Back 
Hannah Wolf moved to New York City from Juneau just over five weeks ago, taking her experience with Perseverance Theatre, where she worked for two years, to intern with the Vineyard Theatre’s literary department, an off-Broadway house that produces “Avenue Q” and “[Title of Show].”
To afford living in New York with an unpaid internship, Wolf also nannies and said she is considered lucky to have employment. Wolf is just one of several thousand faces representing the Occupy Wall Street movement on any given day, also known as “99 percenters.”
New York is not the only city to see protests; Anchorage was one of many cities to see dissatisfied citizens gathering in public spaces.
Wolf shared she didn’t hear about the protests until two weeks in; “at the beginning, any media surrounding [the protests] was so suppressed that many people in New York had no idea,” she said.
It was a Facebook post showing the tent city in Liberty Plaza that piqued her interest and spurred her to visit the site, where she found herself in the midst of a general assembly march.
“What really surprised me is how many of the protesters and campers are my age, in a similar situation,” she said.
Wolf describes her demographic as educated, raised on the promise of an “American dream that America can no longer support,” with high unemployment rates and overwhelming debt.
The driving force behind the protests, Wolf said, is frustration. Though she said her demographic is well represented, she describes it as a movement not of one demographic, nor the political left or right, but of “the American people who are angry when they are told that hiring is right around the corner, that the recession is ending and that our elected officials are working for us,” only to find that the government is stalled and unemployment rates persist.
From the outside looking in, it can be difficult to discern the goals of the movement, aside from voicing the anger and frustration participants are feeling. Signs read “I am the 99 percent” or “You have the right to remain silent, but I don’t recommend it.”
Wolf said she is a registered voter who votes in all elections and even volunteered with candidate campaigns in the past, but who doesn’t feel her voice is heard.
“At this point, individual complaints are futile, but the Occupy Wall Street movement has provided a platform where I can feel like I contribute and that my voice means something,” she said. “My issues with government are not my own anymore, but reflect the temperament of the country and my single voice can help with this.”
Wolf provided a list of demands of the movement, which she described as a living document, changing as the movement develops: ending corporate personhood, institution of taxes on stock purchases, nationalized banking, socialized medicine, fully funded government jobs, lifted restrictions on labor organizing, turning foreclosed homes into public housing and investing in green energy infrastructure. The demands are big, but Wolf claims that the voice of the movement is reflective of a general group consensus. Organized labor has recently joined the movement, and Wolf anticipates the protests will be more organized and the goals clearer.
“Fully formed movements don’t just spring up, they have to grow and evolve,” she said.
Wolf said Occupy Wall Street has become a national movement that cannot be ignored. Talking more of her experiences, Wolf said she participated recently in a march that turned violent, though she said that violence was instigated by the New York Police Department.
Like the recent Arab Spring protests, the movement is being propelled by social media; Wolf found out via Facebook, while platforms such as Twitter and Tumblr also keep participants and the general public informed. During general assembly and marches, the energy, anger and excitement are palpable, Wolf said.
Functioning without a permit for a sound system, the thousands have managed to communicate and coordinate using social media and “the people’s mic,” in which a speaker shouts a line and, in waves, the crowd will hear and repeat the phrase so that all can hear.
“We’re watching history unfold,” Wolf said, “This protest is giving hope that something will eventually happen, that someone will listen and we can work together to right the direction of the country.”
She also expresses the old sentiment “seeing is believing” when she describes seeing the amount of people participating.
“If you tell me 14 million Americans are unemployed, I have no context, but when I see thousands of unemployed and angry [people] in one area, it makes that number mean something,” she said.
The Occupy Wall Street movement, which started in New York, has seen similar protests across the country. When asked what she would like to see Alaska take from this movement, Wolf said, “I heard that there is an Occupy Anchorage movement taking place, I’d love to see an Occupy Juneau movement stake a claim in front of the Capitol. Alaska has had it very easy through the economic and unemployment crisis, but I think the other shoe is about to drop. I know that Juneauites are as angry as the rest of the U.S. when it comes to these issues and would support a movement like this. Show the lawmakers that Alaska’s prosperity doesn’t mean that these issues can be slid to the wayside,” she said.
• Contact reporter Melissa Griffiths at 523-2272 or at melissa.griffiths@juneauempire.com.
Comments (76)
Add commentakbrdguru and milspec
akbrd, you make a lot of statements about this woman's employers. Do you know anything about them? Are they really in the 1%? Did they get there by working hard, or tapping into their trust fund? Maybe they're hiring a nanny because they can't make it on one salary. Admit it, you're just an opinionated know-nothing.
And speaking of know-nothings, I'm disgusted that milspec, a veteran and federal employee, doesn't understand the most basic function of the United States senate. All that chest thumping about the constitution...try reading it once, mate.
all this
hmm.
Conversation losing steam?
Looks like this conversation has lost a bit of steam, which is too bad. There was some good dialogue going on, as well as some that was sufficiently crazy.
An anecdote about the bailout: I had a conversation with a quantitative physicist that works at Safeway corporate headquarters in Livermore, California. In other words, he's an advanced mathematician that computes financial equations for Safeway so they can manage their money. According to him, immediately before the big bailout, Safeway was in serious jeopardy of going under. His educated guess as to what that would have looked like: all Safeways across the country locking their doors and running out of food within about 7 days. I'm guessing that if Safeway was in this position, so were most other major food suppliers. Take a minute and contemplate what that would have looked like. Most major grocery stores across the country without food indefinitely, in the time frame of a week or so. Do you think that would have been a pretty scene?
In this regard, the bailout seems pretty relevant and necessary. The issue of corporate bailouts and corporate greed is a bit more precarious and complex than it seems...
However, the Occupy Wall Street folks are voicing very legitimate concerns. Our country is not a democracy, nor is it a democratic republic. It's a mix between an oligarchy and corporatocracy, plain and simple. Private interests/corporations make obscenely large campaign contributions (which as of 2010 can now legally be done anonymously). These corporate donations can also be referred to as bankrolling Congressmen. Once in the position of being bankrolled, Congressmen must provide favors for those funding their campaigns. Consequently, private/corporate interests write legislation, which is introduced and voted on by our Senate and Congress. If you think much of the legislation that's debated in Congress is written by Congressmen, then you're unfortunately living under an illusion. Supplemental to this is our media. Most major newspapers, magazines, and TV stations are corporate-owned. They dictate what can and cannot be published, and with what spin salient issues are presented. Despite claims of the "liberal" media, corporate news doesn't publicize real journalism. They publicize superficial, surface-level bubblegum for the masses that make us think we're informed. But really, we are misinformed. Then we get all riled up and contact our Congressmen based on the superficial, hollow information that's been presented on TV. It's not conspiracy theory, it's just how our system works. As someone mentioned earlier, that is "the game." That is the reality, but unfortunately for the US, most of us ignore reality and pay more attention to reality TV. Thus, major systemic political and economic failures go unnoticed until they reach the point of mass protest in NYC.
In all seriousness, it wasn't difficult to see these protests coming years ago if you'd just been paying attention.
When we're living comfortably in our consumer-driven economy, it's easy for us to ignore these issues. But when our economy starts to wane, we start asking questions. As John Vaillant put it: "Lies are easier to swallow when the money is good." Those who don't understand the OWS movement are largely irrelevant right now. This movement is far bigger than it appears in NYC or Boston or DC. It's much, much bigger worldwide. As we've already seen, we live in a world of connectivity. What hits one economy affects many others. We're globalized. If we think that a much, much larger global movement of social unrest and civil protest won't affect us in the US, then we're doing ourselves a huge injustice by once again ignoring reality.
Lat58...when did I make "a
Lat58...when did I make "a lot of statements about this woman's employers."? I made one statement, and it wasn't about her employer. My comment just pointed out a bit of hypocrisy. How can somebody point a finger at a person who has some wealth and make them out to somehow be the bad guy, then turn around and ask them for a job? People generally hire a "nanny" because they are busy working and have the means to pay for somebody to be with their children on a full time basis. How do I know this? Experience. My sister was a nanny for 8 years. Damn those rich doctor/lawyer married couples and all their money anyway! How dare they go out and make all that money and hoard it all away...well, except for the $40k/yr, plus a car, plus expenses, plus travel abroad, my sister made back in the 80's and 90's when she was employed by these people. How dare they apply trickle down!
I'm sorry. Your point?
fromdust.....LOL!
.....I have missed you! Loved your last post on this thread.
Why do all the right-wingers
Why do all the right-wingers around here spell it "collage" instead of "college"? Do they really believe we go to a university or private school in order to paste pictures onto posterboard? Or is it meant to distract from the silly conspiracy theories they push? Do they not understand the irony in ridiculing a college education and then misspelling the word?
Spelling doesn't matter PP
It doesn't matter if they call it collage, calico, or collagen, the facts or the fax remain the same. The protesters aren't being supported by George Soros and any variant spelling of Soros' name, the Tea Party isn't a grass roots movement, Fox News isn't "fair or balanced," the American press has never been liberal in my lifetime, and many of the protesters don't even like Obama.
The last point is lost on some.
A while back I was reading an
A while back I was reading an essay or column by a social scientist about how people across the political spectrum actually have different modes of thinking, not just different ideologies. People who fall in the liberal spectrum tend to distrust authority, value free-thinking, and associate with diverse individuals, and his hypothesis is that this is why you just don't see as many organized liberal think-tanks, revolutions, and movements. Conservatives, by contrast, tend to be authoritarian, value solidarity with their peers, and prefer to associate with like-minded individuals. This may be why, here and in other venues, conservatives often assume that their liberal opponents "follow" Obama, Soros, Buffet, Michael Moore, Krugman, or whoever else they think is the liberal devil. But you'd be hard-pressed to find a liberal who says they agree with any of these people on all points.
I think this is why misinformation travels so much further in conservative circles. It's not about finding the facts, it's about being in lockstep with your peers. But then again, I am a raging, radical liberal, so maybe I'm just biased.
Studies on brain function
There have been a couple of those, PP. The most recent one is here:
http://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822%2811%2900289-2#S...
General findings correlate a larger right amygdala with more conservative political views, along with a greater sensitivity to fear and disgust. More liberal political views were correlated with a larger anterior cingulate cortex, which regulates uncertainty and behaviors to deal with it.
I recall a similar study (I will try and find the link) in New Scientist that showed correlation between a preference for black-and-white, clear-cut choices and paradigms and conservative politics, and a greater tolerance for ambiguity and complex reasoning/shades of grey in liberal politics. These were evidenced, like the first study, by regional brain activity relative to pictorial/auditory stimuli and surveys regarding self-defined political views.
Thanks, Swimmer!
I know I was being a little rude, though... :-p
the banksters
congress repealed all of the checks and balances with de-regulation; reagans mantra of de-regulation,where government is the problem...the reason why those regulations were put in place was to protect us from corporate monopolies in the banking sector,media,and industry; that was supposed to keep us from another depression...so how do you ask congress anything? TERM LIMITS thank you for your services I hope your swiss bank account will hold u over until your stock options kick in and the private sector hires u out as a consultant; not to mention the mere pittance your congressional retirement affors u ,with health care....for life and thats a long one;these guys don't kick off until there 95
akbrdgu
Let me refresh your memory on what you said:
"Then she found a rich family to hire her as a nanny. Sounds to me like somebody busted their butt to achieve the "American dream", and they are now supporting her."
You assume they're rich...based on what? You assume they "busted their butt". Based on what?
Get my point?
Protest Sign
My favorite sign to hold high at any demonstration reads;; HELP ME, SUROUNDED BY IDIOTS;;
atitude58..... Why do I
atitude58.....
Why do I assume the people she is working for are wealthy? Hmmm...well, when was the last time you saw somebody living at the poverty level hire a nanny? This young lady is educated enough to know the difference between being a baby sitter and a nanny.
How about this, why do you assume that anybody that has money somehow had it dropped in their lap? It must suck to live a life so jaded. Hang in there buddy.