“It’s good to go away for the weekend, I’m good at staying’ up all night, I got this real bad habit of setting up camp where the lightening strikes”

Bring it on, SF!

For the past couple weeks people have been asking me what I think about#occupywallst (and now #occupytogether). I haven’t been able to give them a straight answer.

On one hand I have serious doubts about a movement with no leadership, whose only articulated commonality is that they are “the 99 percent that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1%.” When a movement doesn’t have clear objectives it makes it difficult for those outside the movement to empathize with it and support it. We saw this in media and public dismissal off the protest at Zuccotti Park during the first two weeks. Occupy Wall St. was treated as a fringe movement of of little importance, supported by only the typical protest crowd. My first impression after visiting Zuccotti Park during the second week of the protest was that the only thing unifying the occupiers was that they were all angry and hungry for change. But, as evidenced by their signs signs baring myriad, mismatched messages, the causes about which they were so passionate were many and disparate. With all of these diverse opinions operating in a decisionmaking structure (the general assembly) that ruled by consensus, it seemed that the protest would never achieve the cohesion needed to make concrete demands and attract mainstream support. 

On the other hand, as a response to the political system, these protests make sense. Around the world street protests are a common way for everyday citizens to express their preferences when they feel they have no other outlet. Occupy Wall St.’s rhetoric often cites Tahrir Square, but street protests about political and socio-economic inequality are much more common and and often much less extreme than full-scale revolution. Take the recent riots in London, the protests in Spain, and bread riots (historically in the US and around the world) - when people feel they have no way to express their political preferences, they take to the street. Considering that the 112th congress is often derided as one of the worst in our nation’s history, and bipartisan cooperation has seemed increasingly out of reach, it’s no wonder that the protesters at Occupy Wall St. don’t feel like their government is listening to them. 

As the weeks have passed support has slowly gathered.  Partially, this is due to the message of rejecting corporate greed and demanding accountability, but the occupiers really owe the NYPD for drawing sympathizers to the cause. The violence (and the arrests on the Brooklyn Bridge on October 5) perpetrated by police on the occupiers, humanized the protesters to the general public (and more importantly, the media). They were cast in a more sympathetic role in the mainstream media narrative than the fringe, hippie, socialist, anti-government malcontent stereotype they previously embodied in our national landscape. 

Increasing mainstream support, by unions, professors, and other students, along with the creation of similar protests nationwide, has made me rethink my earlier dismissal of the protests.

As the occupiers’ demands evolve and become more discernible (at present it seems: demanding accountability from the super rich, getting the money out of politics, making elite political and economic spaces more accessible to the general public) it becomes easier to imagine how this movement could have some staying power.  Many analysts (my amateur self included) would prefer if Occupy Wall St. had a leadership that articulated its demands clearly (and preferably in list form) and advocated for them via established channels because it would make it easier to understand, categorize, and then (probably) dismiss.

Perhaps the power in the Occupy Wall St. protest lies within its wholesale rejection of established power structures and its creation of its own communitarian style of organization and protest. Maybe the lack of clear message, the presence of many diverse voices demanding change is what’s got us interested. We’re unsure of the trajectory of the movement so we keep watching to see what will happen next, and as any activist knows, making the public listen to you is the hardest part. As the “average americans”start to watch what’s going on in Zuccotti Park, more and more are moved to join (such as the protesters profiled in this piece at Mother Jones).

As for me, well for now I’m not about to grab my sleeping bag and make camp at Zuccotti Park, but Occupy Wall St. has definitely got me paying attention.

So, yesterday I get caught in a torrential downpour while walking home from Westside market (typical). This occurs while I’m on the phone with my dad.

Me: [looking into tote bag] oh no, my copy of foreign affairs got wet

Dad: Foreign Affairs? That sounds pretentious, what, do you read Foreign Affairs and the Economist? Too good for the New York Times?

Me: [entering apartment and seeing last week’s The Economist on my desk] Well actually, I do.

Dad: [laughter and I imagine head-shaking].