The little stream of protest called “Occupy Wall Street” may soon turn into a torrent. The protest, which began on September 17 with 3,000 protesters, appears to be spreading both to other groups and unions and other cities. (Twitter is awash with calls to “occupy Boston” tonight). Crain’s quoted a political consultant as saying: “It’s become too big to ignore.” This week the protest may be becoming even larger as a result of support from unions and community organizations. See “Occupy Wall Street Protests Posed to Grow Rapidly With Union Support.” (TPM Idea Lab).
The list of supportive unions and community organizations reportedly includes:
- The Air Line Pilots Association
- The New York Transit Workers Union Local 100 (38,000 active members)
- United NY
- Strong Economy For All Coalition
- Working Families Party
- VOCAL-NY
- Community Voices Heard
- Alliance for Quality Education
- New York Communities for Change
- Coalition for the Homeless
In fact, 700-plus uniformed pilots representing the Air Line Pilots Association demonstrated on Wall Street recently. That was followed by a unanimous vote by the New York Transit Workers Union Local 100 to support Occupy Wall Street. That was followed by a Twitter message from the New York Transit Workers Union urging members to join the protest on Wall Street.
“It’s a responsibility for the progressive organizations in this town to show their support .’ They’re speaking about issues we’re trying to speak about,” Jon Kest, executive director of New York Communities for Change, was quoted as saying.
According to a recent article by Glenn Greenwald at Salon.com, the basic message of the “Occupy Wall Street” movement appears to be that “Wall Street is oozing corruption and criminality and its unrestrained political power ? in the form of crony capitalism and ownership of political institutions ? is destroying financial security for everyone else.”
“Occupy Wall Street” has grass roots authenticity. When going up against institutional power, hand-drawn signs are more effective than slick power points. It could snowball. All revolutions started small. In today’s hyper-connected world, it’s the kind of thing that could get out of hand.
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