Thoughts about “Occupy Wall Street”

I’ve been thinking about the “Occupy Wall Street” movement a lot over the last few months, watching how things played out. I’ve been particularly interested since the movement was happening a scant 30 miles to my east (not quite “in my backyard,” but close enough).

At first it started with curiosity – “will this movement grow large enough to get any attention?” But then it moved to sympathy and finally to understanding.

I watched as TV and Internet news outlets complained that Occupy Wall Street had no “clear message” or “demands,” and at first I wondered if this really was a problem – but then I realized that the people complaining about “no message” were completely missing the point.

The message of Occupy Wall Street isn’t going to be found on any sign, or really in anything that any one person says. Instead, the message is the fact that the movement exists at all.

That a very large group of people have managed to organize mass protests – both here in New York City as well as around the world – is more of a message than any sign, banner, or chant you might hear at any one particular movement site.

These people – the ordinary, everyday people who showed up to the Occupy movement for days or even weeks and months – are very, very, very frustrated and angry. They are protesting like this because they think this is their only choice, the only option they have left, since all of the more normal and regular options one might use (voting, writing to Congress, etc.) have proven to be ineffective. More specifically, the other options these people have to express and influence social/political ideas have not just become ineffective, they have been totally subverted.

To many of these people, the current political climate must feel like a bad dream, one of those awful nightmares where you are in trouble and screaming for help but your voice isn’t working and no one can hear you.

This is why they’ve turned to protests like this. This is what I think Occupy Wall Street is all about. The many different things you’ll see on protest signs & so forth at any given “Occupy” movement site are just the symptoms of a bigger underlying problem. It’s not the things themselves, but the fact that these things were allowed to happen that is the problem. It’s the disconnect between ordinary people (e.g., the middle class) and politics that is the problem.

So if you’re a politician looking for some “action items” to take away from the Occupy Wall Street protests, let me offer this: listen to your constituents – I mean really listen – and remember that laws need to not just be fair, they need to feel fair – because when they aren’t, people really get mad.