America Historical Survey 33 – 155 – 06
Dr. Robert Voss
September 2, 2014
The “99%” versus the “1%” Different people define the American Dream differently, but simply put, the American Dream is something like the following: a national ethos of the United States which illustrates the ideals such as the opportunity for success and prosperity, equality, democracy, and an upward social mobility achieved through diligence. In other words, people can succeed in whatever they do if they are talented enough and work hard enough. It sounds simple and natural - if people work really hard, and they are hopelessly stupid, why shouldn’t people be successful? However, things are not so simple and many were not able to achieve the success regardless of the thinking of American Dream. Thus, the people in the United States decided to initiate a protest movement to show their desire to live in a society …show more content…
This protest was initiated by the Canadian anti-consumerist and pro-environment group Adbusters with assistance from the Manhattan-based public relations firm Workhouse. Moreover, the following series of events helped lead to media awareness that inspired Occupy protest and to movements around the world for the expression of people’s grievance against the inequality. The main purpose for the Occupy Wall Street was to express the grievance against greed, corruption, and social, economic inequality. The Occupy Wall Street slogan “We are the 99%” was chanted as a reference to income inequality and to wealth distribution in the United States between the relatively poor 99% and the wealthiest 1% of the population. Like the slogan says, protesters emphasized direct action over petitioning authorities for legal redress by acting on consensus-based decisions made in general assemblies in order to achieve their