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 proble

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.