The protest began in Zuccotti Park in New York City, but it has since spread all over the country from Washington, D.C., to Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas and many other prominent cities. The movement is leaderless, and all together disorganized, which calls into question its overall validity as a serious political protest calling for reforms or just a large group of college students running around in the streets.

Occupy Wall Street has numerous demands, some of which contradict, overlap or interfere with one another. A common notion is that government and Wall Street are corrupt and are too closely aligned with one another. Another calls for income equality and wealth redistribution (a scary notion if one analyzes history). Vague demands also include raising taxes on the rich, raising taxes on corporations while also ending large tax breaks (which would ironically bankrupt many “green-tech” companies this group of liberals glorify), protecting handouts such as Medicare and Social Security, federal investment in public transportation, an audit or elimination of the Federal Reserve and affordable health care. However, at the same time, many participating focus less on economic issues and more on social issues, such as medical marijuana, global warming and to end all wars. This display of disunion and lack of focus is detrimental to the overall effectiveness of the group.

Many protestors point to unequal wealth distribution in the United States as evidence that capitalism is flawed. A survey conducted by New York Magazine found that 46 percent of protestors say capitalism as a whole needs to be regulated, 37 percent said, “(Capitalism) can’t be saved; it’s inherently immoral,” and 17 percent simply did not answer. Although many of the demands are noble, such as ending all wars and making health care more affordable, they do not even all agree on their overall goal. They do not know how long they will protest, they have no leader, and because most of them are unemployed or underemployed, one has to wonder how they plan to continue once their funding slows.

It certainly is a Constitutional right to protest, to which New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg agreed in a press conference, “People have a right to protest, and if they want to protest, we’ll be happy to make sure they have locations to do it.” However, if one would look at the way police were responding to the protest, one would assume the movement was nothing more than a riot. Overall, there have been at least 780 arrests, mostly for blocking traffic but some for resisting arrest and disorderly conduct. The New York Times wrote: “The group’s lack of cohesion and its apparent wish to pantomime progressivism rather than practice it knowledgeably is unsettling in the face of the challenges so many of its generation face – finding work, repaying student loans, figuring out ways to finish college when money has run out.”

If the common lack of a college education does not call into question these young peoples’ motivations, the organizations funding the movement should. First of all, the original call to action was not from an American citizen or group. Rather, it came from a foreign magazine. Furthermore, much of the funding for the protestors comes from unions. Finally, although the protests are obviously very liberal, many of those participating openly admit to be anarchists.

Even with such characters affiliating themselves with Occupy Wall Street, President Barack Obama said in a press conference that he sympathizes with them. In the same conference he said, “Not only did the financial sector, with the Republican Party in Congress, fight us every step in the way. But now you’ve got these same folks arguing we should roll back all those reforms and go back to the way it was,” Obama said. “That does not make sense to the American people. They are frustrated by it and they will continue to be frustrated by it until they get the sense that everyone is playing by the same rules.”

It’s curious that such a small group of young college students with liberal views can catch the president’s attention while at the same time he didn’t seem to hear tens of thousands of Tea Partiers who were protesting with a conservative perspective. By painting Republicans as the enemy yet again, Obama shows compromise and financial recovery are not his goals. Rather, by showing his support of this movement, it appears his goal lies somewhere in the cacophony of Occupy Wall Street, somewhere between wealth redistribution and the destruction of capitalism.

Jameson Joyce is a State News guest columnist. Reach him at joyceja1@msu.edu.