Inspired by the Wall Street rallies that began on September 17, protestors worldwide have joined in the movement against financiers and politicians they accuse of ruining global economies.Dozens of cities across the world, including London, Frankfurt, Washington Australia, Tokyo and Hong Kong, are holding demonstrations today in a show of solidarity with "Occupy Wall Street", which is being coined as the "people powered movement for democracy."
According to participants, these non-violent demonstrations are being staged to be initiate global change.
As these protests gain momentum globally, comparisons have been made between the Occupy Wall Street protests and the recent demonstrations in several Arab countries, some of which have seen change as a result.
In your opinion, can these protests actually reform global financial systems and how our countries economies are governed?
Is there really such a thing as people's power?
| This is a short editorial in Dawn's forum. The answer, of course, is no. Mobs can change things -- witness the Gracchi brothers and the French Revolution, to pick two just off the top of my head. The change will "reform" the existing way things are done, but not in the way the rubes in the street expect. The Gracchi led to Marius and Sulla and civil war, culminating in Julius Caesar. The French Revolution led to the Committee for Public Safety, Danton, Robespierre, and ultimately to Napoleon Bonaparte. The street kiddies have adopted the Guy Fawkes mask (from the move V for Vendetta, I believe), secure in their ignorance of the fact that Guildo Fawkes escaped the hangman by jumping from the scaffold and breaking his neck before he could be drawn and quartered. His effigy is burned every year, to the accompaniment of fireworks and general merriment. |
| The Guy Fawkes masks are a hoot: a bunch of socialist wankers with trust-fund parents wear masks commemorating a cowardly revolutionary, made by slave labor in China, and sold at a Walmart for $3.99. Long live the revolution, baby... |
| So are the masks more or less uncomfortable than the black ski masks such idiots used to wear to show how cool they were? |