I will be honest, until we started talking about this in class; I hadn’t heard anything about the Occupy Wall Street protests that were going on. So, I was glad Professor Benton showed us videos and made us go and investigate more about what is going on. So the first thing I did was I googled it. The first link that came up was the actual occupy Wall Street web site. I watched the videos and I read the articles. I can say that I am so proud to live in a country that is so willing to put their dignity and lives out there and protest for a change that we need in this country. People need to open their eyes and see that we are in a big mess, if they haven’t noticed yet. Of course I knew that we were in a recession (who doesn’t?) but I didn’t know really about everything behind it and the big banks and government involvement. I really liked the statement that they had on the Occupy Wall Street web site, It read; Occupy Wall Street is leaderless resistance movement with people of many colors, genders and political persuasions. The one thing we all have in common is that We Are The 99% that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1%. We are using the revolutionary Arab Spring tactic to achieve our ends and encourage the use of nonviolence to maximize the safety of all participants. This shows movement empowers real people to create real change from the bottom up. We want to see a general assembly in every backyard, on every street corner because we don't need Wall Street and we don't need politicians to build a better society. Lots of websites I visited were against the movement and are angry about it. Why would you be angry about your fellow citizens trying to make a change for all of us? The most current video I watched on the Occupy Wall Street web site was, “Where do we go from here?” as they reached the one month anniversary of the start of the movement. Ed David went to liberty plaza to ask people where they think this movement will go next. It’s not only just at Wall Street either; it is in over 1500 cities worldwide. There is also a website called occupy all streets where it shows news from all over the world and what is going on day to day with each protest. An October 13 survey by Time Magazine found that 54 percent of Americans have a favorable impression of the protests, while 23 percent have a negative impression. An NBC/Wall Street Journal survey found that 37 percent of respondents "tend to support" the movement, while 18 percent "tend to oppose" it. The protestors are now in their fifth week of protesting and are still going strong, even with the police brutality and the negative feedback they are getting for their efforts. I am so proud of all these people who are taking a stand against the 1%.
Works Cited:
No comments:
Post a Comment