Pico mentioned in the US election thread that she thinks some of yesterday's victories (to our sensibilities anyway) were a referendum on the status quo, the far right politics and the tea party.

Of course it is. And I believe this Occupy thing has opened people's eyes. "Oh, you mean when they tell me I should feel guilty and shut up it's because I'm lazy and fruitless and if I had only TRIED HARDER... they're lying? All this time I thought it was ME."

Which leads to more discussion and more awareness about things like...you know, voting. I think people got really complacent after Obama was elected...two years later Ohio forgot to vote again.

For the Occupiers to suddenly say "OK, done sending a message, let's go home" then they look like fools, like the ne'er-do-wells they're painted as, so I hope they're as strong (inner strength) as I perceive them to be.

THey're not going to pull out a bunch of pitchforks and storm the castle. ;)

I understand what you're saying. I just see them getting less news coverage here, and if they're not in the news, what's the point?

Well said Infi.

They continue to be in the news on and off here in the States. The movement has several events planned which I'm sure will be considered newsworthy.

But news or no news, the point is that the American people are joining together in a common cause. I just got back from a "house party," one of two hundred scheduled across the country tonight. Most of the folks there were older, and we had a great discussion concerning the message we want to send to Congress.

I don't know why people say OWS has no objective. It's the corporations, stupid! Tonight our group told the leader - yes, we had a leader - that the message we wanted to send is that we want to work toward a Constitutional Amendment which will overturn the Supreme Court's ruling that corporations are people. We also talked about election reform, but tabled that for our next meeting.

On Friday and Saturday we will continue our version of Occupy Cortez and picket our Congressional Representative's office here, as well as a local bank that has affiliations with the one of the big financial outfits on Wall Street.

People are angry about what is happening to the US. I don't think we're anywhere near ready to take our toys and go home.

PS I just Googled "Occupy Denver," and within the last 24 hours, it has been written up in the Los Angeles Times, appeared on YouTube with its new leader, Shelby the collie, had a story about it broadcast from a local Denver TV station (KMGH), and was featured in a Huffington Post story.

That's just Denver. I'm too tired to check on the other Occupy groups.

So, the Australian media is not that excited about it. Why should they be? Their focus is correctly enough going to be on their own country.

A fence won't stop the cowboys in Congress, but a burr under their saddle will in time. In this case, burrs in every major city in every state.

There are OWS protesters here too as I mentioned earlier in this thread. The only coverage they're getting now is about how they're desecrating war memorials and killing all the grass in the parks.

This is a world wide movement. It's not just about the USA. There may be separate goals, but it all started from the same movement.

That raises interesting questions about who chooses and directs the narrative of news.

And if the news viewing public allows that choice to be made exclusively by the news makers, and turns away from matters those newsmakers deem unimportant/dangerous/uninteresting, what then?

So the protestors should pack up and go home, because the nightly news got bored with them?

Well, Australia is not a country unfamiliar with long running tent city protests. There's been one in Canberra for god knows how long. Decades? 1970's and on I think from memory and is still there. Here's a wiki link all about it.

Whether it's really helped or not I guess is hard to say. Would the changes made in legislation happened if it hadn't been there. I would say most likely, but it's true that the tent embassy has probably influenced a lot of people's thoughts on aboriginal issues and rights. At the same time, I would guess that there are a huge number of Australians who don't even know it exists, let alone what the issues are.

My point is, these protests could go on for years and show very little discernible change. When the aboriginal people first made camp outside parliament house here, it was in the news every day, but after a couple of years, it just wasn't reported anymore, and yet some of the very issues it was started for remain.

What gets me about the Occupy movement in general is that there doesn't seem to be any strategy for making changes happen, other than squatting in parks and on private property, snarling traffic and agitating. These methods certainly do get attention, they certainly do get publicity (especially when the direct impact is a big one, like a police-protest confrontation or clogged busy street), but they don't actually solve any problems. There are plenty of suddenly-orators within this movement, plenty of clever signs and slogans and some people manage to publish a fairly clear statement about what Occupy is after but no clever process to actually move forward past the "We Need Your Attention/Support" stage.

They need to consider their opponents. The ones they're after aren't going to be scared by protests. Protesters performing sit-ins in locations that are covered by existing trespassing laws are not helping anything. They may be breaking the (long, standing and enacted in a time and for reasons that have nothing to do with the Occupy movement or its goals) laws for a Good Cause but they're still breaking laws and so should not be surprised when the police (whose job it is to enforce laws) respond (not to say they don't sometimes overdo it but there you go). The Big Money, OWS's 1%ers - they pay most attention to and are most swayed by financial news, legal issues and DC politics, because those are the three things that will affect them most. Protesters in the street? Nah, they'll just smirk from high windows then leave via the back door. Attention gotten? Check. The kind of attention they want? Probably not. Change in progress? Not so much.

What they need to realize is for whatever changes they want, especially ones that need to be based in law, they need to have people in their movement who understand how the current political and legal games work and be able to infiltrate, get at the problem from the inside. They need to select, groom and raise people who can compete as viable candidates with their message on the local scale, regional scale and, in time, national scale. They also need to either court and retain lawyers who can help steer them. Or maybe some of these out-of-work law students I've heard about who have joined the protest can put those years of law school to work FOR the protest, instead of Making A Difference by handing out food (not that's a bad thing, but lots more people can hand out food than can navigate the legal system) or potentially getting teargassed and jailed.

The Tea Party got that part right about their movement at least... most of the people who are associated with the Tea Party who got elected into regional/state rep offices last year were brought up from local grassroots to where they are now. People came forward to champion the Tea Party on a political level and some of them got elected and we've seen the effect of that already. Established Republicans were forced to choose whether or not to pander to this group or remain apart, and then had to manage damage control for either decision. If the Occupy movement has an allergy to directly gaming the system, then they need to court someone who's already in it to carry their message for them (and Occupying The Rep's Office will not do it... it'll just piss off the Rep). The Civil Rights movements of yore weren't too different than the protests going on now, albeit much less violent (thus far) and the topic was different. They didn't mass-elect people into the system who could carry their message, but they did gather support from people who were already in and could make things happen. It took several years, but it happened.

If they want big money out of politics, they need to go in via the political route and they can only do that if they develop a strategy for it. Drum circles and marches get attention, and a protest like this does need attention, but they don't change any policies.

Civil disobedience, a time-honored tradition.

Here, you can read all about it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_disobedience


Rezactly!

This is exactly the kind of thinking that the OWS protest is trying to thwart.

I agree and disagree with this. First of all, the influences of both the Tea Party and OWS must be recognized.

The tea party was created by a group of older conservative Americans who strongly believed in the idea of a republic and getting change by electing officials who represent your viewpoints, which makes sense from their background. Unfortunately for them, once elections get brought into the mix, so do money and politicians. As we have seen, the "Tea Party" largely got bought out by a numerous number of extremist politicians who brought social issues into the mix and that is where they failed (I am talking about the Tea Party on a national level, not smaller grassroots movements).

OWS was created by a group of people that were influenced by the labor movements, civil rights movements, and Arab Spring, where street movements and disobedience were used to bring about change. But, it can be strongly argued, in many situations, that these movements are only successful when their message correlates with the interests of the people in power, possibly giving a false sense of power to the people protesting. Street protests will bring attention to causes, but I do not believe that they alone are influential enough to bring about any significant change.

Even though I do agree that OWS needs to change its tactics, I wouldn't recommend they centralized or completely switch over to the Tea Party tactics. They need to diversify their strategy. They need to keep a presence protesting but they also need to organize in ways that can influence politics as well. They need to convince politicians, the rich, and other Americans that our current financial setup is unsustainable, or at least inefficient, and something needs to be done about it or else everyone suffers. Witty and emotional cardboard signs will just not cut it. I do agree with their decentralized setup, OWS will not get hijacked this way, but there needs to be a few respectable influential people that will speak out and agree with the OWS movement but not claim to represent it.

I wasn't suggesting they centralize. They shouldn't. But at the same time, they shouldn't be entirely rudderless. The people they raise up or the ones who step up to do this aren't supposed to be leaders, per se. Their mission would be to play the game of politics on a level the ones they're after will actually pay close attention to. It's fairly easy for elected officials to belittle and dismiss a street march and get on with getting on, but it's a bit harder when the voice of that street march is sitting next to you in the Senate chamber with the same 'powers' you have. What would be even more powerful is if they can manage to put people in office registered as both parties so it's harder to pull party politics (for either party) and will have to focus more on content than rhetoric. Dunno how likely THAT would be but, how strong a message would that send if they managed it?

This is exactly the point I was making. They should have a contingent that is doing what they're currently doing to keep things motivated. Without motivation on a large scale, this movement would drift into nothing. But, at the same time, they need another contingent that can direct that motivation into feasible action, a group of people who are doing this because this is what they truly believe in*. They have the former, but not the latter. And each city can have its own and that would be the best way to do it. Each Occupy group with its own corp of legal/politic savvy people who know who to talk to, how to talk to people and get the business of this business done... if they pull it off, it would be winning on the enemy's terms and be that satisfying kick inna fork that these movements seem to want to deliver.



*This is why I suggested those protester law students could step up and better help their cause instead of being on KP... they're already out there without getting paid because they want to be there for this, they can use their law school experience for the cause the same way too. Besides the OWS movement has raised over $450,000 so there's money for filing fees, making copies, little things like that that may need to be done. And if this movement turns into something really great, then 20 years later, they will legitimately have that notoriety, which is like gold for lawyers.

Rush Limbaugh is saying that everywhere at these Occupy demonstrations people are being urinated on.