A Look Back at Occupy

No one walked away from Occupy the same person. The occupiers will always say “we learned so much,” and the simplicity of the words belie how deep the change runs. We all learned so much in the season of Occupy. We learned there is a hostile army threaded through our nation. We learned that children can be casually brutalized, just to keep traffic from being inconvenienced.

We learned that Americans can come together and care for one another. We learned there is a great and terrible spirit in this land, the sleeping giant of our spirits summed together.

Quinn Norton was Wired’s correspondent for the Occupy Movement, and today, she has a 7,500 piece up on the site looking back on what she experienced, and what worked and what failed. (Among the things she felt didn’t work was the General Assembly: “The idea of the GA — its process, its form, inclusiveness — failed. It had all the best chances to evolve, imprinted on the consciousness of thousands of occupiers like a second language. No idea gets a better chance than that, and it still failed.”)

Support The Billfold

The Billfold continues to exist thanks to support from our readers. Help us continue to do our work by making a monthly pledge on Patreon or a one-time-only contribution through PayPal.