Occupy Wall Street Organizers Consider Value of Camps – NYTimes.com

OWS is like the little boy who said “the emperor has no clothes.” Everyone knew it, that the 1% were running away with a rigged game, but everyone didn’t know that everyone knew. Now we do. What do we do with that knowledge?

Still, some acknowledged that the crackdowns by the authorities in New York and other cities might ultimately benefit the movement, which may have become too fixated on retaining the territorial footholds, they said.

“We poured a tremendous amount of resources into defending a park that was nearly symbolic,” said Han Shan, an Occupy Wall Street activist in New York. “I think the movement has shown it transcends geography.” …

Marina Sitrin, a postdoctoral fellow at the City University of New York who is involved in the movement, said its influence would continue to ripple out. People are already assembling to address local issues in Harlem and Brooklyn, she said. “There’s so much more than Zuccotti Park,” she said.

Indeed, with winter looming, it seemed possible that Occupy Wall Street’s encampment would end on its own as the cold drove people away.

Maurice Isserman, a history professor at Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y., said New York City officials might have done Occupy Wall Street a favor “by providing a dramatic ending.”

Still, the encampments were an effective way of generating coverage, both in mainstream media and in the rest. Thus think of the 100s of thousands of photos and videos people have taken and posted to their blogs. How do we generate that coverage now?

via Occupy Wall Street Organizers Consider Value of Camps – NYTimes.com.