Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
The Occupy movement grew suddenly and sustained longer than was first imagined. But now that
the Occupy movement is shutting down for the winter, what will it be remembered for? One
of their main rallying cries is "we are the 99%". It's a reference to this fact. Taking
the entire population of the U.S. you will find that merely 1% own nearly 50% of all
our wealth and with wealth comes power and more wealth. In fact you will see that the
wealthiest 1% of Americans over the last 40 years have grown increasingly wealthier and
wealthier while the remaining 99% stay relatively stagnant. And while the 1% have been gaining
more power they haven't always used it for the good of society.
Okay then, regardless if you see this as a problem or not, what remains confusing for
some people and plain frustrating to others is that nobody knows what Occupiers really
want. Even the Occupiers themselves seem to have different reasons for occupying making
people think that they're just being immature. Movements should have a very clear goal like
"let's elect this president" or "let's create these new laws". But the Occupy movement is
different. It seems to be saying things like "let's pay attention to this issue" "let's
have a conversation" "let's listen to each other, especially the marginalized and see
how we can agree." It doesn't have one charismatic leader but is decentralized. It doesn't have
one plain agenda but thousands and thousands of voices connecting together. It is much
like the difference between a typical model of top-down power in the way the internet
works. So it seems that Occupy Wall Street is an internet era movement. You see what
most people don't understand is that Occupy Wall Street is not acting like 20th century
politics but instead it seems to be prototyping something new and we will continue to see
how it evolves.