The Occupy Wall Street Movement that celebrated its two-month anniversary only a week ago has received a good deal of media attention, with conflicts over eviction, police violence, and in some unfortunate cases, death, sparking public interest. One of the few things that currently appears certain is that the camping-out phase of the protest is coming to an end. However, when Middlebury Union High School senior Zac Young went to the Occupy Wall Street protest in downtown Manhattan in mid-October, camping and tents were still a major part of the movement.

Aside from visiting Zuccotti Park, where the New York City protesters have congregated, Young has supported the demonstrators chiefly by putting up posters around the school. He says that he agrees with the protesters’ general message. Though some media outlets have complained that Occupy Wall Street lacks a clear coherent message, it is not hard to understand the movement’s general desires: ending to the vast inequality of wealth, increasing the efficacy of government, and eliminating the idea of corporate personhood.

The most popular rallying phrase of the Occupy movement is undoubtedly “We Are the 99 Percent." The slogan is meant to express the vast chasm in wealth distribution in our country. One might ask, what exactly constitutes being a part of that fabled 1 percent? To qualify as part of the top tier, a person must make at least $380,000 a year, and the average salary of a person in the top 1 percent is $960,000 a year. The people that comprise this top one percent own almost 40 percent of the country’s wealth.

“We are the 99 Percent” has proved to be an effective message inspiring creations such as a Tumblr site dedicated to the cause. The page features pictures of individuals holding up a piece of paper telling their story and explaining why they’re part of the 99 percent. In light of recent evictions and other problems the future of the movement is unclear.

Young says he hopes it will continue, but if not, he feels one of its main accomplishments was making failure in this country semi-acceptable. It brought to light that hundreds of thousands of honest, hard-working people in the country are jobless, buried in student loans, or unable to get medical attention because of an inability to pay. Or they are constantly hanging on the edge, fearing an unforeseen disaster that would throw them into bankruptcy. The Occupy protests provided, and may continue to provide, a forum for these people to express their frustration.

Occupy Wall Street started on September 17th when a small group of people stayed overnight in Zuccotti Park. The Adbusters Foundation sparked the initial idea after encouraging people on its mailing list to start a sort of occupation of Wall Street. The suggestion gained momentum and led to a movement that came to encompass hundreds of thousands of people across the globe.

Closer to home, Occupy protests took place at Middlebury College and in Burlington, Vermont. In Burlington protesters took over City Hall Park, setting up tents and spending the night. This protest ended in tragedy when an Iraq war veteran shot himself in one of the tents. Though his death was not directly related to the movement, Burlington police asked campers to leave the park because police felt the tents were a public safety hazard.

At Middlebury College, students organized several events, including a march across campus and a teach-in called, “Occupy Wall Street: Bringing it Home,” where students and faculty discussed the connection between the issues being discussed at Occupy Wall Street and the lives of Middlebury students. Hanna Mahon, a student at Middlebury, was one of the coordinators of these events and went to Zuccotti Park. She says being a part of such a large social movement, and seeing so many people willing to devote their lives to the cause, was inspiring.

However, it is important to note that the movement has experienced some problems. There have been allegations of drug use at protests. The New York Times, in whose backyard this protest began, took many days to begin covering the protest, and at first treated it like a hippie movement of the 1960s or 1970s. Young said that while he was in Zuccotti Park, there may have been some drug use, but it seemed to be an extension of regular New York City life, rather than activity related to the protest. As for accusations that the protest was unclean and unsanitary, Young said that park seemed quite clean and he noticed nothing unsavory.

This being said, it is impossible not to acknowledge some of the flaws in the movement. “As Paulo Freire said, ‘those who authentically commit themselves to the people must re-examine themselves constantly,’” Mahon wrote in an e-mail. “There are plenty of issues with the movement as it is (e.g., there aren’t many voices of people of color, the leaderless structure can actually be problematic, the ‘occupy’ rhetoric alienates indigenous communities who have had their land occupied for thousands of years now, etc.). Pointing out these flaws is the only way that the movement can continue to grow for the better, I think.”

In recognizing the transgressions of members of the movement, one should also acknowledge some protesters’ claims of unnecessary violence on the part of police officers and other officials. Incidents in Oakland, New York City, and other protest sites have brought special attention to the issue.

“In October a former U.S. Marine and Iraq war veteran by the name of Scott Olsen suffered a fractured skull after being hit by a tear gas canister or rubber bullet reportedly fired by Oakland police,” CBS News reported recently. Reports of unnecessary use of pepper spray have been rampant as well, including attacks on an elderly person and a pregnant woman in Seattle.

At Zuccotti Park especially, tensions are running high after protesters’ recent eviction from the park. In the early hours of the morning of November 15th, campers were cleared out of the park, without being given the chance to gather their clothes, tents, computers, and other belongings, which were disposed of by police officers. Many have complained that these actions, as well as the eviction itself, constitute a violation of citizens’ basic rights. “This is a very pure expression of popular democracy,” Young said.

Whether the movement continues in this tangible form or shrinks into a more quiet force working behind the scenes, it’s hard to argue that Occupy Wall Street hasn’t had an effect. For one, Bank of America decided to retract previously proposed monthly charges on debit cards, a decision that some movement participants have linked to their efforts. More than this, Occupy Wall Street can be credited with the shift in conversation in the political arena from deficits and spending cuts to jobs and wealth distribution. Most notably, the Move your Money project encourages the “99 percent” to move their money from big banks to small credit unions; as a result, 650,000 new credit union accounts were opened in October, according to the National Credit Union Association.

As Young said, “the majority of people have a stake in this issue.” But it is students who have constituted the core of the movement. The issues raised in the protests have a special weight for younger people who are coming of age in a world where the cost of college is rapidly rising and the job environment is still hostile. A post by a college student on the We Are the 99% website sums up younger generations’ stake in the debate:

“My generation is terrified by the thought of what this world is going to look like once our parents’ generation leaves us to pick up the pieces.”

The Tigers’ Print asks readers to understand that the events of Occupy Wall Street are rapidly changing and that this piece represents the situation when the newspaper went to press.