The Occupy Protestors

1462 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Uneven distribution of wealth

Since the unemployment rate was high for a long period of time it began to make America’s wealth distribution even more unequal. In 2007, slightly before the recession, the top 1% wealthiest’s share of America’s total wealth was 24% (Gitlin 7). After the peak of the recession in 2011, the top 1%’s share had ballooned to 40% and the bottom 80% of Americans owned less than 10% (Jordan 2). The 1%’s wealth had jumped 16% in four years because of the loss of jobs by middle and lower class Americans (Gitlin 7). This created a situation in which the wealthiest were getting wealthier and the middle and lower class were getting poorer. It is obvious that a system that continues to work in this fashion is very unfair and is not going to work properly. This sense of immorality with the current direction in which the economy is moving and the built up frustration of this system are just some of the many factors that sparked the original protestors to create Occupy.
Who were the Occupy protestors?
Personally, I do not think that a single person I know has ever protested with the Occupy Movement, let alone start it. The Murphy Institute has recently published a study, led by Ruth Milkman, on this exact topic. The Murphy Institute is an academic program at the City University of New York (CUNY) that seeks to help academic, labor, and community leaders understand labor and urban issues (The Murphy Instituite). They point to the fact that the original Occupy protestor was not simply the average American standing up to the injustices of the American economy as they would want people to believe. Rather, they say that the original Occupy protestors were veteran political activists (Milkman 2). These veteran activists were crucial to t...

... middle of paper ...

...Gitlin, Todd. “Occupy’s predicament: the moment and the prospects for the movement.” The British Journal of Sociology 64.1 (2013): 3-25. Web.
Jasper, James M. The Art of Moral Protest Culture: Biography, and Creativity in Social Movements. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997. Print.
Jordan, Seth. “Why Occupy is Unstoppable.” Lilipoh. Fall 2013: 8-12. Web.
Obama, Barack. “State of the Union Address.” The White House. Washington, DC. 28 Jan. 2014. Address.
Roberts, Alasdair. “Why the Occupy Movement Failed.” Public Administration Review 72.5 (2012): 754-762. Web.
Smith, Aaron and Joanna Brenner. “Twitter Use 2012.” PewResearch Internet Project. 1-3. Web. 15 Mar. 2014.
Taylor, Astra. “Occupy 2.0: Strike Debt.” The Nation. 24 Sep. 2012: 17-20. Web.
“The Murphy Instituite.” City University of New York School of Professional Studies. n.p., n.d. Web. Mar. 2014.

Show More
Related

  • Like a Hurricane Book Review

    1288 Words  | 3 Pages

    I would recommend this book to a wide range of persons with a wide range of interests varying from global civil rights movements, political scientists, historians, social reformist, to the college student whom is activity participating in Occupy Wall Street demonstrations of 2011. In my opinion, the book is a tribute to strong journalism written f...

    Read More

  • A Classless Society In Mantsios's Class In America

    1410 Words  | 3 Pages

    With each class comes a certain level in financial standing, the lower class having the lowest income and the upper class having the highest income. According to Mantsios’ “Class in America” the wealthiest one percent of the American population hold thirty-four percent of the total national wealth and while this is going on nearly thirty-seven million Americans across the nation live in unrelenting poverty (Mantsios 284-6). There is a clear difference in the way that these two groups of people live, one is extreme poverty and the other extremely

    Read More

  • Civil Disobedience In Thoreau's Occupy Wall Street Movement

    1293 Words  | 3 Pages

    Demonstrating a form of protest that was more of an art form and a statement than riots and violence, in September 2011, people occupied New York 's financial district of Wall Street over issues that Henry David

    Read More

  • The Vigilante: A Reoccurring Archetype in American Entertainment

    931 Words  | 2 Pages

    When examining the vigilante it is clear that the ideals and actions of the vigilante stem from Thoreau’s ideas put forth in Civil Disobedience. Thoreau begins Civil Disobedience by claiming “That government is best which governs not at all” (). This quote is important because a major part of Thoreau’s argument is t...

    Read More

  • Media Coverage on Occupy Wall Street

    647 Words  | 2 Pages

    In October of 2011, the media could no longer ignore the thousands of protesters camping in Zuccotti Park calling themselves Occupy Wall Street with their battle cry of “We are the 99 percent” (Gitlin 50). The social movement began to bring awareness on economic inequality in which 99 percent of the wealth was controlled by one percent of the population. The name Occupy Wall Street began because the protestors were occupying the space outside of Wall Street through setting up tents and refusing to leave the location (Gitlin 26). As more and more protestors flocked to the camps, the movement broadened its goals to include a wide variety of issues including agriculture, housing and student loans. Described as lacking any clear-cut goals for the movement by the media, news pundits bickered over the credibility of the movement and if these protestors would create the next social revolution in the United States (DeLuca, Lawson, and Sun 491). The coverage of the movement varied from newspaper to newspaper, but the framing of coverage continued to show a disorganized, but large movement that showed no signs of stopping. As Occupy Wall Street gained momentum, the public became aware of sexual assaults occurring within the Occupy Wall Street camps. As a result of this information, media began covering these assaults as part of their Occupy Wall Street coverage.

    Read More

  • Persuasive Speech On Affordable Housing

    1064 Words  | 3 Pages

    While the the 1%, are secured, no one is addressing the rest of the people. As the economy flourishes, housing, higher education and health care, and child care increases with it to the point where 30 percent of a person’s income goes towards housing. People are finding it impossible to purchase a house with their middle class incomes. People begin to fall out of the once stable middle class because too much is needed to be sacrificed in order to live in a stable home. In the shrinking middle class, “40% or more of the residents live below the poverty

    Read More

  • Occupy Wall Street: An Inefficient Protest

    1292 Words  | 3 Pages

    In America, protest has been used throughout history as a vehicle to change. Protests bring attention to issues that would or could be overlooked or ignored. A current protest receiving national attention in our media is the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protest. The Occupy Wall Street protest, along with other Occupy branch protests are essentially ineffective protests. When compared to successful protests in the past, they are not having as much success gaining public support. There are many reasons this could be the case. There is no clearly defined goal or a specified outcome resulting from the protests. They are managing their funds inefficiently and in many cities they are creating more problems than they are solving.

    Read More

  • Civil Disobedience

    557 Words  | 2 Pages

    Seymour, Richard. "Five Examples of Civil Disobedience to Remember." Theguardian.com. Guardian News and Media, 20 Aug. 2012. Web. 20 May 2014.

    Read More

  • Pros And Cons Of The American Dream

    1058 Words  | 3 Pages

    The “American Dream” consists of all U.S citizens having the opportunity to obtain success and prosperity through hard work and determination, but, in a capitalistic economy such as the United States the “American Dream” is merely impossible. Low wages are masked as starting points, taught to eventually pay off in the form of small raises or promotions. Competition to obtain unequally shared resources, is used to define an individual’s extent of initiative. In reality, these are all concepts used by the wealthy to deter the poor working class from obtaining upward mobility. Middle class America, the key factor in helping the wealthy stay wealthy, have adapted to these beliefs and concepts, created to keep them far behind. Conflict theorist

    Read More

  • A Comparison of Practical and Principled Nonviolent Action Theories

    3848 Words  | 8 Pages

    Touraine, Alain. Solidarity: The Analysis of a Social Movement. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983.

    Read More

  • Common Sense, by Thomas Paine and Letter to Any Would-Be Terrorists, by Naomi Shihab Nye

    1298 Words  | 3 Pages

    Reaching for justice throughout human history has been one of the primordial dreams chased by most humans while at the same time, hunted as a mere fugitive by others in order to satisfy their appalling thirst for injustice. “Injustice anywhere is at threat to justice everywhere” as stated by Martin lather King, if one doesn’t fight for justice he/she might end up having to face the sad reality of injustice taking over everywhere. In order to not let such a thing take place we need to fight against injustice as one. Two literature works which embrace this idea are Common Sense by Thomas Pain and Letter to Any Would-be Terrorists by Naomi Shihab Nye. These two literature works as example of protest literature were very important in illustrating how crucial it was to fight against injustice because both works were effective in encouraging and helping the authors and their audiences share their ideas about a preoccupying topic while hoping at the same time to someday bring about an important social or political change.

    Read More

  • Counterculture Personal Statement

    468 Words  | 1 Pages

    On August 4, 1967 I led a group of student activists to the gallery of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), in protest of capitalism. This was just the beginning of my counterculture protests. In January 1968, I co-founded a group called the Youth International Party (Yippies), where I acted as “[a] semi-freak among the love children” and “was determined to bring the hippie movement into a broader protest”. As life went on, so did my protests. I spoke in New York, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania on topics that went against capitalism and leaving the homeless behind. Next, I was also a part of the Chicago 7, which was a group of people who were planning to be disrupt the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago with protests. We were put on trial, yet this was eventually overturned. Jerry Rubin, (who was in the Chicago 7) called me a ''one-of-a-kind American hero'', and a “very rare person who cannot be replaced”. One of the main reasons why I was so persuasive, and so many people listened to me was because I ''combined humor and commitment and dedication”, which was unusual in political and activists. My role in supporting counterculture was very important because I was an unusual activist that people didn't see everyday, therefore my ideas were fresh and unheard of often, so many people were intrigued. My

    Read More

  • The Negative Effects of Social Media Usage

    911 Words  | 2 Pages

    Olenski, Steve “Social Media Usage Up 800% for U.S. Online Adults In Just 8 Years” Forbes.com Inc. 6 September 2013. Web. 6 February 2014

    Read More

  • The Rise of Twitter

    827 Words  | 2 Pages

    Twitter is an online social media network that users can interact though posting tweets. Twitter has around 115 million active users and is currently in the top ten most visited websites (Twitter Statistics). Twitter has become very popular since its start in 2006. At its start, Twitter only had 140 users, but according to “Twitter Statistics,” it has grown to over 230 million users today. A study has shown that from 2011-2012 tweeting at work increased by 700 percent. Twitter is most popular among the college age group with 31 percent of 18-24 year olds using Twitter every day and only eight percent of adults using Twitter regularly (Fitzgerald). Along with its ability to connect diverse people and things, Twitter’s character limit and easy-to-use-interface also draws in millions of users.

    Read More

  • The Connection between Social Networking and Society

    1259 Words  | 3 Pages

    "Social Media Update 2013." Pew Research Centers Internet American Life Project RSS. Pew Research Centers, 30 Dec. 2013. Web. 11 Mar. 2014. .

    Read More

More about The Occupy Protestors

Open Document