First off I would like to say I am pleased with the amount of progress and conversation the Occupy Movement generated in its infancy. I monitored the progress of what was happening on the news and through numerous other web sources such as Adbusters, Twitter, and various video channels as the protests began. It was a glimmer of hope, and I wanted to be a part of it.

.
After the long winter and after compiling numerous testimonies from people who had participated in the NYC protests and other protests in other major cities it was clear that Occupy was going to fail. The reason I see as to why it was destined to fail was simple.

.
No unified message
No unified leadership
No gameplan for future change

.
While I understand a lot of the basic principles of Occupy were founded on the idea of group concensus, it was something it desperately needed. The major problem with Occupy is that it didn’t have any way of attracting more people into it; essentially it failed in marketing itself to the apathetic middle to lower class people that needed it to succeed most.

.
If you asked your average American citizen what they thought about Occupy it was generally “they’re insane”, “they’re dirty hippies” or “I like what they support, but what is sitting in a park accomplishing?” (no connection made between the ideological implications of occupying a park and the disparity between rich and poor). It is so frustrating to agree with what a group of people are doing, peacefully occupying public space to try and trigger social change, and instead see it all ruined by one or two press interviews with the craziest person they can find attatched to the movement who only wants to talk about smoking pot on the bus or some pointless crazy story.

.
While individual goals and needs are important, we all have to agree on the rights and ideas we want to accomplish first and have a unified leadership that can intelligently discuss and promote those goals. The lack of such leadership leaves any peaceful movement open to spin and mianipulation in the public eye of MSN, Fox News, and various online media,.. whose economic intrests are in direct opposition to the ideologies supported by the movement.

.
Along with a unified message and leadership would inevitably come a plan for future change or a list of desirable changes to be made to satisfy the group. These few simple changes in organization are critical to the success of such a campaign. Again, I am not downplaying the importance of individual goals, needs, desires. You can individually support any goal you want through this movement; it is simply important to have everyone unified under one or two common goals and have leadership that will promote those goals.

.
The final piece I would like to add is the importance of nonviolence. It seems that either through chaotic assembly or through direct government subversion the Occupy Movement found itself plaugued with violent protesters and vandals. This kind of action was claimed to be “required” in order to impact any real change.

.
In my eyes and in the eyes of American citizens looking to the Occupy movement but not yet involved, it only helped ruin Occupy’s public image. The battle is not won by spray painting a cop car or breaking a store window; it’s a battle of hearts and minds joining together peacefully to tell a corrupt system that it’s in the wrong. By acting out in violence anarchists and others only helped the media demonize Occupy further and fine-tune their headlines to hate the movement.