What does ‘Occupy Wall Street’ want?

What does ‘Occupy Wall Street’ want?

Two weeks ago, I was walking through New York when I stumbled on a crowd chanting angrily at a mass of police. “They’re arresting them,” someone said to me. “Who?” I asked. “The Occupy Wall Streeters,” he said. Someone else held up a cell phone camera. “The whole world is watching,” he shouted.

It didn’t seem that the whole world was watching, at least not then. The next day, I tried to contact the protest’s organizers for an interview, but it didn’t come together. An effort to look up their demands online didn’t yield much. I figured the protests would fizzle. Instead, they’re gaining strength. Almost 1,000 protesters were arrested this weekend on the Brooklyn Bridge, and sympathy protests are spreading to cities all across the country. Occupy Wall Street is leading papers and news shows. The whole world, or at least the whole country, actually is watching.

The protesters are also gaining institutional support. MoveOn.org is sending e-mails about “an amazing wave of protest against Wall Street and the big banks has erupted across the country.” They’re planning to join with organized labor to march to the Occupy Wall Street site on Wednesday. A live videofeed from the protests will kick off the liberal Campaign for America’s Future annual conference, and Van Jones’s ‘Rebuild the Dream’ coalition is staging a “virtual march…

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