My Conversation With Occupy

What follows is a verbatim conversation I had last night with a member of the Occupy protest. The conversation was held on Twitter which meant we were both restricted to 140 characters per message and often had multiple tweets in between our own. This led to the conversation being somewhat disjointed which was further exacerbated by the fact that others in Occupy jumped into the conversation at different points and that changed the tone of the conversation.

It is presented here unedited with the exception that I have removed the Occupy profile IDs out of respect for their privacy. I have also removed hashtags and other IDs.

Occupy: Are any other protests having trouble with groups trying to piggyback their own agendas?

Bear: All of them it’s been the problem the rest of us have with your movement.

Occupy: I appreciate your as usual helpful advice but I need actual info from people on the ground :)

Bear: Many of us have been trying to tell Occupy groups about this for weeks. It's causing violence and lost support for you.

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Bear: I've been following tweets all day from many Occupy groups complaining of the same thing. It wasn't sarcasm. It's the problem

Bear: The camps were your single biggest problem. Most of us agree the issues. It was the disrespect for us and our laws we hated.

Occupy: They achieved the goal of giving us media coverage and giving us a network, as I said 2.0 coming soon.

Bear:  I've been following tweets all day from many Occupy groups complaining of the same thing. It wasn't sarcasm. It's the problem

Occupy: Yes I know, we anticipated this, I underestimated the size of the problem... 

Bear: In their rush for supporters, the entire movement did. You can't gain credibility if you can't police yourselves

Occupy: this is the trouble with a leaderless movement, the more aggressive voices come to the fore, I believe leaders are needed..

Bear: Your're right. You also have to come to realize that many within the movement have agendas separate from your own (cont')

Occupy: That is exactly what I am talking about....

Bear: I find it despicable for a group to take advantage of a tax act they protest to raise $500,000 while begging for supplies.

Occupy: You find a lot of things despicable in all honesty Mr. Grump bear.

Bear: I also abhor stupidity and I find too much of it around us now. No thought, just mindless action. I agree with much of what

Occupy: We need more than right on peace camps and empty cliches...#occupy2.0 bigger and better

Bear I am hearing from people like you but why wasn't this thought of before all this disruption and mayhem?

Occupy:  I'm sorry what disruption and mayhem have you experienced?

Bear: In my city, there have been physical and sexual assaults, used hypodermics left laying around and theft at the Occupy camp.

Bear:  In Toronto and Vancouver, innocent bank employees and customers were intimidated by Occupy protesters who jammed into bank.

Bear: In Vancouver, illegal drugs permitted in Occupy camp led to the death of a young woman,.need I go on? I have lots of examples

Occupy: Oh and I know it’s a cliché but ya can't make an omelette without breaking eggs

Bear Isn't that the very thing you're protesting? A democracy that is making mistakes but trying?

12 hours ago 

Occupy I notice you are a very negative person, never words of support, always focusing on the dark side...why is this?

Bear: You guys always paint criticism towards you as negative but never look at your criticism as negativity. Why is that?

Occupy: We are a young group of strangers trying to change the world, we never said we were perfect or it would be easy.

Occupy: I don't paint it, all you have done is criticize us, not constructive criticism either take your last post, 'you guys'? Who r 'we'

Bear: I have often said that I know that there are sincere people in Occupy but you become known by the company you keep.

Occupy: who is culpable for the crimes committed by the financial institutions? These are the problems not a couple of crimes in a camp

Bear: I think it is absurd to trivialize any crime. If you break one law, no law can be upheld. It isn't a pick and choose thing.

Occupy: I don't understand what point you are trying to get at? We can argue semantics all night, I have more important things to do

Occupy: Well perhaps you should consider who and what is the bigger danger to you and yours

Bear: There is no justification for breaking the law for the greater good. Either you respect the law or you don't.

Occupy: I don't respect a law that doesn't respect me or my fellow people


Bear: If you don't respect the law, you have no right to expect to be treated with respect.

Occupy: yep, everything is black and white and simple and clean isn't it? stop wasting my time 

Bear: No it isn't. Democracy is complex but to hear Occupy tell it, it's all the fault of the 1% and that justifies any action,

Occupy:  Occupy has no one manifesto. We are just trying to learn to ride the bike, but lots of people want to see us fall off.

Occupy: And so speaks the voice of understanding. You can have a revolution as long as u dnt b naughty

Bear:  So speaks the voice of one who doesn't agree with you and who has the same right to freedom of speech you demand.

Three things came out of this conversation for me. The first is that it is increasingly clear that Occupy is sensing that it has gone as far as it can go without proper organization and leadership. In some quarters it is already conceding that the camps will close soon for this year and they are hoping to return in 2012 with an updated version of Occupy some refer to as Occupy 2.0.

The second thing that is clear to me is that Occupy is aware that it doesn’t have the support it claims to have. It puts a brave face on things but it knows that the majority of people in the so-called 99% are increasingly fed up with the ongoing occupation of their public parks and the disruption of their cities by marches, rallies and vandalism. While it was not a part of this conversation, this awareness is further supported by a significant number of tweets yesterday from various Occupy group reminding supporters to be calm and non-violent.

Finally, it is clear to me that many in Occupy are very insecure about their opinions and their beliefs. They cling to the original idea that it is the 1% who are to blame for everything but increasingly know that is too simplistic. They are defensive and while demanding the right to freely voice their opinions are quick to label anyone who might criticize them as negative or wrong. It is not sufficient for people to remain neutral. If you do not agree with Occupy then you are the enemy. It isn’t so much malicious as insecurity. Too many of them see themselves as victims and so see any criticism of their protest as more victimization.

Any organization without the courage of its convictions, without definite purpose and objectives and which is leaderless will fail. It will fail because it has no sense of direction and no group can get where it wants to go without knowing where that is.

Occupy started in frustration. It is still frustrated but increasingly, although it is reluctant to admit it, that frustration is with itself.

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