# Arab Spring and OWS **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 18, 2011, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arab-spring-and-ows/606597 "2011-12-18T00:28:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Julianus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Julianus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Julianus)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2011, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arab-spring-and-ows/606597/1 "2011-12-18T00:28:12Z")
Thought that just crossed my mind, but I’m sure it has happened with many other before as well: Would the Occupy Wall Street protests have materialized if the Arab Spring have never happened? The main reason I’m wondering about this was the economic crash happened 3 years ago and took almost that long before we got OWS. Was the Arab Spring the crucial catalyst that finally made it possible? ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2011, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arab-spring-and-ows/606597/2 "2011-12-18T01:44:26Z")
It would be a rich irony if it were the case. Bush and the neocons wanted to spread democracy from America to the Arab world. Instead what happened is the reverse: the Arab world spreading democracy to America. The neocons tried to use force. In reality what worked was inspiration. ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Fun\_Ball](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/happy_fun_ball/32/17664_2.png) [@Happy\_Fun\_Ball](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Fun_Ball)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2011, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arab-spring-and-ows/606597/3 "2011-12-18T04:00:47Z")
I, personally think OWS would have happened before if it were not for Obama. The Arab Spring, OWS, the anti-austerity protests in Europe, and the Tea Party are, IMHO, a result of the same social pressure. OWS happened later because they actually thought Obama would bring hope and change, but they now share the same dis-illusionment as the rest of us. Unemployment in the Arab world is above 50% IIRC and the mean age is in the lower 20s; is it any wonder they are protesting? There governments have sold them out and sacrifised them on the alter of western capitalism: istead of investing in there futures, they went for short term profits. So passes the rentier state. Here in the US 1/6 of us are officially in poverty and millions are unemployed or underemployed while the government is doing nothing. No matter which way you look at it (from either the left or the right) it looks like we have lost our way and are headed for disaster. In Europe, the great social contract made decades ago is falling apart with pensions and social programs being cut left and right while the governments work to make sure none of the banks and other financial powers that be take a haircut with the bad investments they have made. Regardless of what our conservative brethren think here in the United States, all of these social movements are rooted in the same things that have pissed of the tea party and will probably not go away anytime soon. ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Fun\_Ball](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/happy_fun_ball/32/17664_2.png) [@Happy\_Fun\_Ball](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Fun_Ball)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2011, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arab-spring-and-ows/606597/4 "2011-12-18T04:09:14Z")
Sorry for the typos and spelling errors, I am posting with my phone. ---
**Author:** ![Condescending\_Robot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a183cd/32.png) [@Condescending\_Robot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Condescending_Robot)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2011, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arab-spring-and-ows/606597/5 "2011-12-18T06:23:00Z")
The Adbusters people who organized OWS don’t particularly care whether the President is liberal or conservative or the economy is good or bad. They’re neo-Marxists who think capitalism in any form is irredeemable. While they may have found a more opportune time to strike by waiting for a bunch of newly minted Reed College grads to be angry at not getting their own jobs as idiot bankers, their motives remain consistent regardless of any other factors. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2011, 6:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arab-spring-and-ows/606597/6 "2011-12-18T06:31:42Z")
I think the OWS are more inspired by the example of the Tea Party movement. The timing is probably due to the American election cycle. Conservatives are running for the Presidency and proclaiming their vision for America’s future. This fuels an anti-conservative backlash. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2011, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arab-spring-and-ows/606597/7 "2011-12-18T14:51:37Z")
Here’s what wikipedia has to say, for what it’s worth: > [@](#): > > In a July 13, 2011 blog post, the Canadian-based Adbusters Foundation, best known for its advertisement-free anti-consumerist magazine Adbusters, proposed a peaceful occupation of Wall Street to protest corporate influence on democracy, the absence of legal repercussions for the bankers behind the recent global financial crisis, and a growing disparity in wealth.[5][6] They sought to combine the symbolic location of the 2011 protests in Tahrir Square with the consensus decision making of the 2011 Spanish protests.[7] Adbusters’ senior editor Micah White said they had suggested the protest via their email list and it "was spontaneously taken up by all the people of the world.”[6] Adbusters’ website said that from their “one simple demand, a presidential commission to separate money from politics,” they would “start setting the agenda for a new America.”[8] They promoted the protest with a poster featuring a dancer atop Wall Street’s iconic Charging Bull.[9][10] > > The internet group Anonymous encouraged its readers to take part in the protests, calling protesters to “flood lower Manhattan, set up tents, kitchens, peaceful barricades and occupy Wall Street.”[11][12] Other groups began to join in the organization of the protest, including the U.S. Day of Rage,[13] and the NYC General Assembly, the governing body of the Occupy Wall Street group.[14] An Occupy Wall Street page on Facebook began on September 19 with a YouTube video of the early protests, and by September 22, it had reached critical mass. By mid-October, Facebook listed 125 Occupy-related pages and roughly one in every 500 hashtags used on Twitter, all around the world, was the movement’s own #OWS.[15] > > Adbusters’ Kalle Lasn, when asked why it took three years after the implosion of Lehman Brothers’ for people to begin protesting, said that after the election of President Barack Obama there was a feeling among the young that he would pass laws to regulate the banking system and “take these financial fraudsters and bring them to justice.” However, as time passed, “the feeling that he’s a bit of a gutless wonder slowly crept in” and they lost their hope that his election would result in change.[16] That last part is cited from [here.](http://thetyee.ca/News/2011/10/07/Kalle-Lasn-Occupy-Wall-Street/) > [@](#): > > **On why it took three years after Lehman Brothers’ implosion for people to storm the streets:** > > "When the financial meltdown happened, there was a feeling that, ‘Wow, things are going to change. Obama is going to pass all kinds of laws, and we are going to have a different kind of banking system, and we are going to take these financial fraudsters and bring them to justice.’ There was a feeling like, ‘Hey, we just elected a guy who may actually do this.’ In a way, there wasn’t this desperate edge. Among the young people there was a very positive feeling. And then slowly this feeling that he’s a bit of a gutless wonder slowly crept in, and now we’re despondent again. > > “On the Egyptian side, even though their techniques were very inspiring, in the beginning there was this feeling that this doesn’t apply to us. This applies to nations who have monsters like Mubarak who routinely torture people every day. Theoreticians and pundits say now, people I talk to, that ultimately this Tahrir moment that happened in Egypt, that it ultimately will apply more to first world countries and to young people all around the world, that soft regime change may actually be the great achievement of what Tahrir taught us.” Looks to me like the form of the protest was influenced by the Arab Spring, if not the idea of the protest itself.