Opinion of "Occupy Wall Street"

[I am Alive]

FF. Banksters are blood sucking leachers.

[SUSAN CRUSHBONE]

I enjoyed this. Alan Grayson slaps around some conservative author over Occupy Wall Street.

Awesome.

[Bunwahaha [still dunno why, but well, so be it]]

What's interesting with those groups and it was at least the case in a big starter country, Spain, is that they would represent an actual feeling existing in the populations, not only the classical ever protesting margins that represent only themselves.

Here we would be with something that is bigger and that would represent a deep feeling going through middle-classes, regardless of generations. For this only seeing those movements existing is interesting.

Other rather interesting thing is that the main demand going through those is mainly fairness, and not much more. And a demand of fairness that regards as much the economical than the political realm (both being inherently tied anyways).

Other interesting thing, they rather simply and clearly say how unfair and senseless the system in which we are living is.

They have their limits, so far they only say what's wrong, nothing much to propose or only spontaneous short term actions, but I don't mind most of the activism I've seen so far.

That's the big limits of those movements, no alternative organizations to propose so far. But hopefully that's just the beginning of an epoch, and only the most visible things of some rather deep trends already at work for several decades that never stopped to go bigger, especially since the end of the 90s...

I speak about those movements in general, internationally, but while they all go in the same direction they might also take different paths in the future. I'm sorry but, for the USA, I can't help imagining as possible in the future of the coming decade some street fights between them and radical far-rightist groups, such as NSDAP vs. Communists in Berlin streets several decades ago. Unless some Jesus Lovers take over by hugging everybody promising paradise to everyone after doom. Whatever, wish the best of luck to those in the USA, may the 99% win.

Amusingly, France, traditionally big protesting country, especially regarding the stakes at work, is one of the place in which those movements have been the weakest. Ah well, might disturb our protesting traditions. . That being said, France would also be the 1st country in which protests against those kinds of things have been the biggest, in early 2009 there has been 3 very big nationwide protests against the economical crisis and the solutions carried by politics. Was amusing to see faces of politicians becoming more pale on TV after each demonstrations, but then the movement had no clear directions, then it stopped. The coming big elections might explain this difference in France so far regarding this kind of protest too, it traditionally catches a lot of attention.

Anyhow, in short, interesting movements, but they have to go beyond being 'Indignado', and to know what to do of what they 'Occupy'.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

As we approach the ten year anniversary of Occupy Wall Street, I'd like to take the liberty of bumping this thread to give new posters the opportunity to voice their opinion on a short-lived movement that exerted a powerful influence on contemporary political discourse. To this day, it is typical to hear people refer to "the 1%" and this turn of phrase derives from this rag-tag movement.

Another reason I'd like to bump this thread is to give new posters an opportunity to muddle through the archives of this forum to get a sense of its blindspots and weaknesses. The typical left-leaning poster here was unusually dismissive of Occupy Wall Street while also being worshipful of Obama - this was not a typical viewpoint of young people in 2011. This forum continues to be biased towards the political class and distrusting of social movements and popular politics, a failing that made the forum less able to understand politics in the second half of the decade.

In retrospect, I have a very favorable view of Occupy Wall Street (I participated in a few "Occupy" demonstrations), even if it was an organizational catastrophe, lacked ideological discipline of any kind and was mostly dominated by various rubes. I see both Occupy Wall Street and the revolt against Scott Walker as forming the kernel of the Sanders campaign in 2015. His rhetoric and platform did not emerge out of nowhere, they appropriated much of the language of these movements.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I was a little surprised to find that I hadn't posted in thread and went to look at what I was doing on the Forum back then. Apparently crossing swords with CARLHAYDEN was a primary joy of mine back then. (He was a staunchly anti-immigrant Republican back then, and he suddenly stopped posting in September 2012 for no apparent reason, which sadly suggests it was for health reasons. If he's still around, I'd be surprised if he didn't vote for Trump in both 2016 and 2020, but I have no idea if he'd be one of the idiots who thought/thinks Biden stole the election.)

[Mr. Smith]

I remember this, it's part of the reason I don't particularly see Obama in such a good light.

It's such a shame how wasted the potential was.

[VBM]

FM (sane, not a wannabe elitist)

[Derpist]

FM, but it obviously failed in every way once Wall Street and the media convinced America that the real problem is that 13% of CEOs weren't black yet.

[VBM]

FM, but it obviously failed in every way once Wall Street and the media convinced America that the real problem is that 13% of CEOs weren't black yet.

Ugh, I hate identity politics and I hate how easy NPCs on the right and left fall for it

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Freedom movement, but there has been negative progress in the last decade.

[Vosem]

My viewpoint on these guys has not changed much since 2011. Negative to the extent they had views, HM (Hilarious Movement) in the sense that, much like later Trumpists, the existence of views was exaggerated by outside observers and they were far more of an aggrieved ethos than anything coherent.

Similarities to Trumpism also exist in the use of enduring slogans and extremely decentralized organization. I'd assume, as per Martin Gurri, we see more movements like this, but in the absence of coherent leadership (of which I'd expect the likes of Beppe Grillo to be more typical than Trump) or a coherent recommended-action (buy #gamestonk¹) their effects on the real world will be marginal at best.

¹Which I supported. Ultimately I'd expect more and more of our relationship to politics to be mediated through non-movements like this going forward, and you'll have to choose the sympathetic ones or let the world pass you by.

[MarkD]

HM. A bunch of Commie Pinkos wasting their time and energy with unrealistic expectations.

Whenever I see/hear some liberal denounce "greed," I always think of a certain co-worker I sat next to in 1990 at TWA. Her name was Liz. I told her I was a Republican, and she replied that the Republican Party is the party of "greed." "That's all they stand for is greed." Then about a week or two later, Liz obviously forgot about what she had said to me, when she made the comment, "I want to marry a rich man." I asked her, "So, you want to marry a Republican?" She said, "I don't care what his politics are as long as he's rich."

[darklordoftech]

Years later a Harvard academic study proved this...

Our analysis casts doubt on the Tea Party’s “origin story.” Early on, Tea Partiers were often described as nonpartisan political neophytes. Actually, the Tea Party’s supporters today were highly partisan Republicans long before the Tea Party was born, and were more likely than others to have contacted government officials. In fact, past Republican affiliation is the single strongest predictor of Tea Party support today.

What’s more, contrary to some accounts, the Tea Party is not a creature of the Great Recession. Many Americans have suffered in the last four years, but they are no more likely than anyone else to support the Tea Party. And while the public image of the Tea Party focuses on a desire to shrink government, concern over big government is hardly the only or even the most important predictor of Tea Party support among voters.

So what do Tea Partiers have in common? They are overwhelmingly white, but even compared to other white Republicans, they had a low regard for immigrants and blacks long before Barack Obama was president, and they still do.

So the Tea Party is filled with white racist religious extremist Republicans with only a small to nonexistent interest in small government... according to academic research.

This sure turned out to be correct.

[Ferguson97]

Neutral movement.

The group had good intentions but were disorganized and muddled. They didn’t seem to have any leadership or specific demands. I don’t think they’re bad people or anything, it was just a lot of justified but misdirected anger.