PRSSA at SIUC

By Jacob Teel

As we all know, on November 17 around 2,000 people crowded Wall St in NY, and originally 150 of those people stayed the night and began the encampment. The group’s main goal was to protest against bank bailouts, corporate greed, and the unchecked power of Wall St in Washington, DC. The protest has had great success but many people, along with myself, do not understand the clear message of what the groups actually want. As I have not followed this movement too much at all, I have only read and seen certain articles on the internet and Youtube. From what I gather from all this chaos, is that the majority of people ‘occupying’ places in the US do not even know for certain what in fact they are protesting, some seem to be in theprotest for social reasons as well as just to the fun of doing something new. One video I watched on Youtube was about a college student holding a sign that read “Throw me a bone. Pay off my tuition.” When the cameraman interviewed himon what he meant by his sign, the young man started giving off what he thought were factual statements about the greedy people in charge of Wall Street were doing to the average American. To the student’s surprise, every statement he gave was actually false and not true by any means. As the cameraman started asking why the student thinks his tuition should be paid off by the government, the student had really no reasonable answer and ended the interview by saying “It’s my right as an American to protest, so I can say whatever I want.” The same person that did this interview has done many others on Youtube, and some watching people try to make up valid reasons why their anger at the government can be very amusing.

Being some what in the middle of the political spectrum, I can see why so many Americans are upset with the way our government has treated them in the past years, but would never protest unless I had a valid reason to protest and a good list of what the people wanted to bedone was made. Until the group makes clear on exactly what they want, I wil lnot be convinced that this is nothing more than a cry for attention of those who don’t have any idea on what’s going on in our government. Hopefully if the group is serious, they will soon make their demands more visible and we might be able to see some actual change in our government.