# Occupy Wall Street: what does the rest of the world think?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupy-wall-street-what-does-the-rest-of-the-world-think/599334>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [October 11, 2011, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupy-wall-street-what-does-the-rest-of-the-world-think/599334 "2011-10-11T18:47:48Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Kaio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c68b51/32.png) [@Kaio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kaio)\
**Post date:** [October 11, 2011, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupy-wall-street-what-does-the-rest-of-the-world-think/599334/1 "2011-10-11T18:47:48Z")

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So now that the movement is gaining traction in the American mainstream media, I was just curious… what do non-Americans think about the protests/movement? When/if you discuss it with your friends/colleagues, what’s the reaction? Do you/they think it’s about damn time? That it’s irrational and ill-informed? That it’s great that they’re doing something but they need to do X to really accomplish anything?

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**Author:** ![Filbert](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/filbert/32/3433_2.png) [@Filbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Filbert)\
**Post date:** [October 11, 2011, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupy-wall-street-what-does-the-rest-of-the-world-think/599334/2 "2011-10-11T19:36:40Z")

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Reaction among my friends, here in the UK seems to be cautious interest. Frankly, we’ve still had so little info about it (except among those who frequent US based message boards) that it’s hard to say. It came up in discussion last night at the pub, and the only real comment was ‘I think it could be significant’, whereupon everyone grunted vague agreement, and got back to their pints 😉

Pretty much all my friends are the sort of people you’d expect to be involved in something like it though, so probably not so representational.

Personally, I have a mistrust of unfocussed protests- it’s too easy to accidently wind up not sure how many people are actually in support of each goal, and risks splitting into factions and losing any sort of cohesion. I’m sort of encouraged by it, but not sure if I can fully support it… yet.

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**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:** [October 11, 2011, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupy-wall-street-what-does-the-rest-of-the-world-think/599334/3 "2011-10-11T19:39:40Z")

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One point worth noting is that there are now similar protests going on in Asia, Europe, Africa, South America and Australia (just to view things from the level of the continents). Some folks are obviously sympathetic (or they just need a good excuse for a party).

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**Author:** ![lisiate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f05b48/32.png) [@lisiate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lisiate)\
**Post date:** [October 11, 2011, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupy-wall-street-what-does-the-rest-of-the-world-think/599334/4 "2011-10-11T19:50:46Z")

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Well some old Red Guards are demonstrating to "[determinidley support the great Occupy Wall Street Movement"](http://asiancorrespondent.com/66717/occupy-wall-street-protests-staged-by-chinese-pensioners/)