#ows ♦ Why Occupy? ♦ Alex Madrigal senior editor The Atlantic ♦

Why Occupy?


Alex Madrigal, The Atlantic, 1 December 2011


This a short clear piece covering the main answers, including the idea that #ows [s] may be trying to impede the state [s] in ways Assange envisions.

Madrigal scotches that one.

I like the rather eloquent end-piece:

So, why occupy? The point is not to hold a city park. The point is to dramatize the struggle of weak against strong, which is also the struggle of poor against rich. If the dominant theme of the occupations is, as Jay Rosen succinctly put it, “public policy favors the rich,” then having the public police arrest the weak becomes a powerful metaphor for the message of the movement.

He links to Aaron Brady’s 29 November 2010 post,Julian Assange and the Computer Conspiracy; “To destroy this invisible government”, in his blog zunguzungu.

Brady in his turn links to Simon Jenkin’s, Guardian article, US embassy cables: The job of the media is not to protect the powerful from embarrassment (“It is for governments – not journalists – to guard public secrets, and there is no national jeopardy in WikiLeaks’ revelations”).

Social media and the Wall Street protests – title : #Occupytheweb

Social media and the Wall Street protests


#Occupytheweb


From Democracy in America Blog, Economist, 11 October 2011

While the so-called “Facebook revolutions” in the Arab world were nothing of the sort*, what’s going on in America right now may be the world’s first genuine social-media uprising.