It seems like just yesterday when we reported on this “occupation” of Wall Street, whose goal was to “flood into lower Manhattan, set up tents, kitchens, peaceful barricades, and occupy Wall Street for a few months.” At the time, we naïvely suggested that they had “better find a slogan, fast,” but we’ve since learned that demands are overrated, and by the measure of that initial goal, the movement has been a success. To celebrate the two-month anniversary of the occupation, the movement is planning to shut down the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday morning and “throw a block party the 1% will never forget.”

The protesters plan on ringing the “People’s Bell” instead of the trading floor bell, “and initiate a street carnival in which we rebuild and celebrate the neighborhoods that the Wall Street economy has destroyed.” Crane’s reports that the event is being organized with “more than a dozen unions and community groups,” and assuming there aren’t mass arrests in front of the NYSE, demonstrators will then fan out across the city at various transportation hubs, holding public assemblies where people can talk about their communities’ needs. All of this will end in “a rally at Foley Square and a march over the Brooklyn Bridge.”

This is probably the most ambitious event planned since the occupation itself, and it’s set to begin at 7 a.m. on November 17 in Zuccotti Park. The last time we heard that the protesters were throwing a “party,” we witnessed police ramming scooters into crowds, protesters being hit with batons, and a demonstrator getting punched in the face by a senior NYPD officer.

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More swiftly than we ever believed possible, the occupation at Zuccotti Park has opened up a political conversation and shifted the terrain. A recent poll revealed that 67 percent of New Yorkers agree with the views of Occupy Wall Street protesters and that almost three-quarters of them favor a tax on millionaires. People who have not been to demonstrations in years—or perhaps ever—have taken to the streets across the country. Instead of being ashamed about unemployment and personal debt, people are indignant. Instead of blaming a few “bad apples,” fingers are pointing to the economic system at large. The ultimate sign of early success is that politicians who initially scoffed at the outliers at Zuccotti Park have had to proclaim their allegiance to the 99 percent. Look at Republican hopeful Mitt Romney who first sounded the alarm about “dangerous … class warfare” and now says he doesn’t “worry about the top 1 percent” and that, when he looks at Wall Street, he “understands how those people [the protesters] feel.”

When high-profile Democrats like Bill Clinton embrace the Wall Street demonstrations on David Letterman (then advise the movement to throw its weight behind Obama), and Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor goes from calling occupiers “mobs” to “justifiably frustrated,” the left needs to adjust and push the envelope accordingly. When influential conservatives are fretting on their blogs that OWS is stealing their thunder (“These people are open to listen to anyone who is willing to take on Wall Street,” wrote blogger and CNN contributor Erick Erickson, “We shouldn’t let unwashed hippies be the only people they hear speaking to their concerns”) we need to recognize, if nothing else, that the Occupy movement has already tilted the playing field and move our goal posts accordingly— further left so we keep dragging the political conversation with us.

Occupy Wall Street To Attempt To Shut Down NYSE For 2-Month Anniversary →

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