RightChange: No Longer All Peace, Love, and Friendship at Occupy Wall Street

From the very beginning, the Occupy Wall Street movement has been leaderless. At first, their process of consensus decision-making seemed like a great way to get things done, but now it is becoming a little bit more difficult. Meetings of the General Assembly have become increasingly dramatic, and their direct democracy is starting to look very much like the partisan politics we see in Congress:

“With every proposal, there are questions and there are concerns, and the process continues and continues. The facilitators say numerous times the group has strayed off process. Questions are sometimes ignored for being "off-topic" even when they aren't, time constraints are cited and frustrations boil over. Occupiers curse, speak out of turn and sometimes they just keep on talking, despite "Mic Check" calls over them. Those on all sides alienate each other.”

Sure, Congress can sometimes be a pretty conflict-filled place, but that is understandable. Democrats and Republicans sit on opposite sides of the aisle and fight for limited resources. Consensus is not always guaranteed, but that’s the point.  

Since the birth of Occupy Wall Street, the protesters have said that the world would be a better place if it were turned over to the 99 percent. They think that they could do a better job running this country than our elected officials, but they obviously had no idea how difficult it was to make decisions for themselves. These people are all on the same team, they’re all fighting for the same things (even though we don’t really know what those things are), and they still can’t seem to agree! All along these people have been united, and now, when they have to put their silly rhetoric into practice, they are finally seeing that it’s really not as easy as it looks.

The protesters are also having a hard time figuring out how to deal with the freeloaders that have come to enjoy the festivities. On the east side of Zuccotti Park, the headquarters of the movement, you have the protesters that are serious about the message. On the west side, you have the bandwagoners who have come for all of the free food, clothing, bedding, etc.:

“The ‘model’ civilization that’s sprung up at Zuccotti is itself increasingly divided between the stakeholders in the nascent movement who feel invested in the emerging economic, social and cultural causes of “the 99%,” and hangers-on, including a fast-growing contingent of lawbreakers and lowlifes.”

These people are unsavory types who come to consume the very limited resources available, and are often engaged in drug deals and crime. They give the movement a bad reputation, and threaten to undermine everything they’ve done thus far (whatever that is). Because of this, the protesters want them gone.

Wait a second here. So you’re saying that you don’t want to share your limited resources with lazy freeloaders? You don’t want to take the clothes off of your own back and put them onto someone else’s? You don’t like people coming in and taking away everything you’ve worked for? Well neither does the 1 percent.

It seems like the Occupy Wall Street protesters are starting to get a little taste of their own medicine, and it is bitter. Maybe now they can understand how the other side feels whenever someone talks about taking money out of the pockets of hard working Americans and giving it to freeloaders who chose to camp in a park instead of looking for a job of their own.

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