It Takes More Than Mass Protests to Drive Change
&gt;“With the rise of the internet,” Soule says, “modern movements can mobilize constituents through their websites and social media. If your end goal is to get 500,000 people to turn up on the Mall in Washington, D.C., Twitter is great at that. Facebook is great at that. But if your goal is to actually make lasting change in the system, you have to work within the system — to essentially get a seat at the table.”<p>&gt;“Occupy Wall Street,” she continues, “mobilized a lot of people and got a key point across about income inequality in the U.S. But did it result in real change? Unfortunately, no. Had there been a nice set of organizations able to get access to the political and economic system that the movement criticized, the changes may have been more enduring.”<p>The idea that OWS could have worked within the system to get the changes they wanted seems misleading to me.