One Year Later, The Failure Of Occupy Wall Street Is Apparent

It was one year ago today that a group of protesters ended a march by setting up camp in Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park and the Occupy movement was born. This original group of protesters would be mimicked by groups in other cities across the United States, but it was always Occupy Wall Street that was the focus of the media attention that the movement received. What exactly these people were protesting about was never quite clear, largely because they never wanted to agree on an agenda or have any real impact on politics or government. With their drum circles, bizarre hand signals to b used during “debates,” and the clear influence of a counter-culture that average Americans had absoultely no familiarity with, they seemed to revel in their strangeness. Indeed, in Denver the local Occupy group took itself so unseriously that it named a dog called Shelby as their movement’s official spokesperson (spokescanine?). The Zuccotti Park occupation essentially came to an end in November when the NYPD finally put an end to their practice of overnight camping and, as winter fell, the movement itself faded from the spotlight. There were some demonstrations in the spring, but noting near what we had seen last September and, outside of a few diehard hangers-on, the movement appears to be largely dead just one year after it began.
Late last week, New York Times columnist Joe Nocera tried to diagnose the cause of the movement’s fall:
Sept. 17, 2011, was the date Occupy Wall Street took over Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan, which soon led to similar actions in cities across the country. The movement’s primary issue was income inequality — “We are the 99 percent,” they used to chant. Reporters swarmed into the park, interviewing Occupy protesters and speculating on whether Occupy had the potential to be a lasting force. “Can Occupy Wall Street Become the Liberal Tea Party?” asked The American Prospect magazine.
A year later, we know the answer: It can’t, and it isn’t. For all intents and purposes, the Occupy movement is dead, even as the Tea Party lives on. But why?

Read more: http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/one-year-later-the-failure-of-occupy-wall-street-is-apparent/