Wanderlust: Trials and Tribulations in Occupying the World

Three weeks ago Brian, Deb and I visited the Occupy Burque protest on UNM campus. This protest is an offshoot of the Occupy Wall Street demonstration, which began on September 17^th . I have two major concerns with the Occupy ABQ branch but before I address those concerns I think it may be best to place the Occupy movement in a broader social and historical context.

Below is the mission statement of the Occupy Wall Street protesters. This was taken from their website: www.occupywallst.org.

Occupy Wall Street is leaderless resistance movement with people of many colors, genders and political persuasions. The one thing we all have in common is that We Are The 99% that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1%. We are using the revolutionary Arab Spring tactic to achieve our ends and encourage the use of nonviolence to maximize the safety of all participants.

This #ows movement empowers real people to create real change from the bottom up. We want to see a general assembly in every backyard, on every street corner because we don't need Wall Street and we don't need politicians to build a better society.

In this mission statement the Wall Street protesters are identifying three main components of their protest:

· Who has a right to protest: everyone

· Who are they protesting against: Wall Street and politicians

· How are they protesting: By creating general assemblies

Here’s the problem though, every US citizen is implicated as an “enemy.” Unfortunately, Wall Street is the backbone of our capitalist economy. Every product we consume is produced based on the foundationalist belief that someone will buy it. What I mean is capitalism is controlled by the consumer. As long as we consume products that we have bought from a store and that have been manufactured by a company we are supporting “Wall Street.” Wall Street in this sense then is capitalism and a consumerist society. I agree that there needs to be a shift in the American mentality of over consumption and greed. What I find difficult and problematic about the Occupy Wall Street protest is that they are not outlining clear tactics and strategies to create this shift and they are not clearly defining specific persons or entities as the focus of the protest. The Occupy movement has traveled across the world. Protests are sprouting up everywhere but little change has been made.

The Occupy Wall Street mission claims to be leaderless, however, there must be people organizing the occupation. The mere logistics of physically sustaining a massive crowd of people takes man power. If this power was harnessed in creating a rhetorical infrastructure the protest would be much more effective. I fundamentally agree with the ideology of the protesters but a pragmatic approach with clear tactics and strategies must be implemented in order to create change. This was most evident at the Occupy Burque camp on UNM campus which was greatly unorganized and quickly dismantled by APD. Granted there is power in occupying a space but rhetorical and political power comes from constructing a clear and precise agenda and then executing it effectively.