websites and tweets put out by the Internet hacktivist group Anonymous; and local activists associated with the newly formed New York General Assembly were committed to the plan. But labor unions, churches, and other large institutions whose outreach is often necessary to generate major turnouts were not involved. Nor was there an Official website, commonly used to mobilize mass events.4
On September 14, Nathan Schneider wrote on Adbusters’ website: “Not only will this weekend be a test of Americans’ readiness to resist, but of whether an idea lobbed into the internet by Adbusters, then grabbed by artists, students, Twitter hashtags, and a shadowy network of hackers (and hacker wannabes), can really turn into a ‘flood,’ a show of meaningful political force, a new way forward.”5 Many would have questioned whether the Adbusters network and its anarchist allies could create a viable “test of Americans’ readiness to resist,” given their lack of connection to mainstream progressive organizations.
Nevertheless, as many progressives despaired over President Obama’s failure and/or inability to implement his 2008 campaign vision, Adbusters and its initial allies saw an opportunity to tap grassroots discontent that nearly everyone else missed. Occupy’s call revived demands to address Wall Street abuses, rising income and economic inequality, and the inability of the U.S. political system to address either. Occupy also provided activists with an organizational vehicle to pursue this agenda. By offering both a vision and a vehicle, the Occupy movement became a case study in the power of proactive grassroots activism.
Redefining the National Agenda
Occupy’s very first protest showed that when activists take the initiative, it can cause strategically wrong responses on the part of government or other power centers that help expand the movement. The New York City Police Department made two early decisions that fueled Occupy’s growth.
First, the September 17 occupation was originally planned for 1 Chase Plaza, the site of the “Charging Bull” sculpture symbolizing nearby Wall Street. But this was a public space. Police fenced it off after learning of the planned takeover. The occupation then shifted to Zuccotti Park, which was private property. This meant that police could not force protesters to leave absent the property owner’s request. Zuccotti was a far better site for pitching tents, setting up tables, holding meetings, and attracting people to Occupy Wall Street. Not recognizing that the city had given a great gift to Occupiers by shifting the protest to a private site, New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg told a September 17 press conference that “people have a right to protest, and if they want to protest, we’ll be happy to make sure they have locations to do it.”6
The September 17 protests included about one thousand people, only 5 percent of the number that organizers projected. It received little media attention. Follow-up protests were also ignored. Keith Olbermann observed on his MSNBC show Countdown on September 21, 2011, that “after five straight days of sit-ins, marches, and shouting, and some arrests, actual North American newspaper coverage of this—even by those who have thought it farce or failure—has been limited to one blurb in a free newspaper in Manhattan and a column in the Toronto Star.” He noted that, in contrast, “a tea party protest in front of Wall Street about [Federal Reserve chief] Ben Bernanke putting stimulus funds into it, it’s the lead story on every network newscast.”7
The lack of media coverage obscured the fact that activists were still learning about the occupation. As more visited Zuccotti Park and came away impressed, Occupy’s message expanded. Many got their first opportunity to join an Occupy protest on Saturday, October 1. This rainy day became a significant turning point for the Occupy movement. Once again, a proactive move by Occupy triggered a counterproductive police response that helped build the campaign. In this case, when Occupy protesters began walking across the Brooklyn Bridge—a very common New York City activist tactic—more than seven hundred were arrested. The protesters were apprehended despite having engaged in no violence, vandalism, or civil disobedience. Nor were they trying to block traffic. In fact, Occupy had tried to avoid conflicts with police.
The huge number of arrests made headlines. It also put the Occupy movement on the national map. Media coverage of the mass arrests necessarily reported Occupy’s arguments about inequality, boosting plans already in the works to expand local Occupy actions nationwide. Occupy now attracted support from labor unions and other more mainstream progressive groups. The symbolism of the arrests could not have been more effective: the same police force that protected Wall Street was used to arrest Occupy protesters, with many assuming that the NYPD had acted at the behest of the 1 percent. To top it off, the media sided with the marchers’ version of events. As the New York Times put it, “Many protesters said they believed the police had tricked them, allowing them onto the bridge, and even escorting them partway across, only to trap them in orange netting after hundreds had entered.”8
The Brooklyn Bridge arrests turned Occupy into a national story. Reporters unable pre-Occupy to convince editors to cover rising economic inequality were now given space to address the issue. Republican presidential front-runner Mitt Romney then added fuel to the growing media fire by criticizing the Occupy protests as “class warfare”; this comment effectively turned income inequality into a partisan issue. When thousands took to the streets in New York City to express solidarity with Occupy, President Obama said he “understood” the protesters’ concern: “It expresses the frustrations that the American people feel that we had the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression, huge collateral damage all throughout the country, all across Main Street. And yet you’re still seeing some of the same folks who acted irresponsibly trying to fight efforts to crack down on abusive practices that got us into this problem in the first place.” For many who were disappointed with Obama’s aligning with Wall Street after taking office, such words meant that the president clearly saw Occupy’s agenda as reshaping the national debate.9
Proactively Framing the Movement
Only two weeks after occupying Zuccotti Park on September 17, the Occupy movement was a national phenomenon. But activists took nothing for granted, including their ability to continue camping in the private park. Mayor Bloomberg’s assurance that the city would provide Occupiers with locations to protest meant that a quick eviction would appear hypocritical; nonetheless, activists took a number of proactive steps to protect the occupation by framing it as a political gathering rather than a squatters’ encampment.
To this end Occupy maintained a library of progressive books, many donated by publishers and authors eager to connect their works with the emerging movement. Activists also launched the Occupied Wall Street Journal newspaper, whose 50,000 press run was funded by the crowd-funding site Kickstarter. Adding to the sense that this was a political movement and not simply a homeless tent city were publicly posted agendas for each day’s activities, including training sessions, educational events, and the General Assembly meetings that became widely identified with the movement.
Since city restrictions banned electrical amplification at Zuccotti Park, speakers relied on a call-and-response system known as human microphones. Speakers’ words were repeated by the entire assembly, including each meeting’s starting call for a “mic check.” Richard Kim described a meeting on October 6, 2011: “The overall effect can be hypnotic, comic or exhilarating—often all at once. As with every media technology, to some degree the medium is the message. It’s hard to be a downer over the human mic when your words are enthusiastically shouted back at you by hundreds of fellow occupiers, so speakers are usually pretty upbeat (or at least sound that way). Likewise, the human mic is not so good for getting across complex points about, say, how the Federal Reserve’s practice of quantitative easing is inadequate to address the current shortage of global aggregate demand . . . so speakers tend to express their ideas in straightforward narrative or moral language.”10
The call-and-response approach replicated a vision of grassroots democracy harkening back to the New England
