There is plenty of anger the government bailout of Wall Street financial institutions and the shrinking resources of middle class Americans. It's a message that has led union leaders to voice support for the occupy movement. One of the organizers of Monday's occupy protest in Oakland is convinced union support would be welcomed.
"You know I understand there is union politics and what not, but as this is just starting off there's going to be all kinds of politics," said Needa Bee, an Occupy Oakland organizer.
There were tons of signs outside the Federal Reserve Building in San Francisco and Occupy San Francisco's message ranges from anti-war to anti-corporate political contributions.
"I'm not a very political person. I'm here because In know this system is broken and it needs to be fixed," said "Just One", a spokesperson for Occupy San Francisco.
"Just One" admits it's a pretty unfocused message that can't fairly be boiled down to a single sentence and that is a political liability says ABC7's political analyst Bruce Cain, Ph.D.
"The problem is you don't have any message discipline the way you do say with the tea partiers," said Cain.
Cain says the tea party's success in becoming a force within the Republican Party is in part due to a simple message of less government, lower taxes. And while both groups share anger over the government bailout of Wall Street, tea party organizer David Miller doesn't see much of a connection.
"I'm still having a hard time figuring out what their messages is. It seems to be like a lot of different organizations coming together to protest their different pet peeves," said Miller.
And while the protest in Oakland swelled to several hundred Monday afternoon. In San Jose, the scene was pretty quiet on Monday afternoon; the Occupy San Jose demonstration shank to a handful. Organizers were told Sunday night to disburse or be cited by police and all but one person left. Monday a few came back, but not in the numbers that were here last week.
In Oakland, Bee says the movement is evolving.
"And what's happening in Oakland is different than what's happening in [San Francisco] which is different than what's happening in New York and for all of us to come on a common ground when all of this is happening so fast and so organically, that's going to take time," said Bee.
Just up the road in Berkeley, there was a grassroots movement born with a simple message and it became a big political force -- they are Move On. Monday, Move On led another rally in San Francisco which became a march down Market Street with the message to politicians to focus on jobs not spending cuts. That's a simple message.
