The occupy Wall Street movement has helped to give birth to numerous similar movements throughout the United States. From Boston to Los Angles, Seattle to Atlanta people are “occupying” cities all around the United States. The movement itself is a tad odd; since it is a self described “leaderless” movement that also seems to be directionless. Some of its members are interested in closing the income gap between the “1%” and the “99%”, others are calling for more jobs, and another section of them are trying to get student loan bills nullified. The movement came to an abrupt end in November, and while it still exists in some forms around the country the tent cities in New York City were removed for the most part. The police reaction has garnished media attention with the UC Davis response getting a good portion of media attention for the police pepper spraying sitting people who don’t appear to violent.
This movement intrigues me for a number of reasons. First, there is the fact that it took until this year before there was a left equivalent to the Tea Party Protests that were a few years ago. I sincerely thought that this would have been sooner given the high unemployment level, the instability on Wall Street, and political weakness in Washington.
Second, there are the issues that the movement has brought up. The income gap in the United States is similar to Argentina and Madagascar which is much higher than the gap in Europe, Canada or Australia which seems to upset many of the protesters. This issue seems to have a basis in reality and I can understand why the protesters are upset since the “1%” gained a 275% income increase between 1979 and 2007 where as the bottom 80% have gained minimal and some have even lost income due to inflation.
The issue of jobs is an understandable one too with a higher than normal unemployment rate (I believe the government posted a new unemployment rate Friday o 8.6%) many people feel that there are no jobs for them. Heck one of the reasons why the government thinks that unemployment fell was because so many people that discouraged that they just stopped looking for work and therefore are no longer considered unemployed. And while unemployment is much less for college educated people (4% I think) more and more of them are underemployed (working in fields below than that which they went to school for).
The call for student loan bills nullified is not something that I get. These people knew that they were taking out these loans and knew that there was a chance that they may not get a job. While I would say that it may be good to rework the student loan bills I do not think they should be nullified. Though to be fair, if any of them had high school guidance counselors similar to mine then they were falsely told that if you get a college degree then you are guaranteed a job.
The police response is something that has annoyed me. For one all of the videos of the police using pepper spray and billy clubs are on non-violent protester show that there is an overreaction. While I understand that the work of a police officer is stressful and these people can be annoying I do not see why these measures need to be used, especially when the protesters are not a threat to people. While issue of “health and safety” has been used to justify evicting the protesters those seem to not be issues that deem the forcible removal of folks with these methods. I am all for cleanliness but I am more for the right to protest, that and the occupiers have shown that they are willing to clean there are to stay there (I think it was in October they cleaned the park overnight).
The protests are showing a legitimate frustration of people towards their government, big business, and the bed that the two of them seem to share. Many of the issues that they bring up are at least debatable and warrant being addressed on Caption Hill even if some of them are out in left field. I suspect that they may be able to help influence the 2012 election, but probably not as much as the Tea Party.
Tomorrow: Baking Blueberry Bread
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