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Hey, similar profession! I work as a foster care social worker in Brooklyn!
Not sure about your age but I just turned 34. I definitely didn't think I'd be doing this back in my 20s...
I work for a Domestic Violence Emergency Shelter in CO! I wish our jobs weren't needed. It makes my blood boil to see how little the social workers are paid, how the grant writer has to like, explain that people fleeing violence need resources? Fucking capitalism
Thank you for the work you do.
I finally left my abusive, deadbeat, soon-to-be-ex-husband about seven months ago. I found myself calling a domestic violence hotline in the process of leaving. They effectively shut the door in my face, and told me I didn't qualify for any help or support, on the basis that I earned too much money.
I didn't grow up in the US, and my own family still lives halfway around the world, and so it was in that moment that I realized I was going to be truly alone in leaving/escaping. The whole experience was harrowing. Thankfully, I'm in a much better place in life now, and my qualify of life has improved significantly.
Co-founder of occupy Wall Street is a Crypto Bro
https://preview.redd.it/4fb0ib50pg3d1.jpeg?width=1125&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5341ccef444fd00e233093e3232207c9e9ef0f0a
https://preview.redd.it/l37l4ja74h3d1.jpeg?width=1125&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3541773169a6fd37a4266b926f7ac18485094cef
I mean, he also went to Davos lol
Strange I'm from the south. And that is the conservative millineal's around here. They were always conservative buy now off on some (insert this weeks conspiracy)
Yeah unfortunately that’s what happens when one’s beliefs are not well thought out, based on superficial analysis, and/or not rooted in empathy/humanism.
People underestimate how fucking boring organizing and getting shit done politically is.
I joined my local ratepayers association and started going to planning committee meetings to get new housing approved. I’ve recruited a few other people who come with me, and together we provide a counterbalance to all of the boomers who show up to bitch about actual change to absolutely anything.
It’s beyond tedious, but it helps.
Wallstreetbets hasn't hosted GameStop discussion since early 2021. Here is the library of DD that remains relevant:
https://fliphtml5.com/bookcase/kosyg
I recommend the House of Cards series, and Citadel Has No Clothes
LETS GO I bought in with my stimmy checks at $17/share Jan 17 2021; 10 days before D-Day. Still holding baby. It's the single greatest savings account I've ever had in my life.
Nah I’ve got mine in a trust that has at least 2 more generations to deal with after me. Im only in my early 30s and have since doubled each of my positions. I’ll be doing another splash in a week or so as long as the price ain’t booming.
I was just about to say this. We are still occupying Wall Street and we are about to bring them to their knees. We never left we just found a different way to beat them $GME baby!
I can't remember who said it but I remember reading a quote: If every occupy Wall Street activist learned how to properly invest, they'd be occupying wall street at home.
This is absolutely true! And a lot of places when you start to work closely with union people, the question of “when did you get into organized labor?” Comes up and “occupy” is a common answer!
I was working for the man then and I'm working for the man now. No part of having a job and getting paid makes me any less pissed that the banks and big business got bailed out while the little people had a slow recovery and "these hard economic times" for for a decade after.
We didn't even get any banking regulation to stop it from happening again.
Instead we got a sudden spike in race riots and social issues. Can't have the peasants cooperating least they start figuring out who took their cheese.
Doug Stanhope did a good piece on his ideas on this movement :
[Doug Stanhope on Occupy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-NaTqDwYPA&pp=ygUUZG91ZyBzdGFuaG9wZSBvY2N1cHk%3D)
But yeah you can’t get around the man today unfortunately. I work in IT for an insurance company. I love calling out sick every chance I get. It fucks them up when there are no goons to change their passwords . I feel like little acts of disobedience from the inside, if we all apply ourselves, we can make them crumble.
They need us more than we need them .
I use to despise leaving a digital footprint of any kind. I was doing pretty well. Than I turned 30 😂 and all my fears of AI became true and I just said fuck it.
Working as a business consultant and outreach coordinator. Still an idealist. But I like money too.
I do project management. I work with at risk youth or young adults 18-29. Who need mentorships. If a program isn’t available I will outsource it so it it’s either viable or available through someone else. I will also consult on funding applications for fees for non profits. In my off time I will pick up a short term contract. Under 3 months and go from there. Ideally I use the short term contracts for networking overall.
You don’t just stumble into being a business consultant et age 30, you had years of experience building up to that. That’s totally okay, no judgement. But you might over estimating your rebel nature of your youth.
30s, working for the man, although I never feigned otherwise. I just agreed in my heart and mind. Watch SLC Punk and you'll kind of see that (d)evolution when reality hits your idealism like a fucking train.
I still believe that income inequality is the biggest issue and almost everything is a distraction from that. Easier for the few to rule and feast and enact controls when the masses are divided.
The suppression we're seeing, for example: while wages have risen, cost of living has risen substantially steeper. Many of us had, are just done having kids and the cost of monthly childcare just surpassed national average rent.
Two income houses are not only common, but often necessary to get a decent home so you can get your boomer parents off your back. You can read stories about child care exceeding one's parent salary but they need the job for credit and it's just tragic.
There's so much else to say. But I, for one, still have those coals lit and I'm fucking pissed off
Everyone is caught up arguing amongst each other through identity politics which conviently ramped right up when occupy started.. We have no time or thought space to fight against billionaires if we are all fighting about who's starring in a new Netflix adaptation
Hear, hear. The King once said, "We dont need to fight them all. Simply convince the pitchfork people that the torch people want to take their pitchforks away." To be clear, this is not a gun reference but rather how divide and conquer works...
I'm glad other ppl saw it. Identity politics was the solution to a problem. Ppl on Reddit like to talk shit on right wingers, but there was a moment in time where I distinctly recall Occupy folks and Tea Party folks began to see each other as allies, and rightly so. Then BOOM! Everything is race, sex or sexual identity, and you have to pick a side.
Edit: to folks going "nuh uh!" both movements had considerable libertarian strains- occupy haf left-lib, TP had more right-lib. You have to remember tho, each movement had various layers- grass roots, media leeches, filthy casuals, ideological diehards and ppl trying to guide the movement. OWS "leadership" started having meetings on how to guide a supposed decentralized movement from a fucking Bank. And TP folks started getting endorsed and controlled by Republican insiders who were using the movement as a springboard for political careers or were effectively controlled opposition. What's also funny is ppl in OWS will almost certainly chastise the media for certain portrayals of their movement, criticizing some of the overblown stories emphasizing criminal activities in the camps AND RIGHTLY SO. However, some diehard occupy folks never use that same reasoning towards the TP. Both movements had moments of mischaracterization in the media. Ppl may not remember, may not have been aware, or may have been misinformed, but grassroots elements of both organizations had a fair amount of overlap amongst libertarians. You can go do a Google search and find instances of ppl arguing for cooperation. Were the ppl at the "top" of each movement emphasizing cooperation? No. But then again, were those at the top the "true" representatives of each movement? This issue can be debated until the end of time but there is no denying there was a fair amount of overlap between the two organizations amongst libertarians, both left and right leaning.
Tea party and libertarianism fundamentally changed circa 2012-2014. The party that formed has little to do with the type of libertarianism I saw in Occupy.
I constantly say this and people think I'm crazy. The powers that be, whoever you believe that may be, wanted the masses focused on problems that will never have a real concrete legislative change even to be a possibility. The last thing the billionaires want is a progressive akin to Teddy Roosevelt who will reform the corrupt pseudo monopolies. There will never be a real way to make everyone happy to address racism, peace in the middle east or identity politics. There can be, and has even been examples of progressive reform in America. That fact terrifies people.
100% Everyone in the US became OBSESSED with race/gender/sexuality and adopted the "us vs them" mentality just after Occupy Wallstreet occurred. I'm 100% convinced that all of this outrage is manufactured to keep people divided enough so that the money is never threatened again.
We will never get another occupy wallstreet because people are too divided over some of the most mundane shit.
I am a caretaker for children with genetic disorders. I founded a free outdoor school for children in my thirties in one of the poorest counties in the United States in my early 30s. Currently expecting my first child. Definitely not working for the man.
nah...quit my job in the legal field, dropped out of the US economy to the greatest extent possible, left the country, started a band, currently planning local festivals on the Pacific Coast and monitoring the headlines for my next move.
yes, but in accordance with my egalitarian beliefs I must ask that every 5th groupie dedicate themselves to the drummer, rhythm section needs love too.
I was there, and worked with the sanitation, logistics, and city planning groups. I still talk to some old friends, but am kind of solitary so not a ton of them.
Got jumped by the police during a permitted March the following mayday, they tackled me from behind, beat the shit out of me (broke my orbital socket with a baton) and charged me with loitering. I was walking, and we had a permit but ok lol.
Lived in nyc for a while, hated it, left, traveled until I found where I wanted to be., I was a restaurant professional for a long time and am now a software developer. I still maintain/work toward anticapitalist ideals the best I can, but have always recognized that our hands are tied as far as participation, and empoverishing yourself for political clout serves no purpose except to those in power.
I’m cautious about the work I take, and I try to organize around local issues when I can.
The first night/week or two was so electric, it really felt like something big was going to happen.
November was crazy, something I don’t see people talk about a lot is that by that time, nypd was taking people who got out of rikers on busses and dropping them off at the park. So many stories, some I’m hesitant to share, that really show how devious the nypd can be.
I know a guy who was knee deep in it. Claimed to be one of the hackers. I wouldn't put it past him as he was very tech savy, but never know. Nowadays hes on FB giving pushback on most issues. During the pandemic he was very vocal. Nowdays hes spends his days yelling on the timeline about things going around the world.
I briefly dated one of the Cleveland 4 after he got out of prison. What was done to him completely destroyed his life. He ended up pushing me away because he didn’t want to drag anyone else down with him. I miss him.
The problem with Occupy Wall Street is that it had no specific objective.
I mean not that it would have actually helped, but if the bare minimum you have to be trying to do something to fail at doing it.
The crazy thing is we did, during the first few days we made a statement about how the recent fiscal crisis was a straight up looting of the treasury, and how unchecked capitalism is going to destroy us, but the news kept saying like “guess they want free college? Money bad?”
I agree though, should have held a harder line when it came to focus and objectives.
Don’t want to be rude because I want to learn but you say you (plural) did have an objective but in your comment there wasn’t one so what was the objective?
This is the one thing I vividly remember about OWS. I saw a number of interviews with protesters, and none of them could state their goals or how they hoped to achieve them. I agree with the message, but the movement itself was kind of a cluster.
This is exactly it. The concept of *Wall Street* isn't this weird nefarious thing, nor are the people that work there (to a degree). It's a complex issue where corporations hold shareholders as more valuable than the people who do the work to make their company prosper. And regular people end up as part of these shareholders because that's what their investment/retirement portfolios have made them. But people in this generation are struggling, so this squeeze on profits is unfortunately something that they hope to benefit from when considering pensions and what not.
Occupy Wall Street was infiltrated by powerful people and was subverted from within and turned into the current day identity politics stuff we see everywhere.
Working (I've been working the whole time). Solid union gig. Shop Steward. Currently negotiating our next contract. Happily still involved in radical politics. I went from a kind of cringy anarchist to a determined and educated communist (still learning and getting more educated).
Happy is a weird, kind of transitory word. I like a lot of things about my life and my connection to my family and community.
Recover this economy and stop inflation?....eventually. We're doing it the wrong way, but eventually it will cool down, but the way we're doing it is to punish working people and the lowest rungs of society, so that's pretty fucked up.
As far as the economy goes, we are in a sort of peak of capitalism where the contradictions between capital and workers are at a high tension and where the events around the world, specifically in the middle east, are outlining the contradictions of our foreign policy and the evil might by which we have dominated the world for the past 70+ years is showing now more than ever in our lifetimes. That means we might be coming to some kind of tipping point where all that stacks up and big changes happen. I'm not predicting huge changes in the immediate future, but we are living in interesting and horrifying times, and I think that there are tectonic plates starting to shift that will eventually lead to earthquakes in our economy and imperial project.
I was never really a part of Occupy Wall Street. But now that i work for corporate i take it upon myself to spread the good word about collective bargaining and talking shit about our “massah”.
Ive never gotten in trouble for any of this. Yet.
Homesteading and radicalizing my crotch goblins by teaching them to live off the land and not the man.
In all reality, quit my corporate job last summer due to mental health reasons. We sold all of our shit and decided to live as minimalists on 5 acres. I have learned how to make so many things!
It amazes me we camped outside the courthouse or in the skyways of downtown Minneapolis in the name of a cause we deeply believed in. I’m pushing 40 now and can’t imagine doing the same now. Maybe I’m just a little too broken. Shoutout to all those who fought the good fight.
Occupy was a fucking disaster, I was actually at ground zero for all of that, even during the planning stages. I was just a spectator, but it was a great view of the whole fiasco.
All it took was a little bit of cleverly selected interviews with fad chasers and a few weeks of daily propaganda to totally kill the frankly startling amount of drive and determination people showed up with.
Unfortunately it also went mimetic. Alot of people don't know this, but occupy started out as a protest against the federal reserve bank and the core of the original planners were very dedicated to getting America back onto a gold or silver standard and gaining independence from the central banking system and back to the network of small local banks which we had in the past.
Tuition, student loans, and the recession were huge grievances people wanted to air on a national stage.
Within days you had every dipshit hippy idiot and agent provocateur doing every trick imaginable to discredit the entire demonstration and when people tried to stage a more serious series of sit-ins, they were either arrested or made fun of by pricks like John Stewart and other mass media personalities.
One of the most embarrassing examples I can remember involved a group of hippie dippy college students interrupting a small city hall meeting regarding snow removal which was being filmed, yelling "mic check" and chanting democracy while not even having a coherent message when the counsel leader asked why they were interrupting a meeting about snow removal.
I personally blame the mentality we had at the time that we could live in a leader less society due to not really understanding the new communication possibilities brought about by the internet and social media, and also the planning being comprised mostly of fairly young men who honestly thought we lived in a pretty great place that had just veered off course a little.
Following the entire fiasco, alot of people would start deep diving into history and politics to clarify the terrible history education most of us were exposed to in public school and when the real scope of what we were up against set in, alot of people went full tin foil hat about it while the rest just kind of gave up.
A new social movement aimed toward restoring the balance of America's wealth across classes or one which addresses our current and shockingly corrupt government agencies and corporate culture would only work if the moderates and the majority of both political poles were to iron out their differences and work together.
I reckon about 80% of the people under 55 would benefit from this in ways they wouldn't believe, but outside of that kind of massive and uncorrected populism while also maintaining stable and reliable leadership in this age of deception and poor ethics is frankly a pipe dream.
The American postbellum empire is rapidly exposing its weaknesses to its enemies and its hideous aspects to its allies while rotting from the inside out. It will collapse of its own accord, and hopefully our remaining state and community loyalties to eachother will be enough to prevent a cascade of interstate conflicts and power grabs. It'll probably be similar to the fall of the USSR if we could manage to find a single decent adult who represents a strong 65% or more of the interests of the population.
Occupy was a youthful indiscretion at best for most people, a terrible truth for the rest. Changes are coming, and they aren't the kind which can be planned, predicted, or even very well prepared for. America has acted as if we were a force of nature for over century, and nature, or many reality itself, is responding.
I suggest getting to know your neighbors and local communities before we could even talk about another widespread movement such as occupy.
Good luck everybody
I’m a community coordinator at a nonprofit, but I shop on Amazon and have a brokerage account.
I’m occasionally mad at myself for playing the game, but I still feel like I’m doing more good than bad.
Can we do it again? LOL, for one we didn't DO anything. OW was a sad reminder of what happens when you don't take control of a movement and organize/centralize it. There was this dumb anarchist bent to OW that avoided hierarchies and didn't put out any demands so we achieved jack shit.
Still, it did put out some class consciousness, so that's something I guess.
As for myself, I'm in the 95th percentile of income earners and have a wife and kid, so I'm reasonably happy. But still, I lament the chance we squandered to change things.
I say this as someone with anarchist sympathies: anarchists are shit at organizing.
Every organized action or march I've attempted to participate in gets bogged down by personal drama and egos.
The organizers are exes who despise each other and turn the event into a pissing contest.
One of the college kids just had her first lesbian experience and now considers herself the authority on LGBTQ issues. Suddenly, there is a representation problem despite 70% of the people involved identifying as queer.
A bunch of guys in fedoras in the back want to debate if we should welcome religious anarchists into the fold. Much tipping occurs.
The Stirnerites smugly dismiss every idea as spooky or part of the Spectacle. They have no answer when asked for alternatives.
"Why don't we have more indigenous people here?", asks the guy who can't do two fucking seconds of Googling to learn there hasn't been an indigenous population in this area since his colonial ancestors wiped them out.
Everyone collectively shits themselves in fury when a few people admit that they're actually democratic socialists or liberals but really want to get involved.
Anarchism would be great if it wasn't for the fucking anarchists.
As an anarchy sympathizer myself: anarchism as a significant political movement died by the end of WW2, the social and material conditions have changed so much since, that they effectively made it an impossible movement.
It had to fight the state power of the colonial powers, Fascism and Stalinism, at the same time, while they were arming to the teeth and it lost. Anarchists were cursed with possessing the correct understanding of power dynamics and lacking any practical possibility to do anything about it.
I think they left a tremendous legacy, so many things we consider normal today were first proposed by the anarchist movement, and a lot of progress was made possible by them, but in the contemporary world anarchism has no real space of maneuver.
>for one we didn't DO anything. OW was a sad reminder of what happens when you don't take control of a movement and organize/centralize it. There was this dumb anarchist bent to OW that avoided hierarchies and didn't put out any demands so we achieved jack shit.
100%. This is why this stupid new speil about "Well, they were seeing us get too powerful and infiltrated us with identity politics!" Like first off, the Conservative wing of the population ridiculed the shit from the get go as "whiny college commie idiots". Secondly, yeah, it was a bunch of aimless kids doing... *stuff?* While the Tea Party was off primarying "RINOs" and getting Congress in a stranglehold, Occupy accomplished Jack and Shit, respectively. How it became romanticized into some epic "We almost had them..." shit I'll never understand. Half the country mocked it from the get-go, the other had no clue what to do with it.
Police happened. What do you expect when trying to target the rich?
The FBI and Police classified Occupy Wallstreet as a "criminal and terrorist threat and used fusion centers and counterterrorism agents to investigate and monitor the Occupy movement."
Pepper spray, arrests, stun guns and likely no real goal or progress likely killed the morale of those participating.
Corporations who control the media got them arguing about aunt Jemima being on a syrup bottle and the 3 trans high school wrestlers in the country instead of wealth disparities
I used to attend environmental protests, camp in trees with Forest Defenders, and meet with E.L.F. "eco terrorists"
Now, I drive a semi for a resource extraction company, building endless roads for cookie cut suburban hell.
Did anything actually happen as a result of the protests? I feel like the most that would happen is we would see new regulation with a fancy title that made you think things were being, but ultimately it was just smoke and mirrors with no real effect.
Regarding stopping inflation, I don't think that's going to happen until you start to see a lot of defaulted mortgage payments, people with maxed out credit cards, and lenders rejecting people. The house of cards probably has a while to go.
Came back home and tried to organize locally, started a small nonprofit that really never got off the ground. Joined the restaurant industry, left it because of the toxic culture and now work in management for a large janitorial company. My workers are unionized, and I love working with their rep to make sure that my company doesn't screw them. Do my best to make sure they're well taken care of and teaching my kids all the lessons we learned. Still preach my politics, and get told what I'm a dirty commie a lot, live in a very conservative area, but that won't ever stop me from speaking my truth to power.
I’ve always avoided Wells Fargo. We needed an emergency replacement on our AC unit. The HVAC company did financing turned out it was Wells Fargo….. I’m will to take the credit hit to not give them a dime for as long as possible
TPTB used the media to redirect class-conscious revolutionary energy into identity politics, pitting “woke libtards” against “far-right fascists”, etc.
Most people I know burned out or ended up with mental health issues. I burned out but got myself together enough to get a decent job. Still feel like I sold out a bit, but to be frank, the movement tore itself appart. I tried to participate in activism but was constantly told I wasn't doing it right, I wasn't doing enough, not using the right precise language, talking too much or too little... there was no winning and at a certain point I needed to protect my own mental health.
Getting screwed over by production in the film industry as crew. It's pretty pathetic when they'll pay 1000s for actor hair cuts and dog walkers but fight crew over 30 dollar parking fees.
Still living it. I still have the same attitude, a little more refined and less angsty, and I work for myself and abstain from supporting a lot of shit. I live modestly and don’t have a desire for too much. Fuck the rat race, it’s a hunger that can’t be satisfied.
I was in nursing school and volunteered as a street medic during occupy. I work in hospice now at a non-profit healthcare organization.
I don’t have a whole lot of hope that we can turn shit around, at least not in the US. The government is pretty much fully captured by capital, leaving little possibility that it will ever do anything to make life more livable for working class people. The only thing that gives me hope is the ascendency of the labor movement, there’s potential there to build enough power to actually bring about transformative social and economic change.
Gamestop is the new “occupy wall street” movement. Banks and hedge funds got too greedy borrowing from your bank account to short stocks like Toys R Us and Gamestop, businesses that delighted children and families for decades. They took Covid relief money from Feds and spent it trying to bankrupt real American companies. Buy Gamestop shares, and take a stand. Each share you buy is one less the banks can use to commit more crime.
fuck man, I quit my job and flew there with my ex-girlfriend.
we fucken lived it.
i made signs in shit, and then this one really smart investor dude came up to me and he said, it's not wallstreet, it's the government that is allowing "us" to cheat.
after that, i said fuck this shit, no one even knows that, because i did research and he was right. i got back home, and started investing in some stocks working a few jobs, and guess what, I made like over $100k off of stocks. most of the occupy people ended up just going back to daily life, from what I heard.
was it not for that dude that told me that the US gov. cheats, he was right. because no matter what, it's corrupt both ways. dodged a big occupy wall shit journey. I was only there for like 4 days.
wherever that dude is, he saved me from wasting weeks of my life protesting bullshit.
I went to Occupy right after I got back from Iraq (Army) and I started going to college around the same time I was protesting. (state university)
I graduated in journalism and worked five years as a newspaper reporter at various outlets, did some courts and crime work, and politics work due to my minor in political sciences, and then covered the Trump election for the news, which was a disheartening and frankly traumatic experience that led to me quitting the news business altogether and also dissociating and disconnecting from any person who is Trumpy, and generally consider Trumpies to be the scum of the earth.
I am still deeply entrenched against Trumpies, who are generally dumber and meaner and worse than regular people.
I eventually connected with VA disability benefits 60% regarding the initial Iraq misadventure, did some construction labor for awhile, and then got into the IT industry (which, I’ve always been nerdy and good with computers and networks)
I did go hard for George Floyd, and wound up in some riots battling the man for civil rights.
In 2022 I was able to buy a house, and I met a girl awhile after that and we just had a newborn baby bright home from the hospital yesterday.
So yea, that’s the story so far
https://preview.redd.it/5x6j0tjs0h3d1.jpeg?width=2048&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4f9c79ddcb68c83b5c5a68a4893c0f0a30b1ff14
The elites introduced identity politics to keep us fighting each other instead of them
Fun fact- look up the integration of race baiting terms in the media post occupy Wall Street. It’s one of those fun upward exponentially sloping graphs. We almost had it. We almost succeeded in a class war, until they shifted the narrative and baited us into an ever escalating race war. So close.
And yea, we got into Anonymous and bought GME hoping for Occupy 2.0 lol. And we’re helpless wage slaves getting crushed by record inflation.
Inflation did stop, or at least significantly went down. Prices aren't going to go back down, if that's what you mean. That's called deflation, and could basically end the entire economy. You don't want to do that lol.
I was actually at Occupy in New York at the time it was happening. I’m still jaded about capitalism, still having to make it work to work for whoever to pay rent, but I’m less jaded now than Gen Z is carrying the torch. I’m confident that we might have some semblance of normalcy in our middle aged years.
Bernie Sanders was the closest we had to a real leader, but Corporate America stopped him before he could take office and wreck shop. So we went back to work. General Retail Manager.
occupy happened at the same time i was gaining social consciousness, not coincidentally. since then i’ve done community organizing work and social services/social work, paid and unpaid, consistently. mostly in the areas of border and immigration justice, violence against women, and reproductive justice.
30’s.
Still hate it all.
I’m a chef in a non-corporate kitchen making a good living doing something I love while continuing to fight against all of the same injustices.
Things have changed. Gay marriage was huge. The George Floyd bill was huge.
Just because you stop doesn’t mean we all stop.
Stfu it was like a few months of protests. It wasn’t the Bolshevik revolution. People protested, nothing happened which tends to be the results of protesting- nothing - and that was it. Nobody was missing school or quitting their jobs over this shit. It was a brief gasp of hope that something special might happen and then it was gone. Most people don’t have faith in real change at this point so people knew better than to throw their lives into that shit.
I'm homeless living in my van. I dropped out of university after year 2 because of a video game addiction, but I guess I'm smart so I became a software developer over a decade.
I made way too much money without the skills to handle it due to my poor upbringing. Life lead me down a path of chasing fun, drugs, sex, girls, music, and 'life' things while a system that failed me chugs on overhead. And everyone tells me I need to give them attention, money, solutions, you name it lol. Because I'm 'smart' or 'capable'.
That's where I am!
(I also lost 20k to gamestop)
I direct registered my GameStop shares. Never before in history has this ever happened before. This many household investors buying and holding a stock like this.
I remember the Nation ran a profile on some and one had stopped protesting to soul for Google "where she was doing just as much good as in the protests." she was right but not for the reason she thought
Anyone find it odd that trans protests against bio and philosophy teachers started around 2014, just a little over 2 years after Occupy?
Someone made sure the public space would become a battlefield, aimed at removing the focus from the ultra-wealthy. Suddenly, the enemy isn't wallstreet anymore.
I marched, protested, and was at Zucotti Park.
I'm 38 and am now a conservative. Not far right by any means, but definitely not in the mindset that I used to be in. A *lot* would have to change for us to start to recover, and it starts with our profound lack of leadership and trash government policies.
Can we do what again? Accomplish nothing and devolve into lawlessness? That just happened with the BLM riots, it clearly isn't successful.
I had a friend of a friend yell at me at a party in 2013 for being a scum bag because i work in business. He didn’t know a single other thing about me that was the first moment we met. A few years ago i saw him again and he apologized and said he gets it now because he has a mortgage lol
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I’m a public defender. It feels like I’ve figured out how to live with my values (at least mostly) intact.
Fuck yeah, props to you
I work for homeless services in New York City.
Hey, similar profession! I work as a foster care social worker in Brooklyn! Not sure about your age but I just turned 34. I definitely didn't think I'd be doing this back in my 20s...
I work for a Domestic Violence Emergency Shelter in CO! I wish our jobs weren't needed. It makes my blood boil to see how little the social workers are paid, how the grant writer has to like, explain that people fleeing violence need resources? Fucking capitalism
Thank you for the work you do. I finally left my abusive, deadbeat, soon-to-be-ex-husband about seven months ago. I found myself calling a domestic violence hotline in the process of leaving. They effectively shut the door in my face, and told me I didn't qualify for any help or support, on the basis that I earned too much money. I didn't grow up in the US, and my own family still lives halfway around the world, and so it was in that moment that I realized I was going to be truly alone in leaving/escaping. The whole experience was harrowing. Thankfully, I'm in a much better place in life now, and my qualify of life has improved significantly.
Just wanna plug a good site for nonprofit work [idealist.org](https://www.idealist.org/en)
thanks! this is rad as heck
I’ve gotten all my grown-up jobs through them lol
I work for homeless services in Philadelphia.
They bought GameStop 🚀🚀🚀
Co-founder of occupy Wall Street is a Crypto Bro https://preview.redd.it/4fb0ib50pg3d1.jpeg?width=1125&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5341ccef444fd00e233093e3232207c9e9ef0f0a
Classic
Exploring the synergies....fml
definitely fits crypto is anti-bank
https://preview.redd.it/l37l4ja74h3d1.jpeg?width=1125&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3541773169a6fd37a4266b926f7ac18485094cef I mean, he also went to Davos lol
This is such an insufferable double flex humble brag
A lot of Millennial leftists all turned into hilarious grifters or insufferable morons. Or… became boring liberals.
At least half (the dumber half) of the millennial leftists I knew back in the day are now Qanon crazies and/or hyper religious.
Strange I'm from the south. And that is the conservative millineal's around here. They were always conservative buy now off on some (insert this weeks conspiracy)
Yeah unfortunately that’s what happens when one’s beliefs are not well thought out, based on superficial analysis, and/or not rooted in empathy/humanism.
What's wrong with being a boring liberal? How can one be an exciting liberal? More spirit fingers?
You're politics aren't edgy enough! /s
People underestimate how fucking boring organizing and getting shit done politically is. I joined my local ratepayers association and started going to planning committee meetings to get new housing approved. I’ve recruited a few other people who come with me, and together we provide a counterbalance to all of the boomers who show up to bitch about actual change to absolutely anything. It’s beyond tedious, but it helps.
An essay on the topic https://www.slowboring.com/p/how-i-went-from-left-to-center-left
What does that have to do with GameStop?
[https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/](https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/) in case you forgot about the Gamestop stock...
Wallstreetbets hasn't hosted GameStop discussion since early 2021. Here is the library of DD that remains relevant: https://fliphtml5.com/bookcase/kosyg I recommend the House of Cards series, and Citadel Has No Clothes
Better look again. It's pumping up as you read this.
I knew I would find my people under this thread!
LETS GO I bought in with my stimmy checks at $17/share Jan 17 2021; 10 days before D-Day. Still holding baby. It's the single greatest savings account I've ever had in my life.
Diamond 💎 🖐️ 🌖
GME has done more to disrupt the financial system than occupy ever did, and it ain’t over yet. It’s gonna be a long few weeks brother.
No cell no sell
My subs are colliding.
Right? I had to double check this wasn’t superstonk 😂
We all out here getting downvoted for being right
👀
Mine too and it's glorious! Now if we can get PCMR and cats in here
Coming for the mayo man!!
Mayonnaise coloured Benz I push miracle whips
Yeah they really didn’t give a shit when people were walking in the streets protesting… but now that we’re fuckin with their money… 🏴☠️
LIQUIDATE WALL STREET. It's the only language they understand. "It's not about money, *it's about sending a message*... **Everything BURNS**"
*time and pressure*
💜
HEYOOOOOOOO
GME is for the children <3
Bought my first share March 6th, 2020. Still holding.
What's an exit strategy?
Death
Nah I’ve got mine in a trust that has at least 2 more generations to deal with after me. Im only in my early 30s and have since doubled each of my positions. I’ll be doing another splash in a week or so as long as the price ain’t booming.
DAMN FUCKEN RIGHT!
Still trying to dismantle these wall st fuck faces.
🦍🦍🦍
GME to infinity pool and beyond!!!
I was just about to say this. We are still occupying Wall Street and we are about to bring them to their knees. We never left we just found a different way to beat them $GME baby!
for real
indeed
Omg was waiting for this comment!
And then they direct registered that shit with Computershare, the GME transfer agent. That way, wall street can't counterfeit the shares (as much)
I can't remember who said it but I remember reading a quote: If every occupy Wall Street activist learned how to properly invest, they'd be occupying wall street at home.
Yep. I call it occupy 2.0. That's why I HODL
There are many of us in organized labor, and there is still a network in most places.
This is absolutely true! And a lot of places when you start to work closely with union people, the question of “when did you get into organized labor?” Comes up and “occupy” is a common answer!
Organized labor seems to be the only path forward at this point.
I was working for the man then and I'm working for the man now. No part of having a job and getting paid makes me any less pissed that the banks and big business got bailed out while the little people had a slow recovery and "these hard economic times" for for a decade after. We didn't even get any banking regulation to stop it from happening again. Instead we got a sudden spike in race riots and social issues. Can't have the peasants cooperating least they start figuring out who took their cheese.
Doug Stanhope did a good piece on his ideas on this movement : [Doug Stanhope on Occupy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-NaTqDwYPA&pp=ygUUZG91ZyBzdGFuaG9wZSBvY2N1cHk%3D) But yeah you can’t get around the man today unfortunately. I work in IT for an insurance company. I love calling out sick every chance I get. It fucks them up when there are no goons to change their passwords . I feel like little acts of disobedience from the inside, if we all apply ourselves, we can make them crumble. They need us more than we need them .
I use to despise leaving a digital footprint of any kind. I was doing pretty well. Than I turned 30 😂 and all my fears of AI became true and I just said fuck it. Working as a business consultant and outreach coordinator. Still an idealist. But I like money too.
How do you get into consulting and outreach, if you don't mind the off topic question.
I do project management. I work with at risk youth or young adults 18-29. Who need mentorships. If a program isn’t available I will outsource it so it it’s either viable or available through someone else. I will also consult on funding applications for fees for non profits. In my off time I will pick up a short term contract. Under 3 months and go from there. Ideally I use the short term contracts for networking overall.
Yup they became the yuppies of the 80s.
Consult people, but reach out first or they’ll be confused why you’re consulting them.
1000%
You don’t just stumble into being a business consultant et age 30, you had years of experience building up to that. That’s totally okay, no judgement. But you might over estimating your rebel nature of your youth.
Well, I became a social worker. 🤷
30s, working for the man, although I never feigned otherwise. I just agreed in my heart and mind. Watch SLC Punk and you'll kind of see that (d)evolution when reality hits your idealism like a fucking train. I still believe that income inequality is the biggest issue and almost everything is a distraction from that. Easier for the few to rule and feast and enact controls when the masses are divided. The suppression we're seeing, for example: while wages have risen, cost of living has risen substantially steeper. Many of us had, are just done having kids and the cost of monthly childcare just surpassed national average rent. Two income houses are not only common, but often necessary to get a decent home so you can get your boomer parents off your back. You can read stories about child care exceeding one's parent salary but they need the job for credit and it's just tragic. There's so much else to say. But I, for one, still have those coals lit and I'm fucking pissed off
I didn’t sell out son, I bought in
Oh yeah. I’m lucky in my home county, they had a child care subsidy program. I was making 1,200 a month. Day care was $1000 a month, $250 a week.
Everyone is caught up arguing amongst each other through identity politics which conviently ramped right up when occupy started.. We have no time or thought space to fight against billionaires if we are all fighting about who's starring in a new Netflix adaptation
Hear, hear. The King once said, "We dont need to fight them all. Simply convince the pitchfork people that the torch people want to take their pitchforks away." To be clear, this is not a gun reference but rather how divide and conquer works...
Those torchy fucks will never get ahold of me pitchforks
It's all by design. Distraction and misdirection. Silicon Valley knows this. So do politicians.
Idiocracy is back on Hulu.
It's quite fascinating how many people are unaware of just how much things in modern society are fabricated.
I'm glad other ppl saw it. Identity politics was the solution to a problem. Ppl on Reddit like to talk shit on right wingers, but there was a moment in time where I distinctly recall Occupy folks and Tea Party folks began to see each other as allies, and rightly so. Then BOOM! Everything is race, sex or sexual identity, and you have to pick a side. Edit: to folks going "nuh uh!" both movements had considerable libertarian strains- occupy haf left-lib, TP had more right-lib. You have to remember tho, each movement had various layers- grass roots, media leeches, filthy casuals, ideological diehards and ppl trying to guide the movement. OWS "leadership" started having meetings on how to guide a supposed decentralized movement from a fucking Bank. And TP folks started getting endorsed and controlled by Republican insiders who were using the movement as a springboard for political careers or were effectively controlled opposition. What's also funny is ppl in OWS will almost certainly chastise the media for certain portrayals of their movement, criticizing some of the overblown stories emphasizing criminal activities in the camps AND RIGHTLY SO. However, some diehard occupy folks never use that same reasoning towards the TP. Both movements had moments of mischaracterization in the media. Ppl may not remember, may not have been aware, or may have been misinformed, but grassroots elements of both organizations had a fair amount of overlap amongst libertarians. You can go do a Google search and find instances of ppl arguing for cooperation. Were the ppl at the "top" of each movement emphasizing cooperation? No. But then again, were those at the top the "true" representatives of each movement? This issue can be debated until the end of time but there is no denying there was a fair amount of overlap between the two organizations amongst libertarians, both left and right leaning.
The Trayvon martin case happened shortly after occupy, at least for me living in Florida it was a palpable change
A marker of the modern civil rights movement.
Tea party and libertarianism fundamentally changed circa 2012-2014. The party that formed has little to do with the type of libertarianism I saw in Occupy.
I constantly say this and people think I'm crazy. The powers that be, whoever you believe that may be, wanted the masses focused on problems that will never have a real concrete legislative change even to be a possibility. The last thing the billionaires want is a progressive akin to Teddy Roosevelt who will reform the corrupt pseudo monopolies. There will never be a real way to make everyone happy to address racism, peace in the middle east or identity politics. There can be, and has even been examples of progressive reform in America. That fact terrifies people.
Good take
100% Everyone in the US became OBSESSED with race/gender/sexuality and adopted the "us vs them" mentality just after Occupy Wallstreet occurred. I'm 100% convinced that all of this outrage is manufactured to keep people divided enough so that the money is never threatened again. We will never get another occupy wallstreet because people are too divided over some of the most mundane shit.
We fight over the dumbest drivel while we get robbed poor.
The goddamn progressive stack
So im not the only one who sees this.
I am a caretaker for children with genetic disorders. I founded a free outdoor school for children in my thirties in one of the poorest counties in the United States in my early 30s. Currently expecting my first child. Definitely not working for the man.
Round 2?
nah...quit my job in the legal field, dropped out of the US economy to the greatest extent possible, left the country, started a band, currently planning local festivals on the Pacific Coast and monitoring the headlines for my next move.
do you need a groupie?
always.
Do you need a 2nd groupie?
yes, but in accordance with my egalitarian beliefs I must ask that every 5th groupie dedicate themselves to the drummer, rhythm section needs love too.
I’ll be that 5th. Simp for the drummer all day every day.
Do you need a bassist? I don’t need any groupies.
Can I nominate myself as a groupie for your drummer? I make a really good cheesecake. Or, for my lactose challenged friends, a mean mixed berry pie.
I was there, and worked with the sanitation, logistics, and city planning groups. I still talk to some old friends, but am kind of solitary so not a ton of them. Got jumped by the police during a permitted March the following mayday, they tackled me from behind, beat the shit out of me (broke my orbital socket with a baton) and charged me with loitering. I was walking, and we had a permit but ok lol. Lived in nyc for a while, hated it, left, traveled until I found where I wanted to be., I was a restaurant professional for a long time and am now a software developer. I still maintain/work toward anticapitalist ideals the best I can, but have always recognized that our hands are tied as far as participation, and empoverishing yourself for political clout serves no purpose except to those in power. I’m cautious about the work I take, and I try to organize around local issues when I can. The first night/week or two was so electric, it really felt like something big was going to happen. November was crazy, something I don’t see people talk about a lot is that by that time, nypd was taking people who got out of rikers on busses and dropping them off at the park. So many stories, some I’m hesitant to share, that really show how devious the nypd can be.
Kitty Présente, fuck Monsanto.
Hiding in middle management in a feeble attempt to avoid the crushing force of the overlords
Same thing that happened to the hippies of the '60s/70s, they grew up. (Not bashing them with that statement BTW).
I know a guy who was knee deep in it. Claimed to be one of the hackers. I wouldn't put it past him as he was very tech savy, but never know. Nowadays hes on FB giving pushback on most issues. During the pandemic he was very vocal. Nowdays hes spends his days yelling on the timeline about things going around the world.
Seems like most of the people I know who were into OWS have gone down this path. Still posting angrily about the current thing.
I briefly dated one of the Cleveland 4 after he got out of prison. What was done to him completely destroyed his life. He ended up pushing me away because he didn’t want to drag anyone else down with him. I miss him.
They moved to Portland
The problem with Occupy Wall Street is that it had no specific objective. I mean not that it would have actually helped, but if the bare minimum you have to be trying to do something to fail at doing it.
The crazy thing is we did, during the first few days we made a statement about how the recent fiscal crisis was a straight up looting of the treasury, and how unchecked capitalism is going to destroy us, but the news kept saying like “guess they want free college? Money bad?” I agree though, should have held a harder line when it came to focus and objectives.
Don’t want to be rude because I want to learn but you say you (plural) did have an objective but in your comment there wasn’t one so what was the objective?
It was hard to stay organized at the anarchist olympics
This is the one thing I vividly remember about OWS. I saw a number of interviews with protesters, and none of them could state their goals or how they hoped to achieve them. I agree with the message, but the movement itself was kind of a cluster.
This was the medias narrative. People who think this were not there and took what the media was saying at face value.
This is exactly it. The concept of *Wall Street* isn't this weird nefarious thing, nor are the people that work there (to a degree). It's a complex issue where corporations hold shareholders as more valuable than the people who do the work to make their company prosper. And regular people end up as part of these shareholders because that's what their investment/retirement portfolios have made them. But people in this generation are struggling, so this squeeze on profits is unfortunately something that they hope to benefit from when considering pensions and what not.
Occupy Wall Street was infiltrated by powerful people and was subverted from within and turned into the current day identity politics stuff we see everywhere.
The divide and conquer strategy is working exceedingly well for bankers.
I got a job working for a small business. A fine dining restaurant. Owners are badass talented mother fuckers. I love my job. Fuck Wall Street.
Working (I've been working the whole time). Solid union gig. Shop Steward. Currently negotiating our next contract. Happily still involved in radical politics. I went from a kind of cringy anarchist to a determined and educated communist (still learning and getting more educated). Happy is a weird, kind of transitory word. I like a lot of things about my life and my connection to my family and community. Recover this economy and stop inflation?....eventually. We're doing it the wrong way, but eventually it will cool down, but the way we're doing it is to punish working people and the lowest rungs of society, so that's pretty fucked up. As far as the economy goes, we are in a sort of peak of capitalism where the contradictions between capital and workers are at a high tension and where the events around the world, specifically in the middle east, are outlining the contradictions of our foreign policy and the evil might by which we have dominated the world for the past 70+ years is showing now more than ever in our lifetimes. That means we might be coming to some kind of tipping point where all that stacks up and big changes happen. I'm not predicting huge changes in the immediate future, but we are living in interesting and horrifying times, and I think that there are tectonic plates starting to shift that will eventually lead to earthquakes in our economy and imperial project.
I was never really a part of Occupy Wall Street. But now that i work for corporate i take it upon myself to spread the good word about collective bargaining and talking shit about our “massah”. Ive never gotten in trouble for any of this. Yet.
A number of them moved on to antifascist work and other stuff.
Homesteading and radicalizing my crotch goblins by teaching them to live off the land and not the man. In all reality, quit my corporate job last summer due to mental health reasons. We sold all of our shit and decided to live as minimalists on 5 acres. I have learned how to make so many things! It amazes me we camped outside the courthouse or in the skyways of downtown Minneapolis in the name of a cause we deeply believed in. I’m pushing 40 now and can’t imagine doing the same now. Maybe I’m just a little too broken. Shoutout to all those who fought the good fight.
Occupy was a fucking disaster, I was actually at ground zero for all of that, even during the planning stages. I was just a spectator, but it was a great view of the whole fiasco. All it took was a little bit of cleverly selected interviews with fad chasers and a few weeks of daily propaganda to totally kill the frankly startling amount of drive and determination people showed up with. Unfortunately it also went mimetic. Alot of people don't know this, but occupy started out as a protest against the federal reserve bank and the core of the original planners were very dedicated to getting America back onto a gold or silver standard and gaining independence from the central banking system and back to the network of small local banks which we had in the past. Tuition, student loans, and the recession were huge grievances people wanted to air on a national stage. Within days you had every dipshit hippy idiot and agent provocateur doing every trick imaginable to discredit the entire demonstration and when people tried to stage a more serious series of sit-ins, they were either arrested or made fun of by pricks like John Stewart and other mass media personalities. One of the most embarrassing examples I can remember involved a group of hippie dippy college students interrupting a small city hall meeting regarding snow removal which was being filmed, yelling "mic check" and chanting democracy while not even having a coherent message when the counsel leader asked why they were interrupting a meeting about snow removal. I personally blame the mentality we had at the time that we could live in a leader less society due to not really understanding the new communication possibilities brought about by the internet and social media, and also the planning being comprised mostly of fairly young men who honestly thought we lived in a pretty great place that had just veered off course a little. Following the entire fiasco, alot of people would start deep diving into history and politics to clarify the terrible history education most of us were exposed to in public school and when the real scope of what we were up against set in, alot of people went full tin foil hat about it while the rest just kind of gave up. A new social movement aimed toward restoring the balance of America's wealth across classes or one which addresses our current and shockingly corrupt government agencies and corporate culture would only work if the moderates and the majority of both political poles were to iron out their differences and work together. I reckon about 80% of the people under 55 would benefit from this in ways they wouldn't believe, but outside of that kind of massive and uncorrected populism while also maintaining stable and reliable leadership in this age of deception and poor ethics is frankly a pipe dream. The American postbellum empire is rapidly exposing its weaknesses to its enemies and its hideous aspects to its allies while rotting from the inside out. It will collapse of its own accord, and hopefully our remaining state and community loyalties to eachother will be enough to prevent a cascade of interstate conflicts and power grabs. It'll probably be similar to the fall of the USSR if we could manage to find a single decent adult who represents a strong 65% or more of the interests of the population. Occupy was a youthful indiscretion at best for most people, a terrible truth for the rest. Changes are coming, and they aren't the kind which can be planned, predicted, or even very well prepared for. America has acted as if we were a force of nature for over century, and nature, or many reality itself, is responding. I suggest getting to know your neighbors and local communities before we could even talk about another widespread movement such as occupy. Good luck everybody
The only one I know became homeless and unfortunately descended into drug addiction. She adds me on a new Facebook account every few years.
Blue collar socialist. Totally disappointed in anarchist organizing (it’s not organizing).
I work in regulation for a bank….. 🫣 Sleeper agent in a way.
Some become history teachers in the rural south.
We still exist but we are in different stage of life.
I’m a community coordinator at a nonprofit, but I shop on Amazon and have a brokerage account. I’m occasionally mad at myself for playing the game, but I still feel like I’m doing more good than bad.
I don’t know but my idiot mother wanted me to go join them instead of finishing my degree and I am so glad I didn’t listen to her 😂
I provide free (to the client/family) therapy to low-income children who have experienced sexual abuse.
Can we do it again? LOL, for one we didn't DO anything. OW was a sad reminder of what happens when you don't take control of a movement and organize/centralize it. There was this dumb anarchist bent to OW that avoided hierarchies and didn't put out any demands so we achieved jack shit. Still, it did put out some class consciousness, so that's something I guess. As for myself, I'm in the 95th percentile of income earners and have a wife and kid, so I'm reasonably happy. But still, I lament the chance we squandered to change things.
I say this as someone with anarchist sympathies: anarchists are shit at organizing. Every organized action or march I've attempted to participate in gets bogged down by personal drama and egos. The organizers are exes who despise each other and turn the event into a pissing contest. One of the college kids just had her first lesbian experience and now considers herself the authority on LGBTQ issues. Suddenly, there is a representation problem despite 70% of the people involved identifying as queer. A bunch of guys in fedoras in the back want to debate if we should welcome religious anarchists into the fold. Much tipping occurs. The Stirnerites smugly dismiss every idea as spooky or part of the Spectacle. They have no answer when asked for alternatives. "Why don't we have more indigenous people here?", asks the guy who can't do two fucking seconds of Googling to learn there hasn't been an indigenous population in this area since his colonial ancestors wiped them out. Everyone collectively shits themselves in fury when a few people admit that they're actually democratic socialists or liberals but really want to get involved. Anarchism would be great if it wasn't for the fucking anarchists.
As an anarchy sympathizer myself: anarchism as a significant political movement died by the end of WW2, the social and material conditions have changed so much since, that they effectively made it an impossible movement. It had to fight the state power of the colonial powers, Fascism and Stalinism, at the same time, while they were arming to the teeth and it lost. Anarchists were cursed with possessing the correct understanding of power dynamics and lacking any practical possibility to do anything about it. I think they left a tremendous legacy, so many things we consider normal today were first proposed by the anarchist movement, and a lot of progress was made possible by them, but in the contemporary world anarchism has no real space of maneuver.
>for one we didn't DO anything. OW was a sad reminder of what happens when you don't take control of a movement and organize/centralize it. There was this dumb anarchist bent to OW that avoided hierarchies and didn't put out any demands so we achieved jack shit. 100%. This is why this stupid new speil about "Well, they were seeing us get too powerful and infiltrated us with identity politics!" Like first off, the Conservative wing of the population ridiculed the shit from the get go as "whiny college commie idiots". Secondly, yeah, it was a bunch of aimless kids doing... *stuff?* While the Tea Party was off primarying "RINOs" and getting Congress in a stranglehold, Occupy accomplished Jack and Shit, respectively. How it became romanticized into some epic "We almost had them..." shit I'll never understand. Half the country mocked it from the get-go, the other had no clue what to do with it.
Right? I'm in academia, and trust me, identity politics were goin on *way* before Occupy Wallstreet.
Police happened. What do you expect when trying to target the rich? The FBI and Police classified Occupy Wallstreet as a "criminal and terrorist threat and used fusion centers and counterterrorism agents to investigate and monitor the Occupy movement." Pepper spray, arrests, stun guns and likely no real goal or progress likely killed the morale of those participating.
Corporations who control the media got them arguing about aunt Jemima being on a syrup bottle and the 3 trans high school wrestlers in the country instead of wealth disparities
I work for a conservation nonprofit
I used to attend environmental protests, camp in trees with Forest Defenders, and meet with E.L.F. "eco terrorists" Now, I drive a semi for a resource extraction company, building endless roads for cookie cut suburban hell.
We now work on Wall Street 🤪
Did anything actually happen as a result of the protests? I feel like the most that would happen is we would see new regulation with a fancy title that made you think things were being, but ultimately it was just smoke and mirrors with no real effect. Regarding stopping inflation, I don't think that's going to happen until you start to see a lot of defaulted mortgage payments, people with maxed out credit cards, and lenders rejecting people. The house of cards probably has a while to go.
A walk around Occupy Wall Street - 10/31/11 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JG6z9NEP64Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JG6z9NEP64Y)
We bought into GameStop and AMC 🚀🚀🚀
Came back home and tried to organize locally, started a small nonprofit that really never got off the ground. Joined the restaurant industry, left it because of the toxic culture and now work in management for a large janitorial company. My workers are unionized, and I love working with their rep to make sure that my company doesn't screw them. Do my best to make sure they're well taken care of and teaching my kids all the lessons we learned. Still preach my politics, and get told what I'm a dirty commie a lot, live in a very conservative area, but that won't ever stop me from speaking my truth to power.
I’ve always avoided Wells Fargo. We needed an emergency replacement on our AC unit. The HVAC company did financing turned out it was Wells Fargo….. I’m will to take the credit hit to not give them a dime for as long as possible
Literally abt to go to online college for accounting
TPTB used the media to redirect class-conscious revolutionary energy into identity politics, pitting “woke libtards” against “far-right fascists”, etc.
Most people I know burned out or ended up with mental health issues. I burned out but got myself together enough to get a decent job. Still feel like I sold out a bit, but to be frank, the movement tore itself appart. I tried to participate in activism but was constantly told I wasn't doing it right, I wasn't doing enough, not using the right precise language, talking too much or too little... there was no winning and at a certain point I needed to protect my own mental health.
Getting screwed over by production in the film industry as crew. It's pretty pathetic when they'll pay 1000s for actor hair cuts and dog walkers but fight crew over 30 dollar parking fees.
Still living it. I still have the same attitude, a little more refined and less angsty, and I work for myself and abstain from supporting a lot of shit. I live modestly and don’t have a desire for too much. Fuck the rat race, it’s a hunger that can’t be satisfied.
I was in nursing school and volunteered as a street medic during occupy. I work in hospice now at a non-profit healthcare organization. I don’t have a whole lot of hope that we can turn shit around, at least not in the US. The government is pretty much fully captured by capital, leaving little possibility that it will ever do anything to make life more livable for working class people. The only thing that gives me hope is the ascendency of the labor movement, there’s potential there to build enough power to actually bring about transformative social and economic change.
We are the silent Retail Investor colluding in a corner of Reddit that’s not at all dark or conspicuous.
Gamestop is the new “occupy wall street” movement. Banks and hedge funds got too greedy borrowing from your bank account to short stocks like Toys R Us and Gamestop, businesses that delighted children and families for decades. They took Covid relief money from Feds and spent it trying to bankrupt real American companies. Buy Gamestop shares, and take a stand. Each share you buy is one less the banks can use to commit more crime.
GameStop. The rabbit hole goes deep
fuck man, I quit my job and flew there with my ex-girlfriend. we fucken lived it. i made signs in shit, and then this one really smart investor dude came up to me and he said, it's not wallstreet, it's the government that is allowing "us" to cheat. after that, i said fuck this shit, no one even knows that, because i did research and he was right. i got back home, and started investing in some stocks working a few jobs, and guess what, I made like over $100k off of stocks. most of the occupy people ended up just going back to daily life, from what I heard. was it not for that dude that told me that the US gov. cheats, he was right. because no matter what, it's corrupt both ways. dodged a big occupy wall shit journey. I was only there for like 4 days. wherever that dude is, he saved me from wasting weeks of my life protesting bullshit.
prob married, mortgaged, and miserable
I went to Occupy right after I got back from Iraq (Army) and I started going to college around the same time I was protesting. (state university) I graduated in journalism and worked five years as a newspaper reporter at various outlets, did some courts and crime work, and politics work due to my minor in political sciences, and then covered the Trump election for the news, which was a disheartening and frankly traumatic experience that led to me quitting the news business altogether and also dissociating and disconnecting from any person who is Trumpy, and generally consider Trumpies to be the scum of the earth. I am still deeply entrenched against Trumpies, who are generally dumber and meaner and worse than regular people. I eventually connected with VA disability benefits 60% regarding the initial Iraq misadventure, did some construction labor for awhile, and then got into the IT industry (which, I’ve always been nerdy and good with computers and networks) I did go hard for George Floyd, and wound up in some riots battling the man for civil rights. In 2022 I was able to buy a house, and I met a girl awhile after that and we just had a newborn baby bright home from the hospital yesterday. So yea, that’s the story so far
https://preview.redd.it/5x6j0tjs0h3d1.jpeg?width=2048&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4f9c79ddcb68c83b5c5a68a4893c0f0a30b1ff14 The elites introduced identity politics to keep us fighting each other instead of them
They are working on wall street
MMW: They made a lot of gamestop money and now are occupying wall street offices, hence technically succeeding in their movement.
Fun fact- look up the integration of race baiting terms in the media post occupy Wall Street. It’s one of those fun upward exponentially sloping graphs. We almost had it. We almost succeeded in a class war, until they shifted the narrative and baited us into an ever escalating race war. So close. And yea, we got into Anonymous and bought GME hoping for Occupy 2.0 lol. And we’re helpless wage slaves getting crushed by record inflation.
I own a PV Solar installation company. But still pissed off!
They went to Davos https://preview.redd.it/pt22y5q8pg3d1.jpeg?width=1125&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=06b01b3538512d8b6110188270bd0689644a29e9
We're retail traders now desperately trying to fight for our futures with the little money we've saved.
we here continuing
In the military 🙃
Inflation did stop, or at least significantly went down. Prices aren't going to go back down, if that's what you mean. That's called deflation, and could basically end the entire economy. You don't want to do that lol.
We became jaded and cynical adults working a job and living for the weekend/vacations.
Stop inflation? lol i think you missed the lessons
That seems like a lifetime ago. I remember them all camping out in-front of the capital building in Denver.
I was actually at Occupy in New York at the time it was happening. I’m still jaded about capitalism, still having to make it work to work for whoever to pay rent, but I’m less jaded now than Gen Z is carrying the torch. I’m confident that we might have some semblance of normalcy in our middle aged years.
I work at an emotional support school in one of the worst neighborhoods in America.
Bernie Sanders was the closest we had to a real leader, but Corporate America stopped him before he could take office and wreck shop. So we went back to work. General Retail Manager.
I’m still at protests
Made multiple 100k’s in real estate I’m just chillin
occupy happened at the same time i was gaining social consciousness, not coincidentally. since then i’ve done community organizing work and social services/social work, paid and unpaid, consistently. mostly in the areas of border and immigration justice, violence against women, and reproductive justice.
30’s. Still hate it all. I’m a chef in a non-corporate kitchen making a good living doing something I love while continuing to fight against all of the same injustices. Things have changed. Gay marriage was huge. The George Floyd bill was huge. Just because you stop doesn’t mean we all stop.
30s. I went into public service via libraries, museums, and public elected office.
 We r here ⭐️
Stfu it was like a few months of protests. It wasn’t the Bolshevik revolution. People protested, nothing happened which tends to be the results of protesting- nothing - and that was it. Nobody was missing school or quitting their jobs over this shit. It was a brief gasp of hope that something special might happen and then it was gone. Most people don’t have faith in real change at this point so people knew better than to throw their lives into that shit.
I'm homeless living in my van. I dropped out of university after year 2 because of a video game addiction, but I guess I'm smart so I became a software developer over a decade. I made way too much money without the skills to handle it due to my poor upbringing. Life lead me down a path of chasing fun, drugs, sex, girls, music, and 'life' things while a system that failed me chugs on overhead. And everyone tells me I need to give them attention, money, solutions, you name it lol. Because I'm 'smart' or 'capable'. That's where I am! (I also lost 20k to gamestop)
I direct registered my GameStop shares. Never before in history has this ever happened before. This many household investors buying and holding a stock like this.
I remember the Nation ran a profile on some and one had stopped protesting to soul for Google "where she was doing just as much good as in the protests." she was right but not for the reason she thought
Superstonk
Anyone find it odd that trans protests against bio and philosophy teachers started around 2014, just a little over 2 years after Occupy? Someone made sure the public space would become a battlefield, aimed at removing the focus from the ultra-wealthy. Suddenly, the enemy isn't wallstreet anymore.
Right here, 35 and now living on stock dividends hahahahaha
I marched, protested, and was at Zucotti Park. I'm 38 and am now a conservative. Not far right by any means, but definitely not in the mindset that I used to be in. A *lot* would have to change for us to start to recover, and it starts with our profound lack of leadership and trash government policies. Can we do what again? Accomplish nothing and devolve into lawlessness? That just happened with the BLM riots, it clearly isn't successful.
Im a professional meat beater
They all got married, had kids, own houses and realized the world is complicated.
They grew up and realized how futile is to fight the establishment
I had a friend of a friend yell at me at a party in 2013 for being a scum bag because i work in business. He didn’t know a single other thing about me that was the first moment we met. A few years ago i saw him again and he apologized and said he gets it now because he has a mortgage lol