07 October 2011

Occupy This

What is everyone's take on the Occupy Wall Street Movement? I checked out the Chicago chapter, OccupyChi, and found it fascinating. Growing up in a College town, there were many protests going on, but I never bothered to join any. I went on a lhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifunch brake this week, and biked down to the protest, as I work Downtown, it is not a long ride. There is a lot of energy going on at the protest, and I was able to bask in it. I did not have a sign of my own, so almost felt out of place, but watching was itself very enjoyable.
People are dissing the movement for not having one coherent message or leader, but that is not really a negative in my perspective. First, the Tea Baggers had no coherent message other than anger at first either. Second, the movement is young, but growing, and I feel it will distil a more unified message at some point. I plan to visit the protest more next week, and encourage everyone else to visit one as well. The most impressive aspect I think, is the technological organization. You can check out the Chicago website at www.Occupychi.org

1 comment:

Jamie said...

I think it can't be anything but good. I do think they lack focus, like a legislative agenda, but maybe that is part of their attraction too. If the protests were lead by wonky-types who spent all their time talking about technical aspects of Sarbanes-Oxley or the Consumer Protection Bureau then maybe less people would care to get involved. But I think eventually a group of leaders with a specific agenda will have to emerge.

Comparing them to the Teabaggers is wrong. Those people were never actually broadly popular, and in fact were coopted from day-one. They won't have lasting effect on policy. OWS, I hope, is much bigger than that.