Over Thanksgiving weekend I flew to New York to add my voice to the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement in Zucotti Park Manhattan.
Inspired by the news reports and especially the Stephen Colbert interview of Ketchup, a self-
proclaimed “autonomous person” or non-leader of the Occupy Wall Street movement, I set aside the
whole day to protest whatever OWS was protesting.
As I emerged from the subway I only had to walk one short block to the park. I anticipated a loud angry
crowd chanting slogans and displaying picket signs protesting the powers that be, and the inequity
between the rich and the poor in this country. A noble cause to be sure.
But alas, what I found was a comatose few and an emasculated movement.
I counted less than 100 people in the park. Gone was the encampment, gone were the tents and the
shelters, and gone were the picket signs.
I wandered around the park looking for someone who could tell me what had happened.
I approached a young man holding a modest sign against his chest saying “free conversations”. I asked
the young man metaphorically “where have all the flowers gone?”
He said he did not know. He said that he supposes that some were driven off by the police, others by the
cold and still others by sheer discouragement.
The occupation had been gutted. But what happened? Where was the passion? Where was Ketchup?
Perhaps the movement can be revived, perhaps not.
Is the movement the victim of a lack of clearly defined goals?
A perusal of the official website of the Occupy Wall Street movement http://occupywallst.org/ leaves
much to be desired in terms of well laid out goals. However, the problem is well defined and it is the
business of all Americans. We got fucked retarded by Wall Street and we’re mad as hell and we’re not
gonna take it anymore, at least symbolically.
But occupy Wall Street remains just that, a symbol, nothing more…
