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Is public opinion turning against the Occupy Wall Street movement?
Results so far:
| Yes | 43% | 399 votes | Total: 926 votes | |
| No | 57% | 527 votes |
Yes
by Carolyn Tytler
Created on: December 03, 2011
The protesters in the Occupy Wall Street movement have made their point. There is an unfair division of wealth in North America and other industrialized nations around the world. The very rich continue to accumulate wealth while the poor only seem to become more poverty-stricken as time passes. The middle classes, slowly losing ground in the continual battle for economic sustainability, may soon disappear altogether.
The protesters have succeeded in focusing media spotlight on their cause: the necessity to arrange a more equitable distribution of society's assets. Although they have been unable to suggest a viable plan to accomplish this, they have clarified the goal toward which politically-astute and ethical minds should strive. Our planet's rich resources could provide everyone the means to live in dignity, supplied with every necessity, if only the "haves" among us could overcome their greed and learn to share with the "have-nots".
What will the protesters gain by continuing their occupation?
Honestly, they are becoming an annoyance. By usurping public spaces, they are inconveniencing the public, who must go out of their way to travel around the encampments. Furthermore, people who may wish to use the occupied areas for other purposes, are unable to do so.
Some protesters are attracting bad publicity because of illicit drug use and other irresponsible behaviors. Occupied areas have become litter-strewn and unsanitary. There have even been some unexplained deaths. In northern areas, as frigid winter temperatures set in, illness, frostbite, and lack of proper facilities will make conditions in the campsites even more deplorable.
The public is beginning to wonder about the protesters themselves. Why do they have weeks and weeks of free time to occupy public areas? Even though good jobs are presently at a premium, there are minimum-wage jobs available. Surely it would be better to flip burgers at MacDonald's than to freeze to death in a public park bemoaning one's fate at the hands of a heartless society.
In addition, hundreds of volunteer agencies in every city are crying for volunteers. Now that the protesters have made their point with demonstrations, should they not put their time to better use trying to improve conditions for everyone? While they await the advent of a more equitable distribution of society's material assets, could they not share their own time and talents with people even less fortunate than themselves?
Public opinion is indeed turning against the Occupy Wall Street movement. The longer the protesters drag out their occupations, the more sympathy they will sacrifice and the greater antagonism they will attract. They may end up accomplishing just the opposite to what they originally intended.
The public will label them as lazy, dirty, hippie-type anarchists who deserve to be exactly where they are, at the bottom of the social scale, because obviously, they are unwilling to put any effort into bettering their own situations. That outcome would indeed be a shame, because the protesters' original intent and methodology were praiseworthy and effective. They have just dragged the whole operation out too long.
Learn more about this author, Carolyn Tytler.
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No
by Joseph Malek
Created on: December 04, 2011 Last Updated: December 07, 2011
The "Occupy Wall Street" movement is growing as each day passes. Further, they are nothing more than the use of our right to express an opinion in the form of a peaceful public demonstration. If you remember, the late Dr. Martin Luther King was the leader of many such public demonstrations and there are similar reasons for the current movement against "The Establishment." That being, the quest for equal rights and to put an end to discrimination within the market place, as well as the society in which we all reside.
People have to earn money, in order to remain healthy and alive. To accomplish that goal they need a job or they must be employed by an employer who will not outsource that job anytime within the future. As such, the employers of our World have gained an unfair advantage over every person who has to work for a corporation, business or some other person. Greed seems to be the primary motivation of every owner and/or controller of every multinational corporation, as well as other huge business enterprises that do business within the United States of America.
The actions taken by the owners and the controllers of Wall Street continue to suck the wealth out of working people by enacting very tight credit policies that hurt the finances of working people and small business people more than such policies hurt other economic groups within the economy.
More than 14,000,000 people are currently unemployed, many millions of which lost their primary means of employment to a foreigner within a foreign country. As a matter of fact, very few products are still being made within the United States of America and many of the natural resources within the country are being shipped out of the country, to be made into finished products, some of which are sold to people within the United States of America.
Therein is the primary cause of the increase of the "National Debt." Therein is the primary cause for the huge increase in the rate of inflation and the increase in the number of business people who have gone bankrupt. Therein is the primary cause for why tens of thousands of people have or will lose their home within the near future.
The elected politicians within the Government of the United States of America must be made aware of the injustices that are being committed by those who control most of the wealth within the country, if not the entire World. Such peaceful public demonstrations make those elected politicians aware of that fact and it is their responsibility to correct such injustices so that we may all be considered as having the same rights that are available to the richest people on Earth.
Learn more about this author, Joseph Malek.
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