Can someone explain this movement to me as if I were a 1st grader? The more I read, the more confused I seem to get.
I think a lot of people (including me) are having difficulty discerning exactly what the goals of this movement are. While many support the notion that enough is enough, most of these groups just seem to be a lot of slackers camping out on public property and chanting slogans, with little direction or leadership.
If I had to boil it down to one thing, I’d say the root of the protests is dissatisfaction with the current economy.
Not enough jobs, jobs that exist don’t pay enough, the gap between rich and poor is growing, and they feel big business has too much influence in the government. All are valid and reasonable points.
The problem is that the protesters’ solution to these problems is nonsensical to the point of stupidity.
They’re largely nouveau hippies. They’ve never accomplished anything, are likely never going to accomplish anything, and they’re jealous of those who have. They think the world owes them a living.
nobody seems to be too sure exactly what the hell they are protesting, yet. I’m not even sure the protesters can agree…
Broad themes? I think I can come up with a few.
- They’re mad as hell because they feel everyone else has been screwed over for the benefit of a few.
- Some think the people behind the corporations and banks who have made a killing while everyone else has suffered owe society an obligation.
- Some think people in the government (both parties) were not only complicit in the meltdown, but were active participants.
- Some feel cheated because they stayed in school, got good grades, and did everything ‘right’, yet STILL can’t find work. And now have debts with no way to repay.
- A few “professional homeless” in the mix, just because they’re getting fed.
- A few are counterculture folks reliving their youth and enjoying another chance to ‘put it to the MAN’ again, man.
- ???
8 A few anarchists, communists, etc. mixed in just because it’s a protest.
I’m thinking that there may be as many reasons as protesters. Whether it’s a good idea or not depends on your own worldview. Mine is, they’re right, but it’s probably a futile gesture. Too many folks not protesting are either complicit or complacent. ie “As long as I got mine, piss on you!” or “whateva, ya know”
Moved Elections --> GQ, where answers that avoid editorializing would be appropriate. I’ll leave it to the GQ mods to decide whether it would fit better elsewhere.
I think the most common thread that winds through this movement is the thought that the very, very rich (call them the 1-percenters) have too much of a share of the wealth, giving them the ability to rig the system in their favor permanently (either through “buying” politicians and/or shady business practices) . The Wall Street aspect is, I believe, a nod to the bank bailout. Rich bankers got the government to save their asses (and golden asses they are) while the not so rich folks (call them the 99-percenters) got the shaft.
You can perhaps catch a glimmer of the germination of this movement from a few years ago as many people asked: Where’s my bailout?
Practically speaking, though, the TARP program ended up being a pretty good investment for the government as it has reaped something like an 8.2% return. Still, the bankers are sitting pretty after having seemingly brought the entire world economy to the brink, and many, many regular folks are struggling as never before. Something just doesn’t seem right, and people are pissed.
The Wikipedia page explains it pretty well:
It’s a very diffuse and inchoate movement, with no leadership and a huge range of different objectives. The basis for the movement is as laid out above but a lot of the protestors have other hobby issues as well - climate change, socialism, wars, etc.
The problems they are addressing are systemic. The concentration of wealth did not occur just because of tax policy. It includes offshoring, bribery of politicians, giving tax breaks to companies that take work out of America, allowing regulation to be gutted, having safeguards like Glass/Steagall to be eliminated, closing government eyes when banks faked foreclosure paperwork, the Citizens United case, the attack of safety nets like Social Security and unemployment insurance and many others. The gap did not just occur but was carefully crafted throughout the government by lobbying power and the use of cash by the wealthy.
Some protesters are more concerned with foreclosures because their neighborhoods are being depreciated by empty homes. Others want work in the US because their unemployment is disappearing and every job has a lineup to get it. All recognize the big problems but some hit home more directly than others.
Since the kind of answers you will get to this question will depend in large part on your political views (as is evident in most of the posts so far), this is better suited to GD.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
#Occupy Detroit: photo page | Grand Central Magazine | Your Campus. Your Story. Here are photos from occupy Detroit.
Basically, it is what the Tea Party claims to be. It’s rather unfocused currently because it’s a grass-roots movement, without an overarching organizing force like Fox News. It always takes a while for order to emerge out of true grassroots.
Last weekend, Occupy Boston adopted a statement of purpose. It’s pretty vague, which is pretty much the only way anything is going to pass the whole consensus process.
OK, so that’s not terribly useful. In short, the driving force behind it seems to be that people feel cheated. Not only did the benefits from increased productivity get diverted overwhelmingly to a small number of people at the top for the past thirty years, but those same people also apparently play by entirely different rules than the rest of us. The student loan debts, mortgages, and medical debts that people have accumulated are things that must be paid back, even as people can’t afford to put food in front of their kids. The debts of large financial institutions cause the government to jump in and work something out. And the people that fucked everything up haven’t been held accountable in any way.
Sure, they don’t really have any coherent plan, but that’s not their job. A bunch of rich bankers screwed around with a lot of numbers on spreadsheets, and somehow a whole fuckload of the rest of us lost our jobs, or suffered other consequences. And a few years later, everything the government we elected has done is to make sure the rich bankers come out of it all right. So people got sick of it and took to making a spectacle of themselves until the problem gets fixed. When you take a broken car to a mechanic, it’s not your job to explain how it needs to be fixed. It’s not the hippie drum circle’s responsibility to know the solutions. That doesn’t mean that asking for solutions from the people that supposedly represent us is an invalid idea.
Can someone help me out with why the Occupy protests seem to be on weekends? A few weeks ago, just for kicks, I checked to see if there was going to be an Occupy Milwaukee (mostly because I wanted to know if I was going to have to deal with extra traffic) and I was surprised to see that it was on a weekend. Upthread I see two dates, September 17th and October 9th, a Saturday and a Sunday. I’m not sure about the other cities, but at least in Milwaukee the places they are Occupying are practically ghost towns on the weekends. There’s no one there to see them but themselves. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t feel this kind of protest is going to change anyone’s mind. I don’t think some VP at JP Morgan is going to look out of his 35th story office window during a meeting and say “Ya know what…they’re right” but you’d think they’d at least do it on a weekday so they could at least pretend like they’re getting their message through to the banks or if for no other reason there would be some traffic.
The Occupy Denver folks just seem hellbent on getting arrested and/or injured. I have no idea what they’re doing, exactly, but at a parade/march a few weeks back, people came out of shops and restaurants and joined. As far as the campers go, there aren’t a huge amount. Most people are just weekend Occupiers.
But they get into trouble. They won’t leave City Park (where it’s illegal to camp) and throw a fit every time their stuff is dismantled. Winter is coming on, so we’ll see how long this lasts.
Here in Boston, they had a march on a weekend which ended with them setting up camp. They’ve been protesting in that same spot for about a month now. They’re there 24/7. There’s marches and stuff on both weekends and weekdays.
How did Fox News organize the Tea Party movement? Obviously when only one media outlet is in any way sympathetic to their positions you can suggest an indirect organizing force.
How does that compare to all of the media outlets that are in sympathy with the Occupiers?
They are primarily protesting economic injustice, and the influence of the 1% on the governmental policies.
That covers a huge amount of ground and that is why you see so many different signs. Just like the Tea Party gobbled up most of the lunatic fringe of the right, OWS has absorbed a lot of the extreme left, whose goals are more in line with OWS than the Tea Party. You can ignore the Animal Rights People, most of the pro-marijuana groups, and the various extreme politicals that make up a very small percentage of the group as a whole. Unlike the Tea Party, they are not driving the bus.
Most of their primary goals concern the necessity for changing the current system to eliminate the influence of corporate entities on elections, law-making, banking, etc… Just like any movement, there are some that have well-thought out proposals, some with a few good ideas, a lot of people who want to shout, some idiots who don’t have a clue, and some loonies.
Well, when you’re caught rallying a protest (as was Fox), these types of accusations happen.