The most concise goals of OWS that I’ve seen are here:

Basically
– reinstate Glass Steagall
– audit the fed
– reverse citizens united
– overhaul the tax code.

Those are tangible goals.

I also see a lot in common with the OWS movement and the very early tea party movement – before it got co-opted by Dick Army and the GOP… When Santelli declared we should have a tea party to protest the bailouts – and folks started hanging out outside the homes of bankers who got HUGE bonuses, after taking TARP money and being bailed out… That wasn’t a left/right thing – that was anger about how the losses of the banks were socialized, but the riches, in the forms of bonuses, were privatized… But then the tea party became about hatred of Obama and turned inot something else.

The underlying anger and populist feeling never went away – just got converted.

The United States has had a long history of protests actually having an impact on goverment.

* Boston Tea Party – similar to todays OWS move in many ways – protests were against government giving tax advantage to the East India Trading company at the expense of other folks.
* Womens movement
* Labor movement- very big in the 1930s – but lots of different protests.
* 1960’s student protests against the war, for civil rights, ets.
* Tea Party protests…. Can’t say they haven’t impacted the way congress is acting – or the presidential candidates are acting.

I first took notice of the OWS thing a few weeks ago (with the macing of the 4 girls, followed the next week by the police corralling people so they could arrest them on the Brooklyn bridge.) And my initial reaction was that the country was reaching a tipping point – where the corporations and the politicians they’ve bought and paid for might have to take notice.