There is a growing contention over what Occupy Wall Street is all about, "its core message" as the news media says. Advice is coming from every quarter about this, some good, some well meaning if naive, and some with a pronounced agenda. So perhaps it would be good to look at things a bit more sweepingly. What is happening here? What is the message?

First, let's start with matters of space, what does it tell us? The encampment is set up on a plaza called Zuccotti Park [renamed Liberty Square]. This is a park that 10 years ago stood directly in front of the charred remnants of what was the World Trade Center. It was site of a horror that quickly morphed into a chauvinist shrine for U.S. military adventures, first in Afghanistan then Iraq.

Over the last few weeks I see a certain poetry in two movements that have emerged: one to save Troy Davis, and end the death penalty. And another to control corporations, especially those of the financial industry, with Occupy Wall Street. The first speaks to social control, the latter to economic control -- two sides of the same coin.

The intense protests have been riveting as both online and on-the-ground activism have gained momentum and been covered by mainstream media. The efforts to save Troy Davis were tragically unsuccessful, and Wall Street continues to operate, business as usual. Still, policy and institutions that perpetuate inhumane capital punishment and corporate greed are, for the time being, under scrutiny.