"...they forced even progressive mayors to call in law enforcement."

What a load of codswallop! The mayors were "forced" by a central directive across the entire nation. Note the identical methods and times employed by over-compensating militarised police.

This is the most condescending insult to the OWS idea that I have read to date and to find it in the NationofChange is an insult we readers should all take personally. I DO NOT buy into the argument that this author was "well-intentioned". She, like too many others wants a stated set of objectives from OWS that she and her ilk can co-opt and smother.

Take a look at the mainstream media for whom she writes and you can see "where she's coming from". She should never have been published in NofC except as a rallying cry for OWS to continue to thwart her and her kind.

When the Occupy movement started, the "national conversation" was all about who could cut the most from the budget and abolish the social safety net the fastest. OWS turned the media and political focus towards the decline of the middle class, the rapid growth of income inequality, and the outright greed of the wealthiest Americans. OWS was an outstanding success despite not doing things the way the mainstream media wanted them to. OWS is not a 'left-wing' version of the Tea Party, it provides a forum for people from the entire political spectrum to air their grievances and find common cause. OWS doesn't need to turn into another vehicle for the entrenched powers to co-opt for their own political gain. As opposed to the well-financed corporate-backed Tea Party that fooled thousands of people into working against their own best interest and that of the country, OWS is a true grass-roots movement that illustrates the power that ordinary people have to affect change.

First, I will say that I agree with Diogenes foregoing observation regarding "funneling" the Occupy movement's interests. This statement essentially treats Occupy as nothing more than a raw force to be utilised by the Democratic party in the upcoming elections, but whose concerns would need to be shelved lest they interfere later with the business-as-usual functioning of the party. Having been more directly involved with Occupy, I can tell Ms. Harrop that there's not enough faith in the Democratic party for that "funneling" to happen. There's a pervasive sense that once the election is over, Occupy's concerns would be simply swept underneath the rug. The two party system is obviously broken, and both parties seem, to different apparent degrees, always first and foremost, obliged to the interests that have paid for their campaigns.

Furthermore, I have to make note of Ms. Harrop's blatantly patronising tone toward Occupy. I am in agreement with her on one count only, that Occupy's resistance to creating a platform or position statement has been extremely counter-productive. However, to act as though they must toe the party line of the Democrats in order for them to be taken seriously by her is at the very least logically fallacious, but I see it as being ludicrous, in fact, since the Democratic party has proven itself insensate to the concerns of the general constituency of this country. There is a growing awareness that our country, indeed our entire world, is hanging on the edge of a precipice, and that those in power are less concerned with what happens to us who are part of the general public than to the maintenance of the financial status quo, or to assuring that the landing be a soft one for those in the top echelons of the economic system, and the rest of us be damned. I believe Ms. Harrop needs to be aware that her words will be taken as nothing more than an insult by those they're directed at, and that in fact her ideas of how to fix what's broken are quite inadequate, since the system is itself radically broken.

Obama and Holder have caused the Ocuppy Wall Street movement with their refusal to lookback and criminally prosecute Obama's thieving Wall Street "Savvy Businessmen" buddies.

And Obama and his Dept. of Homeland Security militarized the police and then instructed big city mayors during a conference call (according to Oakland, California's Mayor Jean Quan) to use violence to quash any Occupy peaceful protests concerning his thieving Wall Street "Savvy Businessmen" buddies' megafraud that put the world economy in the toilet.

Now, Obama has signed the National Defense Authorization Act that legalizes the Pinochet-style disappearance of anyone who the "government" deems to be an enemy of the militarized police state.

Big Brother Obama occupies the Orwellian White House playing "11 dimensional chess"/selling his snake oil.

What Diogenes said... Well stated brother...

The author could not be less informed about the roots, tactics, and message that inspired the Occupy movement. When they write that "Ideally, Democrats would funnel the Occupy movement people’s interests toward advancing their prospects in the upcoming elections," they reveal they have not grasped the sense of despair with the contemporary political landscape that justified a direct action tactic like occupation: there simply is no adequate political representation. We have two corporate parties, and a media sphere that is shaped by corporate interests. There is no room for human discussion or action that calls into question the basic presuppositions of capitalism and an ever increasing security state (driven in large measure by the forces of privatization). To "funnel" the frustration and rage and hope that found expression in the Occupy movement into the Democratic party would be, plain and simple, a co-optation. The aim of the occupations, which have exposed people around the world to processes and practices of direct democracy and communization of resources and skills, is to spread those practices: into workplaces, schools, neighborhoods, and wherever else people are feeling oppression and exploitation. The point is to keep the grass roots on the grass -- they don't need to leave there. The author is, perhaps with good intentions, working on behalf of the lawn mowers and the herbicidal maniacs.