Occupy Wall Street Observed
Although it has been far too long since I’ve updated this website thoroughly —mainly due to moving, grad school applications, internship applications, and all sorts of related things—I did want to relay my personal feelings having attended Occupy Wall Street half-a-dozen times.
To be honest, to call the people of Occupy Wall Street “an angry mob” or any other synonymous term would be silly. The over all since is one of solidarity with a common frustration. There is plenty of sloganeering and chanting but that has been simply around the concept of a shared experience. Frustrating and dissatisfaction runs through the crowd but only as a rallying cry to other.
The response from the right has been the most odious and perhaps even the most significant. Their response has been modulating between the idea of the angry mob to that of “dirty hippies”. And to be honest, there are those who fit the dirty hippy coinage but mostly you see adults between the age of 21-45. Most have been willing to discuss their politics which ranges from simple dissatisfaction to those who open wish to see a radical change in America. It has been unfortunate that many on the left wish to ease those wary of OWS that they are in fact NOT socialists, communists, radicals, and anarchists. However, the motives and wishes of those involved, either voiced or not has been close in line to calling for drastic radical change.
The most nerve raking events that I have noticed have all centered on singular officers in blue who stand apart from the other officers. That is to say, the police that I have felt fearful of have been those without anyone to communicate with. As many have reached out to the police to join on the side of the occupation, it seems harder to reach out to these lone officers who stand unhappily to the side with their hand on an unclipped holster. It worries me the most that these officers encircle the park fully armed, some with truncheons. Many have circulated on Facebook and other social media websites, the comparison of the Tea Party being armed populist and OWS being unarmed radicals. The response, especially from Fox News, has been the Tea Party was a real movement with real goals and OWS is an especially dangerous group. I must admit that if given the chance, the Tea Party wouldn’t know what to do if the government did butt out of their lives. Can one imagine the state without government protection, does one want the 1920s to return or the world of South American privatization under Pinochet and others?
Those on the right fear that OWS will (and wants) to turn the United States into the USSR, but that doesn’t seem to really be the case. In reality, the most likely scenario is that of a “social democrat’s” reform, government benefits for citizens, higher taxes, and a much more stable job market. Admittedly, I know close to nothing about economics but I do know that privatization does not lead to general prosperity to all. I do hope that OWS continues to offer the dialogue against privatization and the free market model; for that reason I will continue to support and get off the 4 train at Wall Street.
