The only question about why OWS is why it didn't happen three years earlier!

[JackRiddler]

All this should have happened right after the biggest fraud in all history was executed in public view with trillions of dollars defrauded and directly causing the biggest global financial and economic crash in eighty years. Then the perpetrators were bailed out and rewarded and allowed to take even greater charge of the government in all the ways that count. If you don't get it, then I feel sorry for you.

The funny part is that the Occupy "demands" have always been obvious.

You don't have to be there long or spend much time looking at pictures of the signs people are holding to get it. All of it's related.

Just the name already says two things: number one, that the ruling institutions have rendered themselves illegitimate and won't respond to your grievances, not unless you occupy rather than merely protest or vote (nothing against voting - not much for it either).

Number two, that the first target of this righteous rage is the high finance industry - Wall Street.

Putting the Wall St. bankers on trial for the housing securities fraud complex (mortgage paper fraud, ratings agency fraud, violation of fiduciary responsibility to clients, derivatives frauds) would be kind of an obvious consensus demand for all OWS protesters and supporters. And a necessary beginning toward restoring any kind of widespread confidence in institutions and markets -- if that's possible -- and allowing a real economic recovery (an economy based on fraud will never again restore confidence).

But wait, that's not going to happen because the ruling institutions are owned by Wall Street and are, in fact, devising ways to give MORE POWER to the financial industry and do their bidding and bring austerity for the many, more riches for the few.

"We are occupying Wall Street because Wall Street has occupied Washington."

Hence, rather than making any more "demands" that won't be heard, it's time to OCCUPY. This is what people have left as a serious option to at least be heard. All else has been closed off to them.

(It is true as the new talking point goes that a fake grassroots movement can still get things done via the route of elections and lawmaking -- as long as they are an adjunct to the Republicans and their "revolutionary" demands are nothing more than to make the status quo even worse, like the Tea Partiers.)

Otherwise, people who want to understand, know that this is about ending the power of money in politics. Breaking up the TBTFs. Stopping foreclosures and prosecuting the mortgage paper frauds. Marking to market, not to fantasy. Bailing out individual debtors, not the casino. Re-regulating banking (Glass-Steagal), regulating derivatives regulation, etc. Taxing the rich -- at least at the rate they had to "suffer" until 2000. Taxing capital gains as income. Ending the resource-sapping wars and pulling back the insane global empire, and spending on the people instead. Spending for jobs, not corporate subsidies, jobs to build the necessary transformation of energy and transport infrastructure. Public campaign finance, abolition and limits on the many forms of legalized bribery in elections and legislatures and at regulatory agencies.

It's all mere rocket science, you know?* Truth is, those who don't get it either aren't ready or don't want to get it.

---

* Since millions of people know the basics of math and physics as taught at every university, I refuse that particular cliche. Brain surgery: now that's hard.

[Quartermass]

1. Things always have to get worse before they get better and it ain't a proble untill it's a probblem.

[Luminous Animal]

2. Ralph Nader said pretty much that.

[MedleyMisty]

3. I've been thinking about that

And I think that it's happening now because the conditions are just right for it. We have the example and inspiration of protests all over the world, in the Arab countries and in Europe. We have the social media that allowed us to watch those protests and revolutions without interference from state propaganda, and to also make connections with and get to know the revolutionaries in other countries.

We needed a critical mass of people on Twitter, and a critical mass of worldwide protest and revolution.

I've never understood the people who play down the role of social media and say that the revolutions are fought in the streets and that the idea of social media having anything to do with it is silly. Of course the revolutions are won in the streets. Of course you have to put yourself on the line and confront authority with your body in real life. But with social media, those who aren't there can see what's going on. You can instantly communicate with other activists in other cities and in other countries and coordinate strategies and alert each other to danger. Both IRL activism and social media are needed for global revolution.

[JackRiddler]

13. Good answer, but the delay entails more tragedy, a harder struggle.

The clarity of the crash would have left the money far less able to distort who was responsible and what had happened, as it has done since with the confusionism of the Tea Party and casting a Wall Street president (like ALL of them) as a wild-left foreign Socialist who somehow caused the crisis retroactively with "big government" and public deficits.

[RC]

4. Simple answer is because Obama continued too many of Bu$h's policies.

Helped big business over "We the people..."

[me b zola]

9. ^^This is the correct answer

Millions flooded the polls because they thought the person they were electing was going to reverse the path that we were on and return the nation--and our lives--to sanity and stability. Then, amazingly, we are told that things are so messed up that we have to stay on the same path, and then being told that the path we are on isn't so bad.

As bad as things were under bush* we had the sense that things would get better if we swarmed the polls and voted for something better. The election and everything that has transpired since has pulled back the curtain a little further. We see that our system has become so thoroughly corrupted that we have recognized that we must stand together and say ENOUGH!

[Kaleko]

10. That's it. Obama was our last great black hope.

Now, however, "We see that our system has become so thoroughly corrupted that we have recognized that we must stand together and say ENOUGH!"

[woo me with science]

15. This is the correct answer. His administration has been the last straw.

People had hope when he was swept into office with both houses of Congress, that he would fight for us. That hope was met with contempt, manipulation, and more of the same.

People finally woke up to the fact that we are being played.

[jwirr]

5. It did happen several years earlier. Only in a different form. We all

got excited about a man who was going to bring us change we could believe in. So we worked, donated and voted in huge numbers. Some change happened but not enough to rescue us so now we have taken it to the streets. I do not see the two actions as separate.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

6. May I boast a little here? OWS began in 9/17/11. It patterned itself after Spain's Los Indignados

which began on May 15, 2011. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Spanish_protests

Los Indignados are a peaceful protest, in major cities of Spain, striving for fairness, against the corporatocracy, the goals OWS is seeking. I am boasting because my 4 grandparents were all born in Spain. :-) Well, I'm boasting a little bit.

All I have to say now is, I LOVE YOU, OCCUPY! I love you, LOS INDIGNADOS!

[enough]

7. It didn't happen three years ago because people thought things would start to change

under Obama. I don't mean that people thought Obama was going to come in and FIX everything, but that things would START to change.

Thinking back, the election of Obama seemed at the time like a repudiation of Bush and his cronies and attitudes and policies. So it seemed reasonable that after that, things would begin to change.

[Quartermass]

8. Maybe people'll learn not to listen to soundbytes like change and no new taxes.

And not to be fooled by empty promises by politicians.

[Edweird]

11. 3 years ago there was hope for change - the cat is out of the bag now.

[PufPuf23]

12. People trusted POTUS Obama and the Democratic Party to do the right things.

POTUS Obama and the Democratic Party chose to fix the status quo entrenched vested interests over the People.

It would have been worse under the GOP and maybe we would be in WWIII so we can still count our blessings.

[JackRiddler]

14. kick

[Marrah_G]

16. People thought Obama and the Dems would step in and do something about it

We waited, they did nothing, we realized they are not on our side.

[Douglas Carpenter]

17. I was predicting a popular uprising on the night of Nov. 4., 1980 - I was so certain that Reagan's

reactionary policies would produce such horrifying results - a popular uprising would be inevitable. I guess I was right, just off by 31 years. I guess it took 31 years for much of the public to recognize the consequences of Reaganism. But as far as why it didn't happen after the financial collapse of 2008 - I think people thought that the sweeping Obama/Democratic Party mandate would bring the changes that they thought they had just voted for.

[xiamiam]

18. we thought the new administration would straighten things up..indictments

regulations..reinstate bankruptcy clause for judges to help homeowners..come up with effective plans to help homeowners...close guantanamo..drawdown troops ..etc etc..we, and i know i'm speaking for the majority of folks who voted for him, believed he would actually do something to change things..he didnt..no other choice to be in the streets