Comment by cloverich
13 years ago
In all fairness, the Occupy movement didn't have direction, leaders, an agreed set of goals.. - in short any of the things needed to turn that energy into change.
There were things here and there that many seemed to agree on - but it was not nearly focused enough to matter. I think if it were accompanied by any kind of violent protests, the people in general would have completely turned on it - and without legitimate goals, I think rightly so.
Its not comparable to Civil Rights, imho. That was a moral imperative with clear, legitimate, practically implementable goals. There was moral high-ground, general sympathy among the people, and a roadmap (e.g. extend the rights to us that are extended to everyone else). I'd love to see something similar for the modern age of privacy violation or holding gov't officials accountable - but I haven't seen it yet.
This is not true. There were plenty of things that were university desired from the Occupy movement (e.g. bankers in jail). But since it was purely peaceful it was ignored, sniped and smeared until it finally unraveled. The same thing would have happened to Gandhi and MLK Jr. had it not been for violent groups working at the same time.
I understand, but "bankers in jail" is hardly focused, specific, or practically implementable. Which bankers - on what charges? And under what precedent? Did they want new laws set? If so, was there an agreed upon Bill or at least a roadmap to support? I casually followed the movement, and other than 'overturn Citizens United', did not find myself able to glean from the protests such information. Likely there were many people like msyelf whom, after reading up and finding (subjectively deemed) insufficient substance, simply stopped following it. Were violence added to the mixture, I'd not have felt more sympathetic to a movement I perceived to have no practical goals.
Im playing a bit of devil's advocate here, but I think followers of Civil rights movements, with relative ease, would be able to answer similar questions. I sympathize with the energy behind the Occupy movement, but like most people I'm not sure what to do about it - who or what to support, and how to act. And that, imho, is why the Occupy movement fizzled.
>Were violence added to the mixture, I'd not have felt more sympathetic to a movement I perceived to have no practical goals.
Occupy needed to remain peaceful, no doubt about it. But without a large alternative group that wasn't afraid to use violence, Occupy was always going to be marginalized away. They had coherent messages. You and most people don't know them because they were bottled up, discredited and shut down. Exactly what will happen to any peaceful movement.
Personally, I think there's still time for a peaceful alternative though: we all need to start getting directly involved in politics.