Four Years Later: Occupy Succeeded Despite Its Flaws | PopularResistance.Org
Four Years Later: Occupy Succeeded Despite Its Flaws | PopularResistance.Org
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its-flaws/
Four Years Later: Occupy Succeeded Despite Its Flaws
Screen Shot 2015-09-19 at 1.15.50 PM
Occupy Wall Street may not have dismantled capitalism - but it did
profoundly change the way people perceived it, and how their voices impact
institutions of power all over the world. While the tent encampments of fall
2011 were evicted within months, Occupy didn't die - rather, its organizers
went on to build social justice movements and affect political outcomes on
multiple continents.
Were it not for Occupy, Bernie Sanders may not be a
frontrunner in the Democratic presidential primary. Jeremy Corbyn - a
sexagenarian vegetarian socialist - wouldn't have overcome the UK's
establishment political machine to become new Labour Party leader. And
Malcolm Turnbull wouldn't have ousted Tony Abbott as Australia's
newest prime minister.
However, on the four year anniversary of Occupy Wall Street, it's important
to reflect not only on its victories but to learn from its failures. Both
were necessary, as the movements that came after Occupy built off of those
victories by learning from its downfalls.
Screen Shot 2015-09-19 at 1.16.51 PM
Occupy's Victories
Occupy Wall Street had many goals - some of them lofty, many of them
practical. In establishing themselves as the "99%", OWS drew a clear line
between the wealthiest Americans that gobbled up almost all of the income
gains after the recession's official end, and the rest of the struggling
underclass.
And America paid attention. A $15 an hour minimum wage, which many naysayers
at the time thought was an unwinnable goal, is now a reality in
some of the biggest cities in the country. Seattle's $15 an hour minimum
wage came as a result of former Occupy Seattle member
Kshama Sawant winning a city council seat as a socialist and introducing a
$15 an hour minimum wage bill.
In addition to recently pushing him to
advocate for a $15 an hour minimum wage in New York, former occupiers also
pressured Governor Andrew Cuomo to renew the state's
Millionaire's Tax and ban fracking
across the state.
Around the nation, Occupy's other grievances were addressed with specific
policy victories:
list of 5 items
In Madison, Wisconsin, Occupy's role in raising awareness about the plight
of the homeless resulted in the city allowing land to be used by Occupy
Madison to build a community of
tiny houses for the homeless .
The call for an end to oppressive student debt was met in Oregon, where free
community college is now being offered to working families.
Stanford University is also offering free college to students from needy
families. Occupy Wall Street's Strike Debt project managed to erase
$3.8 million in student debt.
When Occupy hit the streets to protest wage theft by profitable
corporations, Connecticut became the first state to force those corporations
to pay those wages back at
double the rate .
After Occupiers joined the massive divestment campaign urging retirement and
pension funds to sell off investments in the fossil fuel industry, more than
$50 billion in fossil fuel investments have been sold, with pledges coming
from at least 28 universities, 41 cities, 72 churches, and 30 foundations.
The Guardian newspaper is also divesting fossil fuel investments from their
$1.2 billion portfolio .
Some of the more notorious police violence toward Occupiers also resulted in
civil lawsuits, simultaneously forcing more police departments to pay
damages as a result of improper policing. Anthony Bologna, who famously
pepper-sprayed two women who were kettled at an Occupy Wall Street march,
cost NYC taxpayers
$332,000 for his actions. Another group of protesters in New York was
awarded
over $500,000 in settlements after police kettled and arrested them during a
peaceful march.
list end
Lt. John Pike, the UC Davis police officer who pepper-sprayed a group of
seated protesters, was suspended and his superior officer was removed from
command before the university paid out
$1 million to the students and professors who were pepper-sprayed. The Los
Angeles City Council recently agreed to award Occupy protesters with a
$2.45 million settlement as a result of the LAPD's violent eviction of their
encampment. Police everywhere are now under more pressure to handle
protesters with dignity and respect, as their actions are costing taxpayers
millions.
Four Years Later: Occupy Succeeded Despite Its Flaws
Where Occupy Failed
What the media - and, quite frankly, many occupiers - got wrong about Occupy
Wall Street was that it was a movement based on the sole tactic of physical
occupation of public spaces. Too often, the focus was drawn away from the
issues Occupy was confronting, like income inequality, global capitalism,
and the police state, in favor of mundane day-to-day issues like who would
be able to solicit food donations, who was available to maintain night watch
over the park, and the time-consuming, ineffective General Assembly process.
At Occupy Houston, where I spent most of my time between fall 2011 and
spring 2012, organizers from Spain's Indignados movement conducted a Q&A
session with some of our organizers during the first week of the occupation.
One specific instruction they gave was to not become dependent on the
occupations themselves, but to voluntarily disassemble the camps after two
weeks of occupation. They told us that any occupation lasting longer than
two weeks would make the media's coverage turn from talking about our
protests of inequality and injustice to the minutiae of maintaining a
permanent encampment.
We didn't listen, and sure enough, the Indignados were right. After the
first initial wave of excitement, it seemed as if a majority of the
occupiers had left the encampments, uninterested in maintaining a permanent
hold. Those who remained were mostly white males with little interest in
making the movement more inclusive to women and people of color, alienating
large segments of the population that the movement needed to attract to make
any lasting change. Attempts to address Occupy's unintentional reinforcement
of white supremacy or misogyny were quickly shushed by mostly white and male
General Assembly facilitators. I'll reluctantly admit I was one of those
white males of Occupy who was too proud to address the movement's
fundamental flaws in outreach.
Occupy became a bubble in which the few who remained looked upon those who
wanted to move beyond the camps with disdain; likewise, occupiers who came
to General Assemblies to stir up interest in organizing direct actions grew
frustrated with the self-absorbed GA process of talking for hours, waving
fingers, and getting nothing done. The conflict that had once been between
the 99 percent and the elite turned into a rift between campers and
protesters. But in all the ways OWS failed, the movements that it spawned
learned from those mistakes and adapted.
Screen Shot 2015-09-19 at 1.17.03 PM
How Occupy Lives On
The eviction from the encampments was one of the best things to happen to
the Occupy movement, as it forced us to remove ourselves from the bubble we
had created and take our organizing into our communities. The movements that
followed Occupy started from the precedent it set, using tactics that went
beyond simply picketing and marching. Occupy became known to a national
audience whose consciousness has expanded since the protests that engulfed
the country in 2011. It could be argued the public is growing more tolerant
of popular movements that use militant nonviolence to get their point
across.
Coalitions that formed between unions and occupiers allowed the Fight For
$15 movement to sweep the nation, resulting in fast food and retail workers
striking in as many as
236 cities, shutting down many restaurants and stores, and winning tangible
legislative victories. The Black Lives Matter movement that began with
Trayvon Martin's death and exploded after the killing of Michael Brown
brought on a wave of large scale protests and
nationwide highway shutdowns not seen since Occupy organized a
similar campaign in 2011. In 2013, thousands of middle school and high
school students in Philadelphia protested education cuts by
shutting down all of their schools in a citywide walkout. Last year,
400,000 people took over New York City to demand action on climate change.
And days later, over 1,000 people
shut down New York's financial district to protest Wall Street's involvement
in funding climate change.
It's more evident now than ever before that protests have become more
energized after Occupy set a new bar for protesting. And as seen in the
numerous policy victories listed above, protest works. Occupy isn't dead -
it just moved on, as movements tend to do. The next mass cultural awakening
will almost certainly borrow tactics and messaging from Occupy Wall Street,
and so will the one after that.
- See more at:
http://www.occupy.com/article/movement-lives-4-years-later-occupy-has-succee
ded-spite-its-failures#sthash.j7qKq67B.dpuf
Four Years Later: Occupy Succeeded DespiFour Years Later: Occupy Succeeded
Despite Its Flaws | PopularResistance.Org
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popularresistance.org
https://www.popularresistance.org/four-years-later-occupy-succeeded-despite-
its-flaws/
Four Years Later: Occupy Succeeded Despite Its Flaws
Screen Shot 2015-09-19 at 1.15.50 PM
Occupy Wall Street may not have dismantled capitalism - but it did
profoundly change the way people perceived it, and how their voices impact
institutions of power all over the world. While the tent encampments of fall
2011 were evicted within months, Occupy didn't die - rather, its organizers
went on to build social justice movements and affect political outcomes on
multiple continents.
Were it not for Occupy, Bernie Sanders may not be a
frontrunner in the Democratic presidential primary. Jeremy Corbyn - a
sexagenarian vegetarian socialist - wouldn't have overcome the UK's
establishment political machine to become new Labour Party leader. And
Malcolm Turnbull wouldn't have ousted Tony Abbott as Australia's
newest prime minister.
However, on the four year anniversary of Occupy Wall Street, it's important
to reflect not only on its victories but to learn from its failures. Both
were necessary, as the movements that came after Occupy built off of those
victories by learning from its downfalls.
Screen Shot 2015-09-19 at 1.16.51 PM
Occupy's Victories
Occupy Wall Street had many goals - some of them lofty, many of them
practical. In establishing themselves as the "99%", OWS drew a clear line
between the wealthiest Americans that gobbled up almost all of the income
gains after the recession's official end, and the rest of the struggling
underclass.
And America paid attention. A $15 an hour minimum wage, which many naysayers
at the time thought was an unwinnable goal, is now a reality in
some of the biggest cities in the country. Seattle's $15 an hour minimum
wage came as a result of former Occupy Seattle member
Kshama Sawant winning a city council seat as a socialist and introducing a
$15 an hour minimum wage bill.
In addition to recently pushing him to
advocate for a $15 an hour minimum wage in New York, former occupiers also
pressured Governor Andrew Cuomo to renew the state's
Millionaire's Tax and ban fracking
across the state.
Around the nation, Occupy's other grievances were addressed with specific
policy victories:
list of 5 items
In Madison, Wisconsin, Occupy's role in raising awareness about the plight
of the homeless resulted in the city allowing land to be used by Occupy
Madison to build a community of
tiny houses for the homeless .
The call for an end to oppressive student debt was met in Oregon, where free
community college is now being offered to working families.
Stanford University is also offering free college to students from needy
families. Occupy Wall Street's Strike Debt project managed to erase
$3.8 million in student debt.
When Occupy hit the streets to protest wage theft by profitable
corporations, Connecticut became the first state to force those corporations
to pay those wages back at
double the rate .
After Occupiers joined the massive divestment campaign urging retirement and
pension funds to sell off investments in the fossil fuel industry, more than
$50 billion in fossil fuel investments have been sold, with pledges coming
from at least 28 universities, 41 cities, 72 churches, and 30 foundations.
The Guardian newspaper is also divesting fossil fuel investments from their
$1.2 billion portfolio .
Some of the more notorious police violence toward Occupiers also resulted in
civil lawsuits, simultaneously forcing more police departments to pay
damages as a result of improper policing. Anthony Bologna, who famously
pepper-sprayed two women who were kettled at an Occupy Wall Street march,
cost NYC taxpayers
$332,000 for his actions. Another group of protesters in New York was
awarded
over $500,000 in settlements after police kettled and arrested them during a
peaceful march.
list end
Lt. John Pike, the UC Davis police officer who pepper-sprayed a group of
seated protesters, was suspended and his superior officer was removed from
command before the university paid out
$1 million to the students and professors who were pepper-sprayed. The Los
Angeles City Council recently agreed to award Occupy protesters with a
$2.45 million settlement as a result of the LAPD's violent eviction of their
encampment. Police everywhere are now under more pressure to handle
protesters with dignity and respect, as their actions are costing taxpayers
millions.
Four Years Later: Occupy Succeeded Despite Its Flaws
Where Occupy Failed
What the media - and, quite frankly, many occupiers - got wrong about Occupy
Wall Street was that it was a movement based on the sole tactic of physical
occupation of public spaces. Too often, the focus was drawn away from the
issues Occupy was confronting, like income inequality, global capitalism,
and the police state, in favor of mundane day-to-day issues like who would
be able to solicit food donations, who was available to maintain night watch
over the park, and the time-consuming, ineffective General Assembly process.
At Occupy Houston, where I spent most of my time between fall 2011 and
spring 2012, organizers from Spain's Indignados movement conducted a Q&A
session with some of our organizers during the first week of the occupation.
One specific instruction they gave was to not become dependent on the
occupations themselves, but to voluntarily disassemble the camps after two
weeks of occupation. They told us that any occupation lasting longer than
two weeks would make the media's coverage turn from talking about our
protests of inequality and injustice to the minutiae of maintaining a
permanent encampment.
We didn't listen, and sure enough, the Indignados were right. After the
first initial wave of excitement, it seemed as if a majority of the
occupiers had left the encampments, uninterested in maintaining a permanent
hold. Those who remained were mostly white males with little interest in
making the movement more inclusive to women and people of color, alienating
large segments of the population that the movement needed to attract to make
any lasting change. Attempts to address Occupy's unintentional reinforcement
of white supremacy or misogyny were quickly shushed by mostly white and male
General Assembly facilitators. I'll reluctantly admit I was one of those
white males of Occupy who was too proud to address the movement's
fundamental flaws in outreach.
Occupy became a bubble in which the few who remained looked upon those who
wanted to move beyond the camps with disdain; likewise, occupiers who came
to General Assemblies to stir up interest in organizing direct actions grew
frustrated with the self-absorbed GA process of talking for hours, waving
fingers, and getting nothing done. The conflict that had once been between
the 99 percent and the elite turned into a rift between campers and
protesters. But in all the ways OWS failed, the movements that it spawned
learned from those mistakes and adapted.
Screen Shot 2015-09-19 at 1.17.03 PM
How Occupy Lives On
The eviction from the encampments was one of the best things to happen to
the Occupy movement, as it forced us to remove ourselves from the bubble we
had created and take our organizing into our communities. The movements that
followed Occupy started from the precedent it set, using tactics that went
beyond simply picketing and marching. Occupy became known to a national
audience whose consciousness has expanded since the protests that engulfed
the country in 2011. It could be argued the public is growing more tolerant
of popular movements that use militant nonviolence to get their point
across.
Coalitions that formed between unions and occupiers allowed the Fight For
$15 movement to sweep the nation, resulting in fast food and retail workers
striking in as many as
236 cities, shutting down many restaurants and stores, and winning tangible
legislative victories. The Black Lives Matter movement that began with
Trayvon Martin's death and exploded after the killing of Michael Brown
brought on a wave of large scale protests and
nationwide highway shutdowns not seen since Occupy organized a
similar campaign in 2011. In 2013, thousands of middle school and high
school students in Philadelphia protested education cuts by
shutting down all of their schools in a citywide walkout. Last year,
400,000 people took over New York City to demand action on climate change.
And days later, over 1,000 people
shut down New York's financial district to protest Wall Street's involvement
in funding climate change.
It's more evident now than ever before that protests have become more
energized after Occupy set a new bar for protesting. And as seen in the
numerous policy victories listed above, protest works. Occupy isn't dead -
it just moved on, as movements tend to do. The next mass cultural awakening
will almost certainly borrow tactics and messaging from Occupy Wall Street,
and so will the one after that.
- See more at:
http://www.occupy.com/article/movement-lives-4-years-later-occupy-has-succee
ded-spite-its-failures#sthash.j7qKq67B.dpuf
Four Years Later: Occupy Succeeded Despi
