US Elections

The 99% are being heard... even in Sydney

By Louisa Vanderkruk in Sydney, Australia

5 October 2011

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There’s been something going on in New York City for a couple of weeks that is gathering momentum and starting to spread.

On Saturday September 17 (Day 1), around 1 000 protesters responded to a campaign by the anti-consumerist magazine Adbusters and arrived with sleeping bags and friends to "Occupy Wall Street." They set up camp in Zuccotti Park in the financial district and have remained there ever since. Their message is, "We are the 99 per cent that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1 per cent."

The movement is protesting America’s wealth inequality and the concentration of political power and influence in the hands of corporations and the wealthy few. Inequality of wealth distribution in the US has been expanding in recent decades, yet, up until now, the average American seemed not to have realised. The wealthiest 20 per cent control 85 per cent of the country’s wealth, yet a survey conducted in 2008 by Harvard Business School reported that Americans believed the top 20 per cent controlled only 30 per cent of the wealth. Sobering statistics recently published on Mother Jones show:

• Average American CEO pay is 185 times the average worker pay.
• Average income for 90 per cent of Americans was $31k; for the top 10 per cent it was $165k; and for the top 1 per cent it was over $27 million in 2008.
• The effective tax rate for millionaires has fallen 15 per cent in the last 25 years.
• The distance between Joe Average on the median income and the American super rich hit a peak just prior to the financial crisis.

President Obama’s administration is attempting to address some of the issues underpinning wealth inequality. The Occupy Wall Street protests began one week after President Obama submitted his American Jobs Act to Congress with repeated public demands for them to "pass this bill" to help boost the economy and get some of the nearly 10 per cent unemployed back to work. And one day after the protests began, Obama announced proposals for five principles of tax reform, including the "Buffett Rule," named after Warren Buffett, one of the world’s richest men, who champions a belief he should not pay less federal taxes than his secretary.

The Occupy Wall Street protest gained momentum when police arrested 80 protesters (Day 8), and video footage of female protestors being maced by NYPD officers ws uploaded to the Internet. Large orange nets were used to corral the crowds. Celebrity activists Noam Chomsky, Michael Moore (Day 10), and actress Susan Sarandon (Day 11) have lent their fame, and trade unions, including the powerful transport workers (Day 13) and teachers unions, have pledged support (Day 15). The protest has since turned into a large march from Manhattan over the Brooklyn Bridge, resulting in the bridge's closure and the arrest of up to 700 protesters for blocking traffic lanes.

With an organising committee called the NYC General Assembly, public donations, hacker supported live streaming video, social media updates and even their own broadsheet newspaper called The Occupied Wall Street Journal, the movement has started to spread to other American cities, including Boston and Chicago.

Could it be that the Occupy Wall Street protests are the beginning of a more liberal, secular, and progressive version of the Tea Party? Both the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street movements are unhappy with the status quo and believe that America is going in the wrong direction, albeit for different reasons. At this stage the Occupy Wall Streeters are still at the "We know that we’re angry" stage, and have yet to articulate any solutions or tangible demands beyond a fervent desire for change. However, the movement is a valid expression of public dissatisfaction that America is no longer the land of social mobility, equality or opportunity it was once thought to be.

Tags: Guest Post, New York City, Occupy Wall Street, Protest

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