Failed Occupy Austin Movement

Reading the "Occupy Austin's eviction from City Hall was timely" Editorial Board's section in the Austin American Statesman was interesting indeed.  The author's opinion seems very clear he feels glad Occupy Austin was evicted off City Hall property and he intends to let the citizens of Austin know why.  He expresses himself by writing about the way the protesters took it upon themselves to trash City Hall; slowly recruiting mostly homeless and being nothing but a campsite on the property.  He states how Occupiers turned the movement into a mission with no real clear purpose as to what they were there for, especially as the four months went by. He writes how not only were the protesters trashing, but also costing the City and its' residents money.  He mentions how we spent about $800,000 with constant cleaning, maintenance, and police patrol at City Hall.  The author definitely shows his emotions by the way he write negatively about the movement.


I agree somewhat with the author.  The movement that originally started with Occupy Wall Street in New York back in September 2011 was a protest to target social and economic inequality and corruption among other issues with our government.  While very loyal protesters for Occupy Austin here stayed until the date of the eviction, others were arrested during the four months and issued trespassing citations.  I agree with the author that Occupiers did trash City Hall which belongs to all the citizens of Austin and I also agree with him in the the sense that too much money was spent during the movement, but I actually had a chance to stop and chat with some of the individuals participating in the protest and many had interesting ideas for the movement.  Unfortunately, when most of the protesters were arrested, it was as if the their ideas were too.  Occupier's denied access back onto City Hall property caused homeless citizens to move into the Occupy Austin campsite and that's really when it started going downhill and no real purpose came out of the movement from then on.  Had the movement had a better initial plan, maybe something productive might have came from the protest.  I too; however, am glad that the movement is over and City Hall is once again looking beautiful.