Back in July, the Canadian-based, activist network known as Adbusters, announced plans to organize an occupation of Wall Street on September 17, 2011. Their July 13 announcement revealed that the ultimate goal of the occupation was deliberately left open:
On September 17, we want to see 20,000 people flood into lower Manhattan, set up tents, kitchens, peaceful barricades and occupy Wall Street for a few months. Once there, we shall incessantly repeat one simple demand in a plurality of voices.
Tahrir succeeded in large part because the people of Egypt made a straightforward ultimatum – that Mubarak must go – over and over again until they won. Following this model, what is our equally uncomplicated demand?
The most exciting candidate that we’ve heard so far is one that gets at the core of why the American political establishment is currently unworthy of being called a democracy: we demand that Barack Obama ordain a Presidential Commission tasked with ending the influence money has over our representatives in Washington. It’s time for DEMOCRACY NOT CORPORATOCRACY, we’re doomed without it.
This demand seems to capture the current national mood because cleaning up corruption in Washington is something all Americans, right and left, yearn for and can stand behind.
A website specifically dedicated to this event was created: OccupyWallSt.org. The site has a Mission Statement, proclaiming that on September 17, a tent city will be established in lower Manhattan:
Once there, we shall incessantly repeat one simple demand in a plurality of voices and we will not leave until that demand has been met.
As for that mysterious demand, the website provides a hint as to how it will be determined:
What we demand from our government is for the people to decide through democratic consensus, not this website. A Facebook poll started by Adbusters suggests the demand might be an end to corporate personhood.
So, will the Facebook poll serve as the vehicle for reaching that “democratic consensus”?
On August 23, Adbusters announced that the Internet hacktivist group, Anonymous had joined #OCCUPYWALLSTREET. Anonymous prepared this one-minute, promotional video for the cause. Once Anonymous got on board, the Department of Homeland Security became interested in the event (if it had not done so already). Computerworld magazine reported that on September 2, a bulletin was issued by the DHS National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center (NCCIC):
The DHS alert also warns of three cyber attacks and civil protests it says are planned by Anonymous and affiliated groups.
The first attack, dubbed Occupy Wall Street (OWS) is scheduled for Sept. 17.
The so-called ‘Day of Rage’ protest was first announced by a group called Adbusters in July and is being actively supported by Anonymous. The organizers of OWS hope to get about 20,000 individuals to gather on Wall Street on that day to protest various U.S. government policies.
It sounds to me as though the Department of Homeland Security is getting revved-up for a mass-rendition to Guantanamo and a busy schedule of “Full Roto-Rooter” cavity searches. It could get scary. The camoflauge-attired attendees probably won’t be interested in hearing my explanation that “I’m just here to demand the dismissal of Kathryn Wylde from her post as a Class C Director of the New York Federal Reserve Bank.”
My favorite commentator for MarketWatch, Paul Farrell, predicted that the turnout could be a bit larger than anticipated:
Given today’s intense anger against America’s totally dysfunctional government, no one should be surprised if 90,000 arrive for Occupy Wall Street and its solidarity allies at other financial centers across the world, armed with their rallying cry to stop “the corruption of our governments by Wall Street money.”
After discussing the potential for historic change Occupy Wall Street seems to offer, Farrell posed the simple question: Will it work?
In the final analysis, this may be a bad case of “too little, too late:” Back in 1776 our original 57 revolutionaries also “had enough” when they signed the Declaration of Independence. They also risked everything, family, fortunes and lives. They actually had “one simple demand,” to be free of a tyrannical ruler, George III.
Today, the new ruler is greedy, corrupting democracy. But it’s locked deep in the American soul. Maybe they’re asking the wrong question: Not “Is America Ready for a Tahrir Moment?” Rather ask: “Is America Past That Moment, Buried Too Deep in a Culture of Greed to Change?”
If so, Wall Street wins, again. And America loses, again.
The promoters of the Tea Party movement were able to channel the outrage experienced by taxpayers, who watched the Federal Reserve hand trillions over to a small handful of ineptly-managed megabanks. The Tea Party promoters redirected and exploited that anger as a motivating force, which provoked those citizens to vote against their own interests. The attempt to tame the beast with regulation (as had been done after the Great Depression) was sabotaged. Could the Occupy Wall Street effort bring justice back to defeat financial anarchy? It would be nice if it worked, although I gave up on “hope” in early 2009.
Occupy Movement Gets Some Respect
Much has changed since the inception of the Occupy Wall Street movement. When the occupation of Zuccotti Park began on September 17, the initial response from mainstream news outlets was to simply ignore it – with no mention of the event whatsoever. When that didn’t work, the next tactic involved using the “giggle factor” to characterize the protesters as “hippies” or twenty-something “hippie wanna-bes”, attempting to mimic the protests in which their parents participated during the late-1960s. When that mischaracterization failed to get any traction, the presstitutes’ condemnation of the occupation events – which had expanded from nationwide to worldwide – became more desperate: The participants were called everything from “socialists” to “anti-Semites”. Obviously, some of this prattle continues to emanate from unimaginative bloviators. Nevertheless, it didn’t take long for respectable news sources to give serious consideration to the OWS effort.
One month after the occupation of Zuccotti Park began, The Economist explained why the movement had so much appeal to a broad spectrum of the population:
Reports eventually began to surface, revealing that many “Wall Street insiders” actually supported the occupiers. Writing for the DealBook blog at The New York Times, Jesse Eisinger provided us with the laments of a few Wall Street insiders, whose attitudes have been aligned with those of the OWS movement.
By late December, it became obvious that the counter-insurgency effort had expanded. At The eXiled blog, Yasha Levine discussed the targeting of journalists by police, hell-bent on squelching coverage of the Occupy movement. In January, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg lashed out against the OWS protesters by parroting what has become The Big Lie of our time. In response to a question about Occupy Wall Street, Mayor Bloomberg said this:
The counterpunch to Mayor Bloomberg’s remark was swift and effective. Barry Ritholtz wrote a piece for The Washington Post entitled “What caused the financial crisis? The Big Lie goes viral”. After The Washington Post published the Ritholtz piece, a good deal of supportive commentary emerged – as observed by Ritholtz himself:
Once the new year began, the Occupy Oakland situation quickly deteriorated. Chris Hedges of Truthdig took a hard look at the faction responsible for the “feral” behavior, raising the question of whether provocateurs could have been inciting the ugly antics:
Chris Hedges gave further consideration to the involvement of provocateurs in the Black Bloc faction on February 13:
Despite the negative publicity generated by the puerile pranks of the Black Bloc, the Occupy movement turned a corner on February 13, when Occupy the SEC released its 325-page comment letter concerning the Securities and Exchange Commission’s draft “Volcker Rule”. (The Volcker Rule contains the provisions in the Dodd-Frank financial reform act which restrict the ability of banks to make risky bets with their own money). Occupy the SEC took advantage of the “open comment period” which is notoriously exploited by lobbyists and industry groups whenever an administrative agency introduces a new rule. The K Street payola artists usually see this as their last chance to “un-write” regulations.
The most enthusiastic response to Occupy the SEC’s comment letter came from Felix Salmon of Reuters:
John Knefel of Salon emphasized how this comment letter exploded the myth that the Occupy movement is simply a group of cynical hippies:
Even Mayor Bloomberg’s BusinessWeek spoke highly of Occupy the SEC’s efforts. Karen Weise interviewed Occupy’s Alexis Goldstein, who had previously worked at such Wall Street institutions as Deutsche Bank, where she built IT systems for traders:
Chris Sturr of Dollars & Sense provided this reaction:
If Chris Sturr’s expectation ultimately proves correct, it will be nice to watch the pro-Wall Street, teevee pundits get challenged by some worthy opponents.