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"The occupy movement rallied against what they perceived to be a rigged game: a financial system that required their participation but did not offer them a seat

"The occupy movement rallied against what they perceived to be a rigged game: a financial system that required their participation but did not offer them a seat at the table. Then they went home - maybe because the weather got bad" Occupy Wall Street was cleared out by police starting at 1 AM on Tuesday, November 15th, 2011. It was done at 1 AM as they only had to deal with people staying at the park at that time. They arrested 200 people in a well-planned operation. One of the reasons given for clearing the park was unsanitary conditions, which I can personally attest was BS - OWS was always sanitary, and when the mayor began using sanitation as a reason to clear things out OWS became fanatical about cleanliness. I watched people sweep the same spot of ground multiple times an hour. Compare that to the parks and recreation cuts where some NYC parks can go more than a week without any cleanup. The police pushed back attempts to re-occupy the park in the day of November 15th and November 16th. A more organized effort to get back in the park was tried on New Year's Eve, and was met by pepper spray, dozens of arrests etc. While this is the reality, which can be easily verified, I realize there is this hegemonic false way of thinking. I realize this requires reporting that OWS were a bunch of trustafarians not affected by Wall Street shenanigans, and who went home when it got cold. Because to talk about what really happened, as opposed to the invented ideas of what would happen from someone embracing a propagandistic model of explanation, would require revealing things which are not allowed to be revealed. While I embrace ideas that came out of OWS, I didn't go for the first week or two even though I knew about it before it happened, because I didn't see how occupying an area would do anything, and I didn't think people were interested. On that latter point I certainly misjudged - people from NYC and surrounding areas who had pent-up frustration about unemployment and the economy came flooding into OWS. Any how, it's funny how Russian governments or Chinese governments and their press organs lied, and much of the population knew its BS, yet the corporate press organs in the U.S. lie and say it got too cold so OWSers went home, and it is accepted as fact by so many. That the press lies is not surprising, that Americans are so credulous is what's surprising. I guess with so much fundamentalist religion among the working class and a different sort of warped thinking among professionals in the US, I shouldn't be continuously surprised by this, but I am.

scarmig 13y ago
Of all the things that piss me off about OWS, what's probably the worst is this: our corporate media have somehow foisted some kind of collective amnesia on us. People ask, "Ugh, I hate our financial sector, and OWS had some good rhetoric but they just gave up because they were cold, lazy, and bored." As if one of the biggest domestic displays of government violence in recent times didn't even happen! There are plenty of other critiques of OWS that I embrace wholeheartedly--sites became gathering points for the homeless and hurt more widespread appeal, new people who went in were not on-boarded effectively--which we can debate on end. But the idea that one day people just got bored and gave up... that drives me nuts.
- tptacek 13y ago
  Am I understanding properly that all it took to destroy OWS in the popular consciousness was to deny them access to a single park?
  - Retric 13y ago
    The occupy movement was really just a long running protest. There where similar things going on in DC but they where hardly occupying wall street and they all got forcibly disbanded.
    - tptacek 13y ago
      I'm just suggesting we keep some perspective. Civil rights succeeded despite dogs and firehoses. I thought OWS was going in a potent direction after Sandy, but apparently once they lost access to a private park, a fatal blow had been struck.
      - scarmig 13y ago
        Well, yes and no. OWS was indeed shut down by municipalities using tough and even exceptional tactics, but the fact that it could be was a sign of deeper problems. I think it's important to keep in mind the distinctions between broader social moods, specific organizations, and tactics, all of which together make up a social movement. The American Civil Rights movement is an interesting comparison point, because it's a social movement that met with some success and is pretty well-known. It had organizations like SNCC and the SCLC that organically grew from a broader social base--the burgeoning black middle class, well-educated liberal whites--that gave it staying power. And it was able to rationally coordinate specific tactics that went beyond pushing legal briefs and went toward crystallizing specific instances of the injustices of the South. To make a retronym, it could Occupy the front section in public buses and seats at restaurants. And the power of those actions is that it would force governments to either react against them, revealing the profound violence involved in the system, or show that the government was unwilling to enforce its laws, which would effectively repeal them. (This is all very stylized, of course.) And individual tactics could and did coalesce into an organizational strategy, which is the key point. How does OWS compare? You definitely have the discontent and the social base for it. And you have the tactics. God, you have more tactics than you can count. New forms of government, a bold attempt to force governments to instantiate violence by throwing your bodies in an area you'd live in and occupy, crews of people who, in a matter of weeks, managed to construct some level of waste management and food provision. But, if you remove the people from the area they've Occupied... all those tactics fall apart. If you pull out that keystone, the whole logic of it crumbles. And then all you are left with is the original generalized discontent. I think it would be very fair to lay the blame for that at Occupy's doorstep, if Occupy had a doorstep. Building a movement out of a tactic and social malaise leaves you vulnerable to the fact that as soon as anyone finds a way to respond to the tactic, the movement dies on the vine.

scarmig 13y ago

Of all the things that piss me off about OWS, what's probably the worst is this: our corporate media have somehow foisted some kind of collective amnesia on us. People ask, "Ugh, I hate our financial sector, and OWS had some good rhetoric but they just gave up because they were cold, lazy, and bored." As if one of the biggest domestic displays of government violence in recent times didn't even happen! There are plenty of other critiques of OWS that I embrace wholeheartedly--sites became gathering points for the homeless and hurt more widespread appeal, new people who went in were not on-boarded effectively--which we can debate on end. But the idea that one day people just got bored and gave up... that drives me nuts.

tptacek 13y ago
Am I understanding properly that all it took to destroy OWS in the popular consciousness was to deny them access to a single park?
- Retric 13y ago
  The occupy movement was really just a long running protest. There where similar things going on in DC but they where hardly occupying wall street and they all got forcibly disbanded.
  - tptacek 13y ago
    I'm just suggesting we keep some perspective. Civil rights succeeded despite dogs and firehoses. I thought OWS was going in a potent direction after Sandy, but apparently once they lost access to a private park, a fatal blow had been struck.
    - scarmig 13y ago
      Well, yes and no. OWS was indeed shut down by municipalities using tough and even exceptional tactics, but the fact that it could be was a sign of deeper problems. I think it's important to keep in mind the distinctions between broader social moods, specific organizations, and tactics, all of which together make up a social movement. The American Civil Rights movement is an interesting comparison point, because it's a social movement that met with some success and is pretty well-known. It had organizations like SNCC and the SCLC that organically grew from a broader social base--the burgeoning black middle class, well-educated liberal whites--that gave it staying power. And it was able to rationally coordinate specific tactics that went beyond pushing legal briefs and went toward crystallizing specific instances of the injustices of the South. To make a retronym, it could Occupy the front section in public buses and seats at restaurants. And the power of those actions is that it would force governments to either react against them, revealing the profound violence involved in the system, or show that the government was unwilling to enforce its laws, which would effectively repeal them. (This is all very stylized, of course.) And individual tactics could and did coalesce into an organizational strategy, which is the key point. How does OWS compare? You definitely have the discontent and the social base for it. And you have the tactics. God, you have more tactics than you can count. New forms of government, a bold attempt to force governments to instantiate violence by throwing your bodies in an area you'd live in and occupy, crews of people who, in a matter of weeks, managed to construct some level of waste management and food provision. But, if you remove the people from the area they've Occupied... all those tactics fall apart. If you pull out that keystone, the whole logic of it crumbles. And then all you are left with is the original generalized discontent. I think it would be very fair to lay the blame for that at Occupy's doorstep, if Occupy had a doorstep. Building a movement out of a tactic and social malaise leaves you vulnerable to the fact that as soon as anyone finds a way to respond to the tactic, the movement dies on the vine.