Would I be wrong to suspect that if they didn’t, you would be here to tell us what fools they are for hanging out in the cold?
What they need to do is move onto a more aggressive program. Surround the buildings of the financiers and the stock exchange overnight and refuse to let anyone in. Block traffic, cause a fuss. There are still several thousand of them. That is too much for the police to simply bully out of the way.
Never underestimate the strength of will and determination of spoiled white kids desperate to look cool.
Just announce there’s an early release of the latest Halo and they’ll evaporate.
That would definitely get them back on the front page/screen/top of the hour, etc. Unfortunately, it would probably get most of them put in jail as well.
I doubt it. The last rally had several thousand participants. Even a few hundred people all at once are enough to seriously try the resources of the police. A few thousand are uncontrollable. Certainly some would be arrested, but if they stood together that would be minimal.
You misread my post.
Does anyone have any, you know, actual data on whether or not the rallies are growing or shrinking in the US? We’ve had claims of both, but I don’t see any numbers.
If all they do is protest the same thing every day, then people are going to lose interest and the media is going to stop covering it. I suspect that they will stage some sort of event or other that puts a little pizazz back into the protests and get the media interested again.
But at some point, unless the politicians step up and start joining in, this isn’t going anywhere. I don’t think many of the pols are ready to throw their support behind these guys yet.
The simple fact is, this is old news. There is no conspiracy by the media. This has been going on for a month now. It has been covered. Nothing new is happening. Do you really think the news is going to give coverage to something that, at this point, is simply, “Yep. They’re still there.”?
If something exciting happens, it will get coverage. If not, it will get a passing mention now and again. That is the nature of news.
The “Occupiers” model is flawed. Their model (LOL) is the Tahrir Square protests. They completely ignore the fact that for the Egyptian protesters, with no freedom of press, speech or assembly in Egypt and full-bore authoritarian repressive government, that type of protest was really the only outlet, and the government couldn’t have such a protest continue and hold power - so either the government would destroy the protestors or collapse.
In contrast, a Western Democracy can allow such a protest to continue indefinitely with no discernible effect on the viability of the system. Sit there till the cows come home. If there was any chance of the “OWS” lasting long enough, it may even become a tourist attraction - like a zoo.
I think you are correct.
sure it is. They have no set addressable agenda. They’re attacking “Wall Street” as if it was a person or a business to be addressed. There is no way their demands can be met because their as yet to be defined agenda has no address on the envelope.
The question is not “have they lost steam”? The question is when did they ever have steam? It’s a boat full of captains and no rudder.
Well I guess the amount of steam is a relative assessment. Compared to the civil rights movement, OWS is just a row boat in the middle of the Atlantic. But compared to the idea of starting a protest about the US financial sector concieved in a publications conference room in Calgary in the middle of this past summer to where it was a week ago…a lot of steam was gained, and lost if gauged by it’s consideration by the public at large.
The civil rights movement had discernible goals. All this is doing is killing tourism and business in places like NYC. But on the flip side it’s an anarchist’s paradise vacation complete with gourmet food.
Well that has come to fruition: http://online.wsj.com/article/APac98bf1a84fa4e7083f5d1ddbb4636ae.html
What a joke!
If only the OWS movement had been foresighted enough to get funding and media coverage from a major network, maybe you guys would have taken them more seriously.
Why, they are not paying the least bit of attention! OK, couple dozen spiteful posts on a message board, but outside of that…
What I find absurd is the platform: the “students” want their education loans “forgiven”-which means that we (the taxpayers) will be on the hook for it.
Another “protester” wanted all debts cancelled…does this mean I don’t have to pay taxes too?
Honestly I think the coverage is a bit too much. I went to my city’s gathering on Saturday. Tri-county area of 225k people. 200 Occupy folks showed up, 50 Tea Party people showed up. I’m sorry a gathering of 250 people doesn’t really deserve a lot of attention. Breast cancer walk the same Saturday drew 6000 people, now that deserves attention. 250 people, not so much.
Our local group is starting to bicker. Some folks, me included, want a specific agenda and admits that we need to be political. Another faction wants to be totally apolitical and doesn’t want there to be an agenda. This movement needs leaders or else it will fade as soon as it gets cold.
Third parties are next to impossible to get off the ground, I’m stressing that even though we may not like it, we need to get involved with the existing power structure. Jumping the shark really depends on how these little bitty, but nationwide power struggles turn out.
I think CNN and MSNBS gave them their fair shake.
Remember those videos people did about the Tea Party gatherings where they asked people what they wanted done and why they were there, and they really had no answer?
I think this is the same thing.
What do you want? …
When do you want it? …
There’s no answer–some of them want jobs, some of them just want to protest “the system.”
The one in Denver seems to be a few very young people and a bunch of homeless people who wandered in.