An Occupy Wall Street protestor. Photo credit: _PaulS_ http://www.flickr.com/photos/kapkap/6189131120/sizes/m/in/photostream/
The Occupy Wall Street anti-capitalist protests, which began on 17th September, continue in New York. Now they’ve set out their propositions (punchily listed here). The protests have attracted worldwide media attention but occupier numbers are dwindling. So, what have we learned from the Occupy Wall Street protests?
1. Capitalist famewhores. Hazem Sayed, the founder of mobile messenging service Vibe, the network which has been used by protesters to tell each other what is going down and been nicknamed the “Anarchist Twitter”, is a “wholly capitalist famewhore”, according to Gawker. Earlier this year, he paid a college student $900 for her #1 spot in line for the iPad 2 in order to promote his company Zami, which makes Vibe. Gawker didn’t have have much sympathy for the movement, and, in another article, referred to then as “dirty fucking spoiled computer-wielding scumbucket hippie monsters.”
2. The ‘hood’ needs to join protests. The “hood” needs to be the first community to occupy Wall Street, said civil rights campaigner and philosopher Dr Cornel West on Youtube. It’s a “moral disgrace” that black children live in poverty in the richest country in the world, insisted West.
3. Occupy what? The Occupy Wall Street protest isn’t actually on Wall Street. It’s nearby, in Zucotti Park, which is actually owned by a company called Brookfield Office Properties, that’s getting “increasingly annoyed” with the protestors.
“Look at these kids, sitting here with their Apple computers,” Adam Sarzen, who works on the New York Stock Exchange, told The New York Times. “Apple, one of the biggest monopolies in the world. It trades at $400 a share. Do they even know that?”
4. The protesters demands vary wildly. ““I want to get rid of the combustion engine,” John McKibben, an activist from Vermont, told The New York Times.“I want to create spectacles,” Becky Wartell, a recent graduate of the College of the Atlantic in Maine, said.
5. There is a designated cigarette roller. He’s called Micah. It “isn’t a defined role,” according to Micah, “but we got a lot of donated tobacco,” he told Vice magazine, adding that “not only does it suppress the libido of the group, it also keeps stress down.”
More on protest movements
- Occupy Wall Street
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- Are celebrities hackers’ new targets?
- Trolling and cyberbullying
- Attention Hollywood! Hackers are after you!
