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  • Personally, I think its because its message became diluted. At least here in Portland, it started off strong, in solidarity with the rest of the country. But as the days went on, it became unclear what anyone was actually protesting. Then as the week dragged on, it became less of a protest and more of an opportunity for vagrants to join in and camp. As all that happened, there was less discussion about the protest and more about the giant camp that was building downtown, the drug use, the fighting, etc.

    So the message was just never strong and clear enough to cut through the problems that surrounded it.

  • You can't build a revolution on top of slogans, they lacked unified ideology and goals. without palpable goals you can't achieve anything

    • They actually had goals, some of which were achieved via the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. But that wasn't enough, and then it was repealed during the Trump era.

      No, they were disbanded (at night, by force, with cameras off) because they were becoming too much of a problem for the ownership class, who was not willing to fix what caused the subprime mortgage crisis and was not willing to let too-big-to-fail companies collapse which they should have, according to common capitalist ideology.

      Fear of the risk of collapse is supposed to encourage hedge funds to be cautious, and the bail-outs showed they don't need to fear, because the US government is in their pocket and will bail them out with taxpayer money. As things currently are, hedge funds can use other people's money to get rich, and when they fuck up and lose everything, the taxpayers take the hit instead. This is still the case, and at smaller scales is still a very common grift on Wall Street. (This is what Romney did before he went into politics, and how Toys-R-Us died.) We're looking at a number of markets that are now at risk of suffering the same kind of short-sell blowout leading to a market collapse which will tank the economy. Again.

      The grievances Occupy explicitly expressed to their elected representatives were never addressed, and confidence in the US economy and the US government (in doing its job serving the public and not corporate or plutocratic interests) has suffered, leading to the election of trump and the rise of fascist movements such as the transnational white power movement and the closely-aligned Christian nationalist movement. Without big money fueling the propaganda machines that keep these movements alive, discontent would turn against the ownership class, who would tremble before class war.

      Would that class war turn into a communist revolution? Probably not, but after a dozen or so dictatorships and overthrows across a century (and a lot of war casualties) or so we might see the US stabilize. If the internet and interpersonal communications are preserved that will improve the chances that we'd see more public-serving models get implemented. This is the part of how we get there from here for which we don't have sound theory. But we also don't know yet how to stop fascist movements from redirecting outrage from the ownership class to marginalized population demographics, hence the genocides currently developing.

      But Occupy absolutely had a legitimate grievance and some specific demands, many of which were not unreasonable or out of the scope of US state and federal governments. It's just that the plutocrats that control our officials didn't want to do those things, kinda like universal healthcare.

  • When Occupy was huge, I had wished they had not focused so heavily on camping in parks and instead bought cheap land in the middle of nowhere and built “Occupy town”. Somewhere people can come and join the movement with their family and not worry about living in a tent.

    Make our own jobs in federated worker co-ops like Mondragon our own community defense organizations, our own public housing, our own city government. If we had picked a state like Wyoming, it would only take about 15k people from each state to move there to take over the entire state government.

    I get people were trying to do that in every park and also stay visible in the media, but I felt like it was just to limiting to stay in such locations.

    As for what should be the focus, clearly it needs to be electoral reform. While stuff like campaign finance reform and changing the electoral college is important, we absolutely must do something about First Past The Post voting.

    Switching away from first past the post voting allows people to vote for who represents them best while still counting their vote against those they dont want to win. Just search for videos on FPTP voting if you want an explanation on how and why the spoiler effect exists.

    Electoral reform is possible in each individual state (for now), we dont need federal reform! Maine and Alaska have already passed electoral reform.

    Republicans are moving to make alternative electoral systems illegal in their states. Why would you want to use the same voting system republicans prefer?

    More political parties means a higher percentage of the population is representedby their choices in the voting booth. More people involved in the electoral process, more people engaged.

    Its a win win win all around for not just the people, but also for the democratic party. More people voting means more democratic votes. The numbers dont lie. So what’s the hold up blue states?

    You believe it’s critical to vote for the democrats to beat the Republicans, thus you should 100% be fully invested in passing electoral reform in your state.

    Electoral reform needs to be the number one priority for every democrat. This is a existential threat to our nation, so we must use EVERY tool at our disposal. No more waiting. This especially goes for those in blue states.

    Consider starting a campaign to change how we vote in your own state! Force our representatives to compete with fresh outside ideas. We deserve the best representation, not excuses.

    I usually prefer people to seek out information about electoral reform on their own, but today I come with some of my favorite videos on the topic.

    First Past The Post voting (What most states use currently)

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

    Videos on alternative electoral systems we can try out.

    Alternative vote

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y3jE3B8HsE

    Ranked Choice voting

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Z2fRPRkWvY

    Range Voting

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3GFG0sXIig

    Single Transferable Vote

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8XOZJkozfI

    STAR voting

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-mOeUXAkV0

    Mixed Member Proportional representation

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QT0I-sdoSXU

    Edit: don't put ourselves down for things not working out yall. This is all our first lives, and we're up against a ton of cultural momentum. Plus things were heated in the moment with the banks getting bailed out. In such emotion, it's hard to see the bigger picture.

    Like in Minneapolis, when the police station fell... imagine if people were deputized and the community just did their own policing.

    But in the moment, after the police lit the fuse by using chemical weapons against the crowd. After such a lack of justice in the world, day after day of injustice and wrong in the world... you just wanna fucking have a fire. I get it. Hell, I wanted that to back then. But it didn't fix anything, as cathartic as it was.

    Sorry about the rants. Hope we find our way. Peace.

  • OWS existed because banks were getting bailed out and ordinary people weren't.

    Since then, an alternative money supply with no bailouts has gained tremendous momentum.

    So we're still protesting, just in a way that's harder to shut down for "public safety" reasons. And instead of participation making you worse off, it makes you better off. Over time, adverse selection will leave only bailout recipients using bailout money.

    • People are still getting hosed with that “alternative money system”. It’s the rare person that makes enough and bails out with profits, even rarer gets enough to be wealthy. It’s the “influencer” of money. Everyone thinks they can be the winner, but there’s tens of thousands of failures for each person on the top.

      • I recognize that most of the time, the market isn't soaring like this. The average user, most of the time, has lost money. The tried-and-true method of becoming a winner with this instability is to "Dollar Cost Average" over long time periods. Nobody who has DCA'ed for more than a few years has lost out; it's trying to time the market that tempts and screws beginners.

        As one dev put it - Bitcoin isn't a "get rich quick" scheme, it's a "don't get poor slowly" scheme.

    • If you're referring to bitcoin for that alternative money supply then I regret to inform you that it's manipulated to hell and back, from "stable"coin printing to now ETFs.

      • Believe it or not, it used to be even worse! The big step forward IMHO is that there's no privileged party that has an advantage manipulating the price. Congress should be prohibited from owning anything but long-term dollar bonds.

  • It's hard to keep a protest going when you don't have focused power behind it. The general messaging of economic inequality carried on and we've been talking about the 1% vs the 99% since, but the key advantage that the billionaires have is that even though there are far fewer of them, the system is structured such that they can use their money to direct the focus. The raw numbers of people mean nothing without that focus.

    It takes an extraordinary event to bring out the sheer number of people, so I'm afraid something like it won't start back up unless something catastrophic happens (e.g. popping of the everything bubble leading to a new great depression). Sustaining it will be a matter of organization which is much more difficult to figure out, especially when individual resources are scarce.

  • Like any other protest by the working class, it needs to be sustainable. It can only be sustainable if there is organization. This is what occupy movement lacked. It had the right ingredients, passion, working class rights, youth led movement, grass roots. The only other vital ingredient missing was organizing.

    What do I mean by organization? For sustainability of movements by the oppressed, there needs to be democratic centrailism (DC). DC allows for space for list of demands set forth by the protesters so movements is well documented. It give a space for natural movement leaders to raise their voices for said demends and speak through the protesters. Organization through fundraising, donations, creates concise message with effective dissemination, such as social media posts, posyers, and other means where the means of press and information sharing is not controlled by the ruling class (corporate interests and the government). This is the reason US government is hell bent of banning ticktok. Even with all its flaws, it is still a powerful organic information sharing medium that the US government has no control over (i.e. Israel and Palestine). Last but not least, organization allows a space people to organize and volunteer in the backend in order for the front line protesters to be effective.

    BLM quickly realized this and formed and organized. MLK led civil rights movements and Malcolm X and the black panthers were also organized. The American revolution occurred because if was organized under a single set of messages and organization to sustain itself. Same for the Communist movement led by the working class against autocracy in the late 1800s. All of these movements and protests were/are sustainable because they were/are organized.

    An organization led by the oppressed is as powerful its support from the protester. A true organic organization is not influenced by donating entities. Corporate donations almost always demand influence. A true Democratic Centralism organization is financially supported by the protesters first, then by small donations from supporters, including small, local businesses.

    If there are enough people with similar believes for change (i.e. livable wage, workplace rights, social equality, gender equality, anti school shooting, defunding corrupted entities, etc.) there most likely an existing organization what you can join, support, volunteer you time. If there isn't and your believes include addressing the needs of the working class and/or the oppressed, chances arecmany others share this believe. They are all waiting for someone to at initiative. Take initiative and be the organizer, find others to help organize. If you are not comfortable in a visible leadership role, find someone who is and work together to create an organization that others like you have a place to go and spread the words in an effective way and make changes in you own communities.

    When the working class protests take place organically, the organizations with similar believes will be in place, ready and armed to sustain the protest and be effective in its goals and document everything through various means.

  • I think other people have answered the first half of the question adequately. I'm curious as to why you particularly want it to start up again, given that it previously 'faded away'.

  • There was no unified direction. There was a mass, but the target was also massive, because the direction was not unified.

    That's why solidarity and organization is importanr, whether that be unions, parties, activist groups, or other such structures.

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