#occupywallstreet

[andmydog]

Since Saturday, September 17th, thousands of people have been occupying Liberty Plaza in New York, as part of a protest to demand that the privileges granted to Wall St at the expense of the people be revoked

Comments

[usernamenumber]

To be honest, this thing lost me when they started by setting a date for the "occupation", and then had a facebook poll to decide what they were protesting. I guess they were trying to be democratic, but it came across to me as people being more interested in being seen saying something than in what they had to say, which is hard for me to respect.

There are people I respect who are there right now, and I'm sure lots of individuals there have laudible goals, but I ask myself what, specifically, the movement its self is demanding, and I just don't see it. "Democracy, not corporatocracy" is a slogan, not a plan. It's barely even meaningful enough to be a goal.

And, while I hate to say it, the longer they sit there the less sympathy I have for those who get arrested. The purpose of this sort of thing could be to draw attention to and gather support for a cause, and that's something I can get behind even without as clear an agenda as I'd have liked to see, but at this point they've gotten lots of attention. If the movement behind the event isn't cohesive enough, or if its cause isn't articulated clearly enough, for them to now use that attention to affect change, I don't think it gives them license to sit around indefinitely.

All that said, I welcome conversation on the subject.