Econintersect: The question has come up about the origin of the term “American Autumn” as applied to the OWS (Occupy Wall Street) movement. Econintersect has found some interesting background. In 2007 a band with the name “The American Autumn” was formed in Chicago and it continues today (web site). Of course, that band is not related to OWS (as far as Econintersect knows) so we have looked further.We have found an October 3 reference at Nation of Change (the same day that GEI News had an article about the American Autumn). But we know that we had heard the term several times before we used it. Who actually first used the term in reference to OWS?We have found the term used by Ron Boyer in the course of his interview of Dr. Margaret Flowers posted at Truthout.org September 26. Boyer said:
This is shaping up to be the Autumn of Mass Resistance – the formation, at long last, of an organized progressive movement of dissent in America. Global warming activists were recently arrested in Washington, DC, in an unsuccessful action to undermine the US-Canada oil pipeline deal. Van Jones is coming to town around October 1 with the Rebuild the American Dream movement. And your planned October2011 mass nonviolent civil resistance action starts right after that, beginning on October 6 in Freedom Plaza. Is this the beginning of an “American Autumn” to build upon the “Arab Spring”?
A Google search has found dozens of references to the use of the term “American Autumn” and all have dates after September 26. It seems reasonable to conclude that Ron Boyer coined the phrase and Econintersect will attribute that to him until such time as an earlier usage is pointed out to us.
At the time that Ron Boyer made his remarks, Econintersect believes that only the New York financial district had seen any demonstrators. Over the next nine days demonstrations erupted across the country. Al Jezeera has published a map of OWS demonstrations that had taken place as of October 5:
Sources: Links embedded in article.
