Occupy the World

According to their official website, the Occupy Movement’s uniting quality is the belief that they are “the 99% that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1%.” Their protesters feel that the 1% have wronged them and are keeping the jobs away from them and so they must send a message to the elite.

Their response to being jobless is not to be active in finding work, but rather to be completely unproductive and actually inhibit those who have jobs and are creating jobs.

To gain support, the Occupy movement is trying to impede commerce and government as much as possible. In Oakland, the protesters shut down one of the world’s busiest ports for a day. By doing so they cost 11,000 workers their wages for the shifts that had to be canceled due to the protests. In Denver, they attempted to overrun the capitol and disrupt the state government, but were repelled by the police with riot gear and pepper spray. On Wall Street, 21 people lost their jobs at the Milk Street Café due to a decrease in pedestrian traffic in the area.

This seems to be counter-intuitive to their movement. Instead of sending a message to the 1%, the Occupy Movement is directly hurting the 99%.

Beyond interrupting commerce and governmental affairs, the Occupy movement has not had the best report with the police. So far, authorities have made over 2,000 arrests due to curfew violations, trespassing, vandalism, and assaults. These protesters have required large amounts of police interaction to ensure the safety of the other civilians.

And even though the Occupy movement’s website asks for all to remain peaceful, their tactics have proven the opposite. Combine this with hindrances to local economies, and the movement has developed into a major nuisance.

With a lack of clear goals and a general, unified purpose, the Occupy movement will go in one of two directions. Either they will dissolve once winter hits and it becomes too cold to sit around outside doing nothing, or they will grow into a true Arab Spring revolution and cause even greater political, economic, and social unrest. If this is the case, the Occupy movement will most likely turn into a bad dream.