Shelby Holland English 1102 Dr.

Jan Rieman 3/19/12

Holland1 Exposing Occupy

I thoroughly enjoyed writing and researching for this inquiry paper, simply because it helped me grow as a writer. Ive never spent weeks on one paper, putting together sources and constantly revising it. My absolute favorite part of the whole process comes in two parts: first, the fact that I am no longer nave about my subject, which means I actually learned something instead of just throwing facts on paper and hoping it makes sense. Second, when I first started putting all my research together in the first real draft of my paper, it came out perfectly and concisely and positively made sense. It was magical how easy putting everything I had learned into a logical order. The first draft only took about an hour when it normally takes me around four hours to complete. Occupy Wall Street Those three words bring a multitude of reactions when brought up in a certain crowd or conversation, as I have recently discovered. One does not simply bring up the movement and elicit an unbiased remark. Although Occupy claims to be unaffiliated with Democratic or Republican parties alike, their support widely gathers from the democratic side of the spectrum. Seeing as my family is dramatically republican, I heard a majority of negative comments ranging from,a group of hippies sitting around doing nothing at all to are you seriously doing a paper on that garbage? On the other hand, classmates and friends I have made have expressed completely alternative attitudes towards the movement. In this blog entry, I am going to simply go through the Occupy Wall Street history, primarily in essay style writing, and dispel any myths that the two varying sides may believe. The Occupy Wall Street idea began through KalleLasn and Micah White. Lasn is the founder of Adbusters Magazine and White is the senior editor. Adbusters is a bimonthly

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magazine with approximately 70,000 subscribers worldwide. On July 13, Adbusters sent out an email to their subscribers, America needs its own Tahrir. The response was so great that the next day the duo had OccupyWallStreet.org created. Adbusters is credited with the idea of Occupy, as well as the date of meeting and the name Occupy Wall Street (Schwartz). Adbusters sent out emails telling of meeting places to discuss how to further take action. The first meeting place was at the Charging Bull statue in the financial district of New York City. The primary people who showed up were the New Yorkers Against Budget Cuts and they were fresh off of a three week encampment protesting layoffs and budget cuts to social services (Schnieder). They fully expected a rally out of the meeting and turned it into one. The others who showed were a group of fifty or so Adbusters anarchists who broke away from the hectic rally and made their own meeting out of it. Later, it was the general consensus of those few people who showed up at the first meeting that they would abide by the horizontal organizational method, meaning that meetings are known as general assemblies and participants make decisions by consensus and give continuous feedback through hand gestures (Schwartz). The General Assembly then was the gathering of any occupier who wanted to participate, without a hierarchal structure or authoritative leaders (Hertzberg). The catchy slogan, We Are the 99% was created on Tumblr.com, a social networking site, to create awareness to the movement Occupy had created. It clearly defined their motivation and even went so far as to explain the other 1%; They are the banks, the mortgage industry, the insurance industry. The important ones. (Allow). The movements main focus, from the very beginning, would be directed at expelling the 1% for what the occupiers believe they are, and what they represent.

September 17, 2011, brought people from all over the country, through Adbusters, to Liberty Square in the financial district of New York City to protest (Occupywallstreet.org). They ended

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up in the privately owned Zuccotti Park. Over a thousand showed up, and over three hundred camped out that night. Over the next week, the General Assembly came up with defining the 99 percent.(Schnieder). Originally, there were small subgroups of the General Assembly that were self-governing working groups with names such as Process, Communication, Outreach, and Direct Action. It wasnt until Occupy grew in August that they put the General Assembly that is known now, into effect (Ketcham). There were violent arrests daily that led to media attention directed at Occupy. This originated from the fact that each time there was an incident with the police, media attention increased; the police, it sometimes seemed, were trying to do the occupation a favor (Schnieder).So through the police action, Occupy became nationally recognized. The reporters attention, originally on the wounded from rough attacks, shifted to why they were protesting in the first place (Schnieder). As attention grew, so did the masses in Zuccotti. Now the problem Occupy faced: how to address everyones protest? Their solution was to be as vague as possible. Everyone had their own set of protests that brought them to Occupy. The Declaration of Occupation was just what was needed. It was created right as the movement started making an appearance in the press. An excerpt from the declaration: As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known. (nycga.net) The declaration was more of a world view rather than a set of demands of the government (Schwartz). After two weeks, over 10,000 protestors marched down Broadway to Liberty Plaza.

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Occupy Wall Street brought celebrity attention, labor unions, donations and student organizations (Schneider). Within approximately six days after the protests on Liberty Plaza, over a hundred cities across the nation were breaking out in Occupy events. How? Through technology. The movement used various websites to propagate for the ninety-nine per cent cause (Boudreau). Occupy successfully changed the role of social media in mass movements. Facebook, Twitter (and the hashtag), Livestream, and Youtube became Occupys personal newsletter. The movement spread to the largest cities first, such as Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago, etcetera. Rather quickly, unions started showing support in other cities, although the prominent ones emerged from New York City (Wulfhorst). National Nurses United, Healthcare-Now, and Transport Workers Union was among the first the join Occupy (Wulfhorst). However, when technology is associated with Occupy Wall Street, the primary social media site used to gather members was Tumblr.com. People everywhere started stating why they are a part of the ninetynine; creating a community online . The reason Occupy spread so rapidly around the US is because of the youth who are extremely computer-literate on the internet. They used the internet to state why they were protesting and what their demands are, or lack thereof. The movements lack of demands is what made it so vastly popular in the first place. The direct message is that one percent of the population holds ninety-nine percent of the wealth, and the ninety-nine hold one percent. When Adbusters first set out to start awareness of their idea, the original demand was a presidential commission tasked with ending the influence money has over our representatives in Washington (Powerful). It shifted to the unfairness of how the wealth of America was distributed. There are so many different reasons for each of the occupiers to join the movement, but they all joined under the ideal of the 99%. Each member joined to voice their own testimony of inequality, economic injustice, or corporate power (Ketcham). A major criticism has been the lack of demands that Occupy produces. However,the main

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complaint from the General Assembly when it came to demands is that any one demand Occupy made would be self-limiting (Ketcham).The Article, Powerful Occupation, made the statement that Newcomers don't face an ideological litmus test; their protest signs aren't edited. People of diverse backgrounds share food; nurses share their skills; everyone has an equal voice (Powerful). They dont censor what each protestor has to say, so they cant give out specific statements or demands. On the other hand, Occupy quickly made the phrase income inequality popular in magazines, newspaper articles, and talks shows. Without listing a set of demands, Occupy brought a whole new narrative to the political world. They changed the conversation to what they wanted people to talk about: inequality. To the Occupiers delight, public opinion [was] beginning to realize that there are hard truths behind the Occupiers 99 per cent (Hertzberg) In November, CBS News and New York Times published the statistic that twothirds of the American population agree that the nations wealth is unfairly distributed, leading to the belief that Occupys message was spreading (Hertzberg). It has become evident that Occupy Wall Street has said a powerful statement in its existance. Occupy often is compared to another group that has made a powerful statement in recent history, The Tea Party. The term The Tea Party keeps coming up in conversation wherever Occupy is brought up. The Tea Party for liberal people is generally how it is announced. The Tea Party movement came along after Obamas election into office, and picked up the Republican party. The Tea party was started by a cable business-news reporters rant against losers mortgages. (Hertzberg) They successfully got officials elected into office that would get their demands accomplished (Hertzberg). The Tea Party, unlike Occupy, made their demands blatantly known; the most crucial one being do not bail out homeowners facing foreclosure (Powerful). The similarities between Occupy and The Tea Party are quite evident, starting with how they arose on

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a political fringe. They are both protest groups that lack authoritative leaders or hierarchal structure (Hertzberg). Occupys hope is to make change the way The Tea Party did. However, the dramatic difference in the two groups is that way they went about making change. The Tea Party, never doubting the effectiveness of elections, went and supported specific politician to get them into office to get what they wanted done andthe impact on republican governance, if thats the right word, was unmistakable (Hertzberg). Occupy is now faced with finding solutions to the problems that they exposed. The first accomplishment they achieved was awareness. As mentioned previously, it came through media. They changed political discussions. Recently, Occupy movement reached a milestone in changing national conversation whenBarack Obama heavily alluded to them in his speech in late January (Garofoli). One of his proposals was starting a financial crimes unit to regulate the financial firms of America. One of the primary themes of Occupy that he hit on was to not reward multinational corporations who take away jobs from the United States. He briefly mentioned taxing millionaires at least thirty percent. However, it was the statement by Obama that if you make under $250,000 a year, like 98 percent of American families, your taxes shouldnt go up, that unmistakably alluded to Occupy Wall Street (Garofoli). Though the allusion was a remarkable accomplishment for Occupy, they still need to find solutions to propose to the problem they are exposing. Exposing the faults didnt seem to be a problem. Under New York Times request, the U.S. Census Bureau recalculated poverty in America last November, leading to the discovery that one-third of the U.S. was in or near poverty (Wolff). Occupy argues that capitalists used the taboo of any form of criticism to the economic system (going back as far as fifty years ago, to the cold war), as a way to boost their salaries dramatically without any complaint. The solution Occupy built was for the workers in any

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enterprise to function as their own board of directors. Get rid of the employee versus employer epidemic in order to rebuild production in a new and more effective way. Occupy hopes to achieve the basic goal of democracy- any one person who is affected by a decision should have an equal say in the matter (Wolff). This solution is a way to even out the wealth in corporations and eventually rid them of inequality by allowing every person an equal say in the decision making. Six months ago, Occupy Wall Street was in headlines, on the news, and camping out in various cities around the nation. However, through the winter months, Occupy started fading out and losing members, either through police force or lack of progress. In the new year, Occupy has made fewer protests and thus, has had less visibility. With a lack of leadership, due to the general assembly, it is difficult for the movement to engage in conventional political organizing in support of state legislators and members of congress, like the Tea Party has. (Schmidt) So therefore, Occupy has less of a chance of making an impression in the upcoming elections. The occupiers state that the lull the movement has experienced over the past few months was due to the groups focus on building up capacity for larger events, and apparently, they have great thing planned for the upcoming weeks (Schmidt). In the media, Occupy has gone from being fourteen per cent of the news in October 2011, to an equivalent of no coverage in 2012 (Schmidt). Although occupy is losing its spotlight, it has still sent out a message that will have an influence on politics for the next several elections regarding income inequality, bail outs, and other protests. The fact that these topics have made their way into the elections could potentially allow Occupy to get a few of the solutions they have been trying to achieve. We know the impact and influence The Tea Party achieved; what about Occupy Wall Street? Occupy, as I have said is rather dormant at the moment, but I believe it will at least come

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into play during the upcoming elections. Occupy has made itself known, to both sides of the political world, and has changed the conversation or at least added some vocabulary to the political discussion. Who knows if Occupy will survive for another year, or if they will accomplish any of their main objectives. I hope I have shed some light on the movement as a whole, because I know I am now a more educated person after doing this research. I cant really say if I am for or against the Occupy movement, I cant even decide where I stand politically, but I know that I want to become less naive of political discussion and more engaged in current events.

Holland 9 Works Cited

"About Us | OccupyWallSt.org."Occupy Wall Street | NYC Protest for World Revolution. GitHub, n.d. Web. 30 Jan. 2012. <http://occupywallst.org/about/>.

"Allow Us to Introduce Ourselves." We Are the 99 Percent. Tumblr, 17 Sept. 2011. Web. 30 Jan. 2012. <http://wearethe99percent.tumblr.com/Introduction>. Boudreau, John. "Occupy Wall Street, brought to you by social media." San Jose MercuryNews (CA) 02 Nov. 2011: Points of View Reference Center. Web. 4 Apr. 2012. Hertzberg, Hendrik. Occupational Hazards.New Yorker, 87.35 (2011): 23-24. Academic Search Complete.Web. 18 March 2012. Joe, Garofoli. Occupy themes echo in presidents speech.San Francisco Chronicle (10/1/2007 to present) 26 Jan. 2012: A1. Regional Business News.Web. 20 Mar. 2012. Ketcham, Christopher. The New Populists.American Prospect 23.1 (2012): 10. Points of View Reference Center.Web. 20 Mar. 2012. Declaration of the Occupation at New York City.NYCGA.net. 29 Sept. 2011. Word Press. Web. 2 April 2012. Schmidt, Michael S. For a Dormant Occupy Movement, a Challenge to Recapture Momentum. The New York Times 1 April 2012: 19. Newspaper.

Schneider, Nathan. "From Occupy Wall Street To Occupy Everywhere." Nation 293.18 (2011): 13-17. Academic Search Premier. Web. 7 Feb. 2012.

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Schwartz, Mattathias."Pre-Occupied." New Yorker 87.38 (2011): 28-35. Literary Reference Center.Web. 16 Feb. 2012 Powerful Occupation.Christian Century128.22 (2011): 7. Academic Search Complete.Web. 18 March 2012. Wolff, Rick. Turning Towards Solutions.Dollars & Sense 298 (2012): 7-8. Business Source Complete.Web. 20 Mar. 2012. Wulfhorst, Ellen. Protests Born on Wall Street Spreading Nationwide.Thomson Reuters. Web. 1 April 2012.