Over 150 protestors, including several DU students, gathered at the Capitol building in downtown Denver last Saturday for the Occupy Denver rally. The rally protested the influence of large corporations and the concentration of wealth in the upper 1 percent of the population.
Occupy Denver is a part of the larger Occupy Wall Street movement currently sweeping the nation. Occupy Wall Street has been protesting in New York City for two weeks. The Denver protestors, made up of mostly college-aged students, rallied in front of the building for about an hour before taking to the streets, protesting in the downtown area and throughout the 16th Street Mall.
“This is a gathering of different people from all walks of life who are frustrated and saying ‘enough is enough'” said protestor Stan Schure, who attended the rally with his wife and daughters.
During the march, individual protestors stepped to the center of the gathering and told their own story. The group repeated each line back to them in a “talkback.” Most speakers called for equality and assistance from the government for “average Americans.”
“I want campaign finance reform, help with school loans and for corporations to be exposed,” said UNC student Kyle Heartman. “Everyone always says ‘don’t trust the government’, but nobody ever says ‘don’t trust the corporations’.”
There are now rallies taking place in major cities across the nation and globe. Along with Occupy Denver on Saturday, there were also Occupy St. Louis, Occupy Seattle and Occupy Cleveland movements. There have been over 50 protests in major cities in over 30 states. Internationally, there have also been demonstrations in Europe, Asia, Australia, and Canada.
“At its heart, the issue of Occupy Wall Street is that we feel the 99 percent was created because we have lost the constitutional power of our vote,” said Yvonne Varela, an MBA candidate at DU who has been with the movement since its beginnings. “Corporations have burrowed into the entire political process and every aspect of our lives has been affected.”
“We are the 99 percent,” the protestors repeatedly shouted at the Denver rally.
This rally cry is the tagline of the Occupy movement. It references the statistic that one-third of the nation’s wealth is concentrated in the upper 1 percent of society.
“We are looking to achieve financial, political, and economic equality,” said Denver protestor David Confietto.
Valera said the movement has suffered roadblocks, such as the mass media’s refusal to cover the protests and their propensity to present facts they deem as untrue.
“The media is trying to marginalize the image of this campaign,” said Varela. “But we are not socialists. We are not communists. We are Americans. We are capitalists. And we don’t feel the system we are living in is capitalism.”
In response to the perceived challenge of the media, Varela said the movement points to the lack of coverage as proof of the influence of corporations in all aspects of American life.
“Our strategy was to prove that the media is complicit with corporations,” said Varela. “We did that.”
In particular, she cites the fact that information and tweets regarding the Occupy movement have been blocked from the “trending” section on Twitter.
She also referenced the media’s portrayal that the movement started with an ad from a company in Canada called Adbusters, which she sees as false. She said there are conflicting views on the origin of the movement.
According to Varela, the movement began with a separate, anonymous-supported movement called Empire State Rebellion. This campaign is “anonymous” because it is a general idea accepted and supported by members of social networking sites, not because a group of unknown people head it.
The message about corporate reform appeared where people could organize protests they wanted to start in their town.
“The goal was to get people out from behind their computers and to occupy space,” said Varela. “Social media is a great form of communication, but it’s not a real protest. The call was for people to come together and say ‘I don’t know you but we think alike, so let’s get out and do something.'”
As the ideas of the campaign spread, sites such as whatis-happening.com and ampedstatus.com began to appear. People used these sites to post the successes of their towns’ rallies and inform people of what a successful strategy looks like.
Social media has continued to be the key to success for the movement.
“This is how we are communicating,” said Varela. “The question was ‘how do you galvanize all these Americans?’ and that was our answer. The younger generation can use this to outsmart older media institutions.”
