A collection of articles on Occupy Wall Street

http://idealab.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/10/occupy-wall-street-demographic-survey-results-will-surprise-you.php?ref=fpa

"70 percent of the survey’s 1,619 respondents identified as politically independent, far-and-away the vast majority, compared to 27.3% Democrats and 2.4% self-identified Republicans.

A whopping 71.5% of the sample earns less than $50,000 per year.

50.4% reported full-time employment, and 'an additional 20.4% were employed part-time.'”

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/18/occupy-wall-street-hashtag_n_1017299.html

"The Occupy movement, decentralized and leaderless, has mobilized thousands of people around the world almost exclusively via the Internet. To a large degree through Twitter, and also with platforms like Facebook and Meetup, crowds have connected and gathered.

The first two weeks of the movement were slow, media coverage was slim and little happened beyond the taking of the concrete park itself. But then a demonstration on the Brooklyn Bridge prompted hundreds of arrests and the spark was ignited.

On October 1, #OccupyBoston started to show up on Twitter. Within a couple of weeks, #OccupyDenver and #OccupySD and others appeared."

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http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/10/occupation-force/

"On Sept. 17, Constitution Day, about 1,000 people assembled in lower Manhattan to protest Wall Street, the government’s bailout of too-big-to-fail banks, and the growing gap everywhere between rich and poor.
The world ignored them.

By Oct. 15, the occupation had spread to hundreds of cities, in America and across the world, and that Saturday witnessed mostly peaceful marches comprised of tens of thousands of citizens across the world."

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http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/OWS-The-Strategic-Brilliance-of-Facelessness-73530.html

"Demands would require a leader, someone to give a face and a name to the demands. Without formal demands, we are left to presume from the actions of the loose group that it is protesting the situation that drove the economic crisis in 2008, which has not been resolved to anyone's satisfaction and which is responsible for the dismal economic outlook -- especially for people in their 20s looking for their first real jobs.

So there's neither message nor demands, but with a nod and a wink we all know what's unspoken. But look at the effect this has. No spokesperson means no individual for the media to fixate on, and that means the message can't be diverted very easily.
At least in the Occupy Wall Street situation, there's no shortage of information, and it's readily available, as is the basic story (just as in North Africa, no one had to tell people they were oppressed by corrupt regimes). What's fascinating is the way people have chosen to use the Internet and what they know. They're curiously united but they keep their distance from the center of it all, which could easily bring the movement down.

In the days before all of our new social and mobile technology, it may have been necessary to operate close to the center with leaders and manifestos. How else could people rally others to their causes? Social media does that work now, and it is work done friend-to-friend. New technology has caused some people to think differently about how best to unite and get a message out. They are ahead of the curve, operating out of the reach of conventional media and political jujitsu. This is both instructive and beautiful -- like watching a no-hitter in progress."

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http://www.truth-out.org/rediscovering-civil-disobedience/1318944426

'As more Americans debate whether to leave the sidelines and join the Occupy Wall Street movement, we should heed Dr. King’s words. Our individual silence is a form of acquiescence, and we speak volumes not only through our action but also through our lack of it. Silence signals that we are okay with what’s happening, or that we have simply given up. While Occupy Wall Street has inspired a new level of consciousness in America, we have only just scratched the surface of what will be needed to shift the political economy of our country."