Research Log #4

Schmidt, Michael S. “Occupy seeks ways to regain attention; Visibility has waned, putting movement in need of fresh new tactics”. The International Herald Tribune(Washington) April 2, 2012. Web.

This article talks about how after 6 months since the start of the Occupy Movement, the movement has actually had a big impact on everybody, including politicians, and how the issues brought up by the movement will have to be addressed even in the upcoming presidential elections. The issues mainly deal with the inequalities of the 99% of the population and the greed and corruption of the top 1%. The protesters believe that the large corporations and banks are so greedy that it is costing the 99% money from the debt they have piled up for the economy.  It goes on to talk about how they believe the movement was starting to lose its fire but when the better weather comes the movement will regain its momentum.  Protesters said they were more dormant during the winter and that they were laying roots to boost the reemergence of the protest in spring.  From this they believe that the inequality issues will have to be addressed in the upcoming presidential elections and could have a big affect on the outcome of who is elected.

The part of this article that I had the biggest reaction from is when they talked about how they believe the movement will have an effect on the presidential elections. I was surprised that the movement had grown so big that they believe it will be part of the presidential platforms and not just from the democratic side, but now the Republican Party because the issue had grown so big. This made more sense when the article went on to talk about how the Occupy movement covered 6% of the news and had moved up to 14% by November. The only problems arose when even though 48% of the American population agreed with the occupy movements but only 29% of the voters agreed with how the protests were conducted.  The solution to this problem by the protesters is to change their protesting tactics. Some of the tactics brought up were to do things that have been tried in European protests including flash mobs and banner drops.

The reason I chose this article was because it was the most recent article I could find on the issue. It seems like for now it is the most relevant because it is so up to date on today’s issues. The article brings up points and issues that weren’t originally brought up or expected 6 months before when the movement started.  I don’t think most people thought that when the movement first started it would grow across the globe and become such a popular issue that it would be talked about in the next upcoming elections.