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Monday, February 25, 2013

2011: Year of revolution

You may not hear much about it now, but the Occupy Movement movement continues.  You know, the one that states "we are the 99%."  But before I expand on what's current with the movement, let me give a little more background.

The Occupy Wall Street movement started in Zuccotti Park in September 2011 and was soon followed by Occupy London, Occupy Oakland, and other Occupy <locale>s.  According to this article, "Occupy Wall Street: From A Blog Post To A Movement,"  by Bill Chappell, Occupy Wall Street was inspired by the Arab Spring. (The comments following this article are of interest.)  Both revolts began in 2011.  Many news sources cite the self-sacrifice of Mohamed Bouazizi in December, 2010, as the event that touched off the Arab Spring.  To help refresh your (and my) memory, here are timelines for the Occupy Movement and Arab Spring.

V masks became a symbol for the Occupy Wall Street movement, according to this article in the Huffington Post.


Also, a poster was produced by street artist Shephard Fairey


Currently two websites document and carry the Occupy Movement forward:  Occupy Wall Street and Occupy Together.  There are four Occupy offshoots -- Rolling Jubilee, Occupy Sandy, Occupy Our Homes, and Occupy Student Debt -- working on making a difference according to a blog post by Stephanie Whiteside at Current TV.  Two publications (that I know of) have news pages that regularly report Occupy news:  The Huffington Post and The Guardian.

By February 2012 all of the American protesters had been evicted and the movement essentially shut down.  Fortunately the Arab Spring fared better.

-- Marge

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