Occupy Wall Street is a series of on-going demonstrations that began on September 17, 2011 in Zuccotti Park—renamed Liberty Square by the protestors—in Manhattan’s Financial District. It is a movement created by and for the so-called 99%. The on-going mission of Occupy Wall Street is “to expose how the richest 1% of people are writing the rules of an unfair global economy that is foreclosing on our future,” or basically to bring awareness to the great disparity of wealth and power between the richest 1% of the population and the other 99% [Source].

The sentiment of the Occupy Wall Street movement is one that few—that is, the wealthy few who fall into the “richest 1%” category—cannot share. There is a lot of greed on Wall Street (and elsewhere), and the Occupy Wall Street movement has managed to open the eyes of those who chose to live in denial of the truth up to this point. The movement has accomplished what it initially set out to accomplish… But now what? This is a question that Philip DeFranco—some who has been a big supporter of the Occupy Wall Street movement up to this point—raises in a recent episode of his popular “Philip DeFranco Show” on YouTube. (I’m referring to the brief clip between 1:20 and 2:00 in the video below.)

As DeFranco says, it has been two months since the start of the demonstrations and numbers have been growing, but the Occupy Wall Street movement has failed to provide any list of demands or even any list of ideas about how we can solve the problem of the disparity of wealth. The Occupy Wall Street movement does not even have a leader who can mobilize the people to take further action. What they do have is a list of ten “visions… for humanity”—outlined in the wiki-style “Liberty Square Blueprint”—among which are the desires to “create an economy in harmony with nature, end all war, and eliminate all discrimination and prejudice” [Source].

Again, such grand sentiments are ones that we can all share, but ones that will become little else unless the Occupy Wall Street movement decides what exactly they want to do about them. After all, wanting to “make NYC the most progressive city for the chronically homeless” will not help the homeless community. Making it so will. The Occupy Wall Street movement needs to elect a responsible individual to represent OWS in a conversation between them and an organization such as Picture the Homeless. They need to hear out the demands of the homeless community and work with them to draft a bill that they can then propose to a local lawmaker get passed into law. They need to mobilize the other protestors to back such bills and petitions and to actually help put such bills into practice once they are passed into law.

Among the bills that Picture the Homeless is already trying to push—and that could really use the support of such a massive group as Occupy Wall Street—is Intro 48. This bill is vital in the process of finding housing for the homeless—the war veterans, the government employees, and the teachers who were forced into the shelter system by the greedy member of the 1%–and finding housing for the homeless is in turn very vital for maintaining an appreciation of art and culture within the youths of New York City [Source].

After all, besides our parents, it is our teachers—the same teachers being forced out of their homes by tremendous rent increases (from the standard 30% of their income to as high as 70% of their income)—that first introduce us to different forms of art. They are the ones who assign the books that pique our love for reading. They are the ones who take us on field trips to museums and musicals and plays on Broadway. They plant the seed for our love of art. They cultivate it and under their guidance, it flourishes. That is, as long as they can afford to live in their own homes. When they are forced to move into shelters and to give up their teaching positions—when they suffer—the children they could be nurturing suffer as well.

Occupy Wall Street is doing a great job of expressing its frustration with the wealth disparity through art and song and dance; however, the movement has to do more to preserve the appreciation—and the existence—of these forms of expression. It needs to join CUNY in requesting more funding to provide affordable educations. It needs to demand better music and art programs in school throughout New York City. It also needs to make sure the teachers our love of art is so dependent on keep their jobs. After all, without people who love art, the art has no purpose. What, then, is the point of singing about your problems if no one cares enough to listen?