Forum Post: Enemy Response Stages of a Popular Movement (Please Read)

Phase 1: If you are just starting out, and can be easily quantified by a low number (dozens of protesters) and are mono-locational(Wall St.) then you can easily be ignored. Simply ignoring you gives very little traction since they aren't legitimizing your movement with a response. Some groups never make it out of this phase since their message/members/etc can't creep out of this hole.

If you survive that then:

Phase 2: Marginalizing. You are painted as a "tiny, radical group" of protesters that the general public should avoid or laugh at. This is where you get news crews and reports painting pictures of isolated individuals to generalize onto the entire movement, i.g., "Lazy, drug-addicted, American hating, welfare queen hippies" and so forth.

If your movement continues to grow and gain approval beyond that:

Phase 3: Your group is now being painted as an "arm of group X" with X being a recognized and domesticated "enemy" party. Sometimes that party helps this along by trying to co-op the group as well. This is bad because this lets them use their entrenched network and tools to subdue the popularity of the movement by blending them into the status quo shell game. It is much easier for people like Rush to talk about and try to deal with a group when it is simply layered onto an already bombarded target.

From what I've seen, OWS is starting oscillating between those two phases. If they make it without being undermined and portioned up by the current powers that be and actual gain substantial power of their own then we have:

Phase 4: Bargaining. This is probably one of the more insidious phases since it seems like your movement has finally got what it wants. Compromises from the powers that be. But this is a facade. What they will give you are juicy, but short term boons that in the long run, maintain the status quo. This is a nasty tactic because it tends to deflate the movement's mom