“占领华尔街”运动有潜力影响美国大选

    这场抗议活动的核心要求似乎是让奥巴马总统“组建总统委员会，负责结束金钱对国会议员的影响”。除此之外，这场运动无处不在的主题似乎是抗议美国1%的富人及其所谓的贪婪。 “占领华尔街”运动的领导者们在接受采访时自称为“另外的那99%”，也就是说他们代表了绝大多数的美国人。但就我们看来，可以确定的是，到目前为止，抗议活动的主要参与者是左翼中的左翼，年轻人和失业者。比如，马克思主义者斯拉沃热•齐泽克昨天（10月10日）曾向抗议者发表演说。

    显然，这场运动缺乏组织、效果有限，除了“钱”和“华尔街”都都不是好东西的观点之外，没有一个真正统一的主张。上周末，“占领华尔街”运动的一个团体在亚特兰大集会，邀请了众议员约翰•刘易斯发表讲话。刘易斯自1987年开始担任国会议员，被普遍视作美国民权运动的领袖。然而，最近的一个视频显示，这个团体甚至无法确定到底应不应该请刘易斯讲话。这事着实有趣。

    尽管缺乏组织，“占领华尔街”运动仍然吸引了大量关注。据谷歌趋势（Google Trends）上“占领华尔街”的搜索位置显示，对这场运动的关注大多来自于美国自由主义色彩较浓的地区。

    人们已经把这场运动与茶党进行了一番比较。到目前为止，这些比较有点不够准确。虽然只是一个少数群体，但茶党已经证明了其在政治和资金方面的组织性，使得该团体能够改变2010年选举进程。要想具备真正的影响力，“占领华尔街”运动需要金钱支持（据称他们拥有4万美元银行存款），但金钱恰恰是他们主要的抗议对象。

    尽管如此，正如文末图表所示，“占领华尔街”运动在媒体关注方面确实可以与处于相同时间段的茶党相提并论。就实际组织而言，这两个团体都是松散的地区性团体，缺乏核心领导。到目前为止，两者的主要区别似乎在于资金（亿万富豪科赫兄弟是茶党的重要支持者）和更为明确和统一的诉求。

    茶党在短时间内就提出了明确的主张，为其在2010年选举中带来了许多重大胜利，其中包括：

    —马克罗•鲁比奥击败查理•克里斯特成为弗罗里达州参议员；

    —斯科特•布朗赢得了特德•肯尼迪的马萨诸塞州参议员席位；

    —兰德•保罗赢得肯塔基州参议员席位；

    —在初选和众议员席位方面取得了众多胜利

    除了干扰纽约的旅游业之外，“占领华尔街”运动到底会不会产生真正的影响？目前还言之尚早。但毫无疑问，媒体已经为他们提供了发言的平台。如果能进行募款并做到组织有序，那么“占领华尔街”运动或许能形成一个利益集团，在2012年选举中发出响亮的、具有巨大影响力的声音。

    译者：千牛絮

    The central demand of the organization appears to be for President Obama to "ordain a Presidential Commission tasked with ending the influence money has over our representatives in Washington." Beyond that the pervasive theme appears to be in protesting the richest 1% of Americans and their purported greed. In fact, when interviewed, leaders of Occupy Wall Street commonly refer to themselves as "the other 99%," which suggests that they represent a broad segment of the U.S. demographic. As far as we can determine, the group, to date, is largely made up of the left of the left wing, youth, and those underemployed. As a case in point, Marxist Slavoj Zizek spoke to the group yesterday.

    To be clear, it is not apparent that there is any organization behind the movement that will make it overly effective, or that there is truly a coherent view, other than that "money" and "Wall Street" are bad. To wit, this weekend an Occupy Wall Street group met in Atlanta and invited Congressman John Lewis to speak to them. He has been a member of Congress since 1987 and is widely considered a leader in the American civil rights movement. A recent video, which is admittedly anecdotal, shows this segment of Occupy Wall Street could not even decide whether they should led Congressman Lewis peak to them.

    Despite the lack of organization, Occupy Wall Street is garnering mindshare. According to the location of searches for "Occupy Wall Street" in Google Trends, the group is gaining the majority of its traction in more liberal areas in the U.S.

    Analogies are already being made to the Tea Party. As of yet, those analogies are somewhat inaccurate. The Tea Party proved itself, even if a minority group, to be organized both politically and monetarily, which allowed the group to effect change in the 2010 election. To be truly effective, Occupy Wall Street will need money (they purportedly have $40,000 in the bank), the one key thing they appear to be protesting.

    That being said, as the chart below shows, Occupy Wall Street does appear to be getting comparable traction in the media as the Tea Party did after roughly the same period of time. In terms of actual organization, the two groups are both loosely affiliated regional groups with no central leadership. The key differences so far though seem to be funding (the billionaire Koch brothers are a key backer of the Tea Party) and a more coherent set of concerns and issues.

    The cohesiveness that the Tea Party was able to build in short order led to a number of key electoral victories in 2010, including:

    - Marco Rubio defeating Charlie Crist for Senate in Florida;

    - Scott Brown won Ted Kennedy's seat in Massachusetts;

    - Rand Paul won a Kentucky Senate seat; and

    - Numerous primary and congressional seat victories.

    It's too early to tell whether Occupy Wall Street will have real impact beyond disrupting the tourist flow in New York. The media, though, is certainly giving the platform a voice. Should fundraising and organization follow, Occupy Wall Street may be an interest group with a loud and disruptive voice in the 2012 elections.