What became of the Occupy Movement and what did it accomplish?

[cgymike]

It seems since about 6 months ago it has been less and less in the news? What's the conclusion about it? What did it ACTUALLY accomplish? I am not taking a stand here saying it is good or bad all that controversy has been hashed to death already. But I will say it was costly by all accounts and resulted in a lot of lost productivity. But, on the other hand it built awareness around several long-term social problems namely income inequality. But was it merely reactionary without effecting real change in the "system" it decried (since the "powers that be" are still in control of the economy even the politics of America. I am just trying to get to the final analysis on it since it seems to have run it's course at least a current event issue. Or so it seems. Certainly in Canada there is a lot less activity and it's almost getting ready to fade into the history books.
I was just looking at a youtube on the Occupy in downtown Dayton OH last October and it seemed so weak and silly. Just my reaction.....Viewing such videos a few years back seemed to have more impact...and that's just it...was it just a reaction destined to fade???

[HenryReardon]

It crawled back into the woodwork with the other vermin, hopefully never to be heard from again.

[xbuzzerx]

It crawled back into the woodwork with the other vermin, hopefully never to be heard from again.

The 47% perhaps?

[cgymike]

It crawled back into the woodwork with the other vermin, hopefully never to be heard from again.

So you think it was a failure with no lasting impact?

[HenryReardon]

So you think it was a failure with no lasting impact?

Bingo. Well, it did make the tea partiers look rather tame by comparison.

[cgymike]

Bingo. Well, it did make the tea partiers look rather tame by comparison.

And some would argue the tea party movement has not been effective either though politically it has some teeth compared to OWS.

[JayHawk]

I have shared my views of what i think OWS failed at...

I will say that it would seem to have inspired an entire generation to actually pay attention to politics. Look at the youth turnout for an example. They have sporadic victories in different places from workers rights in Ohio to Sandy relief.

I wish they had become a political force instead of a jazz hands happy place. Had that same initial number been solidified behind a set of ideas then they could influence nation discourse much more so than they have.

[Stardreamer]

Judging from another thread on the board it seems to currently going professional in the occupation of throwing good money after bad.

[chance1]

Well there are still a few stragglers near Wall Street.

It put the "class war" on the map. It mobilized a lot of people. It didn't have the same effect as the Tea Party but that's because they weren't as psychotic and could not compare in number.

i agree it put the "class war" on the map - the idea that big biz helped ruin some people's lives

not sure it put it on the map in a favorable way - as many of the protestors appeared unknowledgeable, dirty, violent in some cases

i don't think it had a + or - impression on the election

i disagree about the psychotic comment - it's the opposite actually

[xbuzzerx]

i agree it put the "class war" on the map - the idea that big biz helped ruin some people's lives

not sure it put it on the map in a favorable way - as many of the protestors appeared unknowledgeable, dirty, violent in some cases

i don't think it had a + or - impression on the election

i disagree about the psychotic comment - it's the opposite actually

Of course you'd say that. I mean what's psychotic about frequent yelling of the n-word at the public gatherings of a political group whose main concern was supposed to be limited spending?

[cgymike]

Of course you'd say that. I mean what's psychotic about frequent yelling of the n-word at the public gatherings of a political group whose main concern was supposed to be limited spending?

Provide link to back up what you say or in the very least a reasoned arguement. Naked assertions are just so ...meh. I am not interested in your long-standing disagreement with another member ("Of course you'd say that"). I am interested in your ability to substantiate what you say.

[cgymike]

Ok then provide the links. That's all I asked for.

Provide link to back up what you say or in the very least a reasoned arguement. Naked assertions are just so ...meh. I am not interested in your long-standing disagreement with another member ("Of course you'd say that"). I am interested in your ability to substantiate what you say.

[JayQueer]

The Occupy movement was a failure.

Poorly organized. They didn't have a clear message what they wanted Congress to accomplish. Then they started trashing & vandalizing city property, making taxpayers pay for the repairs.

#Major Fail

[xbuzzerx]

^ lol. Pretty true.

[rareboy]

Actually the Occupy movement helped shine the spotlight on the 1% and probably helped to defeat Romney/Ryan.

[JayHawk]

So the constructive argument from the right is they are violent and they are dirty. Interesting that the party of failures can even see what is in front of their face.

[chance1]

Actually the Occupy movement helped shine the spotlight on the 1% and probably helped to defeat Romney/Ryan.

I thought it was demographics ?

Please make up your face

Lol

[rareboy]

The two are not mutually exclusive.

I'm surprised you'd make such a fundamental error like this.

With the Occupy Movement, the electorate were made even more acutely aware of the vast gulf separating the majority of the people and Mitt's corporate welfare entitlement class.

[JayHawk]

Come on Rareboy. Fundamental error is the subtitle to the republican party and all of their apologist lackeys.

[chance1]

The two are not mutually exclusive.

I'm surprised you'd make such a fundamental error like this.

With the Occupy Movement, the electorate were made even more acutely aware of the vast gulf separating the majority of the people and Mitt's corporate welfare entitlement class.

The idea and execution ...... Not in sync

I agree with u on the concept

The reality of OWS did not resonate with common people

Demographics - poverty - the people who voted for Obama

Didn't need OWS to make up their minds

[rareboy]

Ah.

You see, there is another fundamental error.

It wasn't the poverty stricken that needed swaying. There was absolutely nothing in the GOP to attract them.

It was the middle class. The people who are struggling with the economic disaster unleashed by Wall Street. The ones who saw their pension savings obliterated while Mitt and his cronies made off like bandits.

It was having the 1%'s entitlement complex rubbed in their faces while they came to realize that the rich expect them to pay for everything.

The Occupy movement brought this into their focus every day leading up to the disastrous Caucuses and Republican primaries.

The GOP didn't get it. Neither, it seems, do many of them still get it. You apparently do not either.

[chance1]

^ the middle class won the election for Obama ?

Lol

Hispanics
Blacks
Women

You'd have thought he won by 10 with your math

[rareboy]

Uh so what you are saying is that Hispanics, blacks and women are not part of the middle class?

You've just answered why the Republicans lost the election.

[White Eagle]

I got this is an email just now. You may be interested in it.

http://www.nationofchange.org/hurric...rit-1354181886

In Hurricane Sandy Relief, a Reminder of Occupy's Original Spirit

Luis Moreno-Caballud
YES! Magazine / News Report
Published: Thursday 29 November 2012

Mainstream media outlets from The New York Times and the Washington Post to the online magazineSlate have reported on the swift and effective response of the umbrella group known as Occupy Sandy. To borrow a metaphor from Times reporter Alan Feuer, it would seem that after nearly a year of "wander[ing] in a desert of more intellectual, less visible projects, like farming, fighting debt and theorizing on banking,” the Occupy movement has finally found its true cause and ultimate commandment: just helping out.

In fact, this determination to address basic needs has been a concern of the Occupy movement from the very beginning. For those who have followed the movement since its early days, the emergence of Occupy Sandy looks less like the endpoint of an erratic and itinerant journey than a necessary step in the ongoing evolution of the Occupy movement.

[White Eagle]

I looked through my bookmarks and found this. It is a page with all the Occupy places that are still online.


http://occupystreams.org/

[xbuzzerx]

The idea and execution ...... Not in sync

I agree with u on the concept

The reality of OWS did not resonate with common people

Demographics - poverty - the people who voted for Obama

Didn't need OWS to make up their minds

it didn't resonate with common people? Who was it out there in the events, aristocrats? lol.

[xbuzzerx]

^ the middle class won the election for Obama ?

Lol

Hispanics
Blacks
Women

You'd have thought he won by 10 with your math

Uh so what you are saying is that Hispanics, blacks and women are not part of the middle class?

You've just answered why the Republicans lost the election.

Yup. Keep up with the borderline racist contempt for the non-whitemale electorate. It served you well in 2012 and may it serve you well in 2016 Chance.

[chance1]

Uh so what you are saying is that Hispanics, blacks and women are not part of the middle class?

You've just answered why the Republicans lost the election.

No u just said it

When u find an OWS link to Obama victory with a credible source

Feel free

[Harke the Boeotarch]

Here in the Amsterdam they were camping out on the square in front of the Amsterdam Stock Exchange for a while.
I don't think they made much of an impression, since the interest in socialism is at an all time low, it being seen as part of the problem rather than the solution in many European countries.

The big Dutch banks that got in trouble got in trouble not because of all-too-pliable Dutch politicians (although it's certainly true that most of them were and still are) but because they bought those bad financial products based on American mortgages of a kind they themselves would never have granted to Dutch citizens.

I think the problem with Occupy is that it's a reaction to the consequences of a political doctrine that supposedly started with Reagan and Thatcher three decades ago, but never properly addresses the undelying business processes and the way that politicians have facilitated those by breaking down the protective legislation surrounding the banking system. That needs to be changed before anything else can and I don't think Occupy is going to cut it.

[JayHawk]

It would seem that some folks do not think the largest second term margin for a democrat since Eisenhower came from the painting of the other party as a protectorate for rich impersonal asshats. You bet your ass an entire YEAR of stories on inequity made the message that Romney was from wall street and they are all vultures resonate quite well throughout America... to deny that is to simply be a mindless drolling drone for a political party.

However I sincerely hope republicans keep thinking that way. I hope they think that if they just do Immigration reform then the world will be right with Latinos.... I really do. That should keep them out of office until i am a senior citizen....

[xbuzzerx]

It would seem that some folks do not think the largest second term margin for a democrat since Eisenhower came from the painting of the other party as a protectorate for rich impersonal asshats. You bet your ass an entire YEAR of stories on inequity made the message that Romney was from wall street and they are all vultures resonate quite well throughout America... to deny that is to simply be a mindless drolling drone for a political party.

However I sincerely hope republicans keep thinking that way. I hope they think that if they just do Immigration reform then the world will be right with Latinos.... I really do. That should keep them out of office until i am a senior citizen....

Chance's response pretty much gave away what we already knew to be the far right mindset. Blacks, women, hispanics etc. aren't viewed by them as part of the American mainstream. They're Romney's 47%, they're the under-trash that just sucks off the system and votes for anyone who gives them free gifts from the government, and don't work. That's what they think, that's how they approach national politics, and that's why they got their asses served up to them on a steaming hot platter in the last election.

They've backed themselves into an ideological corner where their worldview is so incapable of changing to fit the times and to concede being wrong about this monster fear-myth they've pandered for the last 30~ years to win elections via solely the white male vote that the blacks and hispanics are all welfare-abusing good for nothing leeches that now even that it's hurting them electorally they are incapable of changing their viewpoint or their rhetoric.

Dirty, smelly, violent people, Chance says. Sounds like how Republicans view pretty much any minority to me.

[xbuzzerx]

LMAO ROTFLMAO WRONG.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/obama-...154837437.html - I've posted this before.

Why is it 8 out of the 10 richest counties in the country voted for Obama? Still making things up? I guess the facts are not sticking here. Oh and OWS did resonate.

Obama won a wide variety of backgrounds.

It's surreal how much like Tale of Two Cities this is getting.

The far right fringe believes Obama won by telling all the peasants he would give them two pence whenever rich people run over their children in the road with their carriages, apparently.

[Rolyo85]

Wait what?! He didn't?!