Experiencing Occupy Wall Street

What is Operation Wall St?  Suddenly, the protests in NYC are all over the news and similar “Occupy” movements are popping up all over the country.  People are talking about it online and off, and the two most commonly expressed feelings I’ve seen are of general support for the movement or guarded skepticism and vague complaints about the protesters not having a coherent message.  Do they have a message?  Do they have policy recommendations?  Do they have ideas of how to implement change? 

            I found myself suddenly needing to find out for myself.  I scanned the newspapers, but it the spin was immediately apparent, from the NY Times to Fox.  Perhaps unsurprisingly it was a tech/nerd blog, BoingBoing, that seemed to be the clearest, posting videos, unedited interviews, and various unofficial ‘demands’, many of which were later seized upon by official news channels as the general demands of the movement.  Clearly, there was not one set of demands, nor one group even leading this thing.  My confusion mounted, but I felt moved by what I’d read online, and after the demonstration of the effectiveness of protest and passive resistance that we saw in the “Arab Spring” especially in Egypt, I began to hope.  Could this be the beginning of something bigger?  If so, should I get involved? 

            Of course, the only way to find out what the deal is would be to actually go down there, so that’s what I did.  No, I didn’t camp, I just went down for the day, but part of me wanted to move in.  Another part of me wanted to run home and take a shower.  I was there for the whole afternoon and into the evening, and when I got home I was exhausted.  It was just too much for simple yogi like me to take in.  I reflected, I thought, and I decided I should share my thoughts with you. 

            I’ve divided what I’d originally written up into several parts, as there’s a lot to say, and I’ve only scratched the surface. I’m going to try to describe the facts on the ground first and keep the analysis for later.  My apologies if I can’t keep things too unbiased, as I clearly have strong feelings on this topic.