Occupy Wall Street (OWS)

Occupy Wall Street (OWS)

Introduction

A movement that began on 17th September, 2011 in Zuccotti Park was named as Occupy Wall Street (OWS). Zuccotti Park is located on Wall Street financial district in New York City. This was a protest that was initiated by Canadian activist group named Abdusters that was found active in leading Occupy movements and protests all around the world. There were many social reasons and issues behind Occupy Wall Street such as greed, perceived unethical influence of certain organizations related to government, and those which are linked to financial sector such as banks etc., economic inequality and corruption.

The main slogan of OWS was We are the 99%, which was used in addressing the growing wealth distribution and income inequality in various states of United States of America that is among the wealthiest 1% and the rest of the population. To attain the goals, the protesters acted on decisions on the basis of consensus that was made in general assemblies and their main aim was to impose direct action on petitioning authorities for redress (Pearce, 2012).

On 15th November, 2011 the protesters were forcefully pushed out of Zuccotti Park.

It was found that protesters were not willing to leave the place and take strong stand over their protest. With various ineffective efforts to go back to the key location, the protesters changed their focus from occupying Wall Street to occupying banks, board meetings, university and college campuses and corporate headquarters.

Discussion

Micah White and Kalle Lasn were the main leading roles in the Canadian Activist group (Adbusters). The Adbusters planned a peaceful occupation of Wall Street for 17th November in which they wished to protest corporate influence on democracy, increased inequality in wealth distribution and the lack of legal penalties for all those who were following the global crisis of monetary bankruptcy. This protest was featured with an image of a dancer atop Wall Street's iconic Charging Bull statue (Schneider, 2011).

The group named NYAB (New Yorkers against Budget Cuts) was the first one who marched on the Wall Street for protesting against their un-accomplished demands. David Graeber, who was an anthropologist, anarchist and activist along with his various other associates were the main members of NYAB group. A separate general assembly was formed under the leadership of Graeber that was finally transformed into the New York General Assembly (Gabbatt, 2011).

The NYAB group started holding meetings on formation of strong points and agenda for their protests and movements. Anonymous internet group also played an active role in gaining the attention of the public so that they could actively join and participate in their movement. The protests and movements started actively in various states of United States but the main place that was selected by most of the activist groups was New York City. The groups started strengthening their groups by actively demonstrating the social evils and issues of the society.

Facebook and Twitter were the two actively used social networking applications for demonstrating the aims and ...