Monday, October 17, 2011
Occupy New York Supporters Continue To FIght
Since September 17, the members of the Occupy Wall Street protest have been camping out in Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan. Their purpose? To bring an end to the "greed and corruption of the 1%" said one protestor. That 1% holds 99% of the wealth, or so they claim, and the protestors are determined to bring an end to this unbalance of wealth. While the numbers may be exaggerate, American's are still unhappy with the wealth distribution in the country and the movement has been gaining support rapidly from all backgrounds. "Signs have been held in opposition to President Obama yards away from signs in support of him" quotes the New York Times. Despite the variety of opinions and backgrounds supporters come from, they all agree that something must be done to end the corruption in Wall Street and the rest of the nation. While democrats have showed their support of the rallies, they also fear that it may push followers to the extremes, just as the Tea Party did with republicans. Protest have now spread to Los Angeles, San Francisco, even to Asia and Europe and are becoming harder to keep under control as time goes on and the movement continues to gain support. Just in New York over 700 protestors have been arrested and innocent people have been attacked just to try to keep protestors under control. Followers of the movement are now kept behind orange mesh and have the watchful eyes of the police constantly on them. However, protestors have shown no signs of backing down anytime soon. What should be done to bring an end to these protests? And can it be done quickly enough to stop these protests before they become riots?
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5 comments:
I hope you realize that the 99% movement never said that 1% of the population holds 99% of the wealth. The 99 percenters are just people who wants to bring an end to unjust advantages of the rich and, like you said, the greed and corruption of the top one percent.
I feel like you think the protests spreading to other areas of the world is a bad thing. Honestly, I don't think it is. There bounds to be some accidents in mass demonstrations; you can't really blame that on the movement. And there actually was a riot this weekend in Rome where some people were killed. But on the grand scale of things, the protests have been very peaceful. I read on CNN that around 900+ cities all around the world participated in the Occupy protests on Saturday. Of those, Rome is the only one that turned into a riot. There really is no need to "bring an end to these protests". They're advocating for change, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.
I agree with Michelle. I don't think there is a need to end these protests. Let people have their word and speak out against the corruption. According to an ABC article, police have been limited, so it doesn't seem like anyone is particularly worried about these protests getting out of hand. It's been about a month, and I've still only heard of minimal violence and conflict. There were arrests, but there's always arrests during protests. I really don't think anything needs to be done to end these protests. And as of right now, I doubt any action will be taken.
No I completely agree with both you. I think its great that the protests have been spreading around the world because that means its gaining more support from the public. I put in the information about the arrests just as information to include in the article. I should of put more emphasis on the peacefulnes of the protests, but by no means do I think that it is a bad thing that they are spreading.
Also Michelle, I got that quote from one of the article I researched. It is at the bottom of the eight paragraph: http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/o/occupy_wall_street/index.html?scp=2&sq=occupy%20wall%20street%20san%20francisco&st=cse
While the protests may be truncated soon due to solely natural forces (New York winters are not at all conducive to outside protests or outside activities of any sort), the protesters are protesting for a perfectly valid cause: balancing a society that has become extremely skewed toward one end in recent years. While some protesters (http://dailydish.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451c45669e201543607e783970c-550wi) [courtesy of the Daily Dish] delve into the vulgar to make their point, the majority seems to have a logical point arguing against the accumulation of wealth in finance, and its immunity to accountability in today's recession in income. So while the demonstrations should be allowed to continue, change and reform must take place before the demonstrators' requests stray further into the realm of socialism.
I agree with Sabrina. The those in support of the "Occupy Wall Street" movement have every right to camp outside and protest.
However, I think that protesting without a specific goal in mind is futile at best. They may claim economic inequality, but what is the plan? occupywallstreet.org claims "we can no longer afford to let corporate greed and corrupt politics set the policies of our nation", but the website gives no substantive plan for fighting the corruption. I believe that protesters could potentially be more effective if they assembled under the banner of reason rather than emotion or instinct.
Perhaps change and reform will come within reach as the movement continues to develop. But for the moment being, protesters are aimlessly lashing out against perceived injustices without a set goal in mind.
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