Occupy Wall Street: What is it and is it over?: Political Sociology

Occupy Wall Street: What is it and is it over? Ed Keohane Dr. Stout, Fall 2012 Over eighteen months ago America saw the birth of the latest grass-roots social movement, Occupy Wall Street. Occupy Wall Street started as a peaceful protest movement that held its first protest in Zuccotti Park, located in New York City’s financial district. Originally formed by members of a Canadian activist group, the Occupy movement quickly gained international support and media coverage which was broadcasted throughout the world. Though primarily a peaceful protest movement over the last fourteen months members of the Occupy movement have been arrested in the inevitable clashes with police both in America and abroad. This as well as other aspects of the movement caught the nation’s headlines for some time and it seemed as though this grass-roots social movement was going to reach a critical mass and inevitably lead to some type of reform or other official action from the United States Government. Much to the disappointment of Occupy supporters, this once frenzied movement has lost its momentum and its spotlight. In the pages to follow I will examine how the movement came to be as well as the early days of the movement, what was the intended point of the movement and how was it organized, and where the movement is today. History of Occupy Wall Street As mentioned, the first Occupy Wall Street protest took place over fourteen months ago on September 17, 2011 in Zuccotti Park in New York City; however, the birth of the movement can be traced back to June of that same year, over eighteen months ago. Occupy, as it came to be known, was initiated by two members of the Canadian activist group Adbusters. Micah White and Kalle Lasn came up with the idea of a September 17 peaceful occupation. That same day, June 9 2011, Kalle Lasn registered the domain name OccupyWallSt.org. Throughout the months of June, July, August, and September, Adbusters emailed its subscribers in preparation for the September 17 occupation. Over the course of the three months prior to the initial protest the idea caught hold and thus a movement was born. Preceding the first official Occupy protest, in July of 2011 a group called New Yorkers Against Budget Cuts, (NYAB), held a sleepover in lower Manhattan. This group consisted of disgruntled citizens who decided to rally together and express their concerns against local government decisions and recent budget cuts. Another group who had attended this sleepover was disappointed in its lack of effectiveness and decided to begin its own protests. This group was initially led by a man named David Graeber and several of his associates. They, along with supporters of the internet group Anonymous and the U.S. Day of Rage, all began to hold weekly meetings which developed into the New York General Assembly. The original location of the protest was to be One Chase Manhattan Plaza with Bowling Green and Zuccotti Park as alternate choices. Somehow the police had gotten wind of a possible protest and as a result they barricaded the first two parks, but left Zuccotti Park open. Zuccotti Park was private property unlike the other two parks, so unless the police were requested by the park owners to intervene, they could not legally force protesters to leave. On September 17, 2011, several hundred activists band together and joined in a peaceful march on Wall Street in New York City. After this initial march, the protesters set up camp in Zuccotti Park and held an occupy protest where they would peacefully occupy a part of the community for an undetermined amount of time. It did not take long for the word of the occupation to get out to other disgruntled citizens. Facebook, Twitter, and other forms of technology and social media carried the word and thus helped the “first worldwide postmodern uprising” gain momentum, (Brucato 2011:77). The initial group of several hundred quickly grew to several thousand and continued to occupy Zuccotti Park for the next two months. During the first two months of the Occupy movement campers maintained Zuccotti Park and as the word spread throughout the country and indeed the world, protestors around the world took to both the streets and to other parks. The original Occupy protesters in Zuccotti Park were officially removed by police on November 15, 2011. The owners of the park, Brookfield Office Properties, asked the police to remove the occupiers because of growing sanitation problems. Over the previous two months thousands of people had been arrested in New York and the world over and it was no different on the day of eviction. In fact, there were over 200 arrests that day with several injuries. Since that day protestors have tried and failed to re-occupy Zuccotti Park and many hundreds more have been arrested for everything from trespassing to disturbing the peace to aggravated assault. The last major event at Zuccotti Park was on the one year anniversary of Occupy Wall Street, September 17, 2012, when 185 people were arrested. More recently with the impact of hurricane Sandy, protesters have been credited with cleanup efforts in the New York City area. This may be Occupy Wall Street’s greatest achievement to this day. What is Occupy? The Occupy slogan, “We are the 99%” seems to sum up the entire philosophy of members of the movement. The main protestations of the movement are focused on income inequality, income distribution, and the economic fallout which resulted from the financial system collapsing and the ensuing housing crisis. At the center of the protestor’s aim was the increasing gap between the wealthiest 1% and the rest of the population. Also of concern was the lack of punitive measures against those responsible for the financial system collapse and the dwindling housing market. “We are the 99%” was adopted as the movement’s slogan when statistics were released by a Congressional Budget Office report released in October 2011. The slogan summarizes the group’s frustration with the increasing income inequality which has continued to grow over the last thirty years due to economic stagnation and the unequal distribution of wealth. Add to this frustration, corporate greed and the damaging power of major banks and multinational corporations. Some of the goals of the Occupy movement involve the group’s hope for a reduction of the influence of corporations on politics. Central to this idea is the Supreme Court’s decision on Citizens United. Under the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision, corporations and labor unions could spend as much money as they want to convince people to vote for or against a candidate. Essentially the Court ruled that money and monetary donations were the same thing as free speech and to restrict free speech was unconstitutional; therefore, to restrict how much money a business or corporation could spend to influence voting was considered to be unconstitutional. It was after this decision that Super PACs began to breech the headlines and as we saw in the recent Presidential elections, Super PACs helped to raise and spend more money in any one election than in any other election in the history of the United States. Some other goals of the Occupy movement included a more balanced distribution of income, more and better jobs, bank reform, forgiveness or some other type of relief for student debt, and some type of relief or aid for homeowners who were the victims of the housing crisis. Obviously, these types of goals and demands were the perfect opportunity for critics of the movement to label the Occupiers as socialists and anti-capitalists. On the other side of the spectrum, supporters of the movement denied these types of labels and said that in fact the protestors were hoping to restore basic capitalist principles, namely accountability. The structure of the Occupy movement is a leaderless movement which operates on consensus. This started as a movement “without an official set of demands and had no projected outcomes or bottom lines and no talking heads”, (Gautney 2011). Occupy operates under the idea that “We are all leaders.” The New York General Assembly is the main decision making body for the Occupy movement. Its main primary objective in its operation is not to replicate the system of which it is so critical. Much of the movement’s critique involves the corruption of the representative form of supposed democratic governments. In this spirit, the Occupy General Assembly now holds weekly meetings where various committees are allowed to attend and speak. In fact, all meetings involving the General Assembly are open to the public for both attendance and speaking. The meetings are without formal leadership, though members do act as moderators. A “stack” process is used where meeting participants comment upon committee proposals. A stack is simply a queue of speakers that anyone can join. A “progressive stack” is also sometimes used, where members of marginalized groups such as minorities and women are allowed to join and speak first, ahead of their white male comrades. Again, this is done in order to go against convention and allow members of group’s voices be heard despite their sex, color, or ethnic identity. Volunteers take minutes of the meeting and these minutes are posted on the occupywallst.org website. In an organization which claims not to have any leaders, there are certainly leaders who have emerged, although it is understood that there is no authority attached to any types of leadership. Like other social movements of the past in America such as Civil Rights and Women’s Liberation, Occupy Wall Street hoped that a movement without a leader would lead to a more widely accepting audience. This combined with a rise in a direct democracy which has not been seen in this country before, had Occupiers hopeful that their protestations and their outcries would be welcomed by the public at large. This was all happening as another political group, the Tea Party, was rising in the public eye and gaining its own media attention. Many thought that Occupy was the Tea Party of the left, but as we shall see this was not the case. According to the former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Andrew Young, “There’s a difference between an emotional outcry and a movement… This is an emotional outcry… The difference is organization and articulation,” (Tarrow 2011). Previously I compared the leaderless aspect of the Occupy movement to that of the Civil Rights movement; here I will magnify a huge difference between the two movements. Both the Civil Rights movement and the Tea Party were created to serve specific constituencies with specific goals. Obviously, the Civil Rights were organized around African Americans who were suffering injustice under the Jim Crow laws in the South; whereas, the Tea Party was organized around older, white, middle and upper class Americans who saw themselves as victims of a federal government that had grown too large and was filling their lives with too much regulation. In stark contrast to these two movements, the Occupy movement puts few policy proposals forward and has a revolving or shifting band of supporters that is spread out across both the country and the world. In fact, the only clear statement put forth by the Occupy movement was in the Declaration of the Occupation of New York City. In this declaration, the Occupy movement put forth a very loose policy platform which stated, “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 the corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors,” (Tarrow 2011). Many would argue that this was less than a policy platform; however, this movement above all else hoped to go against convention and shrugged away from issuing any true policies. I believe that this was one of many downfalls of the movement and why the movement has ultimately lost its head of steam. Where is Occupy today? As mentioned, the first few months of the Occupy Wall Street social movement caught the attention of the media and the public at large, both here in the U.S. as well as other Westernized countries around the world. Images of police barricades and the police clashing with disgruntled citizens around the world were on every major news network and could be found at the top of headlines of newspapers and magazines from America to France to Saudi Arabia. In fact, Time magazine named its person of the year as “The Protestor.” Though this was probably in reference to many of the other protests that were happening around the world at that time, namely Egypt and other protests in the Middle East, the Occupy movement was lumped into that same category. Today, we still see remnants from that time of other social upheavals making headlines. Egypt overthrew its president, Kaddafi has been killed, Greece is still in economic turmoil, and Syrian citizens are still being killed in the streets, but where is the Occupy movement? In a nutshell, they have been put at the back of the bus. To say that Occupy had no impact would be erroneous. “It created an important national conversation about economic inequality and upward mobility. The chant, ‘We are the 99 percent,’ has become part of the lexicon,” (Sorkin 2012). I believe that the greatest impact that the Occupy movement can be seen by looking at the recent presidential election. One of the main debates in the election between President Barrack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney was over supply versus demand side economics. President Obama spoke much of demand side economics and relief for the low and middle class as well increasing taxes for the wealthiest Americans, while Governor Romney supported supply side economics and supported keeping taxes for the wealthiest Americans low so that they would create more jobs in the private sector by reinvesting. So, in terms of bringing up a national conversation on inequality, the Occupy movement proved effective. There are other aspects of the movement’s goals that are being spoken about on the national level as well, and those are the amount of money in politics and corporate influence in the American political system as well as unemployment To say that these are now being addressed because of the Occupiers protestations may prove to be a little too optimistic for Occupiers, but for whatever the reason more and more Americans are now having these conversations. In terms of money in politics, it would seem as though this is one thing that both Republicans and Democrats alike can agree on. The rest of the Occupy movement hopes have either not been effective yet, or are simply not effective; student debt relief , punitive measures for the Wall Street bankers and financial moguls, as well as banking reform have not seen much in the national spotlight. Why is it that some protestations were heard and others not? This seems to be the only thing that anyone is writing about if they are writing about the Occupy Wall Street movement. Indeed, in my research Occupy only gets headlines now for cleaning up hurricane Sandy and the now trendy “Occubabies,” (this is not to be confused with the “Octomom.”) So what happened to Occupy? Some speculation points to the lack of organization and the lack of policy making and policy release. Related to the organization, some say that to be effective on a mass scale there must be some type of leadership, that a direct democracy though a fine idea, simply will not be able to be as effective as some type of organized leadership. In reference to policy making and declarations by the movement, I myself attended an Occupy Springfield General Assembly in November 2011. I must say that I was completely unimpressed with the “Confederacy of Dunces” that I saw at the meeting. Though this was not the official Occupy Wall Street General Assembly this was unfortunately their local unofficial representation. As I listened to microphone go around I could tell that this was basically a bitch session where most of the people truly did not know what they were complaining about, or more importantly no one had any good ideas as to what could be done about addressing their complaints. Just about the time I was sure that my mind was made up as to the potential lack of effectiveness of the Occupy movement, though I agreed with nearly all of the complaints that I heard, an Egyptian man spoke up. He claimed to have been in Egypt during its recent overthrow of Hasni Mubarak. What he said that day made more sense to me than anyone else at the General Assembly. He said that when they took to the streets in Egypt, they all were unhappy with the current situation, but that they didn’t know what they were going to do about it. He said that as they all came together with a common complaint, a common solution arose and was eventually put forth and carried out. He said as long as everyone came together in the Occupy struggle, a solution would present itself. As I may or may not have alluded to, I was in great support of the Occupy movement. Many of the issues brought up by members of the movements I agree with. I too am angry about inequality, student debt, unemployment, influence of corporations in politics and Citizen’s United, as well as the lack of regulations in the banking industry and the lack of punitive measures and accountability for those peoples and companies responsible for the housing crisis and economic meltdown. I too would like to see campaign reform, more jobs, relief for student debt, and I too would like to see the rich pay more. I am not a socialist; however, people are rich in this country because of this country and I believe that they owe the system that allows them to accumulate so much wealth. I also believe that to invest in a system that provides all people with more opportunities would be better for all people who are a part of that system. I would love to see a rehashing of the Occupy movement where more structure and leadership would arise and begin to make headlines and introduce other topics into a national debate as well as force politicians to begin to address these topics. So if and when people come along again and begin to chant once more that “We are the 99%” I will probably be in that crowd. Sources Cited Brucato, Ben. "The Crisis and a Way Forward: What We Can Learn from Occupy Wall Street." Humanity and Society 36, no. 1: 76-84. SocIndex. Accessed November 2, 2012. Gautney, Heather. "What is Occupy Wall Street? The history of leaderless movements." The Washington Post, October 10, 2011. LexisNexis. http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-leadership/what-is-occupy-wall-street-the-history-of-leaderless-movements/. Glidden, Bob, and Jackie Smith. "Occupy Pittsburgh and the Challenges of Participatory Democracy." Social Movement Studies 11, no. 3/4 (August 2012): 288-94. SocIndex. Schneider, Nathan. "From Occupy Wall Street to Occupy Everywhere." The Nation, October 11, 2011. SocIndex. http://www.thenation.com/article/163924/occupy-wall-street-everywhere. Sorkin, Andrew R. "Occupy Wall Street: A Frenzy That Fizzled." The New York Times, September 18, 2012, sec. B, p. 1. LexisNexis. Tarrow, Sidney. "Why Occupy Wall Street is Not the Tea Party of the Left." Foreign Affairs. October 14, 2011. SocIndex. http://www.foreignaffairs.com/print/98544. 12