Occupy Detroit: Can Protestors Win?
By Christy Strawser, CBS Detroit Managing Editor
Detroit is occupied. Protestors have pitched their tents in Grand Circus Park, unfurled their posters and made their statements.
What began as a protest on Wall Street about the distribution of wealth in the United States has spread like water on concrete. Without a leader, specific demands or an organizational structure, the Occupy Wall Street movement spread from New York to Tampa, Fla., to Detroit, and could soon go global. There's talk of "Occupy China."
The movement has garnered a reported $300,000 in donations, and food pours in for New York City protestors.
The protest is loosely based on the latest numbers showing the wealthiest 1 percent hold an estimated 40 percent of the country's economic resources, take home 24 percent of the national income, and own half the country's mutual funds, stocks and bonds.
But what do they want in Detroit or anywhere else -- Tax code revisions? A plan for redistribution of wealth? A cap on Wall Street bonuses or bank profits?
Your guess is as good as anyone else's.
The hope appears to be an anti-corporate stance will awaken Americans to economic inequality and convince us to take action -- some kind of undefined action -- though protestors are slowly starting to move in the direction of naming demands. The New York Times reported a loose coalition of leaders is starting to gather.
So far, the Times reported, protest leaders have agreed on two categories for demands: jobs for all, and civil rights.
In Detroit, WWJ newsradio found a broad array of demands from the 200 or so protestors who have set up camp. Some said they want the war to end in Afghanistan, others are distressed about the bank bailouts of 2008, and/or the tax code that cuts breaks for the richest 1 percent.
"...People got to speak – and raise some hell," one protestor in Detroit told WWJ.
But no matter which side of the ideological aisle you occupy, there are serious questions to be answered about the effectiveness of the movement and how well it's serving this very serious issue. With no objectives on which to declare victory, can they ever really win?
