On September 17, hundreds of Americans took to Wall Street in protest of the greed, corporatism and overall lack of social justice in the United States. Most media outlets initially did not cover the mass action. Understandable considering who their sponsors and investors are: the very corporate ilk that the demonstrations were targeting. Now, today, we remember the beginning of America's downfall: October 7, 2001, when America went to war against the Taliban in Afghanistan. A decade on and another way is brewing and it is called “Occupy Wall Street.” Americans have simply had enough. People can no longer survive on the current economic situation facing the country. One must look 90 years in the past to see a time when wealth disparity was at its current levels. We all know what happened then; the Great Depression. The present prospects for a new depression seem so close, almost edible. The activists, facing down beatings, arrests and scorn, have shown that the war for America has finally come. One of the brainchild's of the movement, Kalle Lasn, co-founder of the venerable counterculture magazine AdBusters, took to the micro-blogging website Twitter and other websites to help organize the campaign encouraging tens of thousands of Americans to have a nonviolent sit-in last month in lower Manhattan. While initially, only a few hundred arrived, in the three weeks since that first day, thousands more have banded together to join the New York protests, even spreading to other American cities. Unions have joined forces with everyday citizens on a grassroots level, campaigning and raising awareness against greed and social injustice. It is about time. The Occupy Wall Street protesters are a mix of young and old, and they come from an assortment of backgrounds, creeds and classes. It is, in many ways, a symbol of Americanism that we have not witnessed since the 1960s. Certainly, it is easy to criticize their tactics, and their initial desire to link themselves to the Arab Spring. In recent days, however, as police crackdown, arrest and beat protesters, it has become a uniquely American enterprise, and that is good for the country. In many ways, the Occupy Wall Street protests across America, which are gaining steam and hopefully will not be silenced by corporate media or those pesky top one percent who have lavishly destroyed America, is the culmination of that fateful day in 2001, when America told the world they could do want they wanted, when they wanted. Now its own citizens are fed up and striking back in the most appropriate manner possible: grassroots action. On networks and in articles, many commentators have been critical of the protests, saying they are not creating a movement for change that all Americans can get behind. How wrong they will be. We have seen more and more people, who have been silence for decades, speak out against the current economic prospects, voicing rightly that the foreign wars America has gotten involved in since 2001 have cost America more than it has gained. The statistics have shown the money we have spent on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the bailouts and the mismanagement of social projects has left America in a state that only the people will be able to resolve. And they finally are. It is easier to condemn and criticize from afar, but let us not forget that for years leading up to the Arab Spring, commentators and observers continued to say social change wouldn't happen, people were too afraid, those “Arabs” didn't know how to take their destiny in their own hands, and so on. They were wrong. The Middle East has exploded in change. It will come. It won't be easy, but it will be manifested. There is no doubt. In America, having gone through two wars, economic collapse and a social structure that is unsustainable, the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations are the only true hope for change in America. The “sleeping giant” has been awakened for the first time in decades and it is time we all join together and support them in any way possible. The future of America is in their hands. If the Goliaths of the corporate world win out, then we have truly lost. We can all Occupy Wall Street in our own way and it is time we stood up to the injustices perpetrated against us, Americans, and against others in our name. BM
