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AP PHOTO

Occupy Wall street protesters were arrested in October as they attempted to walk over the Brooklyn bridge from Manhattan.

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AP Photo

Occupy demonstrations, like this one in Lower Manhattan in October, spread to Hampshire County and across the country.

When the Occupy Wall Street movement spread across the country in September, it captured a nation's imagination.

People pitched tents, set up camp, raised hell and engaged in a movement aimed at awakening people to the negative effects of the growing - and surprisingly little-questioned - income and wealth disparities in this country.

Wake people up it did. The movement also tapped into a fury at economic unfairness, high unemployment and corporate greed that drew more and more people to the protest arena as the weeks wore on. Protesters pulled out all the tricks in the book: They held marches, blocked intersections, got arrested, took part in street theater, waved signs. In short, their antics grabbed the country's attention in a big way.

Critics of Occupy Wall Street say, among other things, that the movement is fomenting class warfare, while supporters say they are simply laying class divisions bare for all to see.

People can argue about a lot of things related to Occupy Wall Street: whether the protesters had (have) a clear goal, whether they are organized, whether there is infighting in their ranks, whether their tactics are effective and whether various political leaders were in the wrong to have them evicted in the end.

But the protests succeeded in forcing a national conversation that this country has long been loath to have: that democracy and power-to-the-little-people be damned, we live in society that is deeply stratified in terms of both income and wealth.

Whether that three-month-long wake-up call is enough to bring about actual change is an open question - and one that will surely be wrestled with in the new year.

The movement was sparked, the story goes, by a simple call put out last summer by a Canadian group, Adbusters Media Foundation, which suggested a peaceful occupation of Wall Street to protest corporate greed, the disparity in wealth, and the lack of legal accountability for the global financial crisis.

That occupation began on Sept. 17 in Zuccotti Park in the shadow of Wall Street with about 1,000 people, but quickly grew. It must have been an idea whose time had come, for the movement caught hold, in ways that surprised a lot of people. Soon there were Occupy stations in big and small cities around the country (including one in Northampton with three tents.)

By now, virtually all of the Occupy encampments have been taken down, but the motivating force behind them - outrage about the income and wealth inequality that hurts all Americans - remains alive and kicking.

One of the catchphrases of the movement, "We are the 99 percent" refers to the growing income inequality since the 1970s between the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans and the rest of the population. According to the Congressional Budget Office, between 1979 and 2007, the income of the top 1 percent grew by 275 percent, while that of 60 percent of Americans in the middle of the income bracket grew by only 40 percent.

This country was built upon the shenanigans of people who were mad as hell, and refused to take it any more, and most of its great social changes were ignited by people not afraid to agitate.

So, as a nation, we should feel lucky if the Occupy Wall Street protesters don't pack up their tents and scurry off into the blogosphere, but remain engaged with real people at the ballot boxes and in public squares from coast to coast.

It's not easy to camp out, get arrested, and yell loud enough to wake up a nation, but, really, in many ways, the hard part is still to come. It will take a people of sturdy fortitude to see it through. Just the kind of people who started this country.

Laurie Loisel is the managing editor for print.