General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Do you understand why Occupy was infiltrated and broken up? [View all]dreamnightwind
(4,775 posts)They are not the power that stopped Occupy. They are small-time actors that give a human face to fascism, the illusion of freedom and democracy.
The money is where the power is. The oligarchs decide what they want, send their armies of lobbyists to D.C. and state houses across the country, and they literally tell the politicians what to do, hand them pre-written legislation to shepherd, along with handing them cold hard cash for their campaigns, cushy jobs for their family members, sparkly perks like Super Bowl tickets and vacation junkets, etc. The politicians, most of them, are small-time middle men, hoping to land a nice fat corporate paycheck after they are done serving the people.
I agree with you that the rules should also apply to Congress, especially involving things like insider trading. But I don't agree that that had much to do with stopping Occupy.
What really stopped Occupy was the mobilization of a previously unseen militarized police force that quite literally destroyed the camps of the Occupiers, confiscating their works and their property, jailing participants, violently beating any who weren't compliant enough. They systematically moved in, town after town, city after city, and destroyed the camps.
So Occupy scattered, went underground. They no longer have the visible presence of public space. There is no longer any commons in the U.S. that is available for expression of dissent. Occupy splintered into many smaller efforts, many of them quite effective, though their scale is limited.
It will be back, perhaps by another name. The conditions that led to the emergence of Occupy worsen rather than improve, guaranteeing a re-emergence.
A couple of oldies but goodies:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/12526908
DHS officials shared and coordinated strategies (crackdown to evict Occupy protests)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022100704
Naomi Wolf: "Revealed: How the FBI Coordinated the Crackdown on Occupy"
Perhaps the saddest thing to me in the Occupy era was how the Democratic Party was largely (and correctly) viewed by the movement as part of the problem, rather than part of the solution. Our party no longer represents the 99%, it pays us lip service while out of sight its pockets are being filled with corporate money, and its "solutions" are little more than boiler-plate corporate legislation. We absolutely have to change that.