For those who are objective and unemotional it was easy to see this coming. The Occupy "movement" (and I use that term generously) has spiraled into irrelevance and relative obscurity. And it's a shame, as much of its message had broad resonance which could've been harnessed into significant power and influence in Washington. Instead, it became a whole lotta nuthin' over nuthin.'
So what went wrong?:
1. The "Occupy" Factor: Successful protest movements aren't about occupation, per se. This movement was too tied to its home base, a small symbolic tent-city near Wall Street, and in other similar parks in Boston, San Francisco and other cities. In order to rally scalable national support people needed to see marchers taking to the streets rather than largely hanging out in a park, which served, rightly or wrongly, to portray the Zuccotti Park inhabitants as drifters, vagrants and freeloaders rather than committed protesters. Much of the attention was not over its message but over the communal aspect of park life. Successful protest movements aren't about camping out, book sharing, eating, and "talking to each other," as one organizer told me. As a friend of mine joked, Zuccotti looked more like Bonnaroo. It confined and defined the message in a way that was limited and negative.
2. No Leadership: Every successful protest movement needs a leader; a strong, passionate, articulate, visible face and voice of the movement. (See Ghandi, Martin Luther King Jr., Lech Wałęsa, etc)
3. The Wrong Message: While I understood and agreed with much of what this movement was about, I think it took a deadly turn when it essentially turned into a "rich bad/poor good" theme. That wholesale indictment of everyone in the "1%" (including passionate, dedicated, extremely generous liberals like George Soros, Warren Buffett, Bill Gates and the Kennedys) was the wrong message. The mission shouldn't have been class warfare, but equality and fairness for all through reasonable government regulation and taxation.
4. No Agenda: While the organizers prided themselves on the fact that they had no real agenda other than to vent the nation's collective anger over the economic divide and injustices on Wall Street, this lack of clear, stated demands was a huge mistake. It should've taken a lesson from the Tea Party movement, which was and remains powerful, articulate and clear in its demands and which sent 63 congressmen to Washington in an election year to advocate and legislate its small government, less taxes agenda.
And that last point is the real shame of it all. In an election year as significant as this one, the Occupy movement is as good as dead. It will have achieved nothing legislatively, it will have elected no one and, in the end, it has had no material impact on American life. Nothing, that is, if you measure it against all other successful protest movements.
Follow Andy Ostroy on Twitter: www.twitter.com/AndyOstroy
It is fun to be the tribune of the people but it is mighty hard to have the people recognizing you as their tribune.
Occupy was a street theater that made more splash among the inteligentia and the media eager to have some excitment brought in through the clashes with the police and the stories of drugs and sex in the camps. Nothing sells better then blood and smut.
Now they have moved on - election year, European crisis, Syria's civil war and of course the summer vacation and so many other subjects of interest to the masses - trials of famous and infamous, divorces, weddings, the Queen's jubillee.
In the end the large majority of people in US feel that they have it pretty good when watching the rest of the world and if the situation seems grim one can always go shopping - either to Neiman Marcus or to Walmart, we live in a free country after all.
1) Vacating Zuccotti Park after having said they'll be there indefinitely.
2) Their much hyped "Day of Action, NYC, 2/29" brought in 50 people out of a city of 8 million.
3) Their call for a General Strike May Day was a joke.
4) NATO is still standing as of this morning
5) Their claim of "victory" is the extremely vaguely worded "We're changing the conversation."
What happened to their Spring Offensive? Did "Just wait until Spring" turn to "Just wait until late-ish summer, early Fall?"
-Occupy Our Homes, a national coalition of Occupy-affiliated groups, has stopped numerous illegal foreclosures across the country.
-Protesters organized a Bank Transfer Day, which helped credit unions add over 650,000 new members in one month (as opposed to 80,000 in a regular month), resulting in more than $4.5 billion in new deposits.
-Occupy the SEC submitted a 325-page letter to the SEC, FDIC, the Federal Reserve and the OCC, to comment on the notice of proposed rulemaking for the Volcker Rule.
-Following a coordinated nation-wide series of actions against ALEC (the American Legislative Exchange Council), a number of their corporate sponsors and legislators dropped their support faster than a sack of potatoes.
I could go on and on. The issues Occupy is confronting are complex. These sorts of social movements take many years to affect change. Further, these critiques are not exactly new info - people have been complaining about the lack of leaders and lack of demands since day 1. I think your pronouncement is more of an indication that you had nothing better to write about, Mr. Ostroy.
- How many of those homes were really being foreclosed on illegally? Is that just what they tell themselves? More to the point, how many will be foreclosed on anyways?
- Interestingly, the main organizer of the event received a lot of criticism from other Occupiers for her "pro-credit union" approach rather than just ranting about how horrible the banks were. This shows one member actually strayed from the ramblings of her own party and did something useful, despite how much she must have been hazed for it. Good thing she had a backbone or nothing would have been accomplished like everything else in the movement. Of course, they were happy to claim affiliation after she did the work.
-They submitted a letter to agencies that couldn't care less what a bunch of entitled brats think. Woopie!
-Do they attribute that to the protests or do the protestors just take credit for it?
Please don't go on and on. You seem too misguided and misinformed.
1. The foreclosures are illegal because the banks often can't show that they actually own the home. Those loans got bundled up into subprime mortgage products, got sold again and again through MERS, and the robo-signed paperwork got lost. Burden of proof is on the bank. Show me the papers. Until then, families should stay in their homes. If you want more info, you can read the stories on http://occupyourhomes.org/stories/
2. Christian organized the event with a lot of support from Occupy groups + Anonymous, who promoted Bank Transfer Day far and wide, led marches, etc. If she had started this without the backdrop of occupy, nothing would have happened. This OWS event circa 11/5/11 encourages other occupy groups to get educated on credit unions: http://occupywallst.org/forum/november-5th-bank-transfer-day-pass-on/
3. Occupy the SEC is a big deal. They are mostly former Wall Street wonks who think the stock market needs regulation to avoid the super-destructive bubbles that cause global recession - certainly not "entitled brats." Read up. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/occupy-the-regulatory-system/2012/04/27/gIQAjo21lT_blog.html
4. There's a clear causal connection. Occupy protests ALEC, the media spotlight turns, and corporate members get bad press. Then they drop out.
Want to really shake things up?
Stop buying from big corporations. You can complain all you want, but as long as you send your dollars into their pockets you are only feeding the system you claim to be against.
Buy local products, from local shops. That is how you stop the corporate power in this country.