Welcome back, Lerner. If you've ever felt overwhelmed
by how much wealth is concentrated at the very
top, well, you are definitely not alone. Not
at all. You probably remember the images, right?
Thousands of protesters taking over Zuccotti
Park in Manhattan, the chant, we are the 99 percent.
Right. It's totally iconic at this point. It
really is. But what you might not know is that
the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security,
they were quietly monitoring this movement. A
full month before a single sleeping bag ever
hit the concrete. Which is just wild to think
about. Totally wild. So today we are taking a
deep dive into the Occupy movement. And to do
this, we are looking at a massive stack of comprehensive
Wikipedia excerpts. These track the phenomenon
from its... really unlikely inception, all the
way to its complex global legacy. It is an incredibly
layered story. I mean, we are looking at a rare
moment where a seemingly abstract idea about
economic fairness physically manifested into
a worldwide, highly coordinated disruption almost
overnight. Exactly. And our mission for this
deep dive is to explore those origins, break
down the movement's completely unique leaderless
structure, trace its explosive spread across
the globe and extract the aha moments about how
modern protests are actually born and what they
leave behind. OK, let's unpack this. To really
understand Occupy Wall Street, we have to recognize
the global mood in the summer of 2011. It didn't
just spontaneously combust in a vacuum. Right.
If you look at the timeline in our sources, Occupy
was. heavily inspired by a wave of international
unrest. You had the Arab Spring, which showed
the world the staggering power of massive, decentralized
public gatherings to challenge deeply entrenched
systems. And before that, there was the 2009
Iranian Green Movement, right? Yes, setting an
early template for social media -driven organization.
We also see the Spanish Indignados movement popping
up in the sources, where hundreds of camps appeared
around Spain in mid -May 2011. They were out
there protesting austerity measures. Just to
ground us real quick, when we say austerity measures
in this specific context, we're talking about
massive government cuts to public services right
after the 2008 financial crash, correct? That
is exactly right. governments were slashing public
spending to balance budgets. And the everyday
citizens, the people who felt they had absolutely
nothing to do with causing the financial crisis,
they were the ones absorbing the blow. Yeah,
paying the price. Precisely. That same frustration
led to the Democracy Village, a protest camp
set up directly outside the British Parliament
in London in 2010. All of these global movements
were effectively beta testing a new blueprint
for public occupation. But the people who actually
ported that blueprint over to Wall Street were
a pretty unexpected group of architects. Oh,
definitely. In mid -July 2011, a Canadian -based
anti -consumerist magazine called Adbusters,
specifically its co -founder Kali Lassen and
C. senior editor Michael White, they sent out
an email pitch. Just a standard email that changed
everything. Yeah. They proposed a peaceful physical
occupation of Wall Street to protest corporate
influence on democracy. And, you know, the glaring
absence of any legal repercussions for the bankers
behind the 2008 crash. The imagery they used
to sell this concept was absolutely vital. The
Internet hacker group Anonymous caught wind of
AdBuster's idea and decided to throw their weight
behind it. And they made that poster. Yes. They
released this now iconic promotional poster.
It featured a very graceful, serene ballerina
dancing calmly on top of Wall Street's famous
charging bull statue. With the protesters in
the background. Exactly. Protesters and gas masks
emerging from the fog behind her was a brilliant
visual juxtaposition. Peaceful, elegant resistance
standing directly on top of this massive, aggressive
symbol of financial capitalism. It's such a striking
visual. But, I mean, a cool Internet graphic
doesn't automatically organize a protest. They
needed a unifying message. They needed a hook.
Right. And that brings us to the slogan, they
glued everything together. We are the 99 percent.
We hear that phrase constantly today. But our
sources point out there is actual staggering
math backing it up. Let's look at the real numbers
behind that catchy PR. What's fascinating here
is how this specific set of data transformed
a vague, generalized sense of economic unfairness
into a highly effective viral rallying cry. The
slogan was rooted in a congressional budget office
report. OK. The data showed that between 1979
and 2007, the incomes of the pop one. percent
of Americans grew by an average of two hundred
and seventy five percent. Which sounds like a
massive amount on its own. But the contrast is
what really hits hard. The contrast is everything.
Over that same time period since 1979, the average
pre -tax income for the bottom 90 percent of
households actually decreased by nine hundred
dollars. Decreased. Wow. Decreased. Meanwhile,
the top one percent saw their income increase
by over seven hundred thousand dollars. Providing
this stark numerical contrast gave the public
an immediate identity. It framed the issue not
as some abstract rich versus poor debate, but
as the vast, overwhelming majority of society
being systemically left behind by a microscopic,
ultra wealthy fraction. So anyone could look
at that math and instantly realize, hey. I am
the 99%. Exactly. And that mathematical realization
led to thousands of people actually pitching
tents in Zuccotti Park on September 17, 2011.
But once they got there, they faced a literal
logistical nightmare. Oh, absolutely. They were
fiercely committed to participatory democracy,
meaning they flat out refused to elect centralized
leaders or establish a traditional hierarchy.
Imagine trying to run a high -stakes corporate
board meeting with thousands of strangers in
a public dark. How do they actually function?
They managed it through massive gatherings called
general assemblies. Because they didn't have
permits to use amplified sound systems like megaphones
or speakers, they had to improvise. Right, the
human microphone. Yes, the human microphone where
the crowd would literally repeat the speaker's
words in unison so people all the way at the
back could hear. And to vote on things without
shouting over each other, I saw on the notes
they used a highly specific system of hand signals.
Twinkling fingers pointed upward to show agreement
or crossing your arms in an X to signal a hard
block on a proposal. Which is fascinating to
watch. It sounds a bit like trying to debate
policy using jazz hands. Yeah. But this actually
has some serious historical pedigree, doesn't
it? It does. Our sources trace this consensus
-based communication method back to the Quaker
movement, all the way back to participatory democracy
in ancient Athens, and more recently to the spokes
councils used during the 1999 anti -globalization
protests in Seattle. It was a very deliberate,
painstaking attempt to build a working microcosm
of the perfectly equal society they wanted to
see. Which brings us to a mechanism they used
called the stack. When you have thousands of
people wanting to talk, you need a cue. But in
New York City, They utilized what was known as
a progressive stack. I want to make sure I understand
this correctly. How did that alter a normal first
-come, first -served line? So instead of letting
people speak in the exact order they raised their
hands, the assembly facilitators would actively
urge people from marginalized groups like women,
people of color, and the LGBTQ community to step
forward and speak before people from historically
dominant groups. Like white males. Exactly. Those
dominant groups were asked to step back and wait
their turn. And this practice became a massive
flashpoint of debate. Inside the camp, facilitators
viewed the progressive stack as a necessary correction,
a practical way of giving a voice to the voiceless
in a society that had traditionally silenced
them. But outside the movement, critics pointed
to it as fundamentally unfair. They labeled it
a form of forced equality that judged speakers
by their demographics rather than the merit of
their ideas. And that tension over how to operate.
extended to their protest tactics as well. Initially,
there was a strict commitment to nonviolence.
Protesters heavily referenced the writings of
Dr. Gene Sharp, specifically his renowned list
of 198 methods of nonviolent action. Which had
also heavily influenced the Arab Spring activists.
Precisely. They even organized study groups inside
the camps to read his book from dictatorship
to democracy. But a study group doesn't necessarily
hold up when thousands of angry people are crammed
into a city square. Did everyone agree to just
read books and remain entirely passive? Not at
all. While the vast majority remained peaceful,
severe internal divides surfaced as the occupation
stretched on. Some internal factions, notably
the Direct Action Working Group of Occupy Wall
Street, began endorsing a concept called a diversity
of tactics. What does that mean in practice?
It meant that while they might not initiate violence
themselves, they were open to much more confrontational,
disruptive methods that pushed the absolute boundaries
of strict nonviolence. This ideological split
created serious friction within the the camps
and ultimately complicated their public image.
Here's where it gets really interesting, because
the way the local authorities responded to those
tactics is actually what poured gasoline on the
fire. Two major incidents involving the New York
Police Department on the Brooklyn Bridge completely
shifted the public momentum. Yeah, September
24th was a turning point. On September 24th,
2011, during a march uptown, police utilized
a crowd control technique called kettling. Can
you explain what kettling looks like on the ground?
Kettling is when law enforcement uses large cordons
in this case. They used massive orange plastic
nets to physically surround, isolate, and trap
a large group of protesters in a confined space.
Leaving them no route to disperse. Exactly. Trapping
them. And while they were trapped in those orange
nets, a police official named Deputy Inspector
Anthony Bologna was caught on video walking up
and pepper spraying several penned -in, entirely
peaceful female demonstrators right in the face.
And that video went absolutely everywhere online.
Yes. That specific visual was jarring for the
general public. It generated a massive spike
in sympathetic media coverage. People who had
previously ignored the protests were suddenly
paying very close attention. And that outrage
fueled an even larger march the very next week
on October 1st, leading right across the Brooklyn
Bridge. And that march ended with over 700 people
being arrested on the bridge that day. Protesters
claim the police actually tripped them. They
said police stepped back to allow them onto the
vehicular roadway, escorted them partway across
the bridge, and then suddenly trapped and arrested
them en masse. Which led to a major years -long
lawsuit against the city. Yes, and a federal
judge eventually ruled in favor of the protesters,
stating they had not received sufficient or audible
warnings before the trap was sprung. These heavy
-handed police tactics didn't squash the movement.
They acted like a giant megaphone. Which culminates
in October 15th, 2011, the global day of action.
The peak of the movement. This is when we see
the sheer unprecedented scale hitting its absolute
peak. Fueled by the viral imagery coming out
of New York, protests erupted almost simultaneously
in 951 cities across 82 different countries.
The contrast in how these global protests played
out is wildly fascinating. We have over 900 cities,
so let's look at a few distinct examples. Tell
me about what happened in Hong Kong. In Hong
Kong, protesters set up a highly organized, peaceful
occupation in the public plaza directly beneath
the iconic HSBC main building. Wow. Right under
the bank. Right under it. And they managed to
sustain that specific camp, living and organizing
in the shadow of one of the world's largest banks
for nearly a full year before finally being evicted
by court bailiffs. Then you look at Nigeria.
This wasn't just tents in a plaza. Occupy Nigeria
practically shut down the country's infrastructure.
The Nigerian movement began in early January
2012, and it was triggered by the president's
sudden removal of fuel subsidies. Why was that
such a flashpoint? Because for the everyday Nigerian
citizen, that subsidy was one of the few tangible
benefits they received from their country's massive
oil wealth. Removing it essentially doubled the
cost of basic transportation and food overnight.
So they took to the streets. The Occupy protests
there morphed into massive nationwide strikes
that paralyzed major cities. And it worked to
a significant degree. The economic pressure successfully
forced the president to partially restore the
fuel subsidies just two weeks later. That sounds
incredibly unified and productive. But then...
You contrast those events with what happened
in Rome during that initial October 15th Global
Day of Action. Rome was a very different story.
Very different. While thousands of peaceful citizens
gathered to protest economic inequality, the
crowd was infiltrated by masked militants. Extreme
violence erupted. These militants burned cars,
smashed bank windows, and caused over 1 million
euros in property damage. It was chaos. 135 people
were injured, including 105 police officers.
They even broke into a local church and destroyed
a historic statue of the Virgin Mary. It is a
stark reminder of how a single, decentralized,
global call to action can manifest in drastically
different, sometimes destructive ways depending
on the local environment. If we connect this
to the bigger picture, that very decentralization,
the lack of leadership that allowed it to spread
so quickly became a fatal vulnerability when
the authorities decided to push back. Right.
Starting around November 14th, 2011, there was
a highly coordinated crackdown by municipal authorities
around the world to permanently clear the physical
camps. And these were not polite, gentle evictions.
Police forcibly clear Zuccotti Park in New York
during a chaotic middle of the night raid, throwing
tents and personal belongings into garbage. truck.
It was very sudden. In Oakland, California, the
police clearance was particularly brutal. A street
march protesting the camp's closure led to a
severe confrontation where Scott Olson, a former
Marine and Iraq War veteran, suffered a fractured
skull. He was hit directly in the head by a police
projectile, like a tear gas or smoke canister.
Camps in London and across the United States
face similar synchronized riot police evictions.
It all happens so fast. But what is truly remarkable,
however, is the level of surveillance the movement
was under before those crackdowns even occurred.
This detail blew my mind. According to government
documents released much later through the Freedom
of Information Act, the FBI and the Department
of Homeland Security were monitoring the Occupy
movement as early as August 2011. Before the
occupation even started. Exactly. They formed
a partnership called the Domestic Security Alliance
Council. Through this council, federal law enforcement
was actually pooling intelligence and coordinating
directly with the private security forces of
major Wall Street banks to target Occupy protesters.
The fact that federal agencies were sharing intelligence
with the very financial institutions being protested,
it underscores how seriously the establishment
took this perceived threat. But as the physical
camps were swept away, the movement also faced
intense scrutiny and severe criticism from both
within its own ranks and from outside observers.
Yeah. Let's talk about the criticisms. For instance,
the American political philosopher Jody Dean
argued that the movement's absolute obsession
with leaderlessness and autonomy is what but
ultimately doomed it. How so? She suggested that
refusing to build a formal structure paved the
way for internal conflicts. It caused a kind
of toxic paranoia whenever natural leaders inevitably
tried to emerge, which led to the total dissolution
of their organizational power. There were also
very serious accusations regarding antisemitism
within the protests. Our sources note that there
were instances of antisemitic slogans, conspiracy
theories, and signage present at several Occupy
events. Yes, that was a significant... issue
raised by critics. Addressing this, Abraham Foxman,
the national director of the Anti -Defamation
League, offered a perspective. He stated that
while it is not surprising that a massive protest
focused on banking and finance might attract
bigots clinging to hateful stereotypes, those
specific individuals were not expressing or representing
the larger view of the movement. We also have
to look at the actual demographics of the people
sleeping in the parks and marching in the streets.
Right. The data on who was actually there. According
to data presented by a senior fellow at the Brookings
Institution, over a third of the demonstrators
at the May Day. 2011 Occupy March actually had
annual household earnings of more than $100 ,000.
Wait, really? So a huge chunk of the people protesting
the ultra -wealthy were actually quite wealthy
themselves? Statistically, yes. The Brookings
author suggested that rather than looking up
in resentment at the top 1%, the upper middle
class participating in these protests might do
well to look at their own privileged position
compared to the millions of people falling further
and further behind at the absolute bottom of
the economy. It's a fascinating irony to consider.
It just shows how complex the motivations behind
this movement really were. Absolutely. But even
with the physical camps gone, and despite the
internal contradictions and the tear gas, Occupy
didn't just evaporate. It evolved. It took on
new forms. The activists took the massive networks
they had built in the parks and channeled them
into highly specific causes. For example, when
Hurricane Sandy devastated the New York area,
a massive mutual aid campaign called Occupy Sandy
emerged. Which was incredibly effective. They
used their decentralized logistics to provide
crucial, immediate relief to flooded communities,
often moving much faster than official government
agencies like FEMA. There was also Occupy Homes,
an offshoot that fought against big banks by
reoccupying foreclosed houses and physically
blocking police evictions to keep vulnerable
families off the street. Perhaps one of the most
tangible, lasting successes to come out of the
movement's evolution was a project called the
Rolling Jubilee, organized by an offshoot group
called Strike Debt. OK, tell us about Strike
Debt. They essentially weaponized the mechanics
of the financial system against itself. They
raised money through donations to buy up what
is called zombie debt. Things like defaulted
medical bills and private student loans. Hold
on, let me get an ELI 5 on this. How do you just
buy a stranger's medical bill? When a hospital
or credit card company realizes you can't pay
your bill, they eventually write it off as a
loss. They then bundle thousands of these defaulted
accounts together and sell them on a secondary
market to debt collection agencies for pennies
on the dollar. It's like buying storage lockers
blind. The Rolling Jubilee realized they could
step into that secondary market and buy massive
bundles of debt for very little money. But instead
of hiring debt collectors to harass people for
the full amount, they simply forgave the debt.
That is brilliant. They mailed letters to everyday
people telling them their medical bills were
zeroed out. By April 2015, our sources indicate
they had cleared nearly $32 million in debt.
So what does this all mean? When you zoom out
and look at the entire chaotic picture. The viral
ballerina posters, the corporate board meetings
run with jazz hands, the police crackdowns, the
massive debt forgiveness. What is the ultimate
legacy of the Occupy movement? The ultimate victory
of Occupy Wall Street was never about holding
a small piece of park real estate in lower Manhattan.
It was about fundamentally shifting the global
political discourse. The conversation itself.
Right. Think about the years right before 2011.
The dominant conversation in media and politics
was almost entirely focused on the federal budget
deficit, cutting taxes and implementing austerity.
Yeah, that was all anyone talked about. Occupy
forced a violent, sudden pivot. It permanently
injected the vocabulary of the 99 percent and
the one percent into the global consciousness.
It forced everyone from cable news anchors to
local politicians to start talking about income
inequality. It totally changed the framing. It
was so wildly influential that it actually shaped
the political space for President Obama's 2012
State of the Union address, pushing his rhetoric
to heavily address the necessity of the rich
paying a greater share of the tax burden. They
didn't pass a specific law, but they changed
the very words we use to describe our own economy.
I want you to think about that, Lerner. Think
about the media you consume today, the political
debates you watch, the way politicians constantly
talk about wealth hoarding, billionaire taxes,
and the sh**. shrinking middle class. So much
of the modern framing of those arguments traces
its roots directly back to those protesters freezing
in a Manhattan park in the fall of 2011. This
raises an important question, one that gets to
the very heart of how we enact change in the
modern era. Did the Occupy movement's stubborn
refusal to elect traditional leaders and issue
a single list of concrete demands guarantee that
its physical camps would inevitably collapse
under their own weight? Or, conversely, was that
exact leaderless, horizontal blueprint the necessary
experimental prototype for every massive, decentralized,
hashtag -driven social movement that has defined
global activism ever since? the kind of question
that keeps us doing these deep dives. Something
for you to mull over as you navigate the news
and the systems around you today. Keep questioning
the world around you. Keep looking for the bigger
picture and we will catch you on the next one.