[OccupyComms] Fwd: [politicsandspiritnetwork] Can Occupy rebound in its second year? NI

[Mark Barrett]

Will Occupy live to see another birthday?
 13  36
ISSUE 455 <http://www.newint.org/issues/2012/09/01/>

On the anniversary of Occupy Wall Street, #S17, *Mark Engler* says the 99
per cent could sorely use another round of rebellion.

Occupy Wall Street began as a small and marginal effort. As its first
anniversary comes and goes, it has become small and marginal again.

To say this is not to disparage those seeking to carry on the Occupy
spirit. It is to acknowledge reality in the hope of changing it.

Can Occupy rebound in its second year? What would it need to again become
influential in highlighting economic inequality and challenging rule by the
rich?

Some answers can be found in Occupy’s past.

In between its bouts of marginality, Occupy accomplished remarkable things.
Nobel-winning economist Paul Krugman perhaps put it best. Before the
uprising, ‘we were basically having an insane national discussion,’ he
said. The US unemployment rate had reached double digits, something more
than a third of Americans had never seen in their lifetimes. State
governments reported record demand for food stamps. Yet debate in
Washington DC revolved around cutting social programmes.
 [image: Alan Hughes Picture]
Alan Hughes

‘Then a group of people started camping out in Zuccotti Park, and all of a
sudden the conversation changed significantly, towards being about the
right things,’ Krugman explained. ‘It’s kind of a miracle.’

He’s right. But this didn’t happen instantly, and the dynamics of success
were not otherworldly.

During the occupation’s first week, only a few dozen participants camped in
New York City’s financial district. Despite limited numbers, they created a
key dilemma: police could either allow a permanent tent city in lower
Manhattan, which would be a victory for demonstrators; or they could act on
behalf of wealthy bankers and shut down dissent, something that would
perfectly illustrate the protesters’ claims about what our democracy had
become.

A conflict was unavoidable. And when police did respond, the images
generated – officers pepper-spraying non-threatening demonstrators at close
range – galvanized democratic outrage internationally.

As momentum reached a peak, Occupy became an umbrella for resistance.
Hundreds of cities joined. Community groups that had long conducted sit-ins
at foreclosed homes saw participation swell. Labour unions organizing
against poverty wages and for decent healthcare bolstered Occupy marches.
Participants from the camps, in turn, joined their picket lines. Movement
art, poetry and film abounded.

Now, momentum is low. Unions and community organizations persist, but they
rarely bother to identify with the Occupy label. Most of the camps have
long since been evicted.

The assemblies that linger attract only a small core of activists. Many of
them are focused on building a sense of mutual support among those who
remain. Others are transforming vacant lots into community gardens or
claiming empty buildings as squats. But these are not drives designed to
reach out to the ‘99 per cent’. Anarchists who consider this language to be
watered-down liberalism don’t even aspire to that goal.

This is a problem. Occupy is a particular type of movement, one distinct
from long-term efforts to build progressive institutions, political parties
or counter-cultural spaces. Rather, it is a mobilization that uses civil
disobedience to shift public focus and create a burst of energy for ongoing
organizing. It lives and dies by the media.

A thousand community gardens, however beneficial, won’t recapture the
spotlight. A street fight with the police won’t do it either: state
authorities are itching to deploy their insanely militarized arsenals.
Inviting them to do so with hurled bottles and busted bank windows only
isolates the movement from the wider public.

Early on, Occupy’s name was an advantage. It’s an active verb, one that
serves as an audacious command to reclaim public space and public
discourse. Yet in year two, the name may be a liability, suggesting that
progressive imagination is limited to a single activity.

If Occupy is to regain momentum, it must create a new dilemma for
authorities – or many new dilemmas – bold, creative and nonviolent.

Let’s hope it can. Because the 99 per cent in the US could sorely use
another round of rebellion.

*Mark Engler* is a senior analyst with Foreign Policy In Focus and author
of *How to Rule the World: The Coming Battle Over the Global Economy *(Nation
Books, 2008). He can be reached via the website:
DemocracyUprising.com<http://democracyuprising.com/>

*This first appeared in our award-winning magazine - to read more, subscribe
from just £7 <http://www.newint.org/subscriptions/redirect/>*

Permalink<http://www.newint.org/columns/mark-engler/2012/09/17/occupy-first-anniversary/>
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Published on September 17, 2012 by Mark
Engler<http://www.newint.org/contributors/mark-engler/>
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