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Monday, 21 November 2011

99%, that's what we are.

What is Occupy Wall Street?

OWS was created by an activist group called Adbusters and it started on September 17, 2011. It was inspired by the demonstrations that happened this spring in other countries, like Egypt, Libya and Tunisia.  It’s a movement by a mass of people against the capitalism that started in Zuccotti Park of New York’s Wall Street district. The demonstrators are basically doing camping in the different cities at strategic places, like the Wall Street district. Their slogan is “We are the 99%” and it refers to the distribution of the wealth since only 1% of the population own the country’s wealth. In Canada, the cities of Toronto, Montréal, Ottawa, Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Regina, Winnipeg and Moncton are involved  in the demonstration.

Right now, in one of my courses, we are listening to a movie about Jimi Hendrix and it talks a lot about the hippies and the society at that time. It makes me think of what is happening right now in a lot of cities all over the world with Occupy Wall Street. I don’t think that the movement will have the same impact that the hippies had back in the days when they were about to change the world. First of all, the hippies were the majority of the society. In 2011, it’s completely the opposite, the population is really old compared to the 60s. Right now, in the streets of New York there are 20 000 demonstrators and the city counts 8,175,133 people. What I see is that most people just don’t care about it or they don’t want to do something against it. The movement at that time and the movement now, they both have the same goal: change the world. But let’s face it; it’s not going to happen anytime soon. Capitalism is there to stay.


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4 comments:

  1. Odile21 November 2011 at 11:38

    I agree with you. It is not 20 000 people that will change something in the situation nowadays. This is sad, because I understand well the movement, and If there were any chances that this action would change something, I would have participated. And, in fact, if everybody thought like me, that mean that there are thousand of people that did not participated because they do not believe in the movement. You did a good description of the movement. And, the comparison is really effective to show that this is true; this is neither the first time nor the last time that population are frustrated about the society and the minority that controlled it, but, even if I agree with their mind, we can see that nothing changed with the last movement, and it won't change with that one !

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  2. Rosalie21 November 2011 at 11:41

    HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!! hehe

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  3. Visual Bassist21 November 2011 at 11:43

    Damn hippies. There's only half of the protestors that actually fight the good fight, the otehrs are either just going with the flow or being opportunists.

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  4. Louis-M. Doiron28 November 2011 at 08:31

    I don't agree. Capitalism is probably here to stay for a while, and it is basically a good thing considering the fact that it is normal that someone can own something, trade it and make money; but it cannot stay like it is now indefinately. The occupy Wall Street Movement shows that more people than 5 years ago for instance want changes... and considering the growing ecological, social, political and economical problems we NEED these changes. If today they are indeed still a minority, it can be something else tomorrow if these problems are getting worse (which is probably going to happen). History gave us a lot of examples of majorities changing when being confronted to similar problems (French Revolution, Russian Revolution and even the rise of Faschism in the Europe of the Great 1929 Economical Crash).

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