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Comment by JamesLeonis | Hacker News Reader

Occupy was suppressed by the entire police state, coordinated at the federal level under the FBI and DHS [0].

[0]: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/dec/29/fbi-co...

I feel like the most significant cause of Occupy's burnout was the fact that it was so poorly organized and had no concrete goal. I don't recall any specific legislation or reform that they were calling to enact and there was a cacophony of voices each calling for some kind of societal revolution. Eventually the local Occupy demonstration turned into a homeless encampment with some signs propped alongside the roadway. I certainly won't deny government meddling but I honestly think the movement was doomed from the start.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahMGoB01qiA

Peter Schiff did a man on the street with some folks of the Occupy movement, and basically proves your point - the desired goals were so scattered and sometimes even contradictory.

When there is concerted effort to undermine a populist movement, that's how it will end up looking: disorganized, chaotic, unproductive, and eventually dead. It very well could have failed due to deliberate interference where it might have had a substantial impact otherwise. How much would you bet that there weren't covert agents working to put it down?

I don't know if it was from infiltration, or what, but one of the biggest talking points of Occupy was that they were a leaderless organization, and they would establish rules of order that required near unanimous consensus to make decisions. That's a great way to avoid making any decisions.

I remember this comic that ridiculed the "Occupy Wall Street doesn't have a goal" talking point, one of the many corporate-pushed talking points meant to discredit the movement: [1]

1: https://images2.dailykos.com/i/user/2722/TMW2011-10-12colorl...

I feel like the movement could have overcome the "corporate talking point" by actually having an organized and focused goal.

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