I don’t know how many people were paying attention to Occupy Wall Street when it first started, compared to how many people are paying attention to it now. I first wrote about it the weekend it started, and before it even started I know that around 100,000 people were behind the cause. But the thing I was thinking about the weekend or week that it started is how the media tried to kill the movement.

Basically, the only hope to squash the necessary social movement was to act like the first action was no big deal, ignore it altogether, or make it seem like the turnout was a big disappointment to the organizers and supporters. And that’s exactly what the media tried to do.

Rather than focus on the reasons behind the movement, the reasons behind hundreds or thousands of people taking direct action on or near Wall Street, they played it off like, “Oh, what a disappointment, all the supporters didn’t come out,” or just ignored it.

Well, luckily for us, we have decentralized media now, and word got out what was happening and why it was happening, and I think everyone knows by now that the movement has grown to a pretty tremendous size. I think there’s no way this movement is going away, it can’t. Even if it were to go dormant (which I don’t think it will), the problems are there and millions or hundreds of millions of people are now aware of them, and they want change.

People want change enough that they’re getting of their bums and marching in the streets all around the world. People want change enough that they are putting themselves in danger of getting shot by rubber bullets, getting sprayed with tear gas, or even getting their skulls fractured. People want change.

That’s really the story the media should have run with on day one. Luckily, the citizens’ media did.

Anyway, was just having a little laugh reminiscing.

Image via @allisonkilkenny on twitpic