A reminder...IF OWS disbanded tomorrow, we wouldn't HAVE any Hope for Change at all in this country.

[coalition_unwilling]

32. I'd like to quote from a very profound post on a FB thread about Occupy (by a 'Michael Caigoy'):

"Occupy didn't do what most of us had hoped. There are a lot of things about it that stopped being cute real fast. It's a trite consolation prize, but lessons were learned, including one that doesn't bode well for the power structure: the public can surprise you. This time, it settled into its comfortable habits, and that's what fucked the enterprise, IMO. But that thing that happened, in thousands of cities -- a lot of people never saw that coming, believing people too cowed and apathetic. You can't unring that bell.

Things will either get better for some reason (unlikely), or they'll reach the next level. There was a threshold that prompted people to get up, and about, and scream about the elephant in the room. There are other thresholds, and other reactions we've yet to see.

I think it's perfectly fine and healthy to cut our losses on a name associated and method that became impractical in a police state. But holy fuck, we're entering a police state, and now people are getting a whiff of that bullshit. If nothing else, we got the enemy to bare its ugly teeth.

From a personal standpoint, I have no regrets. Some of the proudest moments in my life were catching glimpses of awareness in people, or even hints of uncertainty that the empire is permanent. Even supposing that people had that much chutzpah in them was something I wouldn't have done in, say, August of 2011.

. . . .

In other words, Occupy's goals outpaced the dedication and resources of many, but the real effect, that I can't/won't deny, is that it trained a minority of people in skills that will become relevant as time progresses. And that minority means substantially more than the helpless Daily Show Democrats we had at the vanguard of, at least in America, political awareness.

I acknowledge that I may never take up the responsibilities I'd hoped for in building a better society, and could just sink into a comfortably tedious sort of life. But then, looking at the future, I find that hard to believe."

****************

When I read the passage above, I found myself saying to myself, "That's it. He's caught it in a few short paragraphs. And the 1% should be very, very worried. They ain't seen nothing yet."