There is an old joke about an optimistic kid that is left in a room full to the brim with horse shit. The people who left him there return about an hour later, and to their surprise, they find the boy happily digging through the shit and ask "Hey Boy! What are you doing?," to which the boy responds: "With all this shit I figured there's got to be a pony in here somewhere."
I recently took a tour of the Occupy Wall Street demonstration in Zuccoti Park, trying to find the pony.
Walking into the demonstration was like peeling layers of an onion. There was an outer layer of police, followed by a layer of observers, next came sign holders, then campers, and intermixed between them were pods of organized committees (media, law, art, tech, etc.). I spoke to many people, trying to get an idea of the main goal and purpose (pony) they were working toward.
The pony I hoped to find would've come in the form of clear policy changes Occupy Wall Street wanted to see. For example, campaign finance reform, Wall Street compensation regulation or Congress term limits. There are still no 'official demands' from the collective, but there has been a lot of press around individuals claiming to make Occupy Wall Street demands. (See the first set of user-submitted demands the media ran with.)
I continued to make rounds inside the camp, and stayed for the 8 p.m. general assembly (which started at 8:30 p.m.). The human microphone system that used people repeating three words of a speech at a time was awesome to be a part of, but the topics -- like whether the group could purchase non eco-friendly storage bins -- were hard to get excited about. The assembly also became incredibly hard to hear, as a poorly timed sacred drum circle started 30 feet away.
It was at that moment it became clearer to me what was going on. This truly democratic group was trying to do things in a new way, trying to hear and act on everyone's voice in the 99 percent. Unfortunately the result of this can turn into a decentralized cacophony of noise, signs, and demands. Aligned but not organized, loud but not focused. (See the conversation tag cloud.)
At the simplest level Occupy Wall Street is the have-nots's response to the haves. Occupy Wall Street has become an open platform for talking and demonstrating about the negative externalities that come from having the "1 percent" guide the direction of the country. Despite some media covering fringe cases of protester demands, there have yet to be any concrete positions taken by Occupy Wall Street.
In 2009 another movement was created that focused on new political discourse and on-the-ground meet ups. In their first two months, the Tea Party garnered millions of impressions and occupied the country's media and political discourse, but this spike didn't last and neither will the Occupy Wall Street attention.
Occupy Wall Street Vs. Tea party
Google Trend Analysis
There are many differences between the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street, including the fact that the Tea Party was willing to let politicians carry their torch as a formal political party. This has given them a few additional attention bumps after their initial month-long spike of attention in April 2009 due to the political cycle.
Occupy Wall Street has openly rejected any one person speaking for or representing the group -- which has helped it keep it populous and inclusive. Unfortunately a non-Occupy Wall Street affiliated group has purchased OccupyParty.org (and over 40 other Occupy[state] domains) and may end up causing even more confusion for Occupy Wall Street come election time.
The clock is now running for Occupy Wall Street since the 'media silence' was broken in early October, which means media buzz will be dying out by mid-November. Occupy Wall Street has spread across over 50 cities, gathered 500k Facebook fans across 40+ pages, and organized multiple marches.
Now that the silence has been broken, Occupy Wall Street has a limited window of attention and momentum, regardless of how long they intend to physically occupy. So with the clock counting down, I am holding out hope that Occupy Wall Street can find their pony in this room full of drum circles, media hype and message hijacking.
Follow George Weiner on Twitter: www.twitter.com/georgecaweiner
Occupy Wall Street Message ... - Collections - Los Angeles Times
The Goal and Message of Occupy Wall Street | The Dissenter
Occupy Wall Street demonstrators send message: Where are the ...
The goals of Occupy Wall Street | San Francisco Bay Guardian
Who We Are | OccupyWallSt.org - Occupy Wallstreet
Think Occupy Wall St. is a phase? You don't get it - CNN.com
Here is an interesting read on defining Occupy Wall Street's philosophy:
Occupy Wall Street: A movement founded on capitalism reform, not on anti-capitalism
http://selfdeprecate.com/politics-articles/occupy-wall-street-capitalism-reform-movement/
http://www.flixya.com/blog/3201910/Beautiful-Butterflys
They do have a clear cut message I understood them. Its not going to fizzle out. People are at a boiling point. The news media and the 1% are tiring of it but not the 99%. The best way to defuse this is for government to say okay we'll bend and understand and see what laws we can agree on. But they can't because they are owned by Wall Street. They'd rather bully and beat us into submission. Its a shame but if you want accurate news about OWS you have to skip the network news, avoid cable and go right to the BBC. If you are looking for intelligent conversation, if not network and cable will provide costumes, slants and total fantasy.
2011-2012 Deluge of the HOBOs!
Should You Learn The Language?
Today graffiti is prevalent on walls, residences, businesses and the infrastructure in America. A result of gangs slinging communication at each other while leaving the general public puzzled and bewildered. But this isn't the first time that indigenous groups have used code to converse with each other. In the 1930's millions of Hobos developed their own unique system of symbols which could be found on street curbs buildings and crossroads nationwide.
Here are the lyrics to Country Carl's Hobo Up:
Song is the National Anthem for the Homeless
Kick this town, find the tracks
Start over again and pass the hat
Jump a bus if you have the cash
Or use your truck until it's out of gas
Hobo Up
Take a good friend
Hobo Up
This is not the end
Hobo Up
break a leg
Hobo Up
Open roads are for the brave
New depression blues cross our land
Forget the bills forget the old plan
A new wave lies beyond the hills
As I understand it, they are demanding that something be done to rein in the out of control financial sector because those fools are wrecking the world. What should be done?
*Financial transactions tax?
*Bring back Glass Steagal?
*Use existing anti-trust laws to break up too big to fail banks?
*Reinstate laws that seperate commercial banks from investment banks?
*Throw some billionaires in jail?
*Bring back the guillotine and lop some heads off?
*All of the above?
We have people who we pay to work out these messy details. They are called politicians and bureaucrats. They just need to know that there are a whole bunch of angry people who demand that they do their jobs or lose those jobs. See how simple?
p.s. I think if you randomly walked into a meeting of, say the DNC you might be privey to some mundane discussion of what kind of trash containers they need to buy. We all put our pants on one leg at a time.
I, too, am continually amazed at how people who are hundreds--even thousands-- of miles away can understand exactly what these protests are about, while some "blogger" actually goes to the park, walks around, talks to people, and still comes away clueless. Amazing.
And you hit the nail on the head when you said, "We have people who we pay to work out these messy details." The point of the protests is not for the protesters to become legislators, regulators, or judges, but to pressure the people whom WE PAY BIG MONEY to do these jobs, to do these jobs correctly!
Your point #3 is spot on, too. The General Assemblies cannot always be pumped up, passionate, inspiring-- sometimes the boring day to day stuff has to be hashed out.
You are fanned, faved and badged.