| easyrider said: it changed the converstation and even the policies being presented. It also has pushed many into alderman, school boards etc. positions of the dems to push out the corporatist. It did alot to start a change. Things take time. Not right away like how all the Republicans act about the ecconmy. "bush F'ed it up for 8 years but obama hasn't fixed it yet." Not a fan of obama but give him a break. with all the filabustering going on. He is to moderate for my likes but never would I vote for joke like Romney, So Obama it is. We will see a big shift in the next 8 years to push progressive values. I hate using those words to explain because it confuse's people. this will all because the occupy movement. It push up all the right issue's. Maybe you dance but some of us actually went out and pushed into our local political organization. You have to push chanbe. 3rd party is a joke and republicans are nonsense. We needed a infrastructure to start with, what better then the democratic party. Get the corporate and blue dog democrates out. |
Occupy became the vessel for discussions regarding the issues I described: Wall Street corruption, income inequality, Citizens United and a bunch of things between. As far as shifting the debate, it worked.
The issue is NOW what is going on. Without the parks, Occupy doesn't even know what to occupy and internal disagreements on things, and outside political interests have eroded things. As a current movement, Occupy is now dissolving and not being functional. There are some things, but it isn't breaking into the news, nor is it winning over popular support. Issues it raised in 2011, are now part of the landscape. Beyond this, there isn't much going out, outside of the usual political protesting folks. It didn't go the Tea Party route and decide to coopt the Democratic party the way the GOP did (the Democrats were seriously wanting their version of the Tea Party and Occupy didn't become it).
The pieces are still there though, just nothing is about to tap into it, and most people can't connect with the anarchist structure of doing anything. It is also debatable where there will be a big shift towards progressivism. There is possibly more of a shift to the center, but swinging way left? Not likely to happen. The Federal debt ends up putting a kabosh on wanting to get more and more programs. On top of that, no one knows what really to spend on. Money is being thrown at green energy, but that is a crapshoot, and not guaranteed. What you will likely see is the Bush tax cuts expire, and the mandatory across the board budget cuts happen. You will have pockets that will block any sort of shift progressive, but the Tea Party side is likely to be more marginalized.
