Occupy Everything

Sara Moltzan, Feature Section Editior
January 2, 2012
Filed under Opinion

Occupy Wall Street (OWS) is a fairly valid group with a fairly known presence. Occupy Wall Street? People cheer them on. Occupy Egypt? Some people cheer for total change while others just want to protest everything. Occupy the Rose Parade? People cheer for the parade and they cheer as the police take them away.

Needless to say the OWS protesters have taken things a bit too far. Especially considering a majority of the public has no clue as to what they even do. Occupy Wall Street is about the 99% fighting against the 1%. That sounds like an unfair fight, but not everyone in the 99% is participating and collectively the full 99% still has less money than the richest 1%. Plus the 1% has the police force on their side.

Occupywallst.org claims they are “fighting back against the corrosive power of major banks and multinational corporations […] and the role of Wall Street in creating an economic collapse that has caused the greatest recession in generations.” They stand to defend the Bill of Rights for everyone everywhere, even outside the United States where the Bill is as useful as an ice cube vendor in Alaska.

The selling points of OWS are clear; it is Wall Street and large companies that did receive the biggest bailouts and the general public feels they could’ve used the “big break”, it is a peaceful way to impact the world, and the 99% are not making the rules it is the 1% that “are writing the rules of an unfair global economy that is foreclosing on our future.”

With incentives like these it’s no surprise the “leaderless” organization has spread to 100 US cities and 1500 cities globally. Those numbers are seemingly impressive until the sad truth arises. While it has impacted major cities like New York City and Los Angeles there are cities with “protesting groups” of four people. Four people under most definitions isn’t even a party much less a political upset.

Occupy the Iowa Caucuses was a small group of people who were passive-aggressive with their local bank in their demands of wondering why over $61000 was donated to a presidential candidates campaign.

Although the OWS members are what some may call impractical in their approach as many people call the police and government impractical for the way they handle it. Arresting minors for accompanying their parents/guardians or friends and arresting or pepper spraying peaceful protestors are examples that don’t exactly dispute this idea.

Regardless if you support or dispute the OWS movement it is spreading quickly and drawing much attention. This could be because everyone has an opinion on politics and money or maybe just because they interrupted a football parade.