OWS - what similar events have occurred in the past and what was their final outcome?

[gristy]

Prague Spring - 1968? Cairo 2011? Where else? When?

These are exciting times... Hopefull...

[NYC_SKP]

1. Personally, I think this is unique.

Others can chime in with events that share some of the features, but there are a few reasons that this one stands alone.

--Social media like never before.

--The ever-present smart phones with camera and video.

--This is America, differences in laws and culture make this unlikely to occur in this way (yet it is!).

--The utter abuse that the 99% have endured, the current state of liberty and income inequality, this is relatively fresh.

--The organizational model hasn't been used here before and I think it's the best there could be.

I hope it endures, succeeds, expands...

[gristy]

2. Here's another one

Berlin - 1989

What's so exciting to me is that I had never dared to imagine that the defeat of our corporate/ruling class was remotely possible. Now there is at hope. It is possible!

[customerserviceguy]

3. Well, Prague Spring didn't work out too well for Czechoslovakia

And as I recall, the 1968 antiwar protests got us five more years of war, and Tricky Dick.

About the only successful protest movement I can think of is Gandhi's India, and that was because he was dealing with a relatively civilized world power.

[SheilaT]

4. This feels very different from anything

I can remember, and I was 20 when the Prague Spring occurred.

I do think that profound changes are going to happen, but it's not going to be as fast as any of us might wish, and the changes in the end will be very unpredictable. Meaning, I don't think any of us can really guess at this point how things are going to play out.

1968 was a year with many, incredible events, all around the world, but not a lot changed in the end. This is different. Maybe this is more like the storming of the Bastille in 1789, or the battles of Lexington and Concord in 1775. Both things set events in motion that took quite a while to fully happen, and in the end there were profound changes. I think OWS (as well as what's happening in Europe, what's been happening in the Middle East) are all the beginnings of a huge overturning of the old ways.