Occupy Oakland’s activities soon had little direct connection to Wall Street or the financial sector. There were major confrontations with police over occupying a vacant city building and blocking the Oakland port. Meanwhile, Occupy’s image as representing a truly democratic, grassroots decision-making process came under scrutiny. A process that required people to attend meetings deep into the night did not work for those with family responsibilities or other work commitments. In fact, it skewed decision making to a small segment of “the 99 percent” that had time to attend hours of outdoor evening meetings on work nights. A process claiming to be truly democratic effectively excluded many of those who might have become heavily involved in the movement following the General Strike.
Occupy Oakland was only one branch of a national movement, but its ongoing confrontations with police greatly raised its national profile. When a small number of protesters associated with Occupy Oakland engaged in vandalism against downtown businesses, defenders of this tactic correctly argued that it was sanctioned by Occupy. By refusing to reject violence, Occupy Oakland marginalized itself. In debating between violent and nonviolent resistance, the movement showed how far it had strayed from the 99 percent it claimed to represent.
When Oakland Officials cleared Occupy Oakland’s encampment and arrested dozens on the morning of November 14, one activist told the media, “I don’t see how they’re going to disperse us. There are thousands of people who are going to come back.” But thousands did not come back. Occupy Oakland’s focus on police misconduct, occupying public buildings, public camping, and vandalizing property had alienated it from “the 99 percent.” The thousands who had joined the November 2 Oakland General Strike wanted to target Wall Street and “the 1 percent,” not Mayor Quan. Many would have stayed involved had Occupy Oakland not strayed from its original course.13
Police were also clearing out Occupy encampments in other cities. Many longtime supporters publicly questioned the Occupy movement’s direction, and a poll taken November 11–13, 2011, by the progressive organization Public Policy Polling appeared to confirm these doubts. The poll found that more respondents opposed (45%) than supported (33%) “the goals of the Occupy Wall Street movement.” A month earlier, the same poll had found voters equally split about Occupy. Yet more important than these numbers was the overwhelming support among respondents to the November 2011 poll for raising taxes on those earning over $150,000 a year, and their strong backing for other measures addressing income inequality. Pollster Tom Jensen noted, “What the downturn in Occupy Wall Street’s image suggests is that voters are seeing the movement as more about the ‘Occupy’ than the ‘Wall Street.’ The controversy over the protests is starting to drown out the actual message.”14
Occupy’s preoccupation with preserving its public encampments reflected its shift from a proactive to a defensive approach. Originally, the “occupying” of Zuccotti Park that launched the movement had created powerful visual imagery. Similar encampments in other cities created visibility and facilitated recruitment. But once local Occupy chapters were established, there was no reason to divert the focus from Wall Street abuses and income inequality to battling with local Officials over the right to camp. These struggles muddied the movement’s goals. Many Occupiers wanted to sleep in tents in public spaces because they lacked a place to live. But once the public saw Occupy camps as homeless encampments rather than as vehicles for economic justice, support fell. That “the 99 percent” did not support camping in public parks or plazas meant that Occupy had adopted a political position at odds with much of its purported base.
Prioritizing public encampments also caused other problems. First, it relegated those unable to live outdoors in tents to reduced roles in the movement. Second, it turned Occupy from being broadly inclusive into a group led by a small, unrepresentative fraction of “the 99 percent.” Third, it raised questions about Occupy’s moral authority to seize public plazas funded by taxpayer dollars for a sustained period, denying access to those among “the 99 percent” who wanted to use the space. No democratic process supported Occupy’s ongoing seizure of public spaces, raising questions about its legitimacy that could have been avoided had private property been occupied instead.
The battles over public camping made even less sense considering that the arrival of winter would make Occupy’s use of outdoor space as headquarters infeasible. Kalle Lasn, the founder of Adbusters, acknowledged this fact on November 14 when he wrote, “Now that winter is approaching, I can see this first wild, messy, crazy occupation phase kind of slowly winding down and the second phase will begin. Some people will continue to sleep in the snow and inspire all of us, but in the meantime many of us will go home and we will resurface next spring.” Lasn suggested that December 17, the three-month anniversary of the Occupy movement, was a good time to begin planning a spring renewal: “We use the winter to brainstorm, network, build momentum so that we may emerge rejuvenated with fresh tactics, philosophies, and a myriad projects ready to rumble next Spring.” Displaying his continued confidence in the movement’s future, Lasn added, “Permit me to be grandiose for a moment, but I can feel it—I can feel this movement is the beginning of a deep transformation of capitalism. It’s a game changer.”15
Lasn’s idea of declaring victory and regrouping for future struggles showed a strategic savvy that many Occupy activists by that time appeared to lack. When police cleared Occupy Wall Street from Zuccotti Park in an early-morning raid on November 15, they did the movement a favor; the activists’ forced ouster avoided feelings of failed personal commitment that having to leave Zuccotti due to the cold would have caused. After completely changing the way politicians, the traditional media, and much of the public perceived and talked about inequality in the United States, the Occupy movement needed time to recharge its batteries and refocus its agenda.
Regaining the Offensive
Although 2012 began with high expectations for Occupy’s resurgence, the movement faced a far more challenging political and media environment than it had when it emerged in the fall of 2011. Then, Occupy events were not competing with national or state elections for media coverage. And for activists eager to engage in social change struggles, Occupy was the leading game in town. But once 2012 began, the media began focusing on the November presidential race. Activist energies also moved to state and local primary campaigns, as well as to the June 5 recall election of Wisconsin’s Republican governor, Scott Walker. Whereas Occupy had generated 14 percent of the reporting from U.S. news organizations in mid-November 2011, by December such coverage had slid to 1 percent and was virtually nonexistent in March. More than ever, Occupy needed to recruit new activists rather than relying on mobilizing those already politically involved.16
To this end, such mainstream progressive groups as MoveOn.org, Democracy for America, and labor unions helped recruit activists for training in direct action from April 9 to 15. Thousands of current and future Occupy activists were trained in preparation for a planned “99% Spring.” (Occupy had long identified with Egypt’s 2011 Tahrir Square Uprising and the “Arab Spring” that overthrew long-standing dictatorships.) The established progressive groups sought to redirect the Occupy movement toward addressing bank abuses, foreclosures, tax breaks for the wealthy, student loan surcharges, and other core economic justice issues. The plan was for Occupy’s resurgence to take the form of spring actions targeting corporate shareholders meetings, foreclosure actions, and legislation addressing income inequality. The training sessions and events would build up to nationwide protests on May 1 in which immigrant rights and labor activists would join Occupiers in a powerful display of the power of the 99 percent.
This was clearly a proactive strategy, and direct actions targeting all of the above issues occurred throughout the spring of 2012. But the same media that had covered every facet of Occupy the preceding fall were now preoccupied with election stories. While thousands turned out for Occupy’s May 1, 2012, protests in New York City, Chicago, San Francisco, Oakland, and Seattle, the Occupy protests did not extend to smaller cities or rural areas, or outside traditional activist hotbeds. As a result, the May 1 Occupy protests got little coverage outside progressive media.
Ultimately,
