Most of you are probably aware that a protest movement is taking place in the US. The main protest is going on in New York, but there have been a number of protests in other cities as well.

Essentially, the protesters are opposed to the idea that 1% of the population takes away so much wealth. The fact that in recent hard economic times, the richest people have continued getting richer, does tend to give some support to the idea that things aren't working the way they should.

Here's the rub - the Occupy Wall Street movement hasn't nominated specific goals. They want the President to create a specific department which aims to separate money from politics. That's about it. No real specifics there.

At the moment the movement is divided - do they

A) Create more specific goals and press forward, risking fragmentation and increased pressure, or
B) Continue largely unfocused in the hope of attracting more participants and forming more of a critical mass that can press the government for action.

Thoughts are divided. I'm all for option A, because I'm the kind of person who wants to know exactly what I'm supporting before I throw my support behind a cause. Whilst I agree with the sentiment, I want to know more about how something like that can be implemented.

But that's just my two cents. What do you think?

If you're in one of the capital cities then go to the "occupation" starting today.
It's the usual suspects as far as I can tell, the Greens, Socialist Alternative/Resistance, ILO affiliates,Anarcho Communists and such, the controlled opposition in other words.
I don't give the "occupations" in the U.S much credit, it all seems just like another staged "Tea Party" style campaign, albeit with a Leftist flavour.
It's all so middle class.
It's funny, I'm reading a book on Australian republicanism at the moment and I'm reminded of Horatio Wills and his short lived "Currency Lad" movement.
He had to discontinue his newspaper when the owners of the printing press he was using objected that his calls for independance might be sullying the name of their mainstream publications.
Then his Nativist "Lads" cooked up the brilliant plan of challenging the English "Foreigners" to a cricket match/drinking competition to settle the issue of who was the superior race.
That about sums up my feeling on any "occupations" taking place in Australia, they'll take the same aimless, laconic, meandering path that activism always takes in this country.
Then because the beer is cold,the sun is hot and the cricket season approacheth the revolutionaries will retire to their watering holes for the usual earnest discussion of what a great statement they've made.
The Currency Lad's main gripe with the NSW corps was over the shortage of alchohol, that revolution could have been nipped in the bud by giving him more beer.
What would mollify the "occupiers"?
Gay marriage?
More trams?
Community processing of irregular migrants?

Too easy.

Jay, tremendously cynical and probably accurate.

Cynical yes and true maybe.
But in the strangest way it proves action, needed very much so, may be pointless.
Some will say I am quite mad, but such activism as is proposed here has taken place before.
It is the very thing we found good in the Arab spring.
Bad in the UK riots.
Others understood Veterans marches on Washington.
Australia's 300.000 marching against the Asian war, thought then to be unpatriotic.
Who thinks that now.
Do we want to remember America shooting dead its youth in places of learning for protesting?
And Martin Luther king marching for freedom, then, like very many Lynched Negro's dieing for it.
For every e mail, we all get them, depicting Obama as a monkey.
A protester as a left green fool.
A right wing nut steps up, to prove we all may be.
Now for my unpopular thought.
America, its CIA its FBI while telling us no Mafia existed, was introducing drug Culture to,its youth, why?
To use funds raised in other things yes.
But to control protesting stop it, and it will continue.
I ask this question.
In my thread about one world government,and here.
Why do these folk think they need to protest.
And who f us [NOT ME FOR SURE] think every thing is ok?

TRTL
If the Occupy Wall Street Movement was putting themselves up for alternative government or offering themselves as an alternative party, I would want to know more, thus Option A would be appropriate.

However as a protest against 'greed' (for lack of a better sentence for the moment as time is pressing) and the imbalance of power/wealth I am all for it.

Grass roots movements have a place in this context.

Hey Pelican,
I'm all for a good rally, just treat it as the sport that it is.
Everyone feels good after a bit of a chant and a walk around, you get to sit in the sun if you're lucky and hear some speeches, read a few pamphlets.
Last one I went to I bought an amusing badge from a cute Socialist Alternative girl, it bears the following slogan:
http://profile.ak.fbcdn.net/hprofile-ak-snc4/41569_2321469211_4040042_n.jpg

If anyone's going, take your own water, they charge up to $4 a bottle in the CBD.