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| #OCCUPYWALLSTREET |
The nascent demonstrations we have seen on the streets of New York and other US cities over the past month at first glance seemed to be comprised of people with a variety of grievances brought together with a general claim to having "lost out" in the wake of the bank bailouts of 2008-9 and the persistently high level of unemployment.
The declaration of the "NYC General Assembly" from 29 September 2011 sets out the range of grievances: http://nycga.cc/2011/09/30/declaration-of-the-occupation-of-new-york-city/
The media coverage and commentary continues to grow and now other theories are emerging:
Reuters today posits that the "unashamedly liberal" MSNBC television news network has "staked out" the Occupy Wall Street movement as a pet topic in the same way as the conservative Fox News network has dominated coverage of the Tea Party movement in US politics over the past couple of years. To what end? The theory is that such a popular issue will make viewers "turn on" and this leads to greater ratings particularly going into a Presidential election year: Reuters: 13/10/2011
(Fox is owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. MSNBC is a venture of Microsoft Corp and NBC, the broadcast network controlled by Comcast Corp. CNN is a unit of Time Warner Inc and ABC is a unit of Walt Disney Co)
There are other issues here: TV news in the USA generally has lost ground as a news source particularly with younger people because of the availability of instant news via the internet. Further, some commentators think that the liberal voters who traditionally supported MSNBC have split into two camps - those who think President Obama has hindered their cause/s and those who still support him.
Meanwhile other theories abound:
- that the "Arab Spring" which saw (relatively) peaceful regime change in the Middle East organised primarily through social media networks has inspired the US demonstrators seems quite clear;
- Canadian anti-establishment magazine "Adbusters" posted the original Wall Street demonstration for September 16, 2011 on the Internet, which spawned the last few weeks' activities (Adbusters, which features provocative essays and spoof advertisements challenging people to reject consumer culture, has about 20,000 subscribers and sells about 80,000 copies at newsstands and independent bookstores, mostly in the U.S. It sells no advertising, and funds itself entirely through sales and donations).
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The magazine's founder, Kalle Lasn said today in an interview with the Washington Post:
The initial phase of the revolution, what we are seeing right now, is leaderless, and the protesters are not hopping into bed with any party, even the Democratic party. Everyone is trying to second-guess what they’re after. But nonetheless, they’ve launched a national conversation. As the winter approaches, I think there will be different phases and ideas, possibly fragmentation into different agendas. I think crystal-clear demands will emanateand hinted at the possible establishment of a third political party:
I think people want a Robin Hood tax on all trades, they want to bring back the Glass-Steagall Act, to ban high-frequency flash trading, implement banking reform, clean up corruption in Washington, and down the road, a third party may spring up: Washington Post 13/10/2011We shall watch with interest what comes of all this as the weather cools...
