A student at Episcopal Divinity School is quote in this story about Occupy Boston, an offshoot of the Occupy Wall Street sit in the financial district of New York City.
“I’m very excited to see how decisions are being made collectively and through consensus,” said Brendan Curran, a graduate student at Episcopal Divinity School. “I’m very excited to see us not emulating the behavior of the oppressive class.”
I am behind the curve on this story, more familiar with Jeff Sharlett’s twitter stream criticism of the mainstream media’s coverage of the event–and that copy with the pepper spray–that what the protestors want and how they plan to achieve it.
Can anyone out there enlighten us on the moral and ethical case that the protestors seem to be making against American capitalism, and whether it stands up to scrutiny?
The movement has a website with lots of information, but we are not the only one’s wondering what its supporters want. ABC News asks that question here. And The Washington Post has the most recent news.
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This movement is not anti-capitalism in any way. What it IS about is the fact that top 1 percent keep getting richer while the rest of us are having our wages frozen or cut, our health-care costs are skyrocketing (if we even have health care) and almost every bailout has been aimed at corporations, which are now - for the most part - sitting on a ton of money that they will. not. spend.
In the last two decades, we've seen the wage gap widen exponentially, we've seen the hedge-fund types make multiple millions off other people's misery, we've seen billionaires pay taxes at a lower rate than their secretaries (the Warren Buffett argument), we've seen social services cut, we've seen poverty rise, and hunger increase ... and all that is just in the U.S. We've seen the economy trashed by gamblers who profited wildly, and unemployment soar.
To say that we need to protect "job creators" is silly; what we SHOULD be protecting is job CREATION. The so-called "creators" have had 11 years of tax cuts and have cut more and more jobs while profiting handsomely.
The list goes on, and I know everyone could add to it.
So what is this movement protesting? This ridiculousness that leaves the majority of us in financial trouble. It is highlighting the people and places who are acting as though the rest of us don't exist. It is saying to America, "Wake up, folks. We've been good little children for years and done nothing but lose on every front."
There is no need of a specific action that this protest will accomplish. Rather it is focused on re-engaging people in the democratic process in this country, so that the people's voices are heard, not just the voices of the über rich and powerful.
Lauren Stanley
It's not too hard to understand:
“We are the 99%,” say the people who are in Zuccotti Park (Liberty Square). What they mean is simple: social policy in the country is dominated by the 1%, whose will dominates an economy that the International Monetary Fund says has entered the “danger zone.”
http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/10/03/de-colonize-wall-street
The quote from EDS student shows that one of the things that excited him is the process itself. This is also one of the things I find most fascinating and exciting also. For more information about this I would suggest taking a look at the website for the NYC General Assembly: http://nycga.cc/who-we-are/
And here is the Declaration of the Occupation of New York City, one of the documents to come out of this process:
http://nycga.cc/2011/09/30/declaration-of-the-occupation-of-new-york-city/
...but we are not the only one's wondering what its supporters want.
I hear the question from a good many folks, and I wonder myself.
June Butler
Apparently "the occupation is the message. It doesn’t need a set of demands. The movement only needs to continue to build and grow itself."
http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2011/10/03/live-blog-of-occupywallstreet-day-seventeen-the-occupation-is-the-message/