How confused do you guys think the media will be when the "OWS in retreat during winter?!" storyline collides with people having taken in the experiences of real communication face to face and then going back to their daily lives and daily social world as changed people?
Everyone taking seeds back and planting them with conversations and shifting points of view. You would think the various authorities would want this kind of thing geographically quarantined.
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
"Will one person that wants to walk their dog be even mildly inconvenienced" seems to be the metric by which you're judging the protesters choice of locale, yes.
The sarcasm cycle will just continue if you do it that way. Trust me, I know. ;_;
The problem is you're voicing concern over damages that you have not established were entirely preventable. If you cannot establish the preventability of that damage by laying out a more successful course of action then you are making the same arguments as people who just want the protest to end, now, and don't care by what legal means it occurs. So without creating an argument that will work to improve OWS activism while also reducing collateral damage (which coincidentally, reducing collateral damage alone while remaining neutral elsewhere does that, hence my suggestion to argue over better internal codes of conduct and behavior controls). You appear to others as just attempting to argue dishonestly; since your suggestions appear to do nothing but weaken the ability for protestors to spread their message. Your suggestions would reduce the "collateral damage" yes, but still at a far greater cost to OWS' successful activism. Either you realize this and don't care, you are arguing dishonestly, or you should consider another line of reasoning because this one's been sunk like a game of Battleship.
If the best you can come up with against someone who's patently ignorant is to yell back at him, "Yeah? Well there's BOOKS, and they say you're WRONG!"
Then honestly you're not coming out of this looking great either.
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
The sarcasm cycle will just continue if you do it that way. Trust me, I know. ;_;
The problem is you're voicing concern over damages that you have not established were entirely preventable. If you cannot establish the preventability of that damage by laying out a more successful course of action then you are making the same arguments as people who just want the protest to end, now, and don't care by what legal means it occurs. So without creating an argument that will work to improve OWS activism while also reducing collateral damage (which coincidentally, reducing collateral damage alone while remaining neutral elsewhere does that, hence my suggestion to argue over better internal codes of conduct and behavior controls). You appear to others as just attempting to argue dishonestly; since your suggestions appear to do nothing but weaken the ability for protestors to spread their message. Your suggestions would reduce the "collateral damage" yes, but still at a far greater cost to OWS' successful activism. Either you realize this and don't care, you are arguing dishonestly, or you should consider another line of reasoning because this one's been sunk like a game of Battleship.
Just my two cents.
Well, I really think the answer would have been to just not protest in a residential neighborhood, or in the alternative, to have been better organized from the start, with things like porta-potties, and arrangements to use local area facilities that consented to that use. Of course, the movement needed to get some steam before it could have become big enough to develop that kind of infrastructure, which is why I just have to return to the suggestion that they should have protested elsewhere. Even if they wanted to use the park for sleeping, they should have actually protested in front of the banks they were mad at, and the whole drum circle and chanting thing what probably unneccessary from the start, but they should have at least been considerate. To be fair, a lot of the disruption was also due to the size of the police presence and the barricades they put up everywhere, and I'm not sure there was any way for OWS to avoid that, but if they chose a different location, they could have been less disruptive to people in their homes.
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lonelyahavaCall me Ahava ~~She/Her~~Move to New ZealandRegistered Userregular
A guy sends out a message to his buddies and friends, "Hey I'm trying to organize a protest against Walmart. If you're interested, We'll be in Bentonville on this date."
The message goes viral, and everybody around the country who has any issue with Walmart gets into gear. and trust me, that's a lot of people. Walmart has screwed us over too many times, with their cheap good for cheap prices. With their inadequate pay and bad benefits, with their heartless view of the world. They need to be told, man.
So a small group gathers in Bentonville, Arkansas for the protest. Now you can't actually get anywhere near Walmart's headquarters because it's a sealed off goddamn fortress. possibly with a moat. with alligators. And sharks. Moat sharks with laser beams. The Waltons are rich as, dude. They could have sharks.
So the protestors set up in the town square of Bentonville. Everybody in town knows what they're protesting because without Walmart, there is no Bentonville. The protest started small, only a few handfuls of people, but those people stayed the night. And then more people showed up. And more, and they had discussions, public open discussions that anybody could partake in, about how Walmart is the evil cancer that is killing our nation. About how workers unable to unionize are treated, about how working for Walmart is a soul-sucking experience.
As word gets out through the internets via youtube and twitter and facebook, more movements start cropping up all over the place. All over the country. In walmart parking lots from maine to California and everywhere in between. Yes even in the south where Walmart is the only store left for miles that you can buy a comfy sweatshirt and a frozen box of taquitos at 2am. There are protests everywhere because Walmart, and the Waltons in particular, are wealthier than God and the president and they give none of it back.
Now, since the Waltons are wealthier than God, and even more vengeful and spiteful and definitely more evil than satan, they use their money to bring in the police and private security forces to break up the protests. Children are pushed around and their toys are destroyed. Little old ladies are stranded in parking lots as the batteries for their scooters are confiscated as Walmart property. There was even one instance of a young family being stripped to their skin because all of their clothing had been purchased at Walmart and the Waltons felt that if they were going to be protesting, they should not have any goods at all. It got messy and there were injuries around the country. The public outcry by those that had not been protesting grew stronger. This is America, we have rights here. The protests grew larger, more vocal, and finally the television stations started paying attention.
But as the protests grew, so did the mercenaries. The Arkansas national Guard was called up to try and help keep the peace between the Walton's Private Army and the protestors. Disaster was inevitable. Early one morning the unthinkable happened. The WPA Moved in to clear an encampment from a park in Lawrence, Kansas. There wasn't even a Walmart in Lawrence, but the protest had grown to the point where that didn't matter anymore. This wasn't just about Walmart anymore. It was about corporate greed and workers rights. About fair treatment and just laws. And about Freedom of Speech and Assembly. The people of Lawrence, Kansas understood that, and so did other cities around the country, and even around the world, who had all started their own protests.
But on this morning, the WPA moved in on the orders from the Waltons themselves. And the encampment was destroyed. Walmart brand chainsaws and sawsalls were used to destroy everything in sight. And once again the protestors were out in the cold and the rain of an early Arkansas autumn. There were injuries and wild fights. Some of the protestors were even detained by the WPA to be handed over to the authorities later.
Slowly, quietly, the protest disperses. eventually the groups that had gathered are all making their ways back to their lives and homes. But they know that things can be done. Walmart and the Waltons have started getting better employment laws in place, and there has even been some rumors that they will investigate starting something similar to a union in a few test stores. You know, In the future.
The situation changed things. Protesting changed things. Public Opinion and private ideals.
And Symbolism matters. If you're going to protest walmart, you go to Bentonville, Arkansas. If You're going to protest Microsoft or Starbucks, you go to Seattle. If you're going to protest Wall Street, you go to New York.
And you get as close as you can to those institutions that have made you so angry. As close as you can. Now Wall Street itself doesn't have a moat with alligators or sharks. But near enough. And the NYPD is not a private army. But the comparison stands.
you go where you know that you will have the biggest impact.
And if you look back through these threads you will find that most of us here didn't like the drum circle. Or the being loud in the middle of the night. most of us here agree that it was rude, unnecessary, and sending the wrong message. But there was no better place for them to go. And the fact that we're still talking about this how many months later?
A guy sends out a message to his buddies and friends, "Hey I'm trying to organize a protest against Walmart. If you're interested, We'll be in Bentonville on this date."
The message goes viral, and everybody around the country who has any issue with Walmart gets into gear. and trust me, that's a lot of people. Walmart has screwed us over too many times, with their cheap good for cheap prices. With their inadequate pay and bad benefits, with their heartless view of the world. They need to be told, man.
So a small group gathers in Bentonville, Arkansas for the protest. Now you can't actually get anywhere near Walmart's headquarters because it's a sealed off goddamn fortress. possibly with a moat. with alligators. And sharks. Moat sharks with laser beams. The Waltons are rich as, dude. They could have sharks.
So the protestors set up in the town square of Bentonville. Everybody in town knows what they're protesting because without Walmart, there is no Bentonville. The protest started small, only a few handfuls of people, but those people stayed the night. And then more people showed up. And more, and they had discussions, public open discussions that anybody could partake in, about how Walmart is the evil cancer that is killing our nation. About how workers unable to unionize are treated, about how working for Walmart is a soul-sucking experience.
As word gets out through the internets via youtube and twitter and facebook, more movements start cropping up all over the place. All over the country. In walmart parking lots from maine to California and everywhere in between. Yes even in the south where Walmart is the only store left for miles that you can buy a comfy sweatshirt and a frozen box of taquitos at 2am. There are protests everywhere because Walmart, and the Waltons in particular, are wealthier than God and the president and they give none of it back.
Now, since the Waltons are wealthier than God, and even more vengeful and spiteful and definitely more evil than satan, they use their money to bring in the police and private security forces to break up the protests. Children are pushed around and their toys are destroyed. Little old ladies are stranded in parking lots as the batteries for their scooters are confiscated as Walmart property. There was even one instance of a young family being stripped to their skin because all of their clothing had been purchased at Walmart and the Waltons felt that if they were going to be protesting, they should not have any goods at all. It got messy and there were injuries around the country. The public outcry by those that had not been protesting grew stronger. This is America, we have rights here. The protests grew larger, more vocal, and finally the television stations started paying attention.
But as the protests grew, so did the mercenaries. The Arkansas national Guard was called up to try and help keep the peace between the Walton's Private Army and the protestors. Disaster was inevitable. Early one morning the unthinkable happened. The WPA Moved in to clear an encampment from a park in Lawrence, Kansas. There wasn't even a Walmart in Lawrence, but the protest had grown to the point where that didn't matter anymore. This wasn't just about Walmart anymore. It was about corporate greed and workers rights. About fair treatment and just laws. And about Freedom of Speech and Assembly. The people of Lawrence, Kansas understood that, and so did other cities around the country, and even around the world, who had all started their own protests.
But on this morning, the WPA moved in on the orders from the Waltons themselves. And the encampment was destroyed. Walmart brand chainsaws and sawsalls were used to destroy everything in sight. And once again the protestors were out in the cold and the rain of an early Arkansas autumn. There were injuries and wild fights. Some of the protestors were even detained by the WPA to be handed over to the authorities later.
Slowly, quietly, the protest disperses. eventually the groups that had gathered are all making their ways back to their lives and homes. But they know that things can be done. Walmart and the Waltons have started getting better employment laws in place, and there has even been some rumors that they will investigate starting something similar to a union in a few test stores. You know, In the future.
The situation changed things. Protesting changed things. Public Opinion and private ideals.
And Symbolism matters. If you're going to protest walmart, you go to Bentonville, Arkansas. If You're going to protest Microsoft or Starbucks, you go to Seattle. If you're going to protest Wall Street, you go to New York.
And you get as close as you can to those institutions that have made you so angry. As close as you can. Now Wall Street itself doesn't have a moat with alligators or sharks. But near enough. And the NYPD is not a private army. But the comparison stands.
you go where you know that you will have the biggest impact.
And if you look back through these threads you will find that most of us here didn't like the drum circle. Or the being loud in the middle of the night. most of us here agree that it was rude, unnecessary, and sending the wrong message. But there was no better place for them to go. And the fact that we're still talking about this how many months later?
It worked.
Wall Street itself does not have many of the institutions OWS is mad at either
Maybe the problem was more that OWS was not good at controlling its members and keeping them on message (this is certainly the picture the press painted). For what its worth, I do have a few friends who live pretty close to the camp, and they complained about the drums a lot.
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lonelyahavaCall me Ahava ~~She/Her~~Move to New ZealandRegistered Userregular
And for what it's worth, most of us here disagreed with the drums.
But the whole 'the institutions aren't there' thing is missing the whole point of the Symbolism.
you say "Wall Street" and the image conjured up for everybody else in the country is Fatcat bankers sitting on piles of imaginary cash and gold coins smoking cigars and polishing monocles.
While Goldman and AIG, and whoever else aren't actually >on< Wall Street anymore, The name evokes something. And that's what they were going for.
Just like if somebody were to say "Haight & Ashbury", people get a specific image in their mind. Or "Kent State". or "DC". It was the symbolism that mattered, not necessarily the reality.
This is because your every post is trying to shift the debate from WHY people occupied Wall Street. You couldn't give a rats ass about the community around the protests. In fact you have barely mentioned it in your posts, avoiding it at every turn.
en't going anywhere" if things turn around and they get good jobs. Maybe I'm just cynical, but I still think just about anyone who was in Zuccotti Park would have switched to the "dark" side pretty fast if Goldman offered them a job.
The implication being, of course, the people protesting the lack of decent paying jobs would be hypocrites for accepting a decent paying job.
Also @spacekungfuman Every protest in DC inconveniences people there. It doesn't have to take place outside of an apartment complex in order to do so. Again, your utter lack of consideration for other people is just appalling.
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
Also @spacekungfuman Every protest in DC inconveniences people there. It doesn't have to take place outside of an apartment complex in order to do so. Again, your utter lack of consideration for other people is just appalling.
Then I advise that you go set up a protest camp with a drum circle outside of Sonic Team's headquarters. I don't work there, but the character Space Kung Fu Man is from Space Channel 5, so that will be the most symbolic place to protest.
And to think you want people to take your arguments seriously. You still refuse to address the fact that anywhere they protest is going to be inconvenient, even to people not involved with those they're protesting. You go on and on about them being inconvenient but don't offer up anything that would get them equal attention without doing so. What you have offered is them severely cutting back exposure by limiting the locations they do protest in to one area because, presumably, fuck the people in that area you don't care.
To reiterate, what you want OWS, a movement protesting the very real and horrible income equality that is ruining millions of lives, to do is to cease to exist anywhere else in the country and inconvenience the denizens of DC even more because abloo someone had a small amount of trouble walking their dog. Which is kind of a living metaphor, really.
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L Ron HowardThe duckMinnesotaRegistered Userregular
I liked that argument better when Modern Man made it the first time.
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
And to think you want people to take your arguments seriously. You still refuse to address the fact that anywhere they protest is going to be inconvenient, even to people not involved with those they're protesting. You go on and on about them being inconvenient but don't offer up anything that would get them equal attention without doing so. What you have offered is them severely cutting back exposure by limiting the locations they do protest in to one area because, presumably, fuck the people in that area you don't care.
To reiterate, what you want OWS, a movement protesting the very real and horrible income equality that is ruining millions of lives, to do is to cease to exist anywhere else in the country and inconvenience the denizens of DC even more because abloo someone had a small amount of trouble walking their dog. Which is kind of a living metaphor, really.
I have said time and time again that. On residential areas in Manhattan would have been fine spots for protest. Obviously, the protest will inconvenience people, but then so do street fairs, and as much as I may curse when I can't turn down 5th ave because of a street fair, I would not argue that they should not exist. That said, a street fair that took up every Avenue in the city would be a real problem, even though street fairs usually are not, because it would make it almost impossible to drive anywhere. Placement and scale matter, and while OWS may have gotten a lot of publicity where it was, I am sure that it could have set up shop in any number of other areas and made the same impact, without all the late night noise and the maze of barricades (the barricades would be more navigable in a gridded area). Hell, they could have occupied Rockefeller Center during the day, and gotten tons of media, without inconveniencing people in their homes.
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lonelyahavaCall me Ahava ~~She/Her~~Move to New ZealandRegistered Userregular
But again, Rockefeller Center is not the object. Or the point.
Rockefeller center is the media, an ice skating rink, and a giant christmas tree.
That said, a street fair that took up every Avenue in the city would be a real problem, even though street fairs usually are not, because it would make it almost impossible to drive anywhere. Placement and scale matter, and while OWS may have gotten a lot of publicity where it was, I am sure that it could have set up shop in any number of other areas and made the same impact...
Nope. Then you or some other would just be in here complaining that OWS is disrupting the lives of the people who work near that area and probably also demanding why they're calling themselves OWS when they don't do what the name says.
Oh and imply they'd be hypocrites for accepting jobs.
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
But again, Rockefeller Center is not the object. Or the point.
Rockefeller center is the media, an ice skating rink, and a giant christmas tree.
Wall Street is Wall street.
Fair enough. But can you tell me there is nowhere else that would have worked? Why not the offices of Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse (those are even near a park) or one or more of the other banks? Or why not come to protest at or near wall street during the day, but stay in a non residential area at night?
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
That said, a street fair that took up every Avenue in the city would be a real problem, even though street fairs usually are not, because it would make it almost impossible to drive anywhere. Placement and scale matter, and while OWS may have gotten a lot of publicity where it was, I am sure that it could have set up shop in any number of other areas and made the same impact...
Nope. Then you or some other would just be in here complaining that OWS is disrupting the lives of the people who work near that area and probably also demanding why they're calling themselves OWS when they don't do what the name says.
Oh and imply they'd be hypocrites for accepting jobs.
If you have just decided that everything I say is disingenuous, then I don't really understand how we can continue to discuss this issue, since you have already decided that everything I say is a self-serving lie.
I'm not saying they would be wrong to take those jobs, but if they are protesting the system and are then offered jobs inside the system, I think it is pretty clearly hypocritical. After all the things I said in the union thread, I think I would be a pretty big hypocrite if I took a job as counsel to a union. That said, if the money was right, I would consider it, although I would not deny the hypocracy.
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lonelyahavaCall me Ahava ~~She/Her~~Move to New ZealandRegistered Userregular
because, as you pointed out, Goldman sachs is not on wall Street.
people like those of us here that are paying attention know the name 'Goldman Sachs' and what it means in terms of the banks and the crash and things. even if we don't know the details.
Average voters/people who are not really paying attention enough or remember enough to understand what Goldman sachs has to do with all the issues will know wall Street. From the top of the list to the bottom person under a highway, everybody knows what you mean when you say 'Wall Street'.
And if the protest doesn't bother anybody, then you never get listened to. Somebody is going to have to be inconvenienced in some manner or another for people to pay attention.
Well, I really think the answer would have been to just not protest in a residential neighborhood, or in the alternative, to have been better organized from the start, with things like porta-potties, and arrangements to use local area facilities that consented to that use.
1: In Some areas like Los Angeles they did have porta-potties. Guess what? Evicted for the same shit despite no residential areas, obnoxious late night drums, etc. They also got the same dirty smear regarding "health conditions" as well as "safety hazards." The best part was when the newspapers basically quoted the police press release on Occupy LA's eviction to run a free PR hit against them. Pictures of piles of rubble caused by the police basically trashing the entire encampment and then getting city workers to put it all in a giant junk pile before demolishing it in a dump truck. (Despite the fact that the only reason there was such a mess was because the police insisted on making it.)
2: In New York the city not only did not have public facilities but refused to provide them up until near the very end. They were trying to use sanitation to basically force protesters out. What do you do if the city tells you that you literally can't have bathrooms? This is the situation that was faced in New York.
3: Arrangements were made with local businesses there was an entire facilitation committee to handle these sorts of things. Does that mean all delinquency will immediately stop? No, but there was certainly outreach.
Of course, the movement needed to get some steam before it could have become big enough to develop that kind of infrastructure, which is why I just have to return to the suggestion that they should have protested elsewhere. Even if they wanted to use the park for sleeping, they should have actually protested in front of the banks they were mad at, and the whole drum circle and chanting thing what probably unneccessary from the start, but they should have at least been considerate.
4: There were protests of Banks, bank CEOs, etc. The Zucotti/Liberty park location wasn't so much a protest site as a protest base camp and recruitment center. There were marches and other activities planned daily to focus the attention where it was needed. Still having a fixed location in an open, public space will allow you to create a commons and further dialog among people who normally would never have considered talking to someone else in their day let alone about politics and the economy.
5: That said, drummers and drummer issues were annoying and a definite black mark that so much hassle had to come from people getting upset at the drums or upset they couldn't drum when they wanted.
To be fair, a lot of the disruption was also due to the size of the police presence and the barricades they put up everywhere, and I'm not sure there was any way for OWS to avoid that, but if they chose a different location, they could have been less disruptive to people in their homes.
6: You would prefer another target, perhaps a military target? Then name the system![/Moff Tarkin] ;p
Fair enough. But can you tell me there is nowhere else that would have worked? Why not the offices of Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse (those are even near a park) or one or more of the other banks? Or why not come to protest at or near wall street during the day, but stay in a non residential area at night?
7: Goldman Sachs offices were protested in front of. In fact, the funny thing about GS offices? You merely stay there too long protesting on the sidewalk and police arrest you. They actually had some of the best security arrangements of any of the protest locations I had heard of when I was reading up on the daily actions. But more to the point if you want to change the "base camp" location then you need to pick a spot where it was a regular people artery, sends a direct message about the context of what's being protested, and would've presented fewer logistics problems both from a perspective of access to sanitation, overzealous Law Enforcement, and would've "respected people's property." A big part of the location was the fact that there are really no "public spaces" where you can do this anymore.
We've pay walled America's commons and it's hurting us. People camped out in parks and plazas all over the USA and it made about a lick of difference in their eviction status. Why? Because the status quo never intended to listen to the protest and only will when the grievances get so loud that it costs them far more not to. These public spaces are not really public, they're only public so long as they obey the general whims of whatever the current political orthodoxy is. Otherwise they would be free for re-appropriation during times of crisis. Hell, Oakland's the prime example. Mayor tells the protestors it's time to go home and respect "Other people's property" then sends in the riot police to tear the camp down, camp protests the dawn riot and then they get gassed, escalation, and so on.
So far every attempt to spread occupy has met with fierce resistance despite the tactics tried. If anything the fact the movement is so decentralized shows us how ultimately useless any one of these minor logistical considerations was in ensuring the overall success of the protest. They are going to get attacked and evicted from every angle regardless, and they were. So the protest spread everywhere and took every possible form it could, and the absolute firestorm about how hard it was to "shut these people up" was what catapulted it's message into the national dialogue. Nobody listened until we saw police beating, pepper spraying, tear gassing, and running over protestors in several major cities. Sadly, it seems to me the inconvenience factor here is exactly what caused it to work. Because the only way to attract the media was coverage of unprovoked violence and that only happens when people get upset enough about their days to complain.
If the best you can come up with against someone who's patently ignorant is to yell back at him, "Yeah? Well there's BOOKS, and they say you're WRONG!"
Then honestly you're not coming out of this looking great either.
I'm not saying they would be wrong to take those jobs, but if they are protesting the system and are then offered jobs inside the system, I think it is pretty clearly hypocritical.
It would not because the system would have fundamentally changed. Because there is no way for all of those people to be employed without significant decreases in the excesses in the higher echelons of business. So you're right, if businesses stopped constantly trying to fuck over the poor for the sake of the ultra rich, OWS would cease to exist. Because it'd no longer be necessary.
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
I'm not saying they would be wrong to take those jobs, but if they are protesting the system and are then offered jobs inside the system, I think it is pretty clearly hypocritical.
It would not because the system would have fundamentally changed. Because there is no way for all of those people to be employed without significant decreases in the excesses in the higher echelons of business. So you're right, if businesses stopped constantly trying to fuck over the poor for the sake of the ultra rich, OWS would cease to exist. Because it'd no longer be necessary.
I was talking about any random individual being offered a job, not everyone from OWS all getting job offers.
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HacksawJ. Duggan Esq.Wrestler at LawRegistered Userregular
I was talking about any random individual being offered a job, not everyone from OWS all getting job offers.
That's the beauty of non-hierarchy, you can't really use that sort of a strategy to peel off leaders by bribing them. You'd have to bribe each and every person you wanted not to show up.
If the best you can come up with against someone who's patently ignorant is to yell back at him, "Yeah? Well there's BOOKS, and they say you're WRONG!"
Then honestly you're not coming out of this looking great either.
It's pretty demoralizing to be repeatedly confronted since week 1 of protests with people, in apparent total seriousness, weighing convenience in one hand and the rights of speech and peaceable assembly in the other while making "ruh roh, I dunno!" noises.
Also I wish that when being a human was getting smeared by the media they would at least cook up new cockamamie stories and not just use the same slurs every single time. The "dirty" meme as mentioned above is so old that as soon as one hears it being applied, obviously one can just tune out whatever is coming next since it will b almost guarantees to be equally unserious.
If they don't even fake the romance with new sexy put-downs then you know that societal sloth and fear are just going through the motions of hating.
I don't think the media, the establishment or the wall street have thought that far. I'm wondering what they are going to do when all these protests pop back up after winter ends and in greater force. Unless they make some major changes I don't see them going much further than they have gotten, but the way things are going from the GOP side, it's going to really bring the pain down on that party. I'm just hoping that by the time we move to the fall elections people in the movement will realize that it would be pretty dumb not to vote because even if they don't like any of the candidates, if you vote the politicians do have to start caring if enough like minded people vote, in numbers large enough to swing an election.
I'm not saying they would be wrong to take those jobs, but if they are protesting the system and are then offered jobs inside the system, I think it is pretty clearly hypocritical.
It would not because the system would have fundamentally changed. Because there is no way for all of those people to be employed without significant decreases in the excesses in the higher echelons of business. So you're right, if businesses stopped constantly trying to fuck over the poor for the sake of the ultra rich, OWS would cease to exist. Because it'd no longer be necessary.
I was talking about any random individual being offered a job, not everyone from OWS all getting job offers.
You mean you could probably find people in a crowd of thousands to bribe? Really?
Ohmigosh.
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
I'm not saying they would be wrong to take those jobs, but if they are protesting the system and are then offered jobs inside the system, I think it is pretty clearly hypocritical.
It would not because the system would have fundamentally changed. Because there is no way for all of those people to be employed without significant decreases in the excesses in the higher echelons of business. So you're right, if businesses stopped constantly trying to fuck over the poor for the sake of the ultra rich, OWS would cease to exist. Because it'd no longer be necessary.
I was talking about any random individual being offered a job, not everyone from OWS all getting job offers.
You mean you could probably find people in a crowd of thousands to bribe? Really?
Ohmigosh.
I am not talking about a bribe or an offer made because you are in OWS. I am saying if you have your resume on monster.com and somehow GS (having no idea that you are in OWS) calls you and offers you a job, in a division securitizing some silly thing that is bound to be the next bubble, I'll bet almost every person in OWS would take the job, and literally become part of the problem.
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syndalisGetting ClassyOn the WallRegistered User, Loves Apple Productsregular
I'm not saying they would be wrong to take those jobs, but if they are protesting the system and are then offered jobs inside the system, I think it is pretty clearly hypocritical.
It would not because the system would have fundamentally changed. Because there is no way for all of those people to be employed without significant decreases in the excesses in the higher echelons of business. So you're right, if businesses stopped constantly trying to fuck over the poor for the sake of the ultra rich, OWS would cease to exist. Because it'd no longer be necessary.
I was talking about any random individual being offered a job, not everyone from OWS all getting job offers.
You mean you could probably find people in a crowd of thousands to bribe? Really?
Ohmigosh.
I am not talking about a bribe or an offer made because you are in OWS. I am saying if you have your resume on monster.com and somehow GS (having no idea that you are in OWS) calls you and offers you a job, oin a division securitizing some silly thing that is bound to be the next bubble, I'll bet almost every person in OWS would take the job, and literally become part of the problem.
Probably.
But then the rest of the tens of thousands of protestors around the country, and the millions who support the concept would keep doing their thing, and that person would have a job.
What's your point?
SW-4158-3990-6116
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
And I doubt that the person with a job would suddenly convert to "the other side." Lots of people with jobs support the movement, since most people don't trade their morality for their paycheck.
Phillishere on
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
I'm not saying they would be wrong to take those jobs, but if they are protesting the system and are then offered jobs inside the system, I think it is pretty clearly hypocritical.
It would not because the system would have fundamentally changed. Because there is no way for all of those people to be employed without significant decreases in the excesses in the higher echelons of business. So you're right, if businesses stopped constantly trying to fuck over the poor for the sake of the ultra rich, OWS would cease to exist. Because it'd no longer be necessary.
I was talking about any random individual being offered a job, not everyone from OWS all getting job offers.
You mean you could probably find people in a crowd of thousands to bribe? Really?
Ohmigosh.
I am not talking about a bribe or an offer made because you are in OWS. I am saying if you have your resume on monster.com and somehow GS (having no idea that you are in OWS) calls you and offers you a job, oin a division securitizing some silly thing that is bound to be the next bubble, I'll bet almost every person in OWS would take the job, and literally become part of the problem.
Probably.
But then the rest of the tens of thousands of protestors around the country, and the millions who support the concept would keep doing their thing, and that person would have a job.
What's your point?
Just that raging against the machine is all well and good, but not many people (myself included) would feel strongly enough about most causes to pass on an opportunity for great personal gain. That said, I'll bet very few people would take a job running a slave plantation, or intimidating black voters to stay away from voting booths in November, so some convictions are probably stronger than others. I am not saying people don't believe in these ideas they are pushing with OWS. But I do think the idea that this is the next civil rights or women's suffrage movement is a bit hyperbolic.
And I doubt that the person with a job would suddenly convert to "the other side." Lots of people with jobs support the movement, since most people don't trade their morality for their paycheck.
I went to one of the most liberal law schools in the country. Of the 125 people in my section, I was one of maybe 5 people who said they wanted to be a corporate lawyer. Everyone was going to be in public interest, or work for a nonprofit, or take a non-prosecutorial government job (prosecutors were the bad guys, apparently). Now most of them work in private practice as corporate lawyers, and a lot of then don't even do much pro bono (ironically, I actually do more pro bono than many of my more idealistic friends). I'm not saying they abandoned their values for a pay check, but those values seem to have moderated quite a bit from working for the "bad guys." I have a liberal friend who works in the same specialty as me, and while he supports taxing carried interest as ordinary income, he also wants to get rid of the anti-golden parachute rules and most other checks on executive compensation in the tax code, because of how over complicated they are. Raging against the machine is a lot easier before you learn how and why it works the way that it does.
So there seems to be media silence about OWS, I bet this is on purpose.
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
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VanguardBut now the dream is over. And the insect is awake.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
Cool story bro. I know it's hard to see sitting behind the gates in your private community on LI, but class inequality has been shown to be the number one tension among the general population. Our national dialogue has changed, bills have been proposed, and more and more people are getting involved in fighting the rampant greed that has led to the economic consequences we are now suffering.
That you think most people would value personal gain over any ideal or cause is more telling about you than anyone else.
The problem with judging the effectiveness of OWS is we will never know how much is attributable to them, vs general sentiment from during the recession. To be clear, I'm not saying we should conclude that OWS accomplished nothing, just that its hard to say what it does and does not deserve credit for, unless congress comes out and says "we passed this bill because of OWS."
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VanguardBut now the dream is over. And the insect is awake.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
And where did OWS come from, if not that general sentiment?
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
And where did OWS come from, if not that general sentiment?
You can't take credit for everything that arises from the sentiment that spawned the movement. For all you know, general unease and unhappiness with the status quo could have caused these changes, without the need for OWS at all. If that is the case, claiming credit seems inappropriate.
The problem with judging the effectiveness of OWS is we will never know how much is attributable to them, vs general sentiment from during the recession. To be clear, I'm not saying we should conclude that OWS accomplished nothing, just that its hard to say what it does and does not deserve credit for, unless congress comes out and says "we passed this bill because of OWS."
Since OWS was/is the largest expression of popular sentiment on the subject of income equality in decades. Was a national movement with demonstrations in over a hundred cities. Lasting over several months. Including close to a million people nationwide(on and off).
That prior to its existence the previous topic for national economic debate was the need to cut the deficit. That the majority of above mentioned bills where introduced and passed after OWS came into being.
I wager more than a little.
Kipling217 on
The sky was full of stars, every star an exploding ship. One of ours.
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VanguardBut now the dream is over. And the insect is awake.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
And where did OWS come from, if not that general sentiment?
You can't take credit for everything that arises from the sentiment that spawned the movement. For all you know, general unease and unhappiness with the status quo could have caused these changes, without the need for OWS at all. If that is the case, claiming credit seems inappropriate.
You're effectively arguing that because there is no empirical way to prove whether or not OWS affected anything, you can't give it credit for anything specific. This is why people are calling you a goose.
OWS, whether or not it directly contributed to a particular action/bill/whatever, gave a boost to all efforts related to economic inequality. That is, I think, indisputable.
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Everyone taking seeds back and planting them with conversations and shifting points of view. You would think the various authorities would want this kind of thing geographically quarantined.
That is exactly what happened, right?
The sarcasm cycle will just continue if you do it that way. Trust me, I know. ;_;
The problem is you're voicing concern over damages that you have not established were entirely preventable. If you cannot establish the preventability of that damage by laying out a more successful course of action then you are making the same arguments as people who just want the protest to end, now, and don't care by what legal means it occurs. So without creating an argument that will work to improve OWS activism while also reducing collateral damage (which coincidentally, reducing collateral damage alone while remaining neutral elsewhere does that, hence my suggestion to argue over better internal codes of conduct and behavior controls). You appear to others as just attempting to argue dishonestly; since your suggestions appear to do nothing but weaken the ability for protestors to spread their message. Your suggestions would reduce the "collateral damage" yes, but still at a far greater cost to OWS' successful activism. Either you realize this and don't care, you are arguing dishonestly, or you should consider another line of reasoning because this one's been sunk like a game of Battleship.
Just my two cents.
Well, I really think the answer would have been to just not protest in a residential neighborhood, or in the alternative, to have been better organized from the start, with things like porta-potties, and arrangements to use local area facilities that consented to that use. Of course, the movement needed to get some steam before it could have become big enough to develop that kind of infrastructure, which is why I just have to return to the suggestion that they should have protested elsewhere. Even if they wanted to use the park for sleeping, they should have actually protested in front of the banks they were mad at, and the whole drum circle and chanting thing what probably unneccessary from the start, but they should have at least been considerate. To be fair, a lot of the disruption was also due to the size of the police presence and the barricades they put up everywhere, and I'm not sure there was any way for OWS to avoid that, but if they chose a different location, they could have been less disruptive to people in their homes.
The message goes viral, and everybody around the country who has any issue with Walmart gets into gear. and trust me, that's a lot of people. Walmart has screwed us over too many times, with their cheap good for cheap prices. With their inadequate pay and bad benefits, with their heartless view of the world. They need to be told, man.
So a small group gathers in Bentonville, Arkansas for the protest. Now you can't actually get anywhere near Walmart's headquarters because it's a sealed off goddamn fortress. possibly with a moat. with alligators. And sharks. Moat sharks with laser beams. The Waltons are rich as, dude. They could have sharks.
So the protestors set up in the town square of Bentonville. Everybody in town knows what they're protesting because without Walmart, there is no Bentonville. The protest started small, only a few handfuls of people, but those people stayed the night. And then more people showed up. And more, and they had discussions, public open discussions that anybody could partake in, about how Walmart is the evil cancer that is killing our nation. About how workers unable to unionize are treated, about how working for Walmart is a soul-sucking experience.
As word gets out through the internets via youtube and twitter and facebook, more movements start cropping up all over the place. All over the country. In walmart parking lots from maine to California and everywhere in between. Yes even in the south where Walmart is the only store left for miles that you can buy a comfy sweatshirt and a frozen box of taquitos at 2am. There are protests everywhere because Walmart, and the Waltons in particular, are wealthier than God and the president and they give none of it back.
Now, since the Waltons are wealthier than God, and even more vengeful and spiteful and definitely more evil than satan, they use their money to bring in the police and private security forces to break up the protests. Children are pushed around and their toys are destroyed. Little old ladies are stranded in parking lots as the batteries for their scooters are confiscated as Walmart property. There was even one instance of a young family being stripped to their skin because all of their clothing had been purchased at Walmart and the Waltons felt that if they were going to be protesting, they should not have any goods at all. It got messy and there were injuries around the country. The public outcry by those that had not been protesting grew stronger. This is America, we have rights here. The protests grew larger, more vocal, and finally the television stations started paying attention.
But as the protests grew, so did the mercenaries. The Arkansas national Guard was called up to try and help keep the peace between the Walton's Private Army and the protestors. Disaster was inevitable. Early one morning the unthinkable happened. The WPA Moved in to clear an encampment from a park in Lawrence, Kansas. There wasn't even a Walmart in Lawrence, but the protest had grown to the point where that didn't matter anymore. This wasn't just about Walmart anymore. It was about corporate greed and workers rights. About fair treatment and just laws. And about Freedom of Speech and Assembly. The people of Lawrence, Kansas understood that, and so did other cities around the country, and even around the world, who had all started their own protests.
But on this morning, the WPA moved in on the orders from the Waltons themselves. And the encampment was destroyed. Walmart brand chainsaws and sawsalls were used to destroy everything in sight. And once again the protestors were out in the cold and the rain of an early Arkansas autumn. There were injuries and wild fights. Some of the protestors were even detained by the WPA to be handed over to the authorities later.
Slowly, quietly, the protest disperses. eventually the groups that had gathered are all making their ways back to their lives and homes. But they know that things can be done. Walmart and the Waltons have started getting better employment laws in place, and there has even been some rumors that they will investigate starting something similar to a union in a few test stores. You know, In the future.
The situation changed things. Protesting changed things. Public Opinion and private ideals.
And you get as close as you can to those institutions that have made you so angry. As close as you can. Now Wall Street itself doesn't have a moat with alligators or sharks. But near enough. And the NYPD is not a private army. But the comparison stands.
you go where you know that you will have the biggest impact.
And if you look back through these threads you will find that most of us here didn't like the drum circle. Or the being loud in the middle of the night. most of us here agree that it was rude, unnecessary, and sending the wrong message. But there was no better place for them to go. And the fact that we're still talking about this how many months later?
It worked.
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Wall Street itself does not have many of the institutions OWS is mad at either
Maybe the problem was more that OWS was not good at controlling its members and keeping them on message (this is certainly the picture the press painted). For what its worth, I do have a few friends who live pretty close to the camp, and they complained about the drums a lot.
But the whole 'the institutions aren't there' thing is missing the whole point of the Symbolism.
you say "Wall Street" and the image conjured up for everybody else in the country is Fatcat bankers sitting on piles of imaginary cash and gold coins smoking cigars and polishing monocles.
While Goldman and AIG, and whoever else aren't actually >on< Wall Street anymore, The name evokes something. And that's what they were going for.
Just like if somebody were to say "Haight & Ashbury", people get a specific image in their mind. Or "Kent State". or "DC". It was the symbolism that mattered, not necessarily the reality.
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Actually he did address it at one point.
The implication being, of course, the people protesting the lack of decent paying jobs would be hypocrites for accepting a decent paying job.
Also @spacekungfuman Every protest in DC inconveniences people there. It doesn't have to take place outside of an apartment complex in order to do so. Again, your utter lack of consideration for other people is just appalling.
Then I advise that you go set up a protest camp with a drum circle outside of Sonic Team's headquarters. I don't work there, but the character Space Kung Fu Man is from Space Channel 5, so that will be the most symbolic place to protest.
To reiterate, what you want OWS, a movement protesting the very real and horrible income equality that is ruining millions of lives, to do is to cease to exist anywhere else in the country and inconvenience the denizens of DC even more because abloo someone had a small amount of trouble walking their dog. Which is kind of a living metaphor, really.
I have said time and time again that. On residential areas in Manhattan would have been fine spots for protest. Obviously, the protest will inconvenience people, but then so do street fairs, and as much as I may curse when I can't turn down 5th ave because of a street fair, I would not argue that they should not exist. That said, a street fair that took up every Avenue in the city would be a real problem, even though street fairs usually are not, because it would make it almost impossible to drive anywhere. Placement and scale matter, and while OWS may have gotten a lot of publicity where it was, I am sure that it could have set up shop in any number of other areas and made the same impact, without all the late night noise and the maze of barricades (the barricades would be more navigable in a gridded area). Hell, they could have occupied Rockefeller Center during the day, and gotten tons of media, without inconveniencing people in their homes.
Rockefeller center is the media, an ice skating rink, and a giant christmas tree.
Wall Street is Wall street.
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Nope. Then you or some other would just be in here complaining that OWS is disrupting the lives of the people who work near that area and probably also demanding why they're calling themselves OWS when they don't do what the name says.
Oh and imply they'd be hypocrites for accepting jobs.
Fair enough. But can you tell me there is nowhere else that would have worked? Why not the offices of Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse (those are even near a park) or one or more of the other banks? Or why not come to protest at or near wall street during the day, but stay in a non residential area at night?
If you have just decided that everything I say is disingenuous, then I don't really understand how we can continue to discuss this issue, since you have already decided that everything I say is a self-serving lie.
I'm not saying they would be wrong to take those jobs, but if they are protesting the system and are then offered jobs inside the system, I think it is pretty clearly hypocritical. After all the things I said in the union thread, I think I would be a pretty big hypocrite if I took a job as counsel to a union. That said, if the money was right, I would consider it, although I would not deny the hypocracy.
people like those of us here that are paying attention know the name 'Goldman Sachs' and what it means in terms of the banks and the crash and things. even if we don't know the details.
Average voters/people who are not really paying attention enough or remember enough to understand what Goldman sachs has to do with all the issues will know wall Street. From the top of the list to the bottom person under a highway, everybody knows what you mean when you say 'Wall Street'.
And if the protest doesn't bother anybody, then you never get listened to. Somebody is going to have to be inconvenienced in some manner or another for people to pay attention.
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1: In Some areas like Los Angeles they did have porta-potties. Guess what? Evicted for the same shit despite no residential areas, obnoxious late night drums, etc. They also got the same dirty smear regarding "health conditions" as well as "safety hazards." The best part was when the newspapers basically quoted the police press release on Occupy LA's eviction to run a free PR hit against them. Pictures of piles of rubble caused by the police basically trashing the entire encampment and then getting city workers to put it all in a giant junk pile before demolishing it in a dump truck. (Despite the fact that the only reason there was such a mess was because the police insisted on making it.)
2: In New York the city not only did not have public facilities but refused to provide them up until near the very end. They were trying to use sanitation to basically force protesters out. What do you do if the city tells you that you literally can't have bathrooms? This is the situation that was faced in New York.
3: Arrangements were made with local businesses there was an entire facilitation committee to handle these sorts of things. Does that mean all delinquency will immediately stop? No, but there was certainly outreach.
4: There were protests of Banks, bank CEOs, etc. The Zucotti/Liberty park location wasn't so much a protest site as a protest base camp and recruitment center. There were marches and other activities planned daily to focus the attention where it was needed. Still having a fixed location in an open, public space will allow you to create a commons and further dialog among people who normally would never have considered talking to someone else in their day let alone about politics and the economy.
5: That said, drummers and drummer issues were annoying and a definite black mark that so much hassle had to come from people getting upset at the drums or upset they couldn't drum when they wanted.
6: You would prefer another target, perhaps a military target? Then name the system![/Moff Tarkin] ;p
7: Goldman Sachs offices were protested in front of. In fact, the funny thing about GS offices? You merely stay there too long protesting on the sidewalk and police arrest you. They actually had some of the best security arrangements of any of the protest locations I had heard of when I was reading up on the daily actions. But more to the point if you want to change the "base camp" location then you need to pick a spot where it was a regular people artery, sends a direct message about the context of what's being protested, and would've presented fewer logistics problems both from a perspective of access to sanitation, overzealous Law Enforcement, and would've "respected people's property." A big part of the location was the fact that there are really no "public spaces" where you can do this anymore.
We've pay walled America's commons and it's hurting us. People camped out in parks and plazas all over the USA and it made about a lick of difference in their eviction status. Why? Because the status quo never intended to listen to the protest and only will when the grievances get so loud that it costs them far more not to. These public spaces are not really public, they're only public so long as they obey the general whims of whatever the current political orthodoxy is. Otherwise they would be free for re-appropriation during times of crisis. Hell, Oakland's the prime example. Mayor tells the protestors it's time to go home and respect "Other people's property" then sends in the riot police to tear the camp down, camp protests the dawn riot and then they get gassed, escalation, and so on.
So far every attempt to spread occupy has met with fierce resistance despite the tactics tried. If anything the fact the movement is so decentralized shows us how ultimately useless any one of these minor logistical considerations was in ensuring the overall success of the protest. They are going to get attacked and evicted from every angle regardless, and they were. So the protest spread everywhere and took every possible form it could, and the absolute firestorm about how hard it was to "shut these people up" was what catapulted it's message into the national dialogue. Nobody listened until we saw police beating, pepper spraying, tear gassing, and running over protestors in several major cities. Sadly, it seems to me the inconvenience factor here is exactly what caused it to work. Because the only way to attract the media was coverage of unprovoked violence and that only happens when people get upset enough about their days to complain.
It would not because the system would have fundamentally changed. Because there is no way for all of those people to be employed without significant decreases in the excesses in the higher echelons of business. So you're right, if businesses stopped constantly trying to fuck over the poor for the sake of the ultra rich, OWS would cease to exist. Because it'd no longer be necessary.
I was talking about any random individual being offered a job, not everyone from OWS all getting job offers.
At least, not the effective ones.
That's the beauty of non-hierarchy, you can't really use that sort of a strategy to peel off leaders by bribing them. You'd have to bribe each and every person you wanted not to show up.
I don't think the media, the establishment or the wall street have thought that far. I'm wondering what they are going to do when all these protests pop back up after winter ends and in greater force. Unless they make some major changes I don't see them going much further than they have gotten, but the way things are going from the GOP side, it's going to really bring the pain down on that party. I'm just hoping that by the time we move to the fall elections people in the movement will realize that it would be pretty dumb not to vote because even if they don't like any of the candidates, if you vote the politicians do have to start caring if enough like minded people vote, in numbers large enough to swing an election.
battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.
You mean you could probably find people in a crowd of thousands to bribe? Really?
Ohmigosh.
I am not talking about a bribe or an offer made because you are in OWS. I am saying if you have your resume on monster.com and somehow GS (having no idea that you are in OWS) calls you and offers you a job, in a division securitizing some silly thing that is bound to be the next bubble, I'll bet almost every person in OWS would take the job, and literally become part of the problem.
Probably.
But then the rest of the tens of thousands of protestors around the country, and the millions who support the concept would keep doing their thing, and that person would have a job.
What's your point?
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
Just that raging against the machine is all well and good, but not many people (myself included) would feel strongly enough about most causes to pass on an opportunity for great personal gain. That said, I'll bet very few people would take a job running a slave plantation, or intimidating black voters to stay away from voting booths in November, so some convictions are probably stronger than others. I am not saying people don't believe in these ideas they are pushing with OWS. But I do think the idea that this is the next civil rights or women's suffrage movement is a bit hyperbolic.
I went to one of the most liberal law schools in the country. Of the 125 people in my section, I was one of maybe 5 people who said they wanted to be a corporate lawyer. Everyone was going to be in public interest, or work for a nonprofit, or take a non-prosecutorial government job (prosecutors were the bad guys, apparently). Now most of them work in private practice as corporate lawyers, and a lot of then don't even do much pro bono (ironically, I actually do more pro bono than many of my more idealistic friends). I'm not saying they abandoned their values for a pay check, but those values seem to have moderated quite a bit from working for the "bad guys." I have a liberal friend who works in the same specialty as me, and while he supports taxing carried interest as ordinary income, he also wants to get rid of the anti-golden parachute rules and most other checks on executive compensation in the tax code, because of how over complicated they are. Raging against the machine is a lot easier before you learn how and why it works the way that it does.
That you think most people would value personal gain over any ideal or cause is more telling about you than anyone else.
or, you know
nobody seems to care anymore so the media, which is notorious for having ADD, has moved on to something else
to be frank I would have to open another browser tab and check right this moment to find out if OWS and related movements are even still going
I've forgotten they existed since they didn't really have an impact on anything
Nope, nothing.
Americans don't feel that economic inequality is the number one tension among it's citizens because of OWS.
Bills that would make insider trading among congress people illegal didn't pass from the push of OWS.
We don't have a deal in the works to help victims of the housing bubble bursting due to OWS.
We didn't receive a report showing how the Volckner rule has been neutered today because of OWS.
(http://www.efinancialnews.com/story/2012-02-15/occupy-wall-street-akshat-tewary-on-325-page-response-to-volcker?mod=sectionheadlines-PE-IB)
Clearly, all of this just came from the ether.
That was my assumption too.
I was in DC and had expected to see something, nope, just a tibet-china protest.
The problem with judging the effectiveness of OWS is we will never know how much is attributable to them, vs general sentiment from during the recession. To be clear, I'm not saying we should conclude that OWS accomplished nothing, just that its hard to say what it does and does not deserve credit for, unless congress comes out and says "we passed this bill because of OWS."
You can't take credit for everything that arises from the sentiment that spawned the movement. For all you know, general unease and unhappiness with the status quo could have caused these changes, without the need for OWS at all. If that is the case, claiming credit seems inappropriate.
Since OWS was/is the largest expression of popular sentiment on the subject of income equality in decades. Was a national movement with demonstrations in over a hundred cities. Lasting over several months. Including close to a million people nationwide(on and off).
That prior to its existence the previous topic for national economic debate was the need to cut the deficit. That the majority of above mentioned bills where introduced and passed after OWS came into being.
I wager more than a little.
You're effectively arguing that because there is no empirical way to prove whether or not OWS affected anything, you can't give it credit for anything specific. This is why people are calling you a goose.
OWS, whether or not it directly contributed to a particular action/bill/whatever, gave a boost to all efforts related to economic inequality. That is, I think, indisputable.