Tim's+Paper

Tim's paper

Occupy Wall Street

[]

Occupy Wall Street was initiated by Kalle Lasn and Micah White of Adbusters, a Canadian consumerist publication, who conceived of an June 2011 occupation in lower Manhattan. Adbusters proposed a peaceful occupation of Wall Street to protest corporate influence on democracy, the lack of legal consequences for those who brought about the global crisis of monetary insolvency, and an increasing disparity in wealth. I think it is interesting to see where this request has taken the movement today. Below is a link to the timeline according to Wikipedia Take a look and see where it has lead too, it is spreading, people are tired of the glaring inequality, and this group is speaking up!

OWS was initiated by Kalle Lasn and Micah White of Adbusters, a Canadian consumerist publication, who conceived of an June 2011 occupation in lower Manhattan. Lasn registered the //OccupyWallSteet.org// web address on June 9th. [|[7]] In June Adbusters emailed its subscribers saying “America needs its own Tahrir”. White said the reception of the idea "snowballed from there". [|[8]] [|[7]] In a blog post on July 13 of 2011, [|[9]] Adbusters proposed a peaceful occupation of Wall Street to protest [|corporate influence] on democracy, the lack of legal consequences for those who brought about the global crisis of monetary insolvency, and an increasing disparity in wealth. [|[8]] The protest was promoted with an image featuring a dancer atop Wall Street's iconic [|Charging Bull] statue. [|[10]] [|[11]] [|[12]]
 * Plagiarism **

Goals

Their goals ask for Balanced distribution of income More and better jobs Bank reform Reduction in the influence of corporations on politics Forgiveness of student loan debt.

The goals of the organization questoin a majority of the key areas that perpetuate our current dominant paradigm. when you ask for a balance to income, that is asking the wealthy to literal give up their money. something that is not part of the accepted system we live in. This is looked at as charity or asking for a hand out, in reality it is asking for a better paradigm. the Bank reform, and student load debt are again areas dealing with money, any organization that questions the way wealth is acquired or distributed will grind the nerves of the welders of that wealth. They challenge the values and the paradigm it self just by making these demands.

Organization

Their organization



The way the organization is run is also another challenge to the democratic system and its paradigm. Wikipedia has an interesting description of the system participants use to run these meetings or events.

Meeting participants comment upon committee proposals using a process called a "stack", which is a queue of speakers that anyone can join. New York uses what is called a [|progressive stack], in which people from [|marginalized groups] are sometimes allowed to speak before people from dominant groups, with [|facilitators] , or "stack-keepers", urging speakers to "step forward, or step back" based on which group they belong to, meaning that women and minorities may move to the front of the line, while white men must often wait for a turn to speak.

Because it is giving a louder voice to those who are traditional given no voice. This is a challenge to the dominant paradigm or power in the government. This body of people chooses to throw out the current paradigm. They are still a small group, and they are questing a paradigm accepted by the majority of the people in the world, in order for their point of view to take over we would have to have one of the paradigm shifts that Kuhn spoke of, even though he meant it in purely scientific way, we need to have a massive change in point of view in order to change our dominant social paradigm.

While they have a hard battle ahead of them, the goals they have are worthy. They peaceful protest is always the best way to go in my mind, they will continue to work in the way they have been. What will be next, sleeping in parks does not get the everyday person on board, how will they represent the rest of the 99%. We have seen local support of the movement, I know people as close as Chapel Hill N.C who were arrested for protesting under this groups demands. We will see numbers grow, but sleeping in public places is not going to hold the public for long, it wont even hold the current members long. I wonder where they will go next with their protests.