They've Got 99 Problems but the Fad Ain't One

On the one-year anniversary of the Occupy Wall Street Movement, members of the 99% trekked out to the New York Stock Exchange to protest, only to be halted by police who were there waiting for them. It seems like the NYPD has learned from the past OWM, but have the protestors?

The Occupy Wall Street Movement is often criticized as being led by members who are more interested in making noise over the issues rather than finding solutions to them. They blame the wealthy "1%" of Americans for usurping power in the United States. One of the demonstrators defines the movement as a rebellion against American "corptocracy," referring to the unbalanced amount of control big businesses have in the United States. 

Demonstrations against a small, wealthy, industrial class have been prevalent in American society ever since the Populist movement of the Gilded Age. The OWS protesters are generally viewed in one of two ways: as brave souls who are willing to get arrested for standing up for their beliefs, or as deadbeat members of society who complain about being in the 99% of Americans yet do nothing to change their social status. Many of the protesters seem to have simply jumped on the Occupy bandwagon; when a demonstrator getting arrested was asked what he came to protest for, he said "freedom, the free-education movement... a lot of things." It seems as if the Occupy movement has become trendy for some, a modern movement that people can say they have participated in without actually knowing the movement's true purposes.

How many protesters do you think actually care about the state of the economy, let alone know what the occupy movement is about? Do you think the protesters are actually getting anything accomplished?