For the past two months, the Occupy Wall Street movement (OWS) has been growing at a constant pace. Starting on September 17 in New York City’s Zuccotti Park, the movement has spread across the entire nation in over 100 cities, including Albany. The movement has also inspired similar protests in cities all around the world.
The most fundamental aspect of the movement is a protest against economic inequality and the influence of corporate power in the government. The movement’s slogan, “We are the 99%”, refers to how the wealthiest 1% of Americans, including the stock brokers on Wall Street, have seen an increase in wealth while a relatively large percentage of Americans are unemployed and/or facing financial difficulties due to the 2007 Recession, so some people have assumed that one of the main goals of the movement is to reform the current economic system that seems to benefit the top 1% at the cost of everyone else.
People are assuming that this is a possible goal for the movement because, unlike many other protest movements in American history, the OWS movement does not have any clear demands or a leader to represent them. As a result, many people in the United States are not sure what to think of the movement because they do not know what its goals are. This has been a target for criticism from many journalists and news organizations. How can the movement create any change in the government if lawmakers have no idea what the movement is striving for?
The demographic of the movement is very diverse despite the stereotypes depicting the movement consisting of mainly unemployed and liberal young people. Two-thirds of protestors are under 35 years old, thus supporting the stereotype that the movement consists mainly of young people. However, 13% of the protestors are between the ages of 35 and 45 and even more surprisingly, 20% of the protestors are above the age of 45. Also, half of the protestors can be identified as being employed full time, 30% being employed part time, and another 30% being unemployed. As for political views of the protestors, 27% are Democrats and 2% are Republicans while 70% of the protestors are independent. This large demographic could be a possible reason for OWS not having a clear set of demands. With so many different groups of people involved in the protests, making a unified list of demands can be incredibly challenging, and the absence of any leader of the movement makes it even more difficult for all the needs of the protestors to be represented.
Occupywallst.org, the official website of OWS, allows its users to post proposed lists of demands on a forum. However, none of these lists are official and the administrators of Occupywallst.org are very clear about this. One such administrator writes this at the top of one such proposed list of demands, “This is not an official list of demands. The user who posted this speaks only for themself, not the movement. This website would never in a million years endorse a list of demands of the 1%.”
As one may expect, the lists of proposed demands contrast drastically and many of the demands on these lists are ridiculous and/or laughable. One such list calls for lawmakers to “Repeal racist and xenophobic English-only laws” and to “Make homeschooling illegal. Religious fanatics use it to feed their children propaganda.” The very wording of some of these demands justifies the criticism of the movement by many journalists. How can one expect lawmakers to listen to a movement whose members are declaiming such demands based solely on opinion and conspiracy theories?
However, maybe it isn’t the demands or the goals of the OWS movement that make it so significant. Perhaps it’s the fact that the protests are allowing people, disappointed and frustrated by the current state of the economy and unemployment rates, to exercise their first amendment rights, a chance to voice their opinions. Their frustrations. Their ideas. So yes, with the opportunity for protestors to have a voice, there are going to be some bad ideas and some mindless shouting. However, there are bound to be some good ideas in the midst of all the protest. Lawmakers would be wise to keep a watch out for these good ideas, for the Occupy Wall Street movement is not going away anytime soon.