#OCCUPYWALLSTREET

As 2010 waned, Canadian-based magazine Adbusters initiated a slew of campaigns for 2011 and beyond.  One of them falls on my birthday, September 17th.

http://www.occupywallstreet.org/

What are Canadians doing in Wall Street?  Well, the idea of Occupy Wall Street is for Americans (the attendence goal is 20,000; 5,000 have confirmed) to peacefully occupy the financial district of New York by setting up tents and kitchens (and bathrooms, I presume) in protest from September 17th at 2:00pm until December 24th st 5:00pm.  I am on the fence about whether or not I will go, personally.  In these hard times, I feel a special responsibility to my family, a duty that I have never felt before; on the otherhand, if this is something that will truly change the course that has caused widespread poverty, globalization, over-consumption, and sensationalism, then, dammit, I want to be a part of it!

I am curious to see how this campaign unfolds in America.  I feel like Americans are not pissed off enough to demand reform collectively as a nation, that we don't feel that enough is at stake, unlike in Greece and Spain where it is estimated that 40% of young people are unemployed.  Also, Americans tend to be complacent.  But I hope that this campaign proves me wrong; I feel that once a movement has gained momentum, it cannot be stopped.  Does this campaign have want it takes to become a movement?

Noami Wolf describes in her talk "Fake Activism" (link!) that a movement takes mass protests in order to be effective and necessitates the implementation of civilly illegal acts such as marching in the streets (this distrupts business) and marching without a permit; violence is not needed (and should not be used), but dissent is.  The need for a permit to protest at all is one construct that contributes to what Noami Wolf calls fake activism.  She states that, based on her research, there are systematic barriers in laws to dissaude Americans from having genuine protests.

There are #OCCUPY events scheduled in San Francisco, Madrid, Toronto, London, and a slew of other major cities throughout the world.  For the US, what I think would be very effective is an Occupy DC, right on the steps of the White House.  That would disrupt business-as-usual, surely.  But then again, maybe not, since it appears that Congress can't do its job anyway.