The Occupy Wall Street movement and its "We Are the 99 Percent" theme went global on October 15, with protests springing up in Japan, China, Europe, and Mexico, as well as numerous U.S. cities, including New York City and Los Angeles.
As the New York Times reported, the protests are neither entirely coordinated nor entirely spontaneous. Their messages are consistent: the creep of austerity and the continued anguish of the global middle class in the developed world after the Great Recession. The motifs are familiar, as well. The Guy Fawkes masks. The 99 Percent signs. In Rome, the protests turned violent, but they were mostly peaceful throughout the world. The Times reports thousands of people marching across several continents, "including in Sydney, Australia; Tokyo; Hong Kong; Toronto; Chicago; and Los Angeles, where several thousand people marched to City Hall as passing drivers honked their support."
To read more on what these protests mean and what has contributed to popular anger about income inequality, check out our running series "Signs of Dissent" here.
We'll update this page as more analysis of the global protests come in.
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