HARTFORD, CT, December 7, 2011 – At the same time that Hartford police were ordering Occupy Hartford protesters to abandon their two-month encampment at the corner of Farmington Avenue and Broad Street in Hartford, five experts were debating the purpose and tactics of the national Occupy Wall Street movement during a panel discussion sponsored by the Trinity Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies on Tuesday.
The consensus? There wasn’t one. The opinions were as disparate as the movement’s participants seem to be.
Among the views expressed: The Occupy Wall Street movement is the political left’s antidote to the right-leaning Tea Party. The Occupy Wall Street movement speaks for the have-nots in a society where wealth has been disproportionately amassed by the haves. The Occupy Wall Street movement will be absorbed into the Re-elect Barack Obama campaign. The Occupy Wall Street movement will fire up liberal activists. The Occupy Wall Street movement isn’t a movement but an angry crowd. The Occupy Wall Street movement will fizzle out. The Occupy Wall Street movement may morph into something different and more potent.
About the only points that the panelists agreed on (sort of) are that the movement has done a poor job defining itself and has failed to articulate solutions to whatever problems they believe exist.
However, the panelists also didn’t seem to think that the amorphous nature of the movement and the absence of cast-in-stone solutions were necessarily a bad thing. Throughout U.S. history, political and social movements – whether they dealt with civil rights, women’s rights or opposition to wars – sometimes took years and even decades to galvanize the public and produce results.
“Where is it going? They need to reorganize and learn from their mistakes,” said Kerri Provost, a blogger for realhartford.org. Provost has written extensively about the Occupy Hartford movement, blogging as recently as Tuesday, the day of Trinity’s program, that Occupy Hartford “has shown few signs of life in recent weeks.”
“After a strong showing at their kickoff march in early October, active participation has waned,” Provost wrote. “There has been high turnover of activists, both those living in the tents, and those dropping by or showing support from afar.”
Just hours after writing that, Hartford Mayor Pedro Segarra and Police Chief Daryl K. Roberts ordered the occupiers to leave their encampment by 6 p.m. or face arrest. Turning Point Park, as it was called, was cleared without incident.
Provost was joined on the Trinity panel by Kevin McMahon, John R. Reitemeyer and Charles A. Dana Research Associate Professor of Political Science; Lida Maxwell, assistant professor of political science; and Josh King and Dave Rozza from Food Not Bombs & Hartford Organizing Group. The discussion was moderated by Vijay Prashad, George and Martha Kellner Chair in South Asian History and Professor of International Studies.
Although the Hartford group disbanded peaceably, activists in other cities – New York, Portland, OR and Oakland, CA, among them -- have been arrested, tear gassed, and sprayed with pepper.
“There’s been a coordinated crackdown,” said King. “The illusion of a free and open democracy is really crumbling. I’m not overly optimistic that [the movement] is going to last past the next [presidential] election.”
Maxwell noted that the movement has been criticized for its failure to “articulate a rationale and a set of demands,” as well as not having a leader to serve as a national spokesperson.
Others, though, said that while the message hasn’t always been clear, the Occupy Wall Street movement has tapped into a sense of outrage on the political left, focusing on income inequality and injustice.
One optimistic view was provided by Rozza, who noted that even though the movement has lacked definition and the messaging has been somewhat muddled, “it has changed the dialog…and brought in new blood.”
On that point there was little disagreement.