Occupy Wall Street

This is a gender inequality blog but I thought this Occupy Wall Street movement was too great  to not talk about. A little back story about Occupy Wall Street is that the movement began September 17th in Liberty Square. There were only a little over a thousand people who came to the first protest so no one really payed any attention to it. But over the past few weeks this movement has grown unbelievably strong, garnering international media attention. The protesters call themselves the 99% which is a nod to the statistic that the top 1% control 42% of financial wealth in the US. There is no leader of this movement and they don't have any clear objectives other than to show their disdain for the current economic climate. One growing theme that is coming from Occupy Wall Street is that people feel that there interests aren't be thought of in government. That while these huge financial corporations are being bailed out, the rest of America is being told to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.


What I find amazing is that these are people who come from all walks of life coming together to protest. This past Sunday there were about 100 New York public school teachers protesting, a group of Marines came all the way from Florida to show their support, celebrity activists such as Dr. Cornel West and Michael Moore have lent their voice to this cause and there are countless students at these protests. Not only are the protests getting bigger in New York but they're spreading all around the world. There are 52 American cities starting their own Occupy demonstration. By September 28, 2011, all six of Australia's territories had their own Occupations being organized in major cities. There are also occupations being organized in Britain, Canada, Finland, Germany and the Netherlands. 


 I think that it's also interesting how little i've heard about this! I first heard about this on tumblr (a social networking site), and it's not being picked up by major American media while I've found while doing research on the movement that foreign media has been most up to date on this movement. I am really interested to see where this thing goes. 

Here is a quote by Michael Parenti that seems extremely pertinent, "A nation's greatness can be measured by it's ability to create a society free of poverty, racism, sexism, imperialism, and social and environmental devestation."


Brief Overview of Occupy Wall Street


There will be an Occupy Columbia, SC! Here's the facebook page for Occupy Columbia to get updates:
http://www.facebook.com/occupycolumbia