Occupy Wall Street, the national protests that were sparked in New York City’s Zuccotti Park on September 17, 2001, headlined the anger of the 99% whose futures have been derailed by the financial elites of the country and their political executors. While uneasily tolerating the mushrooming protests for a month, all the while investing in elaborate security systems to protect their wealth and holdings from mass anger, Wall Street called in the national authority to pull the plug.
“Come, I will make the continent indissoluble… O Democracy” once sang Walt Whitman, the 19th-century US poet laureate. With the unrest in Oakland, Portland, Berkeley, New York City, spanning the indissoluble continent as it were, democracy has once more become an unknown quantity, subject to definition.
Iraq War veteran, Ross Caputi, writes about his thoughts on the role of veterans in the Occupy movement. The author is a Marine Corps veteran of the second siege of Fallujah and a member of March Forward! He is the founder of the Justice for Fallujah Project, which hosted various events during the second annual Remember Fallujah Week, November 16-19, 2011.
Iraq War veteran, Ross Caputi, writes about his thoughts on the role of veterans in the Occupy movement. The author is a Marine Corps veteran of the second siege of Fallujah and a member of March Forward! He is the founder of the Justice for Fallujah Project, which hosted various events during the second annual Remember Fallujah Week, November 16-19, 2011.
Perhaps the most comforting thing in a revolution, in the midst of angst, bloodshed, and existential fear, is food. Steaming hot victuals, nourishing a tired body; the pleasure of breaking bread with compatriots in arms, cementing the fellowship you have formed under the hail of bullets, police batons, and clouds of tear gas.
It is an open question whether the Occupy Wall Street Movement will achieve its objectives. Launched on September 17, it has not only lasted much longer than most observers had anticipated, it has also gone global. On October 15, there were rallies in 82 countries worldwide from east to west and north to south.