Occupy Wall Street Is United in Its Diversity

Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist David Cay Johnston wrote Friday that the Occupy Wall Street protests are unlike any demonstrations he has seen in more than 40 years, and that the reasons the movement differs so much are the same reasons why it could succeed in sparking major change.

The difference Johnston said he sees between Occupy Wall Street and other “anti-war, anti-rape, Tea Partiers” demonstrations is that rather than uniting around narrow, specific interests, people from all walks of life are expressing a wide array of views, but around a simple, common theme: The “bankers are ripping off America.”

Johnston also noted that two secondary ideas within the larger theme seem to be driving the protests: that the super-rich control America’s politicians, and that almost all media report events from the perspective of the rich.

Finally, here’s one mainstream media personality who recognizes that the movement is not hampered by championing divergent messages, but rather is united in its diversity. –BF

David Cay Johnston for Reuters:

Pay close attention to the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations in New York and around the United States, especially if the protests endure through the cold months into the election year spring or if the New York police are ordered to violently end the demonstrations, which would ensure they spread.

The protests show signs of sparking a major change in U.S. politics by creating common ground among people with wildly divergent views. The key to their significance will be whether they foster a wholesale change in political leadership in 2013 or whether Americans return a vast majority of incumbents in both parties at all levels of government.

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