[hueving]

But OWS wasn't representative of a very large portion of the population. That's the issue with not having a message. Other than acting as a way for people currently pissed off about something to get together, it provided no message for the broader population (e.g. baby boomers with collapsed retirement accounts, etc) to get behind. Every time I asked someone about OWS that wasn't an early twenties reddit user, they would just mention that they were the modern 'hippies protesting the system'.

Successful protests have leaders are not nearly as organic as they initially appear. OWS participants failed to realize this and instead sat around empathizing with each other.

[tel]

I'm not claiming OWS was at all successful. I'm claiming that ignoring people complaining just because they fail to organize well is something of a warning sign.