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Dec. 30, 2011

Heroes of Sustainability: Occupy Wall Street Protesters

The 99%

Occupy Wall Street burst on the scene in mid-September, making front-page news and becoming common water-cooler conversation across the country. The movement set up shop in New York City’s Zuccotti Park, in the heart of the Wall Street financial district, with the goal of making it known that issues like high unemployment, inequality, greed, corruption, and corporations influencing government aren’t going unnoticed -- or approved of.

It quickly spread to other cities, making a splash all over the country and even the world. In Oakland, Calif., protesters shut down maritime operations at the port. In Seattle, a photo of an 84-year-old woman with pepper spray dripping from her face made headlines. Small cities like Bisbee, Ariz., population 6,000, even staged their own movements.

“Everyone is coming for different things, but the big important thing is that we’re all coming here to express our own discontent in one way or another with the way the world’s run,” Eric Kingsley, a student from Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario, told The Globe and Mail.

Individuals Coming Together

Although many have criticized OWS for lacking a clear message and strong leadership, a New York Times/CBS News poll found that almost half the public thinks the sentiments at the root of the movement generally reflect the views of most Americans.

“Occupy Wall Street has a public approval rating of 54 percent,” said one protester at Occupy London Stock Exchange, inspired by the efforts in the U.S. “That’s higher than President Obama and the Tea Party. They have communicated very effectively with the public and we need to do the same.”

For those who think the thousands of protesters are wasting their time with their marching, sign making, sleeping at the demonstration sites, and other activities they should consider this quote from political thinker Thom Hartmann’s book The Thom Hartmann Reader: “History demonstrates that the deepest and most meaningful cultural/social/political changes began with individuals, not organizations, governments, or institutions.”

OWS' Legacy

What will the lasting impact be? That, of course, remains to be seen, but signs that politicians are taking the concerns of protesters seriously are already evident. An article in The Atlantic said this: “Something interesting happened in December: President Obama gave a speech that was seen as setting the tone and agenda for his coming re-election campaign. In it, he talked repeatedly about income inequality. He mentioned the middle class 21 times. He explicitly cited the 1 percent and the 99 percent. And he did it with a passion that some say represents a shift in priorities.”

Another small victory: “The leaders of the House Financial Services Committee announced … that they will be holding hearings on the SEC’s practice of concluding settlements with Wall Street defendants without forcing the accused to admit to wrongdoing,” wrote Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi.

If OWS protesters have anything to say about it, history will look back at this period as the time when a revolution began -- and while many protest sites have been shut down and the cold has crept in, the most committed are still out there, spreading their message that the 99 percent won’t settle for the current state of affairs any longer.


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