Thoughts on Occupy Wall Street

After three years as an undergraduate student, I feel like I’m emerging from a hole in the ground when it comes to current events.  I’ve been making a habit of cruising through news channels semi-regularly since I started graduate school for the purpose of just staying informed as to the goings-on in the world.  Of course, one of the big news stories for more than a month now has been the Occupy Wall Street movement, which has spawned numerous offshoots that reach not only across the United States but the world.

So, some observations of mine from the movement and the associated news articles:

Their concerns are legitimate

Yes, corporate greed is out of control.  Yes, the United States are rightfully angered by the fact that corporations, judged “too big to fail” by the political powers that be, are bailed out using taxpayer money while taxpayers receive no bailouts from the government to help pay off the bills heaped on us by the very corporations that are being bailed out.  Very few people will argue with that; most everyone knows that the current arrangement is not sustainable in any fashion.

Their primary goal is to be heard

They aren’t politically motivated; this is not a group that wants to become a new, larger and more successful version of the Tea Party (though both groups have similar concerns).  They aren’t trying to appeal to any particular demographic; it is a movement that is reaching out to people from every economic position, every race, color, political ideology, religion and local place.  Their goal is not to push a new bill through Congress; their goal is to be heard by a political and social elite that has been doing its best to ignore them.

Despite the good, there is a danger that should be acknowledged

Remember what happened in London this last summer?  A perfectly legitimate protest against a police shooting of an innocent man mushroomed into several weeks’ worth of unrest and looting, a situation that had the London police force stretched beyond its capacity to effectively address.  Could that happen in the United States?  Well, the better question is “would any of us have imagined it happening in London.”  For most of us, the answer is “no,” yet it happened.

Unfortunately, when a civil restlessness leads to rioting – even for legitimate causes – there are opportunists who will seize the opportunity to their own advantage, which could lead to a similar situation.  The other problem I see is that, like the Occupy Wall Street movement, such an uprising could spread quickly.

Now obviously, it is only a possibility that Occupy Wall Street will take such a dark turn.  Only time will tell how this will all play out.

SfC