On September 17, 2011, over one thousand protesters moved into Zuccotti Park, located in New York's financial district. This marked the start of a movement that would soon gain international attention: Occupy Wall Street. The idea for a peaceful protest on Wall Street, ironically, did not emerge from the United States but instead from a Canadian-based group known as the Adbusters. After spreading to the United States, the protesters embraced the slogan "We are the 99 percent," which implies that the United States is now controlled by a one percent elite group who have an immense amount of social, economic and political influences. The slogan emphasizes the extreme wealth disparity that is present today, but also highlights various other issues in the United States economy and society, such as the limited social mobility and lack of opportunity. The reasons and concerns brought up by the Occupy Wall Street movement are justified because of the growing economic and social inequality; however, although the movement has significantly increased awareness about the economic disparity and the unbalanced power in the hands of the wealthy, the movement has ultimately failed to produce tangible reform or make a positive impact because of the lack of leadership and inefficient protest methods.
Some people might praise the movement for launching itself into a new era with different and more technology-oriented protest methods, making it more innovative and effective protest. With Internet and technology revolutionizing the world, people believe that the Occupy Wall Street protesters are taking a step in the right direction and creating an Internet-based movement where most of the discussion and planning is done over Internet in a collaborative fashion. As Stephen Gandel states, people have "tweeted, Tumblred and streamed" in order to get the work out about Occupy Wall Street; most of the Occupiers heavily rely on "social media to get their message to friends and the rest of the world." What people fail to realize is that having an Internet-based movement actually takes away the impact and the ability to facilitate change and make a difference -- relying on the Internet vastly limits the efficiency and efficaciousness of the protests. Because so much of the movement is influenced by the events and comments online, the demographic of the audience is immediately confined to a younger generation. Instead of appealing to a variety of people of different ages, most of the protesters are relatively young because those are the people who use social networking sites the most.
The Occupy protesters have also been threatening the livelihoods of many people who are not part of the protest, which can be clearly seen in Zuccotti Park, the symbolic base of the movement. Because there is so much press about the protesters occupying Zuccotti Park, many potential customers are being scared away from the small businesses that surround the area. According to Connor Sheet's article in the International Business Times, 12 business owners report that they have been losing $9,000 per day since the Occupy Wall Street movement first started in September; by mid-November, the businesses reported that "$479,000 has been lost due to the impacts of the Occupy Wall Street protest encampment in Manhattan's financial district." Many people cannot easily access these businesses anymore because of the police enforcement in the local area; because of the decrease in revenue, many of these businesses have had to lay off a number of employees due to restricted access and fewer customers. The Occupy protesters are directly and negatively impacting the small business owners and their employees, who are the same people that they should be fighting for.
Occupy Wall Street brings many important and legitimate concerns about the future of America, such as the growing wealth disparity, lack of job opportunity and social mobility, and lack of response from the government. The issues they raise are essential to the well-being of the United States, but the protest methods have neither been beneficial or impactful. Though Occupy Wall Street aims to better the conditions for the 99 percent, because of their lack of leadership and dependency on the Internet, they do not have a positive influence. The protesting methods that the protesters have been employing are more detrimental for the 99 percent than for the one percent, making the movement ineffective as a whole.
Lets start with the first part, "failed to produce tangible reforms." I think the author needs a little history lesson, hopefully they have not cut History requirements from CA public schools. I really must ask, "what movement has produced tangible reforms in a matter of 11 months? Not the Labor Movement, Civil Rights, Anti-War, Women's Rights, Slavery, Gay Rights or anything else. Movements such as these take decades to produce results, not months.
A positive impact? I am not sure if Dong has ever been to OWS or any protest of sorts, but when she does arrive to become an active participant in our democracy, I am sure she will find the movement empowering. OWS is changing lives day by day and more and more individuals are coming together to participate in this movement. OWS has pulled something off that has not been done in years: the have given access to all individuals to participate!!
Speaking of a lack of leadership? Dong has lost me here, i guess she is not familiar with an alternative model to democracy where there are no bosses or exclusive leaders. The movement consists of entire participation where we ALL decide
The Democratic party in the state of Illinois is organized by County, Township and Precinct. There is a county Chair, a chair for each Township and precinct committeemen/women. If we want to effect change, we can begin by planning and organizing. We need Occupy County chairs, Occupy Township chairs and Occupy State reps, senators and more... We should also be running candidates in the Township governments elections, these legislative bodies have a giant impact on development, jobs in their communities.
Our immediate impact might be to dilute to Democratic votes and that in itself could compel the Democratic party to move towards the Occupy agenda just as the Tea Party has forced the Republican party to move similarly..
The best thing you can do is continue to inform your friends and family and raise the troubling question of why nothing has yet been done.
The solution can be distilled down to eliminating the Citizens United decision. Until we get rid of the captive influence of corporate money in politics, it will never end.
Maybe your question shouldn't be why people can't access local businesses because of police enforcement, and instead should be, Why was there a need for such aggressive police enforcement on a peaceful protest?
Having your article on HuffPost is an achievement for you. However, if you are going to give an opinion on such a powder keg issue, you need to get your hands dirty--rather than only researching it on the internet. Your opinion would hold more weight if you attended an Ocuppy Event, observed and interviewed the participants--you will then have a much broader perspective on what this movement may actually be.
I think you have written a good op-ed piece, especially for someone as young as you are. However, it's blatantly obvious that your criticisms against Occupy, you're also guilty. You claimed Occupiers relied heavily upon the internet, yet your opening sentence displays the same flaw. There was nowhere near a thousand people that moved into Zuccotti that first night, try more like a hundred, and the idea did not spread to the United States, it was a direct call for action to protest Wall St. The movement was not an internet based movement as you describe, it was a public space movement calling on all citizens to directly participate in a process, a process which IS radically different from the norm, and the internet was merely a messenger. If people ignored the message or did not agree with it, that is not a fault of utilizing the internt platform to try to mobilize a sleeping, apathetic public.
What really screwed up OWS and the rest of the movements in various cities was power-hungry usurpers and sell-out clowns at the top. It's the usual problems forced into an unusual movement.
I'm surprised the term "co-op" was nowhere in the article. That was an issue as well.
they are no longer trusted.