The Occupation of Wall Street Spreads

[Simon_Jester]

It's already gone around OWS groups and is generally considered to be bullshit with a healthy dose of generational conflict thrown in there. The first point especially, since a whole lot of occupiers would fucking love the opportunity to flip burgers to at least slow their descent into absolute poverty. It also implies Occupy is nothing but high school or college age kids. I'll try to find a more in-depth rebuttal later, but right now I am on my phone at work.

Yeah.

Some of it, though, is spot-on: particularly the bit about "college -> employment!" I think this is one of the reasons that the people in the 20-25 age bracket now feel betrayed and not just disappointed: the system was happy enough to take their money, but now offers them no real opportunity to make that money back. Instead, it just keeps chugging merrily along, all set to harvest the next crop of teenagers the same way it did the last crop.

Which might be excused a little more easily if this weren't done under the pretense of educating these same people and preparing them for the future, when in reality all it's done is take their money and leave them indebted, to face pretty much the same future they'd have if they hadn't bothered.

[Lord Zentei]

This is just what I can come up with from casual digging in a few minutes' time. Of course, that's all irrelevant as long as the media continues to press the "well, they don't seem to have any specific demands" fiction. People who don't have the time or inclination to poke their nose around it much will shrug and move on with their lives. It's basically the same delegitimizing tactics used during Vietnam: paint the opposition as aimless, lazy, and stupid. That the OWS movement is also one with actual grassroots origins and no formal leadership figures means that there will be a very large array of stated goals and no clear idea on which way to march.

Yes, I know all of that, and I'm pretty sure most people on this board know that. But the list you cited is gathered from diverse collection of points pieced together from different directions over the course of the protests. They did not present a unified, coherent message from the word go, much less did they have a disciplined way of communicating it, and that has hurt the movement.

[Terralthra]

After being evicted from Zuccotti park last night and having thousands of dollars of camp infrastructure and assets broken, confiscated, and/or thrown away, NY Judge Billings issued a temporary restraining order at 4:30 AM ordering that NYPD allow protesters to reoccupy the park, and return any and all possessions. NYPD have so far not complied with the restraining order, and a hearing is in progress. This official Twitter is live-tweeting the hearing. City Lawyer is currently arguing that regulations against camping in the park, adopted after the Occupy Movement picked up steam in October, "have nothing to do with their cause."

The latest exchange is also solid gold:
City Lawyer: Who would be in office to receive faxed Temporary Restraining Order at 4:30 am?
OWS lawyer: Why did Bloomberg evict protesters at 1:30 am?

Crowds of protesters gathered after the eviction in Foley Square and have marched back to Zuccotti, chanting "Whose park? Our park!" and "Home, Sweet Home!" and "All Day, All Week, Occupy Wall Street!"

On arriving, one protester shouted to NYPD manning barricades around the park, "Your message is unclear! How long will you be occupying the park?" Nice bit of wit. Notably, the NYPD still have streets around the park blocked off, in addition to the park itself. Last night, during the eviction, multiple subway stops were closed down from 1 AM to 6 AM, "for routine maintenance" at the same time the Brooklyn Bridge was shut down by the NYPD.

Again, news helicopters were illegally ordered out of downtown airspace by the NYPD, and multiple journalists were told their press passes didn't matter tonight, kept from recording any of the police action, and arrested. At least one city council member was injured and arrested, bleeding from a head wound. If NYPD had good cause and appropriate actions in response to OWS, then I feel confident in saying they would not have acted at 1:30 AM and muzzled press coverage in violation of multiple NY laws and the fucking Constitution.

[Simon_Jester]

This is just what I can come up with from casual digging in a few minutes' time. Of course, that's all irrelevant as long as the media continues to press the "well, they don't seem to have any specific demands" fiction. People who don't have the time or inclination to poke their nose around it much will shrug and move on with their lives. It's basically the same delegitimizing tactics used during Vietnam: paint the opposition as aimless, lazy, and stupid. That the OWS movement is also one with actual grassroots origins and no formal leadership figures means that there will be a very large array of stated goals and no clear idea on which way to march.

Yes, I know all of that, and I'm pretty sure most people on this board know that. But the list you cited is gathered from diverse collection of points pieced together from different directions over the course of the protests. They did not present a unified, coherent message from the word go, much less did they have a disciplined way of communicating it, and that has hurt the movement.

Who is "they?"

Are you criticizing a spontaneous movement for not having a leadership council ready to issue circulars explaining its manifesto from... not even from Day One, from Day Minus Seven?

The argument that it's hurt them is, in my opinion, based on a profound lack of understanding of the movement- they are in this for the long haul, the decade-long haul in all probability. Even if no individual member intends to stay in OWS protests that long, the intent of the movement as a whole is plain, that the movement will continue to exist and condemn what they see as corporate abuses of the public good. And that they will be widespread enough that within a few years, everyone will know what they're protesting about.

[Stravo]

I find the timing of this eviction to be interesting. The OWS crowd have been organizing a large protest for Thursday 17th where I gather they intended to flood Wall Street with protesters and essentially try to shut things down. My guess is that this is an attempt by Bloomberg to head that off by breaking up the base camp and scattering the crowd.

I've read interviews where Bloomberg is very concerned that the OWS will eventually generate ill will towards Wall Street and may even inspire tighter regulation. Considering how heavily NYC depends on revenue they reap from Wall Street you can appreciate the concern.

Bloomberg has been hoping the colder weather would scatter them by now but fate laughs at such things and we've been experiencing much milder than normal weather and word has spread that the OWS team is starting to gather materials to make warmer sturdier tents so the hope that when it gets cold they'll leave is dwindling rapidly.

I would not be surprised if we see a more synchornized response from authorities to clear out their respective Occupy camps to maximize the impact on the movement.

My favorite witty exchage from the protestors happened last week. As a small group leaves the park to march to Washington and Occupy the Highways a group of construction workers shouted "Go get a real job" the protestors responded "We can't. We're too busy trying to save yours." Have to admit that was a mighty good one.

[Terralthra]

If you thought the recent crackdowns of Occupy encampments across the country was more than a coincidence, there is a good chance you were right. Oakland Mayor Jean Quan admits to talking to other cities before the massive coast-to-coast evictions.

In an interview this morning with the BBC, Mayor Quan reveals that she spoke with officials from other cities over the phone before a Monday morning raid that led to the eviction of hundreds of Occupy Oakland protesters and the arrests of many.

“I was recently on a conference call with 18 cities across the country who had the same situation,” says Quan, who goes on to claim that the movement, in her opinion, had transition from a political movement to one marred by anarchists.

“What had started as a political movement and a political encampment ended up being an encampment that was no longer in control of the people who started them,” says the mayor. Perhaps the greatest blow to her city’s own Occupy Oakland movement, however, came after repeated raids from local law enforcement agencies — often more than a dozen area forces working in conjunction — to infiltrate demonstrations and beat and arrest protesters.

After weeks of an occupation in the city’s Frank Ogawa Park, an early morning raid on Monday emptied the square as around 20 protesters were arrested before 6:30 a.m. local time. Among those detained were members of a prayer group who had gathered to praise in song as police apprehended them.

The mayor goes on to say that protesters in the movement are “looking for more stability” and blames anarchists that have co-opted the movement for hijacking the cause and disrupting any attempts at achieving peace. To protesters, though, the violence coming out from Occupy encampments for the most part has been carried out by law enforcement agencies. In Oakland alone, two American military veterans have been seriously injured by police action since police raids on the Occupy encampment there began.

Mayor Quan’s admittance that she spoke with other city leaders opens up speculation that a series of raids in recent days were more than a coincidence. Crackdowns in Albany, Denver, Salt Lake City and elsewhere in only the past few days suggest that coordination among the mayors of those towns could have caused for the mass evictions which have been ongoing since Saturday.

As Oakland became a western hub of sorts for the Occupy movement domestically, Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan where the movement began almost 60 days ago suffered a police crackdown in the early morning hours of Tuesday. As of this afternoon, hundreds of protesters are gathered outside a New York City courthouse awaiting a ruling regarding whether or not they have a right to return to the park that has been the home for many of the demonstrators during the last two months.
Calling into question the choice to protest in private parks, such as Zuccotti, Mayor Quan adds, “the Occupy movement itself is having a hard time controlling the encampments” and suggests that the group will reestablish their demonstrations in different locales.

Following the raids in Oakland and New York, protesters have already begun retaliating and attempting to re-occupy their prior encampments while at the same time trying to spread the demonstrations to neighboring locations.

[Civil War Man]

It's already gone around OWS groups and is generally considered to be bullshit with a healthy dose of generational conflict thrown in there. The first point especially, since a whole lot of occupiers would fucking love the opportunity to flip burgers to at least slow their descent into absolute poverty. It also implies Occupy is nothing but high school or college age kids. I'll try to find a more in-depth rebuttal later, but right now I am on my phone at work.

Some of it is true, though. Anecdotal evidence and all, but as early as the 90s, the post-high school planning where I graduated was not whether you'd go to college, but which college you'd attend. None of the students were forced to apply for colleges, but it was seen as a given that they would, and there was a lot of pressure to apply. Hell, there was one section of wall near the main office that was covered with various pennants showing the different colleges that had accepted members of that year's senior class. All because of the myth about college being the one true path to a good job, which implies that all the jobs that don't require college degrees are bad. And one of the things that a lot of those "bad" jobs have in common is that they require manual labor, whether it is the common flipping burgers example, picking crops, or skilled work like carpentry or plumbing.

Whether people are willing to flip burgers in order to make ends meet doesn't change that for years working in fast food has been painted as something only high schoolers and losers do, while a lot of other manual labor jobs are looked down upon as "immigrant work."

And even if many people at OWS would love to get a job at a place like McDonalds if it means making ends meet, they are still being called lazy and entitled by the same people who see it as a job for losers because the protesters are not working there right at that moment, which is what the writer was apologizing for.

And while the OWS groups are not monolithic, young people (especially college and recently post-college) are one of the biggest driving forces behind the protests, if not the biggest one.

As a side note, I showed the article to some of the older members of my family, and one of the points they agreed with most was that the only reason they got exercise as kids was because they didn't have anything else to do.

[Lord Zentei]

Who is "they?"

Are you criticizing a spontaneous movement for not having a leadership council ready to issue circulars explaining its manifesto from... not even from Day One, from Day Minus Seven?

The argument that it's hurt them is, in my opinion, based on a profound lack of understanding of the movement- they are in this for the long haul, the decade-long haul in all probability. Even if no individual member intends to stay in OWS protests that long, the intent of the movement as a whole is plain, that the movement will continue to exist and condemn what they see as corporate abuses of the public good. And that they will be widespread enough that within a few years, everyone will know what they're protesting about.

Get your thumb out of your ass. Of course I know that they're a spontaneous gathering. What I'm asserting is that this consensus driven model is good for gathering a large group of people and venting general frustration, it's not so good at delivering a message and avoiding having their message defined for them by their detractors. In the long run, it's not so good at accomplishing things either. For it to merely "continue to exist" means jack and shit: if there's no endgame, there's no objective achieved.

[Simon_Jester]

It comes down to a question of what we mean when we say "what are OWS's goals?"

Are we talking about OWS in terms of a specific list of people with a specific list of action items and a One/Five/Ten/Fifty Year Plan for the remaking of society?

Or are we talking about OWS as a bunch of people who, by and large, want the same things... but seen through the lens of what the famous "reasonable person" might interpret their goals to be?

In the first sense, asking what OWS's goals are is meaningless; it's like asking what the flavor of sunlight is.

In the second sense, OWS is full of people who all want the same endstate, but who could never hope to achieve it in anything less than, oh, five years. That's a stark minimum, mind you, not a realistic timeframe.


In the second sense, in the "what does it make sense for this movement to try" sense, the goal of the Occupy movement is to raise awareness and provide a rallying point. In themselves, the Occupy protests will not change much... but the people who play key roles in organizing them will also be the future organizers of the movements that will succeed Occupy. The people who participate in Occupy will learn lessons that will be useful later, not least that if you think this way you are not alone.

And for the establishment, Occupy constitutes a shot across their bows- that yes, they really have taken a large enough slice of the pie that they are starting to run into serious opposition from people who feel that there isn't enough left for them to live on. People who are not simply the same old perennial malcontents, but who really have little to lose from trying to do what Stas would call "breaking the machines."

But none of this can be planned on lists of bullet points- there is no process by which you can decide to generate a leadership cadre, since there's no one to make the decision in the first place, which is why you need one. You can't plan to have a movement or a series of protests to acclimate people to the idea of having movements and protests- again, that's a chicken-and-egg problem.

In my opinion, Zentei, you are looking at an egg and criticizing it for its failures as a chicken.

[Losonti Tokash]

Ironically, the crackdown on ONY has just brought in even more people. Once the raid started, calls for reinforcements went up and now there's groups from Philadelphia, Albany, Trenton, and everywhere in between present. It's also stirred up some of the more complacent groups that haven't really had any trouble. If I didn't know better, I might say the city was actually trying to increase support for Thursday.

[White Haven]

Occupy Wall Street: New York judge backs eviction
A New York court has ruled that a pre-dawn police raid on the Occupy Wall Street camp at Zuccotti Park was legal.
The ruling means protesters will remain barred from setting up tents and sleeping in the park, although New York officials say protest will be allowed.
Police arrested some 200 people in a surprise pre-dawn raid on Zuccotti Park and later held several journalists.
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the police clearout was prompted by public health and safety concerns.
Supreme Court Justice Michael Stallman denied a motion brought by lawyers for the protesters, saying that rights guaranteed under the first amendment to the US constitution do not entitle them to camp out indefinitely in the plaza.
Earlier, Mayor Bloomberg said the protesters had the right to make their views known and could return to the park to protest, but would not be allowed to camp out there.
White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters on board Air Force One that the Obama administration believes each local city governments must each make their own decision on how to deal with protesters, the Associated Press reported.
A number of other US protest camps have also been cleared in recent days.

Well, so much for the legal challenge. The BBC.

[The Romulan Republic]

Heh, Obama's remaining nice and neutral on it. It would be too much to expect him to openly back such a movement, so I suppose this is better than outright hostility.

[Losonti Tokash]

Seattle is being pepper sprayed right now, no photos yet.

[Lord Zentei]

But none of this can be planned on lists of bullet points- there is no process by which you can decide to generate a leadership cadre, since there's no one to make the decision in the first place, which is why you need one. You can't plan to have a movement or a series of protests to acclimate people to the idea of having movements and protests- again, that's a chicken-and-egg problem.

In my opinion, Zentei, you are looking at an egg and criticizing it for its failures as a chicken.

At least the egg knows how to grow into a chicken. If the movement cannot grow a leadership cadre, then it's not going to achieve anything, ever. But that's not the worst of it. It's almost as if the apologists for the movement are adverse to the idea that there even needs to be some kind of leadership. It reminds me of the advocates of the "new economy" in the tech sector prior to the dot-com bubble burst - they talked as if traditional economic theory was somehow obsolete.

So, now suppose, yes people have heard the message. Then... what? People going "well slap me upside the head, I never noticed that before!" and all was well? Or people suddenly noticing the Matrix, then cue the rolling of credits? People already know there is income inequality. People already know that there is corruption which causes it**. But in order to do anything about it someone or other will have to get people into the legislative business. OWS doesn't seem to want to do that, so presumably someone has to do it for them. Who? No one knows, because no one is a spokesman for the "organization".

Cue crickets chirping.

** I'm not convinced that the OWS understands the mechanisms for how that happens, but that's another story of potential failure.

Heh, Obama's remaining nice and neutral on it. It would be too much to expect him to openly back such a movement, so I suppose this is better than outright hostility.

It would be too much to expect him not to be playing both ends against the middle in order to maintain his political position, you mean,

[Losonti Tokash]

While I'm trying to get updates from Seattle, here's a nice little article for anyone that thought the timing of all these evictions was a coincidence.

http://capitoilette.com/2011/11/15/oakl ... -movement/

Embattled Oakland Mayor Jean Quan, speaking in an interview with the BBC (excerpted on The Takeaway radio program–audio of Quan starts at the 5:30 mark), casually mentioned that she was on a conference call with leaders of 18 US cities shortly before a wave of raids broke up Occupy Wall Street encampments across the country. “I was recently on a conference call with 18 cities across the country who had the same situation. . . .”

Mayor Quan then rambles about how she “spoke with protestors in my city” who professed an interest in “separating from anarchists,” implying that her police action was helping this somehow.

Interestingly, Quan then essentially advocates that occupiers move to private spaces, and specifically cites Zuccotti Park as an example:

In New York City, it’s interesting that the Wall Street movement is actually on a private park, so they’re not, again, in the public domain, and they’re not infringing on the public’s right to use a public park.

Many witnesses to the wave of government crackdowns on numerous #occupy encampments have been wondering aloud if the rapid succession was more than a coincidence; Jean Quan’s casual remark seems to clearly imply that it was.

Might it also be more than a coincidence that this succession of police raids started after President Obama left the US for an extended tour of the Pacific Rim?

[Lonestar]

Top of the page Los.

[Losonti Tokash]

Well, shit. I forgot Terralthra had posted that but the phrasing from it slipped into my brain anyway. My bad.

Edit: And his article was better. shiiiiit

[Simon_Jester]

At least the egg knows how to grow into a chicken. If the movement cannot grow a leadership cadre, then it's not going to achieve anything, ever. But that's not the worst of it. It's almost as if the apologists for the movement are adverse to the idea that there even needs to be some kind of leadership.

Hmmm. I can't speak to this. I have my own ideas about how all this will (or should) play out... but then, I'm not quite the very model of an OWS protestor.

So, now suppose, yes people have heard the message. Then... what? People going "well slap me upside the head, I never noticed that before!" and all was well? Or people suddenly noticing the Matrix, then cue the rolling of credits? People already know there is income inequality. People already know that there is corruption which causes it**. But in order to do anything about it someone or other will have to get people into the legislative business. OWS doesn't seem to want to do that, so presumably someone has to do it for them. Who? No one knows, because no one is a spokesman for the "organization".

Cue crickets chirping.

Again, you seem to have a mental model of OWS as political party- in which capacity they're a dismal failure, I agree. My point of disagreement is that I think this is the wrong model. The politics of protest are not the politics of electioneering, even if the two interact and if one can evolve into the other.

My point is that OWS is at most the prototype for a more organized movement which will take years to emerge. If there was already a solid, well organized core to rally around, some strong political force in the US that already stood foursquare and reliable against corruption and corporatism, OWS wouldn't have emerged to meet a perceived need in the first place.

In my opinion, this is what it looks like when a political movement has to start from scratch- messy and, at first, headless, because the entire point is that there's a large body out there in need of a head to speak for it.

[madd0ct0r]

article in slate written by Peter Moskos:

Peter Moskos

Peter Moskos, the author of Cop in the Hood and In Defense of Flogging, is a former police officer and assistant professor of law and police science at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and CUNY’s doctoral program in sociology. He also teaches at Laguardia Community College in Queens.

2nd half of article: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_ ... ts_.2.html

Police were invented in 1829, very explicitly in part, to protect society from mob rule. H.L. Mencken described police of the early 1900s as poorly paid, “but they carried on their dismal work with unflagging diligence, and loved a long, hard chase almost as they loved a quick, brisk clubbing.” Police today are undoubtedly changed for the better, and reliance on force is much less common than it was in Mencken’s age (or even a few decades ago). Better training and changing attitudes (combined with video cameras and lawsuits) have dragged police culture reluctantly into something very close to the present day.

Even though police culture remains solidly working-class and socially conservative, there is a surprisingly strong populist and even libertarian streak in policing. Granted, this is more Tea Party conservative than balaclava-wearing anarchist, but in an era when even those who wear blue see pink-slips, one does not have to dig too deep in the rank-and-file to find conditional sympathy for Occupy. But to ask if police have sympathy for Occupy protesters is to ask the wrong question (akin to asking waiters if they’re hungry on behalf of their customers). Police work is not about sympathy but getting the job done, pleasing the boss, and going home in one piece.

When times are routine, police drive around, respond to calls for service, help when they can, arrest when they must, and pick up the pieces of very troubled lives. The angry, the criminals, the victims, the idiotic—they can all be part of the fun. In a chaotic world, routine comes to substitute for order. Your average cop asks for little more than a working car, a decent cup of coffee, a clean bathroom, time to eat, and the chance to get off work on time.
Advertisement

Police will always gripe when something disturbs their routine. (But honestly, police can sometimes be a complaining lot.) If cops could wave a magic wand, the protesters would simply go away. But if cops could wave a magic wand, the whole damned city would probably disappear. Police relate to the demoralized employees in the film Clerks: “This job would be great if it wasn’t for the fucking customers.” Occupy protests are certainly seen as a nuisance, but this is more work-related than deep-rooted ideology.

If we accept that Occupy protests, like all large public gatherings, need to be policed, there are guidelines of protest behavior that can mitigate police unpleasantness: 1) don’t hurt yourself or others, 2) don’t shut down the city, 3) don’t antagonize the police, and 4) no surprises. If these simple rules are followed, police will gladly stand around and collect overtime while others chant and rally.

The job for police at large protests is mostly to protect and contain. In general, police avoid arrests at major events because they are time-consuming, disruptive, and remove officers from the scene. But when break-out groups of protesters disrupt the city, police have to react, and they won’t be in a good mood. As long as protesters—not all protesters, but some—wish to provoke officers, police will play the role of an angry Pierre.

If we wish protests to be allowed and peacefully contained, we could do far worse than follow the lead of the NYPD. So far, with a few notable bumps, things have actually gone pretty well in Manhattan. But New York City has huge resources not available to smaller locales. Ultimately the decision to accommodate, tolerate, or battle protesters rests, as it should, with a multitude of locally elected officials. Perhaps they should be more tolerant of groups of people who wish to control public space. Perhaps blocking roads isn’t the be-all and end-all (after all, cars do it all the time). Perhaps we can better balance local livelihoods and open access to public space.

These issues need to be decided by cool-headed civil discussion and not the moment a chunk of concrete whizzes past an officer’s head. Police work literally and figuratively in uniform, but it is counterproductive and somewhat absurd to antagonize an officer in New York for an order given in California (and vice versa).

Occupy is supposed to be about economic injustice, not the police. The majority of protesters are peaceful and mean well; the majority of the public respect, if not the substance of the protesters, the right to protest; and the majority of police officers—who, unlike the protesters, would certainly prefer to be elsewhere—do not want to become the focal point of protesters’ fury. And yet there the police are, center stage, day in and day out. Wherever the protests go, police have to come reluctantly along for the ride, stuck in the middle, like poor Unlucky Pierre.

as for what the OWS movement is bringing to America? Doonsebury says it better then I can:
http://www.doonesbury.com/strip/archive/2011/11/09

[Lord Zentei]

Again, you seem to have a mental model of OWS as political party- in which capacity they're a dismal failure, I agree. My point of disagreement is that I think this is the wrong model. The politics of protest are not the politics of electioneering, even if the two interact and if one can evolve into the other.

My point is that OWS is at most the prototype for a more organized movement which will take years to emerge. If there was already a solid, well organized core to rally around, some strong political force in the US that already stood foursquare and reliable against corruption and corporatism, OWS wouldn't have emerged to meet a perceived need in the first place.

In my opinion, this is what it looks like when a political movement has to start from scratch- messy and, at first, headless, because the entire point is that there's a large body out there in need of a head to speak for it.

No, I just have a mental model of what is needed to accomplish things. Simply "getting out the message" is not going to do anything beyond getting noticed, and that's already been done. What exactly do you think is going to happen over many years of this stuff? Things won't change, unless they're changed, and simply repeating the mantras and going through the motions won't do that any more than a magic spell. It's like they're waiting for something, for people to spontaneously change, or for Liberal Jesus to make an appearance.

At the end of the day, OWS will have to get their hands dirty, politically (or someone will have to do so).

[madd0ct0r]

yeah, but having a vocal group who's vote you can capture is important to motivate a politician

[Lord Zentei]

Enough to tip the balance in the halls of power?

But I commented at one point that they fear being co-opted like the Tea Party was. A reasonable fear, no doubt about that. But with no organization and leadership, I suspect that they're more vulnerable to having their position exploited, not less.

[madd0ct0r]

Co-opted is what I'd be aiming for - much as the Tea Party was able to push the republicans and therefore the entire political system to the right, the OWS would be a significant pressure upon the Democrats not to blindly move rightwards.

These are the people who voted for hope and change. These are the people who feel betrayed by the main parties and watched the rise of the Tea Party with disbelief. They voted for a leader before, and he walked away from them. Crowd sourced movements can work, but they're still a new phenomenon.

It's a bit paradoxical, but both the Tea Party and OWS likes individualistic society and a strong government. They just see both performing different roles. You say there's a risk of their message being defined by their opponents. I think they're worried about their message being defined at all.

And if what is offered to them by the mainstream parties isn't good enough? they keep going. When enough people are satisfied, the protests will die back. but like SJ has already noted, there will be a fresh generation of experienced community leaders emerging from this. It's a good time to make your mistakes and learn from them.

[Simon_Jester]

No, I just have a mental model of what is needed to accomplish things. Simply "getting out the message" is not going to do anything beyond getting noticed, and that's already been done. What exactly do you think is going to happen over many years of this stuff? Things won't change, unless they're changed, and simply repeating the mantras and going through the motions won't do that any more than a magic spell. It's like they're waiting for something, for people to spontaneously change, or for Liberal Jesus to make an appearance.

At the end of the day, OWS will have to get their hands dirty, politically (or someone will have to do so).

I predict that if things go well in America over the next fifty years, it will be because OWS did "get their hands dirty, politically..." but over a period of years, and under a host of different names, and when the smoke clears you may never believe it was OWS that was doing it.

And yet I'd argue OWS is indispensable to the process by which that can happen. OWS is a beginning, a place to rally the troops (and sort out who will make good officers) before going on campaign.

It's still a mess, though, you're right about that- a body in search of a head, as I said. But that doesn't mean the participants are mindless or foolish, or that they all think they can just chant slogans and make the world change. They're there because being silent isn't good enough for them any more, and because they don't think they can get change without, at the least, demonstrating their own willingness to chant slogans and stand out in the cold.

[Lord Zentei]

That's fair enough, but the Tea Party moved fairly quickly past the sandbox stage, and OWS needs to do the same if they want to keep people's attention with things other than scuffles with the police.

I think they're worried about their message being defined at all.

And that's a fail. Incidentally, it also contradicts any apologism on their behalf which is made in repsonse to the critique that they don't communicate their message or demands well enough.

And if what is offered to them by the mainstream parties isn't good enough? they keep going. When enough people are satisfied, the protests will die back. but like SJ has already noted, there will be a fresh generation of experienced community leaders emerging from this. It's a good time to make your mistakes and learn from them.

Mistakes such as the ones I'm mentioning?

Training community leaders is all well and good, but a future generation of community leaders will need a community to lead. They're not cutting it yet, and this whole movement risks becoming a wasted opportunity.

I predict that if things go well in America over the next fifty years, it will be because OWS did "get their hands dirty, politically..." but over a period of years, and under a host of different names, and when the smoke clears you may never believe it was OWS that was doing it.

If I were to hold that view 50 years hence, it would be because Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc is a fallacy.


EDIT: fixed quote tags.