The impression of Occupy *

I had never personally met any people of Occupy * (e.g. Wall Street, Boston, Oakland) until today when I decided to listen to them personally to have a better understandng of these people who have been making headlines. I listened to speeches of four Occupy Boston participants.  I thought they were diverse and representative - one African American man, one Latino lady, one Caucasian lady, and one Caucasian transgender student. They gave me the following impressions:

1. They are genuinely enthusiastic.  They are neither opportunists nor leisurely people who have nothing to do. They are quite determined.
2. They lack specific goals or messages.  I realized this may be intentional.  According to one of them, the movement wants a greater share of power in all aspects, so they are not interested in achieving a specific objective.
3. They claim that they are 99%.  People know this is an exageration.  Now, I think this exageration is far greater than I thought.  It seems that many of them are long time activists who tend to participate any protests against any establishment.  These Occupy * protests usually draw a few hundred or thousand people. Eight years ago, anti-Iraq War protests usually drew tens or hundreds of thousands.  Those protests probably represent 50% to 70% of people. Looking at the scale of Occupy * protests, I cannot help thinking that they represent no more than 10% of people.
4. I was surprised by a number - a quarter of Occupy Boston participants are transgender people.  I cannot verify this, but there is surely a large showing of transgender people. This makes me wonder further how representative of the general public the participants are.  Maybe the Occupy * is somewhat a variant of the civil rights movement.