Occupy Wall Street Movement: Dead on Arrival, or History in the Making?

Occupy Wall Street has been called many things including: unfocused, ungrounded, and silly. Others coin it as “America’s first internet-era movement” (Rushkoff). In quintessence, Occupy Wall Street is a series of protests and demonstrations that oppose the influence that corporate greed has on American Democracy. The protestors manipulate marches and nonviolent demonstrations to express their dissatisfaction with the state of American Politics and economy. This relates to the political science concepts of power, performance democracy, and protective democracy.

The Ohioans suffered from low income. So they decided to come together to protest for a change. It is also one out of thirty campaigns being waged around the country. The activist that was involved in the campaign stated that they were following civil rights leader Martin Luther King´s example. They also mentioned that they will participate in non-violent civil disobedience to end racism. ¨It is not ok to let our children go without. It is okay to let the homeless be the answer. We must meditate and pray, we must act, and we must persevere,¨ says Stewart. The Ohio activists say that they will risk arrest if their agenda is not

On September 17, 2011 hundreds of people began to gather in Zuccotti Park, New York which is Wall Street’s financial district under the banner “Occupy Wall Street”: these three simple words are causing an uproar in America (Engler). Additionally, these three words happen to be protesting the current status of America’s financial condition. With the economy in America being as terrible as it is, and the unemployment rate skyrocketing, it is absolutely necessary for some sort of change to occur. The Occupy Wall Street protesting is most positively a progressive step for the economic state in America and it is a step in the right direction.

He hopes that they will somehow find common ground, despite their extreme differences on most issues of policy. Yet he fails to emphasize how dependent this revolt, so celebrated by Chris Hedges, will be on the ability of these groups to respond to the anger and despair of struggling families and workers in productive ways. The $15 minimum wage campaign coming out of Seattle is showing the way for the Occupiers, even as Obama has abandoned them in favor of the corporate-driven Fast Track. But the Tea Party has only delivered for the Koch brothers and Wall Street. Even though the Tea Party has drawn on popular anger at Wall Street and corporations, their politicians have been easily bought off by those same money

In light of the recent presidential election, many people fear for their freedom as restrictions on immigration, religion, and abortion rights have been proposed. As a result of this, on January 20th, countless citizens banded together across America in “Women’s Marches”, the largest of about 400,000 people at Washington, D.C. (10 Actions). At these protests, advocating for people of all genders, races, ethnicities, and sexual orientations, zero arrests were made. These peaceful gatherings gained the attention and unification of many people across the country and motivated citizens to continue to organize events. At the Women’s March on San Francisco, it was said by a speaker that we are “on the right side of history”. As people continue to vocalize their disagreements with the government, change will always be made, though it may be

Protesting has become an extremely common way for people to voice their opinion with the aid of our current social media boom. Author Rich Emberlin’s article, How police can work effectively with protest groups”, addresses the current issues with police presence at protest and provides tactics that have worked for his department (2017). Emberlin explains that proper communication has served as the Dallas Police Department’s main combatant against these activist groups. The Dallas Police Department Criminal Intelligence Unit constantly dealt with high-profile activist groups like Black Lives Matter and Dreamers. To reduce violence toward police and maintain a safety for all

In response to the growing inequality between rich and poor Canadians, and the growing wealth of the top 1%, the Occupy Movement took to the streets in order to protest against the accumulation of the majority of wealth by the minority of people. On October 15th, 2011, in 900 cities across the world, thousands of average citizens protested for their rights to wealth equality

Law enforcement officials and their supporters, on the defensive over allegations of racism and police brutality, called out civil rights activists, police critics and President Barack Obama himself for fomenting an open-season-on-cops atmosphere (Williams, 2014). New York police officers feel as the organization are turning their backs against police officers only to please the public. The public may not understand how it feels to be a police officer dealing with the daily struggle on how it is to protect the city of New York. Public figures may see these cases with racism as the main

Police abuse remains as one of the most deliberate human rights violations in the United States. For over a decade police have acted in ways that makes us question their professionalism. Makes the wonder if law enforcement are taking advantage of their criminal justice “powers” October 22 is “National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and Criminalization of an Entire Generation”. (Aol News). On October 22 many people across the country wear black to fight back against police brutality. Bad police have to be stopped so they don’t forget who they are serving – not themselves but the public. Police Brutality has caused a major concern in the United States.

stupid. Barry relates the story of driving through Tampa, when two people wearing furry pig suits say that they are trying to convert people to veganism. His mental response was not thoughts of meatless meals but of “these people are insane, I could go for some barbeque.” The author also shares his belief in the inefficacy of shouting in large groups. Occupy Wall Street was a prime example of this mentality. I do sympathize with many of their aims, because I am definitely one of the 99%. However, when they did a months-long protest in Philadelphia at City Hall, I went home the long way around because the protesters came across as dangerous and possibly unstable. As the late Terry Pratchett said, “The intelligence of that creature known as a crowd is the square root of the number of people in

The interests of Americans spark political action from individuals and groups pursuing their own self-interest, such as promoting women’s rights to equal pay and reproductive rights. We saw this occur on January 21st, when the Women’s March on Washington attracted millions of women and men marching for Women’s rights in Washington and around the world. These individuals are acting through civic engagement, which at any level can be rewarding and produce results. The Women’s March on Washington also reflects the ideas of direct democracy and Social Movement Theory, other founding ideas that reflect the spirit of

To begin with, peaceful and violent protests can spark the change, or get the attention of more supporters until something is resolved for the equality. The article, “Making a Visual Argument:Inequality and the Occupy Movement” shows one of the most influential movement, the occupy movement. Occupy Miami showed a man with a dollar taped to his mouth reading “occupy.” Then, during the occupy Portland demonstration a young college girl Elizabeth Nichols is pepper sprayed at point blank. These acts caught the eyes of the American people, and rose in popularity. The occupy movement also showed American’s that there is a problem of economic equality through the occupy at Miami and Portland

The concerns of the majority Americans have no immediate solution as the answer lies in the separated divisions in government. Political stances of Democrat, Republican and Liberal views about Occupy Wall Street have separate and distinct ideals. But, one unified front from all three is that the movement has gotten out-of-hand; caught between the freedom of speech act, and the health and safety of the public from themselves. Michael Kirby Smith, of The New York Times, commented in an article that because of the anti-Semitism displays during Occupy Wall Street, President Barak Obama and House Representative Nancy Pelosi recanted their support for the Wall Street protests. Yet, recently in an article by Mark Whittington of Yahoo News, writes that even though President Obama

They blocked traffic to the Brooklyn Bridge, shouting racial slurs at the public and the mayor at the time, joined in. In an incident right after the City Hall protest, as police were leaving, several off-duty officers, all in civilian clothes, assaulted a man on the subway who had stepped on one of the officer's feet. The man claimed that he apologized but that the officer attempted to punch the man. The man cut the officer with a razor blade and the other officers, six of them, beat him viciously. (Police Brutality).

On a brisk September day in 2011, in the commercial district of Manhattan Island, a minute protest in Liberty Square commenced against the fiscal atrocities committed by economic establishments leading to the financial crisis and subsequent economic recession in 2007 and 2008. Over the course of the month, the movement protesting the miscarriage of justice and democracy following the economic catastrophe and the overall inequitable and unfair wealth distribution diffused to over 100 American cities as well as 1,500 cities worldwide. The revolutionary movement was named Occupy Wall Street and through occupying and protesting the symbolic location of the financial elite, Wall Street, the crusade aimed to “[revolt] against the corrosive power