Occupy America? The Occupy Wall Street Movement Spreads Across the Nation

ForexTV NewsDesk   |  October 4 2011 12:15 EDT

ForexTV.com (New York) by Sterling Wong

It started out as a small protest movement that the mainstream media paid scant attention to, but 18 days into the protest, Occupy Wall Street has increasingly become the focus of national attention, and the movement has spread beyond New York City.

Similar demonstrations and marches have arisen or have been planned across the nation, in cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago and Boston. The movement has even gone international to cities in Australia (Adelaide), Ireland (Cork) and Germany (Cologne).

Indeed, while the media had initially been dismissed as a flash in the pan, many news outlets and political analysts are now taking the burgeoning Occupy Wall Street movement as a legitimate mass movement. A CBS News headline reads, “Why “Occupy Wall Street” captures the moment.” Meanwhile, another on the New York Times’ Dealbook Web Site says, “On Wall Street, a Protest Matures.”

The protest was at first criticized for lacking specific goals, but the message it aims to send out, that of highlighting the chasm between the very wealthy and the rest of the population and the collusion between Washington and Wall Street, and also demanding accountability for the financial collapse of 2008, seems to have resonated with the country.

Though it began as a grassroots protest, Occupy Wall Street has since garnered the support some prominent traditional liberal organizations, including labor unions like the United Federation of Teachers and the Transport Workers Union.

This movement is now expected to take root and go the distance, much like how the Tea Party has become entrenched in the political discourse of the country.  

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