Wall Street Protests

[Cyber Wolf]

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.