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You in particular are my main criticism of Occupy as a movement. They lacked any sort of structure, shunned it in fact, that would have ripped control of these

You in particular are my main criticism of Occupy as a movement. They lacked any sort of structure, shunned it in fact, that would have ripped control of these resources away from you once it became clear that you disagreed politically with the vast majority of the people involved. That you were allowed to keep control of those resources is emblematic of how Occupy could let all that energy dissipate into nothing.

jart 8mo ago
What resources? OccupyWallSt.org only accepted enough donations to keep the 1-800 number and website online. I was smart enough to understand back then that an unemployed 26 year old activist living in a park wasn't qualified to manage the capital that was being offered to us. So what did I do? I gave you about twenty different links for various projects on the donation page to choose from.
- giraffe_lady 8mo ago
  Well, and now you use it for this so what was all that for?
- knuckleheads 8mo ago
  Thank you for another example of why Occupy was doomed to fail, I had not considered that you had control over the donation flow. Instead of working together as a group and finding somebody more responsible than yourself to manage the incoming capital, you diverted it away from the movement and dispersed it to the winds. Was that decision made collectively by the group? Or did you take it upon yourself to do so? Control over the domains and twitter account, along with the incoming flow of donations are the resources that you had and Occupy let you squander.
  - deleted 8mo ago
    [deleted]
  - jart 8mo ago
    Every group that showed up in the park and was working on a project, they could come to me and ask that their donation link be posted on the OccupyWallSt.org donate page. I'm a tech person. I registered a domain. I play it neutral. I included everything from basket weaving to aspiring governments. One of these groups called itself NYCGA or the NYC General Assembly. They were the political organization that claimed dominion over Occupy Wall Street and the public elected to give them the lion's share of donations. The guy who ended up with most of their money, if memory serves me right, is a tattoo artist named Pete Dutro. So these days I'm a lot more opinionated. The Pete Dutros of the financial community took out trillions of dollars of loans from Japan and the economy is crashing right now because of them. We should be focusing on reallocating that capital.
    - knuckleheads 8mo ago
      What a fall from grace, trying to fashion buying calls on FXY as a revolution! Put this on your own personal website and redirect that page, let the domain maintain some dignity.
      - jart 8mo ago
        This was posted on OccupyWallSt.com. The OccupyWallSt.org website is still exactly as it was in its full 2011 looking glory. I've been dragging my heels on renewing the SSL certificate however everything's still there. It's even been cataloged and archived by the Library of Congress for posterity. So the dignity of the movement has been secured and is continuing to be respected. Your voices are now a permanent artifact in America's historical record.
        greggoB 8mo ago
        > Your voices are now a permanent artifact in America's historical record. I like how the wording here (Your voices) is giving off that sarcastic and patronizing "you're welcome" tone. Like a religious person saying "I'll pray for you" to someone non-religious, where the undertone is an obvious middle finger. It's pretty fun.
  - popalchemist 8mo ago
    Yep, occupy may have had the moral high ground but they squandered it because they were the modern day hippy idealists with no boots-on-the-ground (or feet touching grass) know-how to actually effect change in a protracted way.
  - worik 8mo ago
    > Occupy was doomed to fail, I am curious, what would you consider success? I do not think it failed, far from it. I can give my reasons, you first
- AndrewKemendo 8mo ago
  I’d love to talk with you because I’ve tried to do anarchist organization in the past and it’s super fucking hard one (started here) was successful but one failed hard I’d just be curious to trade stories to see if we can learn from each other My handle@iCloud if you want to reach out
bombcar 8mo ago
Co-opting potentially effective political movements is how the people in control stay in control. Once you start noticing it, you see it time and time again.
thomassmith65 8mo ago
The 'Occupy' energy didn't dissipate into nothing. It fueled extremism and populism, both on the left and on the right.
- jancsika 8mo ago
  > It fueled extremism and populism, both on the left and on the right. I think you're confusing the Occupy Movement with the housing crisis itself. Any anti-establishment/libertarian right-wingers would have already gotten energized years before by the Tea Party movement. Even Ron Paul's million dollar "money bomb" in donations happened a few months before Occupy. And what's the path from Occupy to right-wing extremism? Even on Fox News Occupy was a short-term blip. The "one percent" slogan made its way directly into Bernie's campaign, so that tracks with what I assume you're calling left-wing populism. But what do you mean by "extremism" here? If it's violent extremism I don't see the connection. And if it's left-wing anarchist movements, have those grown in any significant way since the 2010s?
  - thomassmith65 8mo ago
    I understand my comment might give one the impression that I am confusing the chicken (the financial crisis) and the egg (the Occupy movement). Since Occupy could not have existed without the Crisis, certainly some blame goes to the Crisis. That said, Occupy shaped perception of the Crisis. Occupy trained the public to view the Crisis in terms of bad people, instead of systemic problems like incentives. The Occupy movement, with its permanent smoke-pit adolescents like Tim Pool, Matt Taibbi, Max Keiser, and so on, has influenced public discourse ever since. I cannot prove that Occupy, rather than the Financial Crisis alone, made possible our current dysfunctional politics (with its focus on scapegoating, conspiracy theories, magical thinking), but I notice echos of its 'memes' (in the original sense of the word), and its attitudes - not to mention I notice some of the actual participants.
    - thomassmith65 8mo ago
      I wish I could edit this, because now that I reread it, 'chicken and egg' doesn't make sense. It's more a question of root cause. So a better metaphor might be whether to assign blame to a misbehaving child or to the abusive father who raised him.

jart 8mo ago

What resources? OccupyWallSt.org only accepted enough donations to keep the 1-800 number and website online. I was smart enough to understand back then that an unemployed 26 year old activist living in a park wasn't qualified to manage the capital that was being offered to us. So what did I do? I gave you about twenty different links for various projects on the donation page to choose from.

giraffe_lady 8mo ago
Well, and now you use it for this so what was all that for?
knuckleheads 8mo ago
Thank you for another example of why Occupy was doomed to fail, I had not considered that you had control over the donation flow. Instead of working together as a group and finding somebody more responsible than yourself to manage the incoming capital, you diverted it away from the movement and dispersed it to the winds. Was that decision made collectively by the group? Or did you take it upon yourself to do so? Control over the domains and twitter account, along with the incoming flow of donations are the resources that you had and Occupy let you squander.
- deleted 8mo ago
  [deleted]
- jart 8mo ago
  Every group that showed up in the park and was working on a project, they could come to me and ask that their donation link be posted on the OccupyWallSt.org donate page. I'm a tech person. I registered a domain. I play it neutral. I included everything from basket weaving to aspiring governments. One of these groups called itself NYCGA or the NYC General Assembly. They were the political organization that claimed dominion over Occupy Wall Street and the public elected to give them the lion's share of donations. The guy who ended up with most of their money, if memory serves me right, is a tattoo artist named Pete Dutro. So these days I'm a lot more opinionated. The Pete Dutros of the financial community took out trillions of dollars of loans from Japan and the economy is crashing right now because of them. We should be focusing on reallocating that capital.
  - knuckleheads 8mo ago
    What a fall from grace, trying to fashion buying calls on FXY as a revolution! Put this on your own personal website and redirect that page, let the domain maintain some dignity.
    - jart 8mo ago
      This was posted on OccupyWallSt.com. The OccupyWallSt.org website is still exactly as it was in its full 2011 looking glory. I've been dragging my heels on renewing the SSL certificate however everything's still there. It's even been cataloged and archived by the Library of Congress for posterity. So the dignity of the movement has been secured and is continuing to be respected. Your voices are now a permanent artifact in America's historical record.
      - greggoB 8mo ago
        > Your voices are now a permanent artifact in America's historical record. I like how the wording here (Your voices) is giving off that sarcastic and patronizing "you're welcome" tone. Like a religious person saying "I'll pray for you" to someone non-religious, where the undertone is an obvious middle finger. It's pretty fun.
- popalchemist 8mo ago
  Yep, occupy may have had the moral high ground but they squandered it because they were the modern day hippy idealists with no boots-on-the-ground (or feet touching grass) know-how to actually effect change in a protracted way.
- worik 8mo ago
  > Occupy was doomed to fail, I am curious, what would you consider success? I do not think it failed, far from it. I can give my reasons, you first
AndrewKemendo 8mo ago
I’d love to talk with you because I’ve tried to do anarchist organization in the past and it’s super fucking hard one (started here) was successful but one failed hard I’d just be curious to trade stories to see if we can learn from each other My handle@iCloud if you want to reach out

bombcar 8mo ago

Co-opting potentially effective political movements is how the people in control stay in control. Once you start noticing it, you see it time and time again.

thomassmith65 8mo ago

The 'Occupy' energy didn't dissipate into nothing. It fueled extremism and populism, both on the left and on the right.

jancsika 8mo ago
> It fueled extremism and populism, both on the left and on the right. I think you're confusing the Occupy Movement with the housing crisis itself. Any anti-establishment/libertarian right-wingers would have already gotten energized years before by the Tea Party movement. Even Ron Paul's million dollar "money bomb" in donations happened a few months before Occupy. And what's the path from Occupy to right-wing extremism? Even on Fox News Occupy was a short-term blip. The "one percent" slogan made its way directly into Bernie's campaign, so that tracks with what I assume you're calling left-wing populism. But what do you mean by "extremism" here? If it's violent extremism I don't see the connection. And if it's left-wing anarchist movements, have those grown in any significant way since the 2010s?
- thomassmith65 8mo ago
  I understand my comment might give one the impression that I am confusing the chicken (the financial crisis) and the egg (the Occupy movement). Since Occupy could not have existed without the Crisis, certainly some blame goes to the Crisis. That said, Occupy shaped perception of the Crisis. Occupy trained the public to view the Crisis in terms of bad people, instead of systemic problems like incentives. The Occupy movement, with its permanent smoke-pit adolescents like Tim Pool, Matt Taibbi, Max Keiser, and so on, has influenced public discourse ever since. I cannot prove that Occupy, rather than the Financial Crisis alone, made possible our current dysfunctional politics (with its focus on scapegoating, conspiracy theories, magical thinking), but I notice echos of its 'memes' (in the original sense of the word), and its attitudes - not to mention I notice some of the actual participants.
  - thomassmith65 8mo ago
    I wish I could edit this, because now that I reread it, 'chicken and egg' doesn't make sense. It's more a question of root cause. So a better metaphor might be whether to assign blame to a misbehaving child or to the abusive father who raised him.