Remember Occupy Wall Street? Probably Not

I personally know a number of people who are going to be spending the next $BIGNUM years in jail fighting a list of made up charges.

A lot of the rest of occupy (at least in some areas) met some nasty strong-arm tactics. In Oakland, it is hard to get any protest at all going now without cops (without uniform) showing up to smash ATMs[1] and similar attempts to discredit the protest with false flag tactics.

Occupy was a wild success for one reason above all: the protesters successfully shifted the public debate into the proper class-warfare discussion they should have been having 20 years earlier. Unfortunately, when you land a successful hit on your enemy, they tend to fight back. So it's true that a lot of people probably don't remember Occupy; attention spans are distressingly short, of course, and there are several reasons for that, but the alrgest - and most important - reason you don't hear much about Occupy these days is thanks to the modern equivalent of COINTELPRO. The Church Committee never really finished shutting that program down, and just like "Total Information Awareness", it is clear some programs were rebranded and shoved into neighboring departments.

[1] to name just one example: http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Undercover-cops-outed-...

Improving economy, bountiful jobs and rising wages? HN accepts links from the Twilight Zone now?

Remember the Tea Party? Probably Not