industrian
will gently cradle you as time slowly ticks away.
Occupy failed because it only tried to "raise awareness" and not do anything tangible. You cannot effect change in a system without being part of that system.
Why did Occupy Wall Street fail?
- Thread starter Bronx-Man
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Yeah, I guess when you boil it down, the main difference is the far-right base is actually able to vote the establishment out while the far-left base can be almost ignored without hurting a candidate's electability. I guess voter turnout is all the answers.
Sign
Member
I watched a lot of footage when OWS was at its peak and I mean A LOT. The single biggest issue OWS faced was a lack of leadership and a refusal to coalesce around a single issue. The biggest example of this is this video:
https://youtu.be/cOWkaeG-1IQ
Campaign Finance reform was proposed on a silver platter. It should have been what that movement was pointed at. . .unfortunately it was not and due to the inherent chaos of a leaderless protest it was easily dismissed by the corporate media and career politicians.
https://youtu.be/cOWkaeG-1IQ
Campaign Finance reform was proposed on a silver platter. It should have been what that movement was pointed at. . .unfortunately it was not and due to the inherent chaos of a leaderless protest it was easily dismissed by the corporate media and career politicians.
~Devil Trigger~
In favor of setting Muslim women on fire
So they succeeded, that's my point.
Democrats failed to capitalize and people don't vote on off year elections. That's not Occupy's failure.
Stop stating what you wish OWS was and deal with what was done and is there.
I don't want to start a fight, but I still don't see a formal proposition in your reply.
industrian
will gently cradle you as time slowly ticks away.
I wouldn't even have remembered OWS if it wasn't for this thread's title. That's some good "raising awareness" right there.
"Raising awareness" is essentially telling someone "look at this!!" without providing solutions, plans, or frameworks to do something about an issue. It's the laziest form of activism in the world. It barely even counts as doing anything.
For example:
I am "raising awareness" about cancer right now to the thousands of people who will read this thread. I'm not a doctor, scientist or a researcher so I can't tell you about any potential solutions, plans or frameworks to treat or cure cancer. But by talking about it in this thread hopefully I have "raised enough awareness" so that someone who reads it is inspired to do something about it and that my "raising awareness" was not in vain.
Do you feel that I just contributed anything to providing a cure or solution to cancer?
ThankYouDaletech
Banned
Because a bunch of people hanging out in tents in public and whinging doesn't affect the wealthy ruling class in the slightest so they can just kind of chill out and keep doing the same thing they also do.
uncelestial
Member
I don't think OWS was helped by the disinterested at best/critical at worst media coverage. I was so angry at Jon Stewart's ONLY coverage of it being that they broke a Starbucks window and he thought their hand signals were funny. As if they were thuggish idiots who didn't have a valid point, that nobody agreed with, and should just be ignored. He was on that "Rally to Restore Sanity" bullshit at the time.
Liu Kang Baking A Pie
Member
It's really boring reading basically this same reply over and over.
OWS fizzled, but I feel like everyone writing that same thing fell for the media's propaganda and portrayal of the group. It's the same bullshit narrative used to marginalize any activist group. Unless you're there yourself, you never actually know the real story.
Liu Kang Baking A Pie
Member
This is a very important point.
No revolution will win by playing by the rules of the oppressive system they're trying to overthrow. The protections against change are there, or else the system would've already changed. Any successful group has got to disrupt and destroy what's holding them down.
Shao Kahn on the Lawn
Member
The Tea Party didn't get into office by practicing violent extremism even though their rhetoric at least implied that it should be on the table.
Occupy Wall Street failed to formulate a simple and cohesive message, secure funding, and place their message in the hands of people who could get elected and actually implement some of them in the form of tangible policy. Say what you will about the Tea Party but their rhetoric was tailor-made for the segment of the electorate that they were going after.
Whining about the media is a losing strategy for progressives in a center-right country whose media is owned by the corporations they're trying to disrupt. Any action from that front should take that fact into account and it seemingly didn't with OWS. You're not going to "disrupt and destroy" Fox News, MSNBC, and CNN...but you don't have to rely upon them at first either.
Yep, it's too bad that so many people think they can peacefully change or revise a system that will fight to keep the status quo.
Baraka in the White House
2-Terms of Kombat
Mostly PR problems, which were not helped by a crass, apathetic public and a media campaign that consistently shat on the whole thing.
NoblesseOblige
Banned
My guess is most people were just temporarily enthusiastic about it. I get the feeling it was mostly the young and privileged, who got bored and moved on when things didn't change instantly. But I also didn't pay it much attention, so I'm rather ignorant. I just recall places like 4chan being all gung-ho with their Guy Fawkes masks.
thequickandthedead
Member
I knew the movement was done when I saw this image
Manmademan
Member
I knew the movement was done when I saw this image
#allstreetsmatter amirite
Because the people who are running the Black Lives Matter movement didn't run Uccupy Wall Street. If there is one surprise this election season, it's how big of an impact black lives matter has had on the democratic side.
And then in the general election, black lives matter won't have any impact at all. I'm not sure that BLM's impact on the Democratic primary has been a net positive, either.
T
thepotatoman
Unconfirmed Member
It clearly added "1%" to the public lexicon, and since then we've seen every single democrat introduce themselves as someone very concerned about inequality, while even Republicans sometimes dip into that rhetoric for themselves.
The gay pride parades get the same short shrift with no one attributing any of the success of the gay rights movement to it, even though it was a huge element of gay rights history. Yes, it only made the headlines because people liked to make fun of it, and it wasn't the only element of the gay rights movement, but it making the headlines was huge toward getting people to even know there's an issue there, and just getting that word out however you can gave gay people a foundation to stand on to help them come out knowing they're not alone, which is the primary thing which lead to such a swift change in opinion.
I feel like people hold all political activism up to the standards of the March on Washington, commonly ignoring all the political activism that took place before and after that event, and overemphasizing the impact of that event, to the point of claiming that racism in America ended that day.
Occupy Wall Street was about as successful as any political activist movement there is. If your standards are so high you want change overnight, the only way you'll achieve that is a military coup.
The gay pride parades get the same short shrift with no one attributing any of the success of the gay rights movement to it, even though it was a huge element of gay rights history. Yes, it only made the headlines because people liked to make fun of it, and it wasn't the only element of the gay rights movement, but it making the headlines was huge toward getting people to even know there's an issue there, and just getting that word out however you can gave gay people a foundation to stand on to help them come out knowing they're not alone, which is the primary thing which lead to such a swift change in opinion.
I feel like people hold all political activism up to the standards of the March on Washington, commonly ignoring all the political activism that took place before and after that event, and overemphasizing the impact of that event, to the point of claiming that racism in America ended that day.
Occupy Wall Street was about as successful as any political activist movement there is. If your standards are so high you want change overnight, the only way you'll achieve that is a military coup.
Baron Aloha
A Shining Example
Maybe it's just me, but it always seemed like it fizzled out once the politicians started putting all sorts of rules in place for protesting and police started locking everyone up.
The people protesting the Vietnam War weren't expected to come up with an exit strategy or draft a peace treaty. They pointed at the war and said enough's enough. That's what protesting is. Requiring OWS to come up with the solution for money in politics is just bizarre. Mind you, plenty of solutions were discussed such as campaign finance reform, but the point was to make people aware of the topic, and they did just that. People know what the 1% refers to, they're aware of the overwhelming influence that group has over the political process, and these are topics still regularly addressed in the media and even political debates.
zero shift
Banned
It didn't start a revolution or anything, but it did succeed in getting the nation to talk about income inequality. Besides, I feel that Occupy Wallstreet was the beginning of something rather than the end
travisbickle
Member
It did a lot for the people involved, carthacism.
The next crash is going to be so bitter sweet though.
The next crash is going to be so bitter sweet though.
The spirit of OWS lives on in the political climate today, particularly in terms of the arguments of income inequality. Sure, there aren't people camping out anymore but it succeeded in changing the conversation about wealth disparity and income inequality. So much so that even figures on the right, whom this would be considered anathema before, are even partially incorporating into their message.
LegendofJoe
Member
The movement was brain dead to begin with. If they had a clue about what they were doing K Street and the corporate corruption of DC would have been the target, not Wall Street in New York.
TheKaeptain
Banned
They didn't have a set goal and no clear leadership.
How long will it take? Porn ban? Hunger?
Vigilant Walrus
Member
Aung San Suu Kyi?
I want to believe in peaceful change. I think the wests problem is that too many people are spell-bound and addicted to their comfortable lives to really do something. The average person is totally de-synthesized. "privileged" to the point where they cannot understand how good they have it compared to many other places in the world. Many people are not engaged in the political process. This causes bad things to happen, and here we are. Being led by a lot of greedy and corrupt politicians who are in it for power and money.
BladeoftheImmortal
Member
No money. Because the tea party hoarded it all.
HORRORSHØW
Member
when that shit hit LA, we just hung out in tents in front of city hall for like a week drinking booze and smoking weed lmao. dudes were playing didgeridoos from hammocks. we kept the homeless company.
Vigilant Walrus
Member
When a persons life or liberty is really at stake. Like during the vietnam war, when the draft reached white middle-class men, the protests really took hold. But nobody said much when it was black kids dying.
It has to get really bad. Like hopelessly bad. In tough times people grow more jaded and they become scared, and so often, people will not do anything. If you lose your job, your security or join the cause it could cost you what you have left.
LittleBoots
Member
Its failure has to do with a lot of different things. It was disorganized, the protesters were vilified and made to look like completely lazy-ass moochers. They were misrepresented by the media. There weren't enough supporters of Occupy Wall Street to begin with and once it became common knowledge that it was going nowhere, more and more protesters dropped out. It also wasn't taken seriously because the protests weren't getting out of hand. They weren't violent. Nobody died. No one cared because it didn't seem like people involved were that passionate about it.
Disorganized, and frankly no one to actually vote for. Let's not pretend the Democratic party is full of Elizabeth Warrens.
Aside from some post-recession populist lip service, the Democratic establishment is still primarily a Third Way entity.
Aside from some post-recession populist lip service, the Democratic establishment is still primarily a Third Way entity.
You're correct but that won't stop someone from replying with "because I don't know what they wanted" for the hundredth time.
And_Gignac
Member
No clear goals, leaders, motives, organization.
It has nothing to do with being a movement of young people, unless this lazyness is particular to US society, since you have plenty of success stories like Podemos in Spain.
It has nothing to do with being a movement of young people, unless this lazyness is particular to US society, since you have plenty of success stories like Podemos in Spain.
Kurt Angle
Member
Jay's got ipos to launchI knew the movement was done when I saw this image
The Albatross
Member
I knew the movement was done when I saw this image
Is that an Occupy Wall Street app running on Xbox 360 in the background...?
It's important to remember that it started out explicitly as an anarchist movement that liberals latched onto, and so the two sides wanted to do completely different things; for the anarchist element, the movement was the message, the idea of retaking a space and making it public and showing that a society could run within that, which it did to an extent with the way that things were controlled in a democratic and uncentralized manner. The liberal element wanted to turn it into "the Democrats' Tea Party" and make it a vehicle for getting Democrats elected, which obviously the anarchist faction was disgusted by.
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