Occupy Wall Street
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Occupy Wall Street Movement www.wordpandit.co m
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A presentation to explain the 'Occupy Wall Street' movement. The complete details for it are provided on the page: http://cat.wordpandit.com/occupy-wall-street/
Transcript of Occupy Wall Street
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OccupyWall StreetMovement
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What is ‘Occupy Wall Street’ ?
The promotional image for Occupy Wall Street movement which went viral on social networking sites all around the world and
called for protestors to ‘bring tent’.
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What is ‘Occupy Wall Street’ ?
Occupy Wall Street is a people-powered movement that began on September 17, 2011 in Liberty Square in Manhattan’s Financial District, and has spread to over 100 cities in the United States and actions in over 1,500 cities globally.
OWS claims to be fighting against the corrosive power of major banks and multinational corporations over the democratic process, and the role of Wall Street in creating an economic collapse that has caused the greatest recession in generations.
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What is ‘Occupy Wall Street’ ?
•The slogan of the movement was ‘We are the 99%’, revealing that the movement is about the rest of America that bore the brunt of the financial crisis while the bankers of Wall Street who arguably caused the crisis, got financial bailouts from Congress.
•It also refers to the concentration of wealth among the wealthiest 1% of America.
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What is ‘Occupy Wall Street’ ?The movement does not have any face and its decision making body is the New York General Assembly (NYGA).
The NYGA is open to everyone and anyone can attend its meeting and air their suggestions. The rationale behind it was to enforce OWS as a truly people controlled movement not headed by anyone one person or a group of people.
Some experts believe that not having a face may have worked against the movement in the long-term.
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Origins of OWS
•OWS was initiated by Kalle Lasn and Micah White of Adbusters, a Canadian anti-consumerist publication, who conceived the idea of a June 2011 occupation in lower Manhattan.
•Adbusters proposed a peaceful occupation of Wall Street to protest corporate influence on democracy, the lack of legal consequences for those who brought about the global crisis of monetary insolvency, and an increasing disparity in wealth.
•Antecedents for Occupy Wall Street (OWS) include the British student protests of 2010, as well as Greek and Spanish anti-austerity protests of the "indignados".
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Origins of OWS
•The original location of choice by the protesters was 1 Chase Plaza, the site of the "Charging Bull" sculpture.
• Police discovered this before the protest began and fenced off the location.
•Nearby Zuccotti Park was then chosen. Since the park was private property police could not legally force protesters to leave without being requested to do so by the property owner.
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Role of Social Networks in OWS
•Reliance on social media and electronic messaging was used to circumvent the authorities.
•Also the feeling that financial institutions, corporations, and the political elite have been malfeasant in their behavior toward youth and the middle class was spread through these means.
•Occupy Wall Street, in turn, gave rise to the Occupy movement in the United States and around the world.
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Some facts regarding OWS
•In 1976, the top 1 percent of earners in the U.S. took in 8.9 percent of all income. By 2007, that number had risen to 23.5 percent
•The bottom 50 percent of income earners in the U.S. now collectively own less than 1 percent of the nation's wealth.
•The percentage of all US economic growth in the past decade that went to the top 1% of income earners is whopping 65%
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Some facts regarding OWS
•A chart going around the web shows the ratio of pay of a CEO compared to that of an average work in countries around the world. Germany is 12:1, Venezuela is 50:1 and the U.S. is 475:1.
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Goals of OWS
Main goals
of OWS
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Goals of OWS•A more balanced distribution of income•More and better jobs•Bank reform (including reduction or elimination of profits earned by banks).•Reduction in the influence of corporations on politics•Forgiveness of student loan debt or other relief for indebted students•Alleviation of the foreclosure situation which accounted for 20% of homes sold in 2011•Replacement of capitalism with a democratic political and economic system.
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Goals of OWS•The group that favoured specific demands created a document entitled the 99 Percent Declaration which failed to garner any support.
•Some OWS participants are opposed to setting demands, saying they would limit the movement by implying conditions and limiting the duration of the movement.
•They also thought that clearly specifying the demands would be a counterproductive legitimization of the very power structures the movement seeks to challenge.
This was another reason that is believed to have been the cause of the eventual failure of the movement.
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IMPACT
•The movement had a global impact, altering "the terms of the political debate” as it reached to more than 20 countries namely Australia, United Kingdom, Germany, Spain and many more.
•In the United States where the movement started, the protests have helped shift the national dialogue from the deficit to economic problems many ordinary Americans face, such as unemployment, the large amount of student and other personal debt that burdens middle class and working class Americans, and other major issues of social inequality, such as homelessness.
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IMPACT•The movement appears to have generated an international conversation about income inequality. The Occupy movement raised awareness regarding undeserved wealth and lack of fairness in the society.
•Other commentators have taken a more critical view, suggesting the occupy movement has been a disruptive waste of time.
•In Spain, where the movement once had the support of well over 70% of the population with millions taking part, the popularity of Occupy is now past its peak and has achieved no consequences of any significance.
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Eventual Failure of OWS
•The movement has not evoked any major response from governments.
•Today, with protestors evicted from the major Occupy sites in the world, the movement looks like it may die a slow death. However, one can never estimate the impact of people scorned by a financial crisis and an indifferent government.
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Reason for Eventual Failure of OWS
•Many have argued that a lack of unified aims has prevented the movement from making any note-worthy impact on mainstream politics. The consensus form of decision making of the movement has also earned criticism for being the supposed cause for the lack of emergence of any aims or demands from the movement.
•The movement does not have a face. It lacks leaders but protestors argue that this doesn’t mean that the movement lacks leadership. Its emphasis on participatory democracy means that it shuns any form of hierarchical power structure.
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