COMMENTARY | The underground movement known as Occupy Wall Street was originally considered nothing more than a nuisance, but is now looking more and more like the anti-tea party than a passing fad. Recently strengthened by support from Michael Moore, New York labor unions and a cadre of followers in cities across the nation, the movement has taken on a life of its own.
While the idea of protesting greedy government bureaucracies with a leftist spin is tempting in itself, documented police brutality at the first organized protest lent national attention and made the group look like peaceful protesters who were being oppressed by a vindictive New York Police Department.
My primary concern is that, according to The Huffington Post, the group intends to keep protests going until Wall Street meets its demands. If you ask the group what its demands are, you will be told members are still thinking of them. If I call in to a radio station to request a song, I find it helpful to have a song picked out before I call.
This group is going to find it hard to keep the line open while the last song ends and other groups call in with thousands of requests. Of course Wall Street is not a radio station, but without a clear direction I feel like anyone who is influenced by this movement is just as likely to join a cult.
The whole idea of asking for change without a clear schematic is eerily similar to the 2008 presidential campaign of Barack Obama. After Occupy Wall Street finally hashes out its list of demands, the manifesto will likely contain a lot of extreme measures that have failed before and a lot of extreme measures that aren't supported by the majority of the people who have marched with the group.
Even though the current administration has done a poor job of implementing the correct policies to help the economy and take a bite out of unemployment, I still consider the American jobs scene to be a viable place to work and find work. Anyone who tries can get a job and afford a decent living. It just doesn't seem like a perilous situation from where I'm sitting.
It is shocking and scary for me to see so many people protesting for social change when the majority of American citizens will never know what hard times really are. When I hear about homeless people using the Internet at Starbucks, it becomes obvious to me that a lot of people's priorities are out of line.
It is too easy for the powers that be to write them off if they spend so much time complaining and so little coming up with a viable alternative to the status quo. If Occupy Wall Street wants to get anywhere, it needs to set realistic goals and map out a clear non-partisan plan to reach them. Right now they look like my Roomba vacuum that bumps into furniture all day long but never really cleans the floor.
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