Where are the Wall Street protests heading?

Places such as Chicago, Los Angeles, Austin and Washington D.C., have now seen an increasing number of small but growing groups of protesters who are willing to actually block traffic or camp out for long periods of time. Their grievance is clearly directed at the actions of the financial sector. People are angry that unemployment has continued to grow, that people are continuing to lose their homes and that healthcare costs are spiking. They see the banking sector as nothing more than a criminal cabal that has sucked all the wealth out of the economy and into the hands of a tiny minority. Many of the protesters call their actions the “99 per cent” movement to convey the fact that they represent the vast majority of people who feel they are being left to rot by the corporate-financial system.

In New York City, the protesters have been camping out since 17 Sept. in New York’s old Liberty Plaza, now called Zuccotti Park. The crowds are hardly huge, but they are growing and reaching several thousand, according to multiple unconfirmed reports. These people have tolerated a degree of ridicule directed against them by sections of the mainstream media, mostly assuming that the protestors are confused, disorganised and have no clear set of demands or goals and it has even been questioned if their anger is justified. However, as reports came in of a senior police officer spraying a group of youths on the sidewalk with pepper spray, the media has begun to give the events more coverage, especially with social network sites like Twitter becoming increasingly involved in spreading the news. Hollywood star Alec Baldwin recently tweeted his concern over the actions of the New York police in handling the protesters, and other celebrities, such as Susan Sarandon, have begun supporting the protesters as people realise the protesters are in it for the long haul. The real issue, however, is what will become of this protest movement? Where is it headed? Will it be affective? Is there a real danger that special interests will try to co-opt it?

On 29 Sept., activist and independent researcher David DeGraw posted a piece on his website, AmpedStatus.com, detailing how his organisation started the “99 per cent” movement with the help of a group called Anonymous and later with the help of Adbusters. Mr DeGraw describes the movement as a “decentralized non-violent rebellion against economic tyranny”. He sees the movement as effectively leaderless and based primarily on a consensus that Wall Street is harming their lives and that they need to be held accountable. On 15 Feb. 2010, a report by DeGraw titled “The Economic Elite Vs. The People of The United States” became widely popular on the alternative media circuit. Websites like AlterNet featured an excerpt of the report that was passed around the Internet, resulting in high exposure.

The first sentence of the report reads, “It’s time for 99 per cent of Americans to mobilise and aggressively move on common sense political reforms”. Not long after this, Mr DeGraw’s website came under attack from hackers. At this point, the group Anonymous stepped in to help AmpedStatus set up a system of servers that could guard against these attacks. Anonymous is a rather mysterious Internet group that is apparently leaderless and consists of members who refuse to reveal their true identities. Regardless, they helped produce a series of videos that were posted on Mr DeGraw’s website and that later became popular on YouTube. The videos called for the public to take direct action and call for the breaking up of the big banks and the dismantling of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Federal Reserve banks.

Despite a number of efforts to gain public interest, AmpedStatus and Anonymous found that their efforts had acquired but little support. On 14 June, both groups planned to host an event called “Empire State Rebellion”; however, they had an extremely small turn-out. Only a handful of people actually showed up. However, whilst Mr DeGraw was contemplating the fate of activism in the US, he learned that a group of activists were assembling further down the road from Liberty Park. These activists were preparing for an event known as “Bloombergville” that involves protestors camping outside to protest New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s budget cuts. As the Bloomberg protests started gathering steam, Gary Roland -- a member of AmpedStatus -- got together with a few protesters to form a body known as the New York City General Assembly (NYCGA). This was done to form a democratic body that would help organise further grassroots actions via consensus decision-making and the appointing of delegates. The NYCGA went on to play an important role in mobilising people to occupy Wall Street. The number of demonstrators remained rather small, but experienced important growth once Adbusters called for the occupation of Wall Street on 17 Sept.

The protests appear to be inspired by the Arab Spring movements in the Middle East, albeit with a stronger online presence. You can actually watch the Wall Street occupation streaming live on the Internet. You can hear the protesters using an innovative method of spreading information without the aid of megaphones, as police have banned their usage in the vicinity. Members of the crowd ask people to speak in only a few words at a time, and then these words are shouted out and echoed so that they can be heard further afield. The NYCGA ensures that everybody can have a say and thus be heard by the crowd, inspiring people in an environment where democracy has effectively been stifled by corporate power.

On 30 Sept., the NYCGA reached a clear consensus on the problems they all agree need to be addressed in a response to initial criticism of the movement’s apparent aimlessness. They issued a declaration that focussed on the abuses of corporations and their excessive influence over the politicians in Washington. The declaration asked for people to be held accountable for corruption and stated that corporate power is eroding democracy. It cited the illegal foreclosure practices inflicted by banks on people who often didn’t even have mortgages, the bank bailouts and the unfortunate fact that executives had been rewarded with excessive bonuses, the growing problem of student debt, the increased outsourcing of labour to other countries and a whole host of other grievances directed against corporations and their friends in government.

As the “Occupy Wall Street” movement morphs into several occupation movements across the US, and as more organised groups support the protests (such as the United Steelworkers union), there are some nervous voices online that fear the movement may somehow become co-opted by special interests. This is a concern whenever a small movement begins to gain traction. Political activists such as Cindy Sheehan, who is famous for having camped outside of George W. Bush’s ranch in protest following her son’s death in Iraq, are angry that a group called MoveOn.org has joined in supporting the protests. Cindy wrote on her Facebook page that this group supported Barack Obama in the presidential election. She said that the group was more focussed on electing a candidate from the Democrat Party to office than actually pushing for the lawmakers to hold the Bush administration accountable for things such as torture and illegal wars. MoveOn.org have attracted the ire of many left-wing activists because of their direct support of Barack Obama – a man who, according to records compiled by OpenSecrets.org, received almost a million dollars from the bank Goldmann Sachs to help fund his political campaign for election in 2008.

There are also disagreements over the proposed actions of Adbusters.org. The group is an online magazine that calls itself a “global network of artists, activists, writers, pranksters, students, educators and entrepreneurs who want to advance the new social activist movement of the information age”. On 15 Sept., they produced a short piece on their website that demanded Obama “end the monied corruption of America” by agreeing to “a bold, decisive stroke against the financial corruption of America”. Their demands remain rather vague and this has resulted in criticism from other activists -- not affiliated with any group -- who would rather call for Obama to be held accountable for helping to facilitate the actions of financial institutions in committing fraudulent activities.

There are many people in America who are angry with the president, as well as angry with Congress in general. They want to elect candidates with honest credentials and who refuse to receive money from large financial corporations. The “Occupy Wall Street” movement claims to be non-partisan in its approach and does not want to descend into any political movement where specific candidates are endorsed. However, this stance may well become problematic once the time of the 2012 presidential elections nears.