Staying in more or less the same ballpark, I still can't understand why it is thought sensible for the Occupy Wall Street movement to be shy of expressing demands. Betsy Reed has a go at explaining it in The Nation. Her explanation, in a nutshell, is that it's not that there's a shortage of good demands that could be made or of policy proposals that could be put forward. There are plenty. But articulating and demonstrating for them has until now scarcely made a dent in terms of influencing anyone who needs to be influenced. So maybe something else was needed - a spark, 'taking back the square'.
Fair enough. And the reason why this something else couldn't be the vehicle of a set of demands and proposals? None given. Reed, in short, doesn't explain anything.
If you read this column by Ezra Klein you'll see that there's certainly the material for some sort of programme of demands - 'mak[ing] the economy work better for average people', increasing wage levels, reducing the political influence of the rich, and so on. It's mystifying, therefore.