The Status is Not Quo: Occupy

My correspondent blogger, Leslie is back.  Recently, the Occupy movement was in the news practically everyday. It began with Occupy Wall Street and quickly spread like a bad rumor.  You know, I must confess I love a good protest, especially if it is about bringing about meaningful change.  Bear with me, I came of age in the 1970s where I grew to appreciate marches, boycotts, and other types of civil disobedience.  That was then... what is now?  Leslie took it upon herself to investigate two Occupy movements.  She questioned participants and she interviewed observers, to produce the following:

When the Status is not Quo: Occupy

There is this movie called Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog.  In the movie, the lead character, Dr. Horrible, goes on a rant about how “the status is not quo”; that “homelessness is but a symptom of the problem”; and “the fish rots from the head.” When I heard about the Occupy movement, I immediately thought of that soliloquy.

From what I understand the Occupy movement, is a ground swelling of individuals who are sick of the status quo; the rich getting richer and the poor reaching a new level of poverty.  Some people, less appreciative of the movement, refer to it as the new hippie movement.  On either side, there is validity.

            

The goal of the movement in my eyes is and has always been, conversation.  An honest dialogue about the state of America’s finances and how the government runs.  In that goal, the movement has succeeded.  It has changed the way we look at protest and this particular recession.  It can also be viewed from the side that, there is no unifying cause.  The movement, from my understanding, is up to one’s own interpretation.  Each city has different needs and is to draw up its own list of demands.

Each movement is so unique that you can take two separate cities extremely close to one another, San Francisco and Oakland, and get two very different personalities. There is a more militant feel to Oakland and a more welcoming feel to San Francisco's Occupy movement.

The common enemies I’ve noticed are the Federal Reserve and the “1%”. Each city has more demands that can be found online by city.

As a personal note, it appears that the Occupy movement elicits a range of responses in part because the goal of the movement is quite diverse ... according to city.  For example, I wonder why Oakland feels more militant and San Francisco's feel more welcoming.  Does it matter?  Check out the protest at UCLA Davis... it was peaceful and yet the response from authorities was so militant and egregious.  I have my own views about the movement, but my larger issue is the implication of these types of protests to tomorrow's world.  One thing is for sure, we are manifesting our power, we are using our voices.  Are we using our power and our voice for good?  Now that is my question.