Here's one very specific thing that could be counted as part of a victory:

What can the City of Seattle do to advance the ideals of justice and fairness advocated by the Occupy Wall Street Movement? Here's a simple, but powerful suggestion: urge the Seattle City Employees’ Retirement System to stop investing in “Private Equity.” The trouble with Private Equity from the standpoint of justice and fairness is that Private Equity investment firms benefit from one of the most inefficient and unfair tax breaks in the Federal Tax Code, namely the taxation of “carried interest” at the capital gains tax rate of 15% rather than at the ordinary income tax rate of 35%. The Seattle Retirement System’s investments in Private Equity indirectly support this unjust tax break because some of the Private Equity investment firms the Retirement System hires doubtlessly make political contributions to organizations that lobby Congress in order to preserve this unfair and inefficient tax break.

There are many other reasons to avoid Private Equity - it hasn’t generated very good returns for the Seattle Retirement System, it’s almost wholly responsible for the sharp increase in the Retirement Office’s legal costs, and Private Equity investment contracts are among the most opaque contracts in financial markets. But one reason overwhelms all the rest: would City employees, and the citizens of Seattle, approve of placing the City's and its employees' retirement contributions with investment firms that pay a lower tax rate than the vast majority of City workers and Seattle citizens whose median income is far below that of private equity managers?

It’s not often that you have an opportunity to do something that furthers the pursuit of justice and fairness, while at the same time advancing the economic interests of the City (paying lower investment fees leaves more resources for libraries, parks, and other worthwhile endeavors). This is an easy one. Let’s do it!

Sincerely,
J.S. Mill

Unpredictability and the willingness to mobilize where needed in a manner that makes them unstoppable is what give guerrilla forces an edge.

Fixed locations and predictable behavior always lead to the Man winning.

Embrace your guerrilla nature.

Because whether they camp at Westlake or City Hall is all that matters. Now that economic inequality is of no concern.

@1 tl;dr

You do realize that this is what your little movement looks like to most of the 99%:

http://steveisraelstandswiththem.com/

Don't you?

@3: I've clarified to point out that this also has the benefit of allowing the messaging to ring out more clearly.

"Victory" in this small paradigm, would be to occupy one space continuously, not two occasionally, although I'm not sure where that can be accomplished.

Calling for a National General Assembly in Philadelphia next year, on July 4th:

http://tinyurl.com/67h3vlq

This could get interesting!

"The messaging wouldn't get lost"

This presumes that someone has found the message?

Occupy will claim victory once the Fed gets to inflate the money supply with QE3.

Sames as Tea Partiers in Congress ended up raising the debt ceiling.

As far as this revolution goes, I'll continue napping.

How did this become a fight over the right to be in Westlake Plaza?

I thought this was supposed to be about economic injustice and Wall Street greed.

Who gives a damn about Westlake?

@11 bravo. I thought victory would look more like "Bush tax cuts repealed" and "Wall Street crooks imprisoned" or "big jobs bill" than whether some tents get to stay in Westlake or City Hall or someplace else. In the rain.

I stand against economic injustice and its many causes and have taken part in a couple of the Saturday events and General Assemblies. I am concerned after what is in my opinion a weakness in one of this groups main strengths; that being that the folks who have the time and are willing to experience the discomfort of “holding” the plaza and thus maintaining the backbone of the “Occupation” are in no small part antagonistic with the police force and espouse Anarchist views. It’s a huge turnoff to the 99%, who all have an interest in seeing and supporting this movement’s success, the mass majority of share some ideological common ground on a lot of what is actually at issue here, Economic Injustice. I stand against police brutality. I marched in the John T. Williams demonstration (until it was brought off course and away from the news cameras by the anarchist contingent and up to the choir, capitol hill and the west precinct and away from the teevee news folks) but this is not about that. The police are prostitutes (Civil Disobedience) but also… Let’s not allow our legal limitations and those paid to enforce them divide us or water down our message. We are in the majority on Economic Injustice and are justified in bringing it to the streets as our vote has been watered down and manipulated by the 1%, however folks will stay at home as long as this movement is permitted to be hijacked by those who would prefer the lazy destruction of civil society instead of the difficult task of reclaiming and repairing it. That is what victory will look like for me and it is well within reach. The people united cannot be defeated.

Uh-Oh... There's dissension in the ranks:

http://www.occupyr.com/General/thread.ph…

@14, this thing is done. It's time to sweep these idiots out of the parks for good.

Following your link, I find "In the emails, it is revealed that in situations, a member of OWS replaced the "Donate" link to her own personal websites so she could buy new clothes. In another incident, it was found that one organizer was censoring people on the website. Another member in the ranks has self-appointed himself as an Official Spokesman for the movement, despite disagreement from other OWS members..."

The problem with this thing isn't that "there's no message" or "there's no action plan". It's that it's run by a bunch of anarchist nitwits who make your average Tea Partier look like a brain surgeon. Members of the reality-based community, including much of the mainstream media, have been very thoughtful in their responses to OWS and what it means. OWS has not returned the favor.

I thought OWS was about income inequality and Wall Street greed and corruption. And in New York..THAT'S what it is about, with other items being largely underplayed. And New York has done an amazing job getting that message across.

But here in Seattle....I haven't a fucking clue what it's about except disorganization, clustered messages and confusion. Oh, and the right to camp overnight in a public park. Oh ant Tibet now...Tibet is in the mix along with hating Columbus Day.

The Viadoom is coming to get you, 1 percenters.

Even your fancy helicopters.

This comment thread seems to be slipping back into confusion about the difference between grievances and goals.

The main grievance of the protest is still economic injustice.

The main (and the only official) goal of the protest is still Occupation.

Dear Eli, Maybe you should spend more time thinking about what's going on and what's at stake before you try to write about it.

Like many, I want to express my outrage over an unjust economy and a broken democracy, then translate that outrage into effective action to transform society. Tents and drum circles are fine for the Rainbow Gathering, but are sometimes more of a distracting sideshow creating good stock footage for a media that wants to paint this movement as a pointless irrelevancy.
I went to Westlake yesterday and was very disappointed at the disorganization and increasingly splintered message. I got told that cops are bad...yes, sometimes they are and we need oversight, but what's the point, that we should have no police? Where has that worked out, what nation doesn't have police, Somalia maybe? I got handed flyers from the Communist Party, these hangers-on, like the LaRouchies, trying to parasitically glom onto and claim this movement for their own. Really, communists? Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, ruthless dictators who murder and oppress their own people?
I want to be physically present to support change, I want to dialogue with a diverse and engaged community, and I'll do exactly that, but it's starting to look like going to Westlake every Saturday may not be the right forum. Still, I'll keep trying this venue for a while, in hopes that real, broad based community direction and leadership will emerge.

@20: Dhal9000, if you had stayed for our General Assembly Saturday evening, you would have heard a few working groups' reports followed by a discussion of potential direct actions, including the following:

• on Black Friday, day after Thanksgiving, do something in the middle of the day to peacefully and creatively interrupt the shopping frenzy, followed by big celebration demonstrating joy we can experience for free.
  
• Make an origami tent for every home that has been foreclosed upon during the Great Recession. Takes about two minutes each to build them
  
• PVC arm cuffs when there's a line of resistance.
  
• Occupy foreclosure auctions every week until there is a moratorium on foreclosures and banks are forced to do what's right.
  
• Halloween party for kids at Westlake Park on 29th
  
• Publishing zine with stories
  
• everyone read Sun Su's Art of War
  
• "Operation smoke" Whenever you take your smoke break, do it at Chase and Bank of America. You'll find friends there. Open the doors for them.
  
• Bank occupations. Go in, occupy, refuse to go. This is, obviously, civil disobedience, and illegal. This can pull us together.
  
• Someone make her Disney princess tent into a mobile structure she can wear
  
• Surround banks with crime scene tape and conduct citizens arrests. Do this often.
  
• start politics working group to identify targets of direct actions (will not get involved with them)
  
• Study other movements that have succeeded. (e.g. General Strike in Seattle)
  
• Organize a march on Wall Street (in Belltown). Dress up on most corporate looking clothes, carry signs citing statistics about corporations exploiting workers and the envirionment. Ex: "I'm a Hershey's CEO and I get my beans from children in XXX"
  
• E-mail congressional representatives and tell them to nationalize the Federal Reserve system
  
• Everybody bring more people to our events. Call everyone you know, and you'll be surprised at the response.
  
• Occu-pie picnic tomorrow afternoon. She and friends are baking pies. Bake some and join.
  
• Organize outreach campaign supporting SJM 8007-211-12, which would strip corporations of personhood by organizing outreach.
  
• do something for November 2 visit by CEO of Chase at Sheraton
  
• celebrate holidays here
  
• go to street side, ask people to honk in support
  
• engage organized labor movement in this country
  
• Send ambassadors around the city to tell people what we're about.
  

For related information, see the minutes.