Diary Of A NY Occupier #2: "The Movement Is Young"

[Hissyspit]

Diary #1: "That's Why I'm Here" http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x2221633

Now that I got that out of the way I just want to briefly talk about how young the movement is. We are on our 45th day of the occupation in New York. However, we are also the first occupation to have been started. A lot of the occupations around the United States and around the globe are very young. Just today I was looking at Occupy Green Bay. Haven’t heard of them? That might be because they haven’t even started yet. November 14th is the date that they are setting to start their occupation. My point being that a lot of people who are being very critical of this movement are trying to drill us on not having the ideas and the capability to make an actual change which couldn’t be further from the truth.

Just in the past 45 days we have over 1,500 occupations set up on meetup.org or whatever that website is called. We have 290,000 followers of JUST the Occupy Wall Street NYC chapter on facebook. We have over 100,000 followers on the Occupy Wall Street twitter and those numbers aren’t even close to being able to count the number of people who don’t use twitter, facebook or just haven’t joined or followed these groups who are supportive of the movement. We are growing and we are growing fast. Now that we are growing, we are starting to talk, discuss and organize. All of our working groups are doing a great job of meeting together and bouncing back and forth ideas and proposals that are being brought up at the General Assembly every night to make this movement a real force.

We musn’t let the main stream media’s tactics frustrate people in to thinking that this movement has no direction. For those who say that this movement has no direction, I recommend you come to our working group meetings and live with us for a few days. The amount of young ideas and talent that this movement has provided just in the first month is incredible. Like I said before, this is the first time that I really have faith in humanity. I look around and see all this destruction from large corporation and government and feel that I lose hope easily, but this movement has rejuvenated my belief that there are some people in the world with some good left in their hearts.

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[Hissyspit]

1. Oops. Link for Diary #2 in OP:

http://bankofamericasuck.com/11/02/diary-of-an-occupier-the-movement-is-young

[nc4bo]

2. I just responded to a skeptic about this in my own simple way...

The OP wanted specifics and questioned the movements perceived lack of focus and how this protest intends to make policy changes. Our little group hasn't even met for any type of GA meeting as of yet so there's not much I can tell him from that stand point. The only thing I can do his refer him articles referring to these meetings in other groups in various cities.

Here's my response:

No one wants to crash the system, they want to change the way corporations and Wallstreet, the politicians who are beholden to Wallstreet create legislation to protect themselves and their interests over that of the people who consume, work, use and live with it.

How will it occur? Deal points? Okay - right now the movement is in its infancy. There are multiple issues that the movements wants to address (signs say it all in one form or another) see above. The issues affect majority of Americans and crosses political party lines and it's meant to do just that. The movement, from what I can see, is attempting to harness its energy and is still in the process of sorting out ways to do this. In some ways it has begun when you see Republicans, for example, begin talking about JOBS (LOL yea).

The movement is still growing and is in the process of building momentum by reaching out to a wide swatch of the American populace by NOT being for or against a particular party (more like if the shoe fits, wear it) or politician. I think the movement needs to grow to a critical mass/a tipping point in its numbers.

No one person leads the movement but many are trying to co opt its message without taking any action which benefits the majority of Americans. Obama has tried but failed and anything coming out of his mouth seems more like lukewarm, halfstep measures to keep both sides of the aisle happy and both corporate and populous support. It's failed.

We have 2 parties corrupted by money. 2 parties wooing sources of money and 2 parties unwilling to make bold changes that benefit the majority of the American people. At the same time, we have corporate/wallstreet influence that is already well entrenched within our democracy making any changes that much more difficult.

OWS, as it stands no will not allow itself to be coopted by the typical status quo supporting politician. All I can say to that is to wait until an attempt is made before coming to any hard conclusions.

I personally can only go by what I've seen (and probably will give you the creeps) what I feel – that (going to use the term 1%'ers to make it simple) if the 1/%ers see that their cash cow (us) has found its enemy and begins focusing on the enemy and the tactics, perhaps the 1%'ers will be forced to acknowledge that the system, they are ones who are responsible and begin to rectify it.

I'm thinking specifically about the new fees the banks were intending to place on debit cards and ho now many of them are backpedaling on the issue. Why? Because 1 or 2 people called to complain about it? No, I think they are very much aware of American's feelings on the matter and are reconsidering the move.

I predict that eventually, OWS can create political representation of the movement of politicians who are willing to protect the interests of the majority of American people over those of corporation/Wallstreet.

I think that with time, those on the sidelines will begin to witness the growth of this movement from infancy to maturity. It's going to take time and (hate to say this) faith and support of each other to make it grow into a focused, powerful political force capable of governing with fairness and equality.

I don't know all the answers, hell, I don't even know most of the answers but I can hope that the movement succeed where no one else seems to be able. We've got nothing to lose staying on this disastrous course we're on now.

In the meantime, the movement will have to fight off those who are trying to define it as anything other than pro-American people.

If anyone visiting this thread has any other opinions or comments which people like me can use to persuade those on the sidelines, please take a moment and share your thoughts. I have a feeling there are many people just like the person who engaged me and I'd really like to be able to be more focused myself when responding to these types of people. We need them!

TIA