The Occupy Wall Street Movement

THE FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS TO ASSEMBLE AND PETITION AND THEIR LIMITS

It all started with several hundred protesters calling themselves the “Occupy Wall Street” (OWS) movement. They occupied an area in the financial district of Manhattan but they had neither leadership structure, nor a solid list of complaints, besides the social injustice issue, economic inequality and the dominance of the government. But something captured the nation’s attention – their slogan: We are the 99 percent.
Soon, the OWS movement became popular among people in other cities. This was something serious so the police forces started to try and force protesters to break up their camps. They stood no chance, because the movement cited the First Amendment “right of the

They are the voters, the members of the interest groups whose views are reflected by the political system while the outsiders are the ones who may or may not vote, may or may not belong to an interest group and whose views are ignored by the political system. From time to time, the outsiders rise up and demand that the political system be changed to better represent them and their opinions and views. Some groups eventually succeed what they had in mind with the help of public support.
INTEREST GROUPS IN AMERICAN POLITICS
The presence of these interest groups and their influence, made the politicians ask themselves if interest groups bring benefits to the democracy or not. As answers, two different perspectives have been offered: pluralism and elitism.
Pluralism – suggests that interest groups represent the interest of the citizens to the government and the struggle between the groups creates policy balance, while the elitism suggests the opposite – that well-funded interest groups are likely to form, win access and exercise influence on behalf of the wealthy.
THE RISE OF THE INTEREST

By the end of these two time highlights the newspapers, magazines, radio, television, fax machines and other technological developments have appeared. Also the contribution of governments in the interest groups system increased significantly. Everything linked with interest groups was so dense; nine out of ten Americans belonged to at least one voluntary association or membership group. Robert Salisbury pointed out that the interest group system extends beyond membership groups to include “a diverse array of individual corporations, state and local governments, universities, think tanks…”. The scholars place the number of lobbyists at about