Occupy Everywhere

The first time I heard about the Occupy Wall Street movement was when one of my classmates told me about it a few days before the OWS movement began. The movement was introduced to me by this classmate as a protest to get justice for when the housing bubble had burst. At first based off of this statement the movement, I was for the movement, but lately my opinion of the movement has been slowly changing

When the Occupy movement began on September 17, it seemed as if many people and the news media did not take it very serious. Of course this usually happens with every movement or protest. Many people were saying that the movement was not very organized and the were not sure what they were protesting.

In response to those people, the movement wrote up the 99% Declaration, in which they stated 21 demands. Some of these demands included:

· Elimination of all private benefits to politicians

· Term limit reform of Senators and Representatives

· Fair tax code

· Healthcare for all

· Environment protection

· Debt reduction

· Jobs for all Americans

· Student loan forgiveness

· Immigration reform

· Education reform

· End outsourcing

· Gay marriage

When you look at this list of demands, almost all Americans can agree with at least one or more of these demands. At the same time, almost all Americans could disagree with one or more of these demands as well. Is this what they were trying to achieve? Were they hoping to gain support with people who don't mind disagreeing with one of their demands as long as they agree with a few of them?

What can the movement do to increase support for their movement and demands? The movement needs to become more organized and become a party like the tea party. Then they would be able to protest each demand instead of just having a broad protest on all of the demands. For instance, if the Occupy Wall Street Movement had a protest on Term Limit Reform, I think many people would agree with them on that specific subject. This would gain support not only on that specific protest but other people may take a look at what the rest of the OWS party represents and possibly support them as a whole. Politicians may listen to these demands better this way as well. If the OWS was an organized party the could put people in office and endorse politicians too.

The organization of this movement is not the only thing that has made me change my position in them. The destruction and crimes that have been going on with OWS is definitely part of that too. Now i understand that some of this may just be individuals and not the movement as a whole, but they need to police their own in order to be taken serious.