Archive for December, 2011
Anyone who visits the Occupy Wall Street website (occupywallst.org) will find a community of people and the insistence that it is a spontaneous and leaderless movement. Since there is a website and a core of well-organized protesters, this is not entirely a true statement. The people who come out and join the protests are closely affiliated interest groups and ultimately newcomers who wish to participate. How it all came together is an interesting story, and it was partially spontaneous.
The truth of the matter is that New England is a liberal region and with a lot of population has more political parties than the whole of Europe. The counterculture never died in New York. Many old hippies settled in the area, and they formed ongoing communities that taught their children and grandchildren the ways of liberalism. Its not a joke; several generations of liberal ideology can be found among the protesters. Some of the youth there were raised to believe that protest and expression are a birthright.
History aside, most of the far-left interest groups in New York are familiar with each other and have a history of working collaboratively together. The major backing for Occupy Wall Street appears to be Acorn, which is a large and nationwide association of political activists. They are involved in many protests, and in many other situations are solely responsible. They claim a membership of over 400 thousand families, and it might even be seen as an umbrella organization for smaller interests.
Other leftist groups involved include the Topfree Equal Rights Association. This curious organization believes women have the right to be shirtless in public, and some of their members paraded in New York in order to demonstrate their cause. Occupy Wall Street is nominally about criticizing the rich for having too much political power. Since demonstrations are risky for small groups, virtually everyone is taking the chance to come out and voice their particular viewpoint. There is strength in numbers, even if it is a strange miss-mash of different causes.
Some Christian groups have come out, including a few Methodist churches, because they agree with the leftist demonstrators, at least on the point that Wall Street is too focused on greed and not on ethics. If business has power over the government, then the responsibility to the people is lost. The majority of Americans are not far left, and probably disagree with anarchists and the idea of abolishing the dollar, but they agree that the wealthy are neglecting their responsibility to the country in a crisis.
Tom is a blogger who specializes in current events topics. He also frequently writes for Payday Loans and many other financial companies.