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Volume 18 Issue 4
October 19, 2011
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THE LEFT HAS OCCUPIED WALL STREET

Thousands of protesters gather in financial districts fo voice their dissatisfaction

HANNA PETERSEN
NEWS EDITOR

You don’t need to take Inter-
national Studies or Political Science
courses to know that, even in 2011,
wealth distribution is far from equal.
And for years people have been grum-
bling about their dissatisfaction with
government and the economy. After
struggling through a dismal econ-
omy and record high unemployment
- especially in America - the day has
finally come for the people who are
fundamentally upset with the system.
Apathy, it seems, has been taken off
the table.

‘Occupy Wall Street’ is the name
given to ‘the ongoing protests which
began on Wall Street in New York City
and have also begun to spread around
North America. “Occupy Wall Street
is a leaderless resistance movement
with people of many colours, gen-
ders and political persuasions,” says
a statement on the Occupy Wall Street
Website. “The one thing we all have
in common is that we are the 99% that

will no longer tolerate the greed and
corruption of the 1%. We are using
the revolutionary Arab Spring tactic
to achieve our ends and encourage the
use of nonviolence to maximize the
safety of all participants.”

The protest started by a suggestion
in AdBusters (the left-wing anti-con-
sumerist magazine) and was endorsed
by a group of computer hackers called
Anonymous who spread it to Twitter
and Facebook. From there it picked
up steam and people literally began
flooding Wall Street. “On September
17, we want to see 20,000 people flood
into lower Manhattan, set up tents,
kitchens, peaceful barricades and oc-
cupy Wall Street for a few months,”
says the magazine. “We demand that
Barack Obama ordain a Presidential
Commission tasked with ending the
influence money has over our repre-
sentatives in Washington. It’s time for
DEMOCRACY NOT CORPORAT-
OCRACY, we’re doomed without it.”

The number of people occupying
Wall Street started in the hundreds,
but has since grown to thousands join-
ing in the protests. The movement has
spread to Los Angeles, Philadelphia,
Boston, Seattle, Austin, and Texas. In
Los Angeles, 11 people were arrested
during a march by hundreds of union
members, students, and activists in a
downtown financial sector. Similar
protests were also planned in Can-
adian cities.

President Obama has responded to
the protests. He says the protests re-
flect the frustrations of the American
public. Obama also summarized that
the government must ensure the health
of the financial sector but should not
allow Wall Street to compete “on the
basis of hidden fees, deceptive cock-
tails that nobody understands and that
expose the entire economy to enor-
mous risks.”

Some of the protestors found
Obama’s reaction to be less than en-

thusiastic, given their whole-hearted
commitment to the cause. Some crit-
ics of the movement say that it will
soon fizzle or gain momentum. How-
ever, because the movement has no
leader, no easily definable solution,
and a myriad of dissatisfactions, some
experts have reported skepticism on
the movement’s success.
Communications director for John
McCain’s presidential campaign, Dan
Schnur, for example, has been quot-
ed saying “the difference between
an angry mob and a movement is a
goal.” However, the momentum of
the protesters can’t be denied as they
are chronicling the protests with hun-
dred of images on Tumblr. Speeches,
cops, and those protesting the protest,
are all chronicled on the blog. With
the rapidity of social media, once a
speech has been filmed and uploaded
it’s in the hands of anyone interested.
And people are interested. Some
famous people like Kanye West are

ONLINE SOURCE

supportive of the protesting. On Oc-
tober 10th, Kanye dropped by the
main New York hub of the protests.
He was in the company of the Rev. Al
Sharpton and hip-hop mogul Russell
Simmons. Kanye shook hands with
the protesters, and Al Sharpton broad-
casting on his radio show announced
his inclinations regarding the pro-
tests: “We are here today because we
agree 1% should not be controlling
the wealth. These are regular people
trying to feed their families, trying to

pay their rent and mortgages, trying

to survive.”

Whether or not the protests will
incite any permanent change for the
99% depends upon two factors; the
lasting enthusiasm of the protestors,
and how they are received by those
in government. Regardless of the out-
come, in an age where virtually no
one is voting, to see masses of people
engaged and voicing their opinions is
commendable.

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