Occupy Wall Street seemingly appeared out of nowhere. But is it a grassroots movement? If you were to ask any protestor, they would assure you they are. In addition they would also ensure you understood they are leaderless and have no demands. While on the exterior Occupy Wall Street appears to be grassroots but is it?
OWS protestors are unified under an anti-capitalist message aimed at banks that hold their student loans and mortgages. Once you get passed the slogans, they have mixed messages for their protest. An anti-capitalist theme under the guise of “its for the people.” Just the premise of that statement is an oxymoron.
During the initial weeks of OWS, a list of demands arose that proposed The Living Wage.
The Living Wage is a campaign that trains people in how to collective bargain. This extracurricular activity is taught in universities across the nation. Students pursue goals and gather public support in protest against universities. They use the bully pulpit or mob mentality to ensure their demands are heard and eventually met. The Living Wage Campaign (LWC) concentrates on increasing wages for housekeepers, dining facility workers and other similar union occupations. This is different from minimal wage because if an employee works a 40-hour week, their employer must pay them a wage they can maintain their predetermined life style. This amount is determined by a university, visit the PSU website to calculate what is perceived to be a living wage in your area.
Our education system has been crumbling for a couple of decades, as more pay for teachers seems to be the fix to the symptoms. While most universities have replaced the U.S. Constitution with U.N. Declarations, Property Right with Agenda 21 and individual contributions with collective mentalities, it seems universities have taken up the art of teachning collective bargaining.
In 2001, Ed Childs, with the Harvard Dining Hall Workers Union, explains that they advocate for The Living Wage campaign where sit-ins are a part of the process. After a 21-day, sit-in, the Harvard community, including SEIU, gathered to celebrate the demands being met for a pay increase for over 2,000 Harvard workers. The Harvard Occupation Clips that was uploaded Oct 17, 2009 explains the whole movement in more details. Ten years later, they are still practicing the art of collective bargaining.
According to a 2003 Georgetown Living Wage Report, “students and workers are campaigning for a living wage on more than 35 campuses, including Notre Dame, Princeton, Yale American, UVA and the University of Michigan.”
At William & Mary, their LWC included 150 students, workers community members and labor leaders from across Virginia, complete with a Facebook page.
In 2008, the University of Virginia conducted a four-day sit-in protest where 17 students were arrested.
As seen with Occupying Wall Street, students appear to have a genuine emotion toward their cause. It is more about being a part of the cause, rather than the cause. To say that this is a grass roots effort is a stretch. There is no coherent reason for the buildup; no student has even stated a consistent message below the cool slogans of evil Wall Street bankers and fancy chants of 99 percent. Their anti-capitalism message appears to resonant like a “Hope and Change” slogan.
As some eyeball this leaderless movement, could professional collective bargainers provide the direction this movement needs? After all, they were instrumental in the training. It seems that a generation of kids have decided to pick up the 1960s example of how to get their point across but you do not have to go far to see the influence of the professor in our children’s lives.
It’s time to stop discussing teacher’s pay, school supplies or vouchers and look at the schools and their curriculum…because it may not be in the best interest of our youth. Hopefully, it isn’t too late because I have a feeling their message is going to come across loud and clear. There is one clear thing they were taught well and that’s the art of collective bargaining…whether unions are involved or not.
Interesting look into the LWS collective bargaining indoctrination within our colleges over the past decade or two. As we see the big labor Unions now joining these OWS protests, we can discover how the LWS scam uses the same tactics to demand such high salaries and benefits that are bankrupting cities and states across America.
As far as our educational system goes, we need to take it back from the fed-Union thugs and let states control their own educational systems. Gov Scott here in FL has us on the right track in that area. No more tenure for rotten failures posing as concerned teachers. Better teachers who get more pay based on performance instead of even the worst teachers getting 120 grand because a Union thug demanded it. Bad teachers will now be fired in Florida.
Wall Street isn’t behind double digit tuition increases on campuses across the country. College tuition hikes exceed health care costs increases, and if left unchecked, will be the next libtard-target to make college a fundamental “right” for everyone regardless of IQ.
Regarding your comments: “To say that this is a grass roots effort is a stretch. There is no coherent reason for the buildup…” >>> Obviously. Not grassroots. Why Occupy’s numbers are growing as they are? There is no coherent reason. Really.
At some point the American public will patently reject the “confusion” thingy. We’re moving fast. Whoever hands down the conservative talking points must be on vacation or stumped or something; there should have been some new spin by now.
A new Reuters poll I read today suggested that of those Americans who have an opinion about the Occupy movement, a majority report a favorable and fewer an unfavorable opinion. Apparently, the American public must also be without the same coherent reason. So odd. When you tire of misinforming yourselves, scratching your heads after, and prefer to hear it from a protester let me know. In the meantime, could I please have another glass of that Koolaid?
Not grass-roots? Below is a “meet-up site” link to 1,630 Occupy Wall Street supporting local communities all of which have at least one event planned if not numerous or regular standing events.
Oct 15, Saturday, is a “national event day.” Our last one was Oct 5th, for which we got a lot of media across the country for the first time. This will, of course, be significantly bigger we figure because we’re not with any coherent reason and most Americans are not either. The numbers arrested for no coherent reason have already probably reached 1,000 people.
This is all open public info. You can start here: https://www.meetup.com/occupytogether/ Don’t let the number of members on this site fool you, typically only a few will add themselves here. Look instead for a link to a specific geo community’s facebook group on this site. Though we’re only a month old, and did not get momentum for the first two weeks, until Sargent Pepper Spray’s police-tough-guy spray’s teenage women standing on a sidewalk attempting free speech. (I wonder what the restitution/settlement will be on that one?) Anyway, I saw a tally, a week ago, of nearly 1,000,000 facebook group Occupiers. Why would there be 1,000,000? You guessed it didn’t you? Right. No coherent reason.
We are in fact leaderless. The organizational model is a modified direct democracy (pure democracy) a form of government in which people collectively make decisions for themselves rather than having their political affairs decided by representatives. We also use a modified form of consensus decision making called collective thinking. Probably not your cup of tea. Collective thinking is diametrically opposed to the kind of thinking propounded by the system most are accustomed to – making the model difficult to assimilate and apply. Unless you want to live in a different world where your democracy is not as easily corrupted by power and greed. More time is needed, as it involves a longer process, etc. And, of course we do this… for no coherent reason.
Anon
It is obvious you did not read my article because it is as original as they come. And your post is a cut and paste seeing that you didn’t refute any points made. My point is that it has been in their training for the past 10 years.
Polls are to move public opinion, not gauge it.
The 1,000 were arrested for breaking the law.
As for your Collective Thinking, Mao Tse-Tung used it when he diverted the farmers from the fields to the steel mills, killing nearly 30 million people.
Your world is far more easily co-opted but that’s your prerogative.
We laugh at conservative ineptitude and ill-defining of us and what we are doing. I responded directly to the most offensive of your article. Directly. I left much unsaid. You don’t seem to understand just how big this is yet. You are oblivious to the scope of the demographic. You have put horseblinders on. This is no longer “a bunch of kids.” In contemporary times… seems the students always lead a populist movement. Think about it.
If you want to know what we are, let us define ourselves for you. We are a Left Wing populist movement. The last unfolded across 4 or 5 years during the mid 1930’s. That resulted in the election of the same president for 4 terms. That movement was impetus for a New Deal. This one is different. Initially, that flashpoint was very much about not being able to repay farm loans. This one… student loans. Both movements outgrew those issues very quickly.
You’re are pointed at the initial little ringed campfire pit, where the initial ember came from. As you assess it… you do not recognize the forest all around you is ablaze.
I guess we can claim a miscommunication issue because I say that this movement is a product of the 1960s radical movement and a buildup of the unions. The buildup of troops is not going unnoticed…along with the effort it is taking to build up those troops.
To have such a movement, it seems that you may wish to hurry up and get the unions involved because once the cold hits. I would imagine the kids party will be over. And all you’ll have are a few disgruntled kids and unions…causing riots as their 1960s leaders promoted.
I think we’re way past kids in the park in NYC already. We’re the adults in Denver, Seattle, Chicago, LA, etc. We’re also twice as popular with the larger American public than the Tea Party. We’re in no hurry. Winter is only a couple of months. We’ll figure something out. We’re a forward-thinking creative bunch of people.
Your 60’s model is yours. Street marching is your model. This movement does not need the same masses in the streets. In the 1960 – street protests were used to impact, attract, influence, sway minds, recruit, etc. In this movement, we do the same thing on the internet as the 1960 marches did (and we do on the streets to a more limited degree) We’re marching everyday all day and night long across the social networks.
This is not a 60’s protest. You might recall most of the 60’s protests were fairly single-issue. Comparison between earlier surges of populism and OWS are complicated by shifts in what are thought to be the “interests of the common people.” Further society today is fractured as it is into myriad interest groups and niches, any attempt to define the interests of the “average person” will be so general… as to be useless. If you want a list of the issues try this:
https://youtu.be/V6TzDqfGyJQ
This populist movement is directly inspired by Arab Spring and the Campanadas in Spain. The world watched the people of Egypt gather slowly in Cairo as a disorganized crowd, roundly criticized by international voices for being only elite, educated youth and being leaderless and having no clear goals. Does that sound fairly familiar?
A turning point in this…… was the day they unfurled, down the side of a building, a list of demands which clearly spelled out steps for getting from the tyranny of Mubarak’s brutal Kleptocracy to a more just democratic society. Then workers… not just unions…. joined their cause and began striking. Suddenly, the world knew that this was serious.
So how did they get from being a leaderless, disorganized “mob” to a galvanized movement with a grand plan? They embraced a system of horizontal democracy known as direct democracy and used Collective Thinking.
We’re using horizontal democracy also known as direct democracy, (and as pure democracy.) It is not as easily corruptible as the US system of representative democracy is. Remember our movement is leaderless vs. having an “authoritarian” figurehead like Mao or Huey Long. As for your Collective Thinking and Mao Tse-Tung 30 million dead correlation, there is none. Or, if logical fallacy is fair game here: that number of dead is likely close to, or fewer than, the number of people killed in the name of Christ since legalization of Christianity when mobs began killing pagan priests. Conclusion: legalization of Christianity co-opted humanity… 30 million times.
Let’s talk after this weekend. NYC is to be “effectively” evicted in a couple hours… and Saturday will be a national event day.
Anon,
I know the movement’s ability will move past NYC is inevitable. This movement is nothing but a bunch of conditioned college kids, unions and 60s radicals and it only takes a small percentage to overload the system before citizens are begging for help. Cloward-Piven strategy.
For the popularity of the Tea Party, polls are meant to sway not gauge.