Over the last couple weeks, the Occupy movement, which had promised to give voice to those who were bleeding in the streets, very nearly succumbed to self-inflicted wounds. While the movement will may continue, in regional and minor ways, for months, if not years, it no longer promises to alter the country’s direction as it did in October, or as the tea party has continued to do for conservatives. For a month, the only national stories about the Occupy movement have involved their evictions from parks and numerous examples of excessive force by the police.
Because no one tried to harness or focus the movement’s substantial momentum — to do so would have been uncool — it has lost its momentum. We are left to wonder what the movement could have accomplished if it hadn’t been an amorphous blob of disorganized people who couldn’t gather around a vivid message or mission.
Liberals are experts at self-sabotage, often as a result of over-thinking, and this movement proved no exception. The villains, now, were the police. Never mind that police are unionized government employees as firmly within the 99 percent as public school teachers.
Millionaire bankers at Goldman Sachs could breathe a sigh of relief that the 99 percent had resumed formation in a circular firing squad.
Briefly, it looked like the left had created its very own version of a tea party, a force that would seize control of the national attention and force intransigent Republican legislators to explain themselves and force real banking reform into existence. But that result appears increasingly unlikely. By the time Republican members of the federal deficit-reduction supercommittee killed any hope of a grand deal because they were unwilling to seriously consider a minor increase on the tax-rate for millionaires, the protesters didn’t even appear to notice.
The day after that deal died, the Occupy movement should have physically blocked all congressmen from entering the Capitol, but they were busy fighting with the police.
I do not believe this to be an accurate assessment. The movement as a whole is stronger than ever. The MSM and politicians are now using #OWS’s catch phrases and rhetoric, even as they attempt to disavow the movement. With each major reaction by the system the movement requires lengthier re-organizing/planning stages to make its own next statement bolder and more visible. Occupy Oakland, on the other hand, has become the voice of 1% of the 99%. The divisive debates on “diversity of tactics” and “decolonize” and other euphemisms are the reasons GA has difficulty attaining quorum. As to quorum itself, I’m curious when GA determined that a proposal can be viewed as having been considered by GA when fewer than 100 votes are cast?