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At first, the crowd that gathered near Wall Street three weeks ago gained little media attention, maybe because of its wide range of concerns and small size. The outlets that did cover the protest originally viewed it as an unsuccessful version of the Tahrir Square rally, the February protest in Egypt that resulted in Hosni Mubarak’s resignation. In those initial days, Occupy Wall Street drew just over 1,000 attendees.

But in the three weeks since then, the protest has gained in legitimacy and numbers. Two major unions, the Amalgamated Transit Union and the United Federation of Teachers, joined the protestors in a march across the Brooklyn Bridge … in which over 700 were arrested. The influential liberal organization MoveOn.org and the Working Families Party have joined the protestors’ ranks as well. This week the tension grew, and the NYPD turned to night sticks and pepper spray to control the protests.

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With little organization and a reliance on Facebook, Twitter and Google groups to share methods, the Occupy Wall Street campaign, as the prototype in New York is called, has clearly tapped into a deep vein of anger, experts in social movements said, bringing longtime crusaders against globalization and professional anarchists together with younger people frustrated by poor job prospects.

"Rants based on discontents are the first stage of any movement," said Michael Kazin, a professor of history at Georgetown University. But he said it was unclear if the current protests would lead to a lasting movement, which would require the newly unleashed passions to be channeled into institutions and shaped into political goals.

Publicity surrounding the recent arrests of hundreds in New York, near Wall Street and on the Brooklyn Bridge, has only energized the campaign. This week, new rallies and in some cases urban encampments are planned for cities as disparate as Memphis, Tenn.; Hilo, Hawaii; Minneapolis; Baltimore; and McAllen, Tex., according to Occupy Together, an unofficial hub for the protests that lists dozens of coming demonstrations, including some in Europe and Japan.

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(NYTimes)...In Chicago on Monday morning, about a dozen people outside the Federal Reserve Bank sat on the ground or lay in sleeping bags, surrounded by protest signs and hampers filled with donated food and blankets. The demonstrators, who have been in Chicago since Sept. 24, said they had collected so much food that they started giving the surplus to homeless people.

Each evening, the number of protesters swells as people come from school or work, and the group marches to Michigan Avenue.

"We all have different ideas about what this means, stopping corporate greed," said Paul Bucklaw, 45. "For me, it's about the banks."

Sean Richards, 21, a junior studying environmental health at Illinois State University in Normal, said he dropped out of college on Friday and took a train to Chicago to demonstrate against oil companies.

He said he would continue sleeping on the street for "as long as it takes."

Strategists on the left said they were buoyed by the outpouring of energy and hoped it would contribute to a newly powerful progressive movement. Robert Borosage, co-director of the Campaign for America's Future, in Washington, noted that the Wall Street demonstrations followed protests in Wisconsin this year over efforts to suppress public employee unions and numerous rallies on economic and employment issues.

The new protesters have shown a remarkable commitment and have stayed nonviolent in the face of aggressive actions by the New York police, he said. "I think that as a result they really touched a chord among activists across the country."

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The protesters, who range from the unemployed to anarchists to college students to young parents, are voicing anger and discontent with the general state of the union and the economy. But they've gotten a lot of flack from the media for failing to voice clear demands or potential solutions.

Although there's no official list of demands, a proposed list written by a protester has been making the rounds. Demands (there are 13 of them) include free college education, raising the minimum wage to $20, and outlawing all credit reporting agencies. More mainstream demands include repealing the Glass-Steagall Act and mandating accountability from Wall Street.

With new protests planned across the country, it seems likely that even more mainstream organizations and unions will rally behind the movement. Now well-known writers like Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times and Mike Konczal of New Deal 2.0 have offered their ideas for more concrete goals the protesters should adopt, and more potential manifestos are sure to come. Whether the Occupy Wall Street movement will rally behind those goals and accomplish real change remains to be seen.

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"They're basically saying that somehow the government is supposed to take from those that have succeeded and give to those who want to protest," - Herman Cain