Do you think anything will come of the Occupy Wall Street protests (details)?

Like the vast majority of protests in this country, I think it will make little to zero difference. The Wall Street folk know they can just lay low and it will go away after a while. Remember the pro-Union, anti-Scott Walker protests that lasted nearly 6 weeks in Madison, WI? Didn’t make a difference. Remember the anti-Iraq War protests? What happened there?

I hate being so cynical about it, since it really would be nice if such efforts mattered, but I’ve yet to see substantive protests in the US that have worked lately.

Libya, Syria, and Egypt. Those were protests that worked. Actually, I think Syria may not have, I haven’t heard lately.

@cockswain the protesters in Syria are still being killed by Assad’s military. And the military shows no lack of faith in Assad’s rule, so far.

Yeah, I just looked for an update and concluded the same thing. They tried, but got tortured until fear crushed their resolve.

One of the commenters posted this quote from Mahatma Gandhi: “First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win.”

I don’t think there’s ever been a demonstration of this nature on Wall Street. But plenty of other movements have started small and ended up effecting change. I have no idea where this one will go, but I’m not sorry to see it.

There have been lots of protests on Wall Street over the years. That one is really not very large. And while it is symbolic, it’s really not the right place. There is little left at Wall and Broad except the Exchange. Goldman Sachs is over on the Hudson at the World Financial Center, while a lot of the other banks are up in midtown.

But this protest i s generally unfocused and doesn’t seem to have much goal besides just venting. I’ve read about it and still don’t get it.

Well, @zenvelo, just count that absence of recollection as my ignorance, then. It wasn’t hard to know where the gates of Versailles were, but here it’s a little harder to tell. However, the ill-gotten wealth does seem to smell about the same.

Significantly, the print article linked in the question above does not include any mention of what the protest was about or what it hoped to achieve. That, if anything, makes it a failure. If the activity calls attention to itself for its own sake without drawing any attention to an issue, it’s nothing but noisy entertainment.

Nothing whatsoever will happen.

Yes, absolutely. It’s not if, it’s when. Read a history book bob :)

I provide plenty of supporting evidence in this question

Dylan Ratagin steps up. This is the simple, debate-ending, truth.

@rOs I remember that, it was so beast.