In front of Chase Bank. Credit: Paul Holmes

Fair or not, the success of a movement is gauged by its ability to win the hearts and minds of mainstream Americans. And that means hammering home a message that people can understand. For Occupy Wall Street—often criticized for its vague agenda—it wins by keeping up a relentless drumbeat about how banks and the wealthiest Americans have profited while the standard of living has atrophied for America’s middle class (something everybody understands). By that metric: Occupy Seattle had a banner week. But it wasn’t by accident. And it wasn’t without sacrifice.

Here’s how they did it:

Targeting the right people: Protesters formed a human chain outside the Sheraton Hotel when JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon came to speak on November 2 at a “Business Leadership Celebration.” Cops pepper-sprayed demonstrators with abandon, the protesters created a clinic to wash out their eyes, and the whole event led the front page of the Seattle Times and every other news outlet in town. It was all about targeting Dimon, who was at the epicenter of the financial collapse that cost millions of American jobs, but who still has a net worth of between $300 million and $3 billion.

Picking the right backdrop: Hours before Occupy Seattle targeted Dimon, five protesters walked into the Chase bank on Broadway and, in the bank lobby, chained their arms together between lengths of PVC piping. Nearly 100 protesters and three dozen cops faced off in a street battle, while demonstrators attempted to block a paddy wagon from leaving the scene. Six people were arrested. The backdrop to the news coverage? A giant blue Chase bank logo.

Events for people who don’t want to get pepper-sprayed: Bank Transfer Day, on November 5, featured withdrawals from national financial giants and new accounts at credit unions. The fun kicked off in Seattle with city council member Mike O’Brien joining Verity Credit Union in Wallingford, while a crowd (half with silver hair) swarmed around the Bank of America branch in Westlake Park as folks walked in and closed their accounts. While some of the recent Occupy protests have been mired in internal politics, these demonstrations attracted lots of TV cameras catching the totally on-point, completely comprehensible message. Also popular: Lots of media reports about various economic experts and professors holding teach-ins.

Support from City Hall: November 7 brought a pro–Occupy Wall Street resolution before the Seattle City Council that, among other things, calls on the city to “ensure that public funds are invested in responsible financial institutions that support our community” and rethink campaign financing for city elections. Sponsored by Council Member Nick Licata, the measure is expected to pass on November 14.

Keep changing the tactics: Occupy found new ways to get attention, making hit after hit with the mainstream media and setting it all to frames that reinforced their message. If Occupy Wall Street can keep up orchestrated events like these—even half as often—public support will keep growing, and the movement can sustain itself indefinitely. recommended

7 replies on “Occupy Seattle Focuses, Finally”

  1. ” It was all about targeting Dimon, who was at the epicenter of the financial collapse that cost millions of American jobs, but who still has a net worth of between $300 million and $3 billion.”

    This is a rather sneaky way of suggesting Dimon played a key in the financial crisis without actually saying so. Had the protestors been targeting Countrywide’s Angelo Mozilo, WaMu’s Killinger, or AIG’s Cassano, you’d find no complaint, but how exactly do you finger Jamie Dimon for the Financial Crisis?

  2. Mr. Holden,

    You left out their successful attacks on the soap dispensers at SSCC.

    “Down with cleanliness, up with shooting up!”

    You go fleabagers, you go.

  3. I’m member of the occupy seattle information and morale workgroups. The previous comment is misinformed. The demonstrators at Seattle Central Community College are working with occupy sccc and the administration to maintain our good neighbor and no tolerance policy on drugs and alcohol. I encourage people to go to http://www.occupyseattle.org and get further Accurate information.

  4. I am hoping that what I say makes sense to someone, and they will start writing and treating this “occupy movement” with the respect it is going to earn. Did you see where Israel had a demonstration of 500,000 people demanding concessions from their government? It worked. Listen to Martin Luther King, his words are as meaningful today as they were then. This struggle for economic justice and government control will be won by the people! (It is very old..).

    I feel the occupy movement does have a basic underlying message; Stop letting money decide political elections; And regulate corporate lobbying (and all lobbying) making it a public forum. Right now lobbying is mostly two old white guys sitting across from each other in an office. “They” have probably worked with each other or went to the same school; And “they” have promised you a job when you get out of politics, — tripling your present salary!. The “lobbyist” used to be a “politician”, it worked for him!. Who owns who? – That’s a “Person-hood”.

    I lived in the Glenn Hotel in downtown Seattle when the WTO protests happened. It happened at my front door. I was a part of it, promoting it, and involved in it. There is something going on, and I am going to be a part of it again. I have helped organize and promote protests in Bellevue, Olympia, and Seattle Washington; another big one is coming. I feel it will be a “WTO” sized protest in multiple cities.

    “I” was at the WTO protests in Seattle Washington, (with thousands of “other” really awesome “people”, and a few “freaks”) when a bunch of “anarchists” started busting windows with crowbars. We surrounded them, and they got in a circle with their crowbars. I tried to get the “Seattle police” to come arrest “these anarchists”, that were only fifty feet away and threatening violence and breaking windows… The “Seattle police” would not budge from their “police line”, making all of “us” the “enemy”…. (There were thousands of “union” and “other” people sitting and standing in the street, – it was a relatively peaceful protest until the windows started breaking…). ” I” am not the “enemy”.

    I will be in Seattle at 700 Stewart street at the Federal courthouse January 20th, 2012!!! I know we can do this better than last time.

    The Corporate Occupation of the United States

    Our corporate controlled government (through corporate lobbying and election funding ) is out of the peoples control. People want government control back. Makes sense to me… I feel US corporate capitalism (corporatism) is a type of economic fascism: To have a corporate being where the chain of command eventually muddles all responsibility to any human being. These corporate beings are running your life, and controlling your government. (Enough to really make an individual mad and protest.) In reality, the corporate being does not exist, and when it comes to face it’s corporate responsibility, it is a piece of paper. (Or a CEO saying; “I do not recall that”, “I did not have that information”, “that was not my responsibility, I was running the company, and not just that department”,,, and on and on. It has bred a corporate culture of abuse, because they keep getting away with it..), Corporate person-hood is plain and simply wrong: A corporation is not a human being. Restore capitalism to individual responsible chains of command, or this struggle will be lost.

    Please Sign the petition to amend the Constitution for revoking corporate personhood at:

    movetoamend.org

    (I feel January 20th, 2012: will be a bigger day in US history than WTO in Seattle. The battle continues, rage against the machine is real.)

    January 20, 2012 – Move to Amend Occupies the Courts!

    Move To Amend is planning bold action to mark this date — Occupy the Courts — a one day occupation on Friday January 20, 2012, of the Federal Courts, including the Supreme Court of the United States and as many of the 89 U.S. District Court Buildings as we can. (I am inspired by Doctor Martin Luther King who said; “a true revolution of values”, … “there comes a time when silence is betrayal”., “people are not gonna be silenced”.). Move to Amend will lead the charge on the judiciary which created — and continues to expand — corporate personhood rights.

    http://open.salon.com/blog/kennspace/201…

  5. CNN is disgusting, very difficult for a progressive to watch. Today, I see Don Lemon reporting on Occupy Portland. Lemon keeps trying to frame it into the new media mime that Occupy needs to evolve and stop enabling crime on the streets (in other words to go somewhere else where they won’t annoy the business interests). They report that Occupiers have dwindled in numbers; and yet instead of putting the cameras on the 100’s sounds like 1000’s of people chanting in the background, the camera remains fixed on what looks like 50-100 military looking cops, and on an empty part of the park. The woman from Occupy Portland who was interviewed reported that 7000 or so people had come earlier to defend the Occupiers. Every time the CNN camera begins to pan the scene, it may accidentally peek at some of the chanters and immediately pans to the right back at the cops. How this focus on the ominous police presence shows that the occupiers are dangerous, is a mystery to me, but maybe that’s what the Neanderthal portion of the public takes from this. Just trying to show that a large chanting crowd of citizen protesters requires an enormous police presence, even though there was no crisis or danger with the Occupy crowd. Someone is desperately forcing the cameraman to focus away from the crowd of citizens. It’s so obvious when the “mainstream media” decides to adopt a storyline to please their corporate masters. I hope you who allow your employers to do this to you, Don Lemon, lose your jobs anyway, when CNN goes another direction as they flail around for traction when they do not report for the edification and benefit of the average American but only serve their corporate masters, do you know how obvious you are? So then the entire media establishment has finally decided that the occupy movement is vulnerable and it’s time for the media to destroy them. This movement has emboldened people to believe that they do count and that they can do something to restore fairness in our country (and in many other countries). You CNN are crushing that belief.

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