The Occupiers

More than two weeks after a band of young people began camping out under the shadow of the New York Stock Exchange, the movement to remake America’s inequitable financial system is growing.

It’s been called the Woodstock of Wall Street, but that’s hardly an apt comparison. The gathering at Max Yasgur’s farm 42 years ago was built on a generation looking for peace, love, some drugs and acid rock. The kids today are looking for real, tangible change of the capitalist sort. They’re organized, lucid and motivated.

Actually, they have more in common with the tea party movement than the hippie dream, with one key difference. They’re smart enough to recognize the nation’s problems aren’t simply about taxes and the deficit.

They want jobs. They want the generation in power to acknowledge them. They want political change. They want responsibility in a culture that abdicates it. They want a decent future of opportunity.

If that isn’t American, then what is?
~ from Occupy Wall Street Is a Tea Party With Brains by David Weidner ~

What started out as a protest with not enough bodies and too little coverage in the mainstream media has steadily grown into something much more. The crowds near Wall Street are getting larger and grassroots Occupy groups are springing up all across the US and in several international locations as well!

On the Occupy Together website (link above), I counted 130 actions in 45 states plus the nation's capitol. In addition, there are another 28 related actions internationally.

There is no way to know at this juncture if we are seeing the beginning of a bona fide movement or if this will be a short-lived flash in the pan. But I can tell you one thing: The powers that be are getting nervous. The last thing they want is an international movement to be born against the moneyed interests. Such a movement could throw a monkey wrench into their plans.

I'm guessing that the American oligarchs particularly are nervous. If this movement grows and is able to sustain itself, it could really muck up the current political situation AND the 2012 elections.

And, to be quite candid, I am a bit nervous myself. We've already seen some brutalities committed by the NY Police Department. As the Occupy activities continue to expand to locales across the nation, there is a very good chance we will see and hear of more such cases of brutality and abuse.

Right now, most of those activities are peaceful, but if the state steps up its level of repression (which I expect it will), then there are many people who will decide to eschew peaceful protest for more violent forms. Of course, many police departments are hoping they can goad protesters to turn to violence because that will provide them with the political cover to become even more repressive!

We may not reach that sort of critical point. As I noted above, the overall campaign may fizzle out of its own accord. If I were to venture a guess, however, I think the circumstances are much more conducive to the movement growing, not dissipating.

That makes me both very hopeful AND a tad bit worried.