Author: Jake Steele
Since the financial crisis and the giant corporate bail-outs in 2008, many have been left confused and angry. Large banks and investment firms acted irresponsibly, but the U.S. government gave them another opportunity to succeed while many people were losing their jobs and homes. To the thousands of protesters now encamped in Manhattan’s Zucotti Park, the government was working for those with money, not the middle and working classes who were bearing the brunt of the financial crisis. The Occupy Wall Street protests are the culmination of the long-simmering frustration towards corporations receiving massive bail-outs and a government incapable of helping its own people. While the powder keg is finally lit, the final path of its fuse still remains uncertain. Those protesting in New York and other major cities have neither organized themselves in a cohesive fashion nor presented constructive suggestions for change. Without strong leadership and sensible goals, the Occupy Wall Street movement will achieve little.
There is no single leader or organization spearheading the Occupy Wall Street movement, which reflects the movement’s populist and crowd-sourced nature. This does not bode well for effective action anytime soon. A single leader is not necessarily required for a coalition of the masses to succeed, but movements with iconic leaders are the most successful because an idea embodied and personified is not often forgotten. A strong organizational base, on the other hand, is essential to confronting and countering the forces of the establishment. The protests do have some well-known groups attached to them, including Adbusters and Anonymous, yet neither group wants to assert control over the movement. Anonymous is a masked coalition with no real support or communication structure that acts unilaterally and asymmetrically. Adbusters is a Canadian organization which started the protest organization but leaves the specifics of demands up to the people.
The issues driving public discontent are complicated and the amount of people providing input are many, so the masses cannot find a single way to address how to implement the changes that they desire, much less agree on focus. The protesters have not articulated a specific set of demands, but have instead voiced their discontent with myriad aspects of America’s current political and economic condition. The agenda is anything but cohesive: demands for imposing new taxes, creating new committees to end money corruption in politics, finding ways to keep too-big-to fail banks from existing and revoking “corporate personhood” share the stage along with anti-war signs, gay pride flags and other signs that are not related to the financial situation. The inclusion of unrelated issues makes the protest look like a generic tirade composed of disjointed, liberal groups instead of a cohesive group with specific grievances and solutions.
Yet in its current form, the protest itself does little to affect the root of the problem. Implementing policy changes is a far more time-consuming and challenging process than the already difficult task of producing a policy agenda. The Occupy Wall Street protesters have stated their resolve to remain in Zucotti Park, even forming volunteer cleaning crews and a medical clinic, but demands for swift action are unrealistic. As vital as they might be, deep structural changes to the American political and economic system will not be achieved in a matter of weeks. The sooner that protesters acknowledge this, the sooner they can begin the back-breaking process of effective political organizing and mobilization.
Whatever the message their placard bears, the 99-percenters have one thing in common: they are angry because they know that something is undeniably wrong. But they need more than this sentiment. The protest needs more organization than they currently have. The protesters have passion, reason and ideas but lack a way to communicate clear goals and methods with which to obtain them.
Jake Steele is a junior biochemistry major. He can be reached at jsteel@oxy.edu.
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