident at UC with pepper spray, the riots in Oakland, etc.
It has brought attention to others about their movement and push for economic equality, but one major thing that keeps bothering me is do they have a plan to try and fix this economy that has affected us all?
I understand that you do have to bring the problem to the surface, but what solutions do you have to fixing and solving the issues? I have yet to see any major notation on this. If there is one, then please feel free to let me know and I will gladly post it.
Even in regards to a solution, who is actually leading this movement? Who’s idea was this? Where did it originate?
The problem that arises with this kind of movement is that the public sees your protest, the government understands your point, but just whom in the hell are they going to try and negotiate with to try and help?
This is why there is so much backlash rising against the movement. Any logical and sane person is going to want to speak to someone about what they can do to try and get the 99% to be pleased. They don’t want these random people camping out in parks, looking like homeless people that just so happen to also have cameras, Macbooks, iPhones, iPods, jobs, families, kids, etc. They want them out of sight as soon as possible.
Not everyone is doing this, of course. There are plenty of people who are indeed in horrible economic hardship and have the right to protest as much as they want.
Tying up the police force in these cities from where they really need to be does not aid in solving the problem. You’re restricting it.
I support the notion of making everyone aware of just how unfair the economy is, and how they are babying the wealthy. But I am not for acting like children in public who are angry about not getting their way.
I just wish there was some way for negotiation and that the group wasn’t so leaderless to start with.
Its a mixed bag of a situation. I applaud the effort, but the way this group is going about it is what frustrates me a bit. However, I do hope that something arises to fix the problem of economic unbalance soon. The last thing we need is another crash.
[Pictures taken from The Atlantic, and my good friends Matthew Bigman and Stuart Miller, who both support and attended OWS rallies in D.C. and Dayton, Ohio]
In the mid-1960s on Meet the Press, Dr. Martin Luther King was asked by a cynical journalist whether he thought all these protests would bring about equal rights for the Negro. Dr. King calmly explained that protests, themselves, do not SOLVE problems. They only serve to focus attention on those problems and how widespread and acute they are. It is up to the people, then, to solve those problems.
There are many people, both inside and outside the OWS movement, who have suggested solutions to many of the problems OWS articulates. As you may have noticed, the policy makers in this country have yet to act on ANY of them. Not on jobs, not on housing prices, not on foreclosures, not on income inequality, not on the deficit, not on trade policy (except to enact more trade agreements), not on increasing poverty, not on failing school systems or rapidly escalating tuition costs, to name but a few. The idea, then is to focus attention on the many serious problems that are festering in our society, get them to quit squandering public debate on inane pandering such as reaffirming that “In God We Trust” is still the national motto (they spent an entire day doing just that) and DO SOMETHING about our REAL problems.
The biggest problem that OWS and supporting groups are facing is a lack of focus. The movement started as something “pure”. By pure, I mean a general call to the 99% of Americans who are tired of how the wealth of not only their country, but the world, has been condensed into a relative few members of the society. It was not suppose to have a leader, but instead be lead by the people. This notion was brought on by observation of the Arab spring movement. However, when OWS tried emulating it, it overlooked the cornerstone of the Arab movement. Those people went outside of the government’s established law and decided to forge a new government. Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, and now Syria are spilling blood in the streets to fight for their rights.
In America, the vast majority of people have a drastically improved way of life than the individuals in the middle east. Although the wealth in America is not at all spread as evenly as many other western countries, it is still far better than those of these countries. Most Americans agree that the current course of the country is troublesome and that politics in Washington are corrupt and broken according to many pew polls, which is what OWS is drawing strength from. However, Americans as a whole, lack the willpower to band together without a leader now. The country has become so divided over so many issues that it needs a leader to rise from somewhere outside of a movement, group, or party. OWS cannot work in the form it is trying to exist in. If a person was able to focus the frustrations of the people into a common voice, things would happen. But, until someone does, OWS will be swallowed by some politicians who will see it as a voting base.