The call to Occupy was put out by the Canadian anti-consumerist magazine Adbusters and picked up by thousands of disaffected Americans, the 99% of the population, that is according to protesters, excluded from meaningfully participating in the political process and decision making affecting their lives. Kept out of the fray by an elite political and economic ruling class, the 1%, say protesters, are unresponsive to popular opinion and ensure that even incremental reform is impossible....
more »The call to Occupy was put out by the Canadian anti-consumerist magazine Adbusters and picked up by thousands of disaffected Americans, the 99% of the population, that is according to protesters, excluded from meaningfully participating in the political process and decision making affecting their lives. Kept out of the fray by an elite political and economic ruling class, the 1%, say protesters, are unresponsive to popular opinion and ensure that even incremental reform is impossible. Occupiers believe the time to achieve political reform through traditional, institutional means is over and the only recourse available to the people is non-violent civil disobedience and then revolution. Therefore they have avoided the political process entirely, taken to the streets, and resisted co-optation as various Democratic Party functionaries and organizations attempt to circumvent and redirect the movement's energy into a more palatable and less threatening means of expression.
Occupy Wall Street is the first significant protest movement in the United States since the anti-nuclear movement of the 1970/80s and comes after ten years of war waged abroad in response to 9/11. Subsequent developments - the implementation of a domestic regime of militarism, a climate of fear and jingoism - have had a chilling effect on dissent, which made the emergence of a serious, large-scale protest movement surprising to many. Occupy is largely a movement of young people, although it is a movement of all people. Among the many demands articulated by the movement: Redress massive economic and social inequality at home; end corporate personhood and financial domination over the political system; restore civil liberties and the right to privacy; and end the wars, amongst other issues.
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