Occupy movement: What does it mean? What is it trying to achieve?

The Occupy Wall Street movement does not really have an action plan, nor does it advocate a specific agenda or position. It is more of a statement of disillusion regarding the way things are: namely that Wall Street practices were in large part at fault for the economic crisis and that these actors have not been held accountable (hence the name); that the system hugely rewards 1% of the population while 99% struggles; and government is doing nothing about it.
Interestingly, the movement is not alone in terms of crowds of people getting together to state similar things (ala much of Europe). It really could be categorized as a movement of “giant discontent.”

There are no good demographic surveys of who is participating in the occupations as it is quite new. In terms of passive support—those that agree with the message but aren’t participating—it could be anyone that agrees with the above sentiments, which in these days could be a large amount of people.
What many people are asking is what the movement will accomplish. Why have a protest that doesn’t seem to have any demands? To answer this we need to look at the purpose of protests in general. A narrowed core list would include the following:

Bring people together to create energy and political will and facilitate the development of networks where that political will can be activated; cause awareness of an issue or issues and increase press coverage; let governments know that its people are not complacent or fearful; create enough pressure where governments will respond with positive change regarding the issue(s) at hand; create enough pressure and mass to overthrow the government (usually the military has to be on the protestors’ side for this to occur).

Clearly the Occupy Wall Street movement has achieved the first two. Usually, protests have to be quite large and demographically varied for the government to be convinced of the third. The question remains, however, whether big change will result. And even if change does occur, would it solely be from the pressure of the protests?

These questions aren’t easily answered. More people may vote; more people may read; more people may become politically involved. Each of those small actions could cause major change.

So to answer the question, does the Occupy Wall Street achieve anything? Yes, it achieves awareness and networking. Will it translate into major change? As the famous saying goes…”we shall see.”

A political forum on Occupy Portland will be held on Monday Oct. 31 from 12:10 p.m.-1:00 p.m. in the Bob Scott room in the library. An Occupy Portland organizer will be there to speak.

Advocate Staff