# Occupy movement: two-year evaluation **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 5, 2013, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupy-movement-two-year-evaluation/665404 "2013-08-05T15:41:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2013, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupy-movement-two-year-evaluation/665404/61 "2013-08-11T13:56:57Z")
septimus, you’re trying to surgically reconstruct your point now to be reasonable (though I do notice the admission that there was at least slight exaggeration). Anyone who applauded Enron’s profits as self-evidently admirable did not do so with the knowledge (or at least admitting the knowledge) of any accounting trickery or “gouging.” That’s where your point jumped the rails. Perhaps they were delusional, but I would speculate (since neither of us feels inclined to Google) that some number of people very close to zero (if not zero) acknowledged trickery and exploitation and applauded it. You said, “…it is only the right-wing that dotes on the wealth of a Skilling or Madoff as commendable in itself,” a statement without qualification. Which is ridiculous on its face. As I said previously, the population of people who applauded Madoff’s and Skilling’s methods (knowing what those methods were) is, well, zero. Now you say your real point was that some people called out Enron for shenanigans at the same time others were applauding their profits. So what? At that point there was no consensus, so an implication that people applauded profits whatever the methods is dishonest, since that certainly was not the case. I will suggest again that once the facts were out in the open and largely beyond debate, there was a conspicuous lack of cheerleaders. So, again, the bogeymen you selected were in support of a straw man. Any form of “whatever produces a profit is okay with conservatives, there is no limit with these guys” is simpleminded, demonizing nonsense. And I notice you left Madoff right out of the discussion. Why is that? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2013, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupy-movement-two-year-evaluation/665404/62 "2013-08-11T13:59:12Z")
Perhaps **septimus** is referring to [this article](http://www.webcitation.org/5tZ26rnac). ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2013, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupy-movement-two-year-evaluation/665404/63 "2013-08-11T14:06:41Z")
Maybe. But my point still stands, I think. He invoked Skilling and Madoff as scary monsters embraced by conservatives. That article does suggest some people questioned Enron’s story. Others did not. For septimus’s point to make sense, people would had to have bought McLean’s concerns, thought them valid, and hand-waved them away as not relevant since Enron was still making money. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2013, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupy-movement-two-year-evaluation/665404/64 "2013-08-11T14:47:15Z")
> [@Stratocaster](#): > > Maybe. But my point still stands, I think. I was being facetious. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2013, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupy-movement-two-year-evaluation/665404/65 "2013-08-11T14:51:28Z")
> [@Stratocaster](#): > > For septimus’s point to make sense, people would had to have bought McLean’s concerns, thought them valid, and hand-waved them away as not relevant since Enron was still making money. You miss the point. You’re speaking to investor’s understanding of Enron’s imminent fall circa 2001. I was addressing the mischievous ways Enron made money during its profitable phase in the 1990’s. I’m no expert analyst, but the mischief and trickery was obvious to me just reading NY Times in late 1990’s. It must have also been apparent to the analysts touting and applauding the Enron management. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2013, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupy-movement-two-year-evaluation/665404/66 "2013-08-11T15:36:32Z")
With **Shanasty** Just incanting “Madoff … Madoff … Madoff”, and I striving in vain to find a way for him to grasp my point, I’m afraid the spectators are getting lost. 😉 Let’s back up. Many of the politico-economic discussions here deal with the social utility of personal wealth accumulation. At one end we have “Profits are a tax on labor” – a perspective that might make even Karl Marx cringe. (I didn’t even click on that thread, pretty sure _both_ sides would be erroneous and I wouldn’t know where to start. 😃 ) At the other end, we have some who seem to believe that the mystical properties of Free Market ensure that accumulated wealth will always reflect value created. (Many would except heroin dealers and fraudsters like Madoff, but without noting a slippery slope: Enron was profitable through mischief. IANAL, and don’t know if the mischief was prosecutable. Would prosecutability suddenly change their mischievous profits from 100% earned to 0%, like Madoff’s or a heroin dealer’s?) _ **And I’ve seen quotes by rightist thinkers that wealth should be protected however it’s earned.** _ I recall a GWB quote where that was implicit; unfortunately I have no bookmarks for such, beyond the one I’ve already mentioned: _Forbes_ defended illegal behavior **if it was by tax evaders rather than “criminals.”** I have a middlish perspective. Some wealth rewards created value; some doesn’t. I hinted at this perspective in this post: > [@septimus](#): > > I speak of _Dog-eat-dog social Darwinism_, though focused not on a rich or well-connected dog eating underdogs, but on “smart” dogs eating the scraps underdogs are too stupid to find. The same people with this perspective saw nothing wrong with Enron, or the Wall St. boondoggles – the natural diversion of wealth to the clever from their inferiors is Capitalism at its best, in their view. > > I’m happy to see inventors and pharmaceutical scientists get rich. But it is only the right-wing that dotes on the wealth of a Skilling or Madoff as commendable in itself. I also wrote: > [@septimus](#): > > … Yes, foreclosures tend to help no one, yet over the past 6 years many many millions more Americans than “normal” have lost their homes. This is very disruptive and imposes a vicious downward cycle on the whole economy. > > There were proposals to allow homeowners in default _but willing to make reasonable rent payments_ to remain in their homes, at least temporarily, with mortgages renegotiated or arbitrated downstream. When I suggested this as a discussion topic for SDMB, it was booed down for two reasons: > [ul][li] Imposing rules on banks would violate the Godly Sanctity of Contracts.[/li][li] If banks needed recapitalization, existing shareholders would suffer.[/li][/ul] > :smack: 😕 I was dumbstruck that Dopers would focus only on increasing the wealth of the wealthy in a situation of economic calamity. > > Anyway, I mentioned suspending or renegotiating mortgages as an example agendum that would be popular and achievable if made a focus. Instead, by diffusing itself too widely, OWS accomplished little. **Shagnasty** ignores my perspective – we’ve no clue if he thinks it’s valid overall or not – and repeats “Madoff … Madoff … Madoff” wanting me to admit (_again_ since I have once already) that that extremity is harder to substantiate. If I withdraw the Madoff allegation entirely, will you address substance? Or declare victory and put me back on Ignore? :rolleyes: > [@John\_Mace](#): > > I was being facetious. As are most of your posts. Ever thought of trying something new? BTW, did you ever find the cite I asked for re: your false claim about the Standard Oil monopoly? (I may have to add you to my "Libertarians take Liberties with the truth 😉 😉 " thread.) ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2013, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupy-movement-two-year-evaluation/665404/67 "2013-08-11T17:34:11Z")
This is somewhat confusing. I personally attended my local Occupy gatherings, and am in touch with others in various locales. Don’t recall much at all about Bernie Madoff and Enron being a focus of attention. Which ones were you at, **Strato** , that led you to your position of intimate and abundant information about what Occupy was all about? Mostly, it was about a culture of greed. You may have heard? Like, just for instance, [http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/06/us-bofa-justice-idUSBRE9750ZU20130806](http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/06/us-bofa-justice-idUSBRE9750ZU20130806) **U.S. accuses Bank of America of mortgage-backed securities fraud** I could fill the page with such links, you could too, if you cared to. Could probably rack up about fifty of them without seeing any reference to Enron and Madoff. I sat with a bunch of folks at one sharing stories about just how much of their pension funds disappeared. Well, maybe not “disappeared”, they suspect the money actually went into some people’s pockets. I’ll grant that these are not very sophisticated people, unlike yourself, but then…you weren’t there, were you? You could have explained it all so that they might be content with their new understanding. About how it was all just a big ol’ oopsy-daisy, really, nobody’s fault. They suspect darkly that in the Halls of Power, banks and other financial institutions are lent sympathetic ears, that their wants and needs are given attention that the rest of us just don’t get. That “financial adviser” doesn’t mean anything that “salesman” doesn’t. That the game used to be broken, but now it is fixed. Unleash Elizabeth Warren! And I’m not saying that just because she’s so hot! ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2013, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupy-movement-two-year-evaluation/665404/68 "2013-08-11T18:10:51Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > This is somewhat confusing. I personally attended my local Occupy gatherings, and am in touch with others in various locales. Don’t recall much at all about Bernie Madoff and Enron being a focus of attention. Which ones were you at, **Strato** , that led you to your position of intimate and abundant information about what Occupy was all about? I haven’t been to any. I also haven’t said I had any knowledge about what OWS is (was?) all about. My eyes rolled at septimus’s suggestion that the Right celebrates those famous do-gooders Madoff and Skilling, on account of they’re rich and all. We dote on them, apparently. Wealthy, you see. If you tell me that those two didn’t come up much at OWS gatherings, I believe you, and I never suggested otherwise. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2013, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupy-movement-two-year-evaluation/665404/69 "2013-08-11T19:10:01Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > As are most of your posts. :rolleyes: > [@](#): > > Ever thought of trying something new? No. > [@](#): > > BTW, did you ever find the cite I asked for re: your false claim about the Standard Oil monopoly? (I may have to add you to my "Libertarians take Liberties with the truth 😉 😉 " thread.) I would but, as you know, “Googling for old news stories is hard. I’m rather certain that, with effort, I could find articles…” 😉 On a more serious note, I don’t remember. If you’re really interested, link to the thread and posts in questions. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2013, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupy-movement-two-year-evaluation/665404/70 "2013-08-11T20:18:54Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > I was being facetious. And what’s wrong with “sarcastic” or “snotty”? How come Mr. Fancy Pants has to be “facetious”? Show-off! ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2013, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupy-movement-two-year-evaluation/665404/71 "2013-08-11T20:58:06Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > And what’s wrong with “sarcastic” or “snotty”? How come Mr. Fancy Pants has to be “facetious”? Show-off! Hey, it took me 5 tries to get the spelling right. I’m not going to let all that effort go to waste!! ---
**Author:** ![Werekoala](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/7993a0/32.png) [@Werekoala](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Werekoala)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2013, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupy-movement-two-year-evaluation/665404/72 "2013-08-11T21:15:28Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Hey, it took me 5 tries to get the spelling right. I’m not going to let all that effort go to waste!! You’re one of those evil 1%-ers who succeed while the other 99% are just left with the scraps of language. Hell, most of us only get about 30-40 different words to use per day. Fascist. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2013, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupy-movement-two-year-evaluation/665404/73 "2013-09-17T18:42:32Z")
CNN Money on why Occupy Wall Street fizzled: [Why Occupy Wall Street fizzled](http://money.cnn.com/2013/09/17/news/economy/occupy-wall-street-fizzled/index.html?hpt=hp_t2) ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2013, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupy-movement-two-year-evaluation/665404/74 "2013-09-17T21:26:32Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > … “facetious” … > > Hey, it took me 5 tries to get the spelling right. I’m not going to let all that effort go to waste!! Easy to remember spelling: It has the very rare property that each vowel occurs exactly once _and they occur in alphabetic order!_ (Use “facetiously” if you consider ’ \* y \* ’ a vowel.) ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2013, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupy-movement-two-year-evaluation/665404/75 "2013-09-17T21:39:17Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > CNN Money on why Occupy Wall Street fizzled: [Why Occupy Wall Street fizzled](http://money.cnn.com/2013/09/17/news/economy/occupy-wall-street-fizzled/index.html?hpt=hp_t2) This seems to be the explanation from that article. > [@](#): > > Occupy Wall Street was never about a list of demands, but after the movement died it left critics to wonder what the action really achieved. … former Labor Secretary Robert Reich and ex-Lehman vice president Larry McDonald, echoed common critiques of Occupy’s approach: Its lack of focus on a singular mission, its disorganization, its reliance on getting 95% of Occupiers to agree on what the group should do. > > “For a time, they were really swinging a big stick … It was kind of like they were there, and now they’re gone,” McDonald said. > > Bray argued that Occupy birthed a new generation of young activists, and it also engendered national conversation about issues like class and what a truly equal world would look like. But he didn’t deny the movement has fizzled out. (CNN webpages, like Washington Post’s take _minutes_ to display on my machine, though I can read the text with control-U. Anyone else have that problem?) ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2013, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupy-movement-two-year-evaluation/665404/76 "2013-09-18T00:47:39Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > …(CNN webpages, like Washington Post’s take _minutes_ to display on my machine, though I can read the text with control-U. Anyone else have that problem?) Not I. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2013, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupy-movement-two-year-evaluation/665404/77 "2013-09-18T01:30:13Z")
From _The Nation:_ [Breaking Up With Occupy.](http://www.thenation.com/article/176142/breaking-occupy?page=0,0#axzz2f0XbRr6W) > [@](#): > > In the tradition of better-known step programs, Bill Moyer’s system offers a circular remedy for despair: learn about the steps. Because then you’ll know that even in the middle of Stage Five, the Perception of Failure, you may already be in Stage Six, when your movement’s message has swayed the majority of public opinion. And that is just one step away from Stage Seven—Success. > > Could this be the case with Occupy? Within weeks of its genesis, polls suggested that a majority of Americans supported the movement. More recently, President Obama’s second term has witnessed a renewal of rhetoric about income inequality. New Wall Street prosecutions are making headlines, and the Justice Department is taking steps to adjust drug sentencing practices that overwhelmingly harm poor people of color. None of these count as revolution—each is glaringly superficial—but they’re wins that can be chalked up, in part, to an Occupy-induced mood. > > The fecundity that has always been part of Occupy presses on, though in a less breakneck manner. The movement’s chief finance pundit, Alexis Goldstein, appears on national television from time to time, such as in a recent episode of Real Time With Bill Maher alongside Barney Frank. A controversial new “Occupy Card” is soon to appear, offering a slick quasi-alternative to conventional banks. Many onetime Occupiers have continued their work with quieter, deeper kinds of organizing: resisting police brutality, setting up worker cooperatives, helping small towns resist the expansion of fracking and oil pipelines. They’ve also been filing reports from the trial of Bradley Manning, traveling to occupied Gezi Park in Istanbul, facing arrest in North Carolina’s Moral Mondays protests and occupying the Texas Capitol to protect abortion rights. > > The movement has even maintained a fledgling presence in New York’s Financial District. A few Occupiers were arrested in late July for falling asleep in Zuccotti Park, and several blocks south the movement’s symbolic nemesis, the Charging Bull statue, is still kept in a protective cage of NYPD barricades. > > Moyer and his eight stages strike a tone that’s alluring, and maybe too good to be true. “Although movements in the majority stage appear to be smaller and less effective,” he explained, “they actually undergo enormous growth in size and power. The extensive, seemingly invisible involvement at the grassroots level gives the movement its power at the national and international levels.” > > No prosecuted banker or presidential talking point, however, seems to undo the pessimism about the fate of Occupy among those who created it. Most of them are simply trying to figure out how to survive. The author refers to Bill Moyer’s eight-stage [Movement Action Plan.](http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/moyermap.html) > [@](#): > > STAGE FIVE: IDENTITY CRISIS OF POWERLESSNESS > After a year or two, the high hopes of movement take-off seems inevitably to turn into despair. Most activists lose their faith that success is just around the corner and come to believe that it is never going to happen. They perceive that the powerholders are too strong, their movement has failed, and their own efforts have been futile. Most surprising is the fact that this identity crisis of powerlessness and failure happens when the movement is outrageously successful—when the movement has just achieved all of the goals of the take-off stage within two years. This stage of feelings of self-identity crisis and powerlessness occurs simultaneously with Stage Six because the movement as a whole has progressed to the majority stage. ---
**Author:** ![Honesty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f04885/32.png) [@Honesty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Honesty)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2013, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupy-movement-two-year-evaluation/665404/78 "2013-09-18T03:31:20Z")
> [@crucible](#): > > I keep hearing that no financial exec was charged with a crime, nor went to jail for the actions they took that precipitated the enormous economic correction we suffered in 2008. > > If that statement is true, is it true because no laws were broken? SEC and the DOJ won’t take any of them to court, they simply make them pay a fine and/or admit more wrong doing. For example, JPMorgan Chase was found to be manipulating [energy prices in California](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/29/ferc-jpmorgan_n_3672846.html) to the tune of $125 million dollars. Instead of suing JPMorgan Chase, the regulatory body simply fined the bank $410 million - or, in other words, a [single day’s income](http://www.policymic.com/articles/57411/jpmorgan-pays-huge-fine-after-manipulating-electricity-prices). The financial services industry is a narrow slice of GDP yet finance affects _every_ other industry. The financial industry determines how much we all pay for oil, food, and clothing. It’s funny, because our criminal justice system will pay lawyers to the teeth to prosecute people for ridiculous crimes. Yet, we have no justice system that goes after the banks. We just give them a small fine and they do the same criminal behavior again. The OWS movement was transitory but it’ll be back in a vengeance when the next financial crisis hits. Given that before Glass-Steagall, bank failures and crashes every 8-10 years, we’ll be due for other crisis in 2016 - 2018. When that occurs, the good news is that it’ll be the end of an Era of Objectivist Conservatism. The bad news is that a lot of people are going to be poor and suffer because of it. - Honesty ---
**Author:** ![Werekoala](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/7993a0/32.png) [@Werekoala](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Werekoala)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2013, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupy-movement-two-year-evaluation/665404/79 "2013-09-18T04:02:42Z")
My analysis of the OWS movement at two years - bwahahahaaahah! Hooo! Haaa! Ohh… god, stop, I can’t take much more. How many valiant protestors showed up at “ground zero” of the movement in New York today? A couple hundred at most? Guess the rest finished their 6-year degree plan and had an early shift at Starbucks. No, they will not “rise with a vengeance” at the next turn of the financial crisis-wheel… There is nobody lined up on their side of the ledger to take the reins and do anything about it because it’s tooooo late. Obama was their Great Lib Hope, and he’s just as much an insider as anyone else you care to name, and there is nobody the insiders are going to let have a shot at running this thing that would make the kind of changes (even a fraction of the changes) the OWS and their sympathizers might want. Second verse, same as the first… ---
**Author:** ![DagNation](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ee7513/32.png) [@DagNation](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DagNation)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2013, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupy-movement-two-year-evaluation/665404/80 "2013-09-18T04:35:32Z")
I think the biggest error of the Occupy movement was the indefinite occupancy goal itself. First, it was obviously an illegal act to stay and sleep at most down-town public places overnight in most cities - this set up a battle against the police that was not helpful to the cause, and not related to the issues. Too much energy had to be spent dealing with trespassing and vagrancy type issues. If it had been a regular, once a week protest, I think it would have been more successful and persisted for longer. For the people at the protest it became about being able to stay, and the other issues faded to near nothing. Outside supporters (like me) spent too much energy feeding the occupiers and helping with the stay-at-any-cost goal, and not enough addressing issues. Since I am a Burning man person, and one of our ethics is “Leave No Trace,” most of my energy went toward getting rid of trash so that the event was not leaving a mess. If people went home at night, LNT would have been easier to deal with. I am sure the same is true of some other support issues. Second, the local (San Diego) occupiers were stuck dealing with a bunch of homeless people who were there for the free food, entertainment, and cover, and otherwise just caused problems. After the first few weeks, when it was down to a core of 20-50 occupiers, most of the trouble came from the homeless people who would have otherwise been more spread out. The drunk and obnoxious people were all the homeless people by the end. I know this because some of my friends were involved until the end of it here in SD. Also, OWS did not have a cable “news” network, a lot of slightly closeted racists, and some billionaires helping out, like the TEA party did/does. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupy-movement-two-year-evaluation/665404.md?page=3)