Why Occupy May Day Fizzled
Editor’s note: Amitai Etzioni is professor of international relations and director of the Institute for Communitarian Policy Studies at George Washington University.
(CNN) — Occupy Wall Street called on the masses to skip work and school on May 1, and to close their wallets. All this was supposed to amount to a general strike, if not an American Spring. Some even talked about bringing down capitalism. But the small demonstrations in many American cities and in other cities across the world had little effect.
Rush hour on the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, supposed to be a major center of protest, flowed. In Los Angeles, two blocks were closed by the authorities in anticipation of possible disruptions. Reports were that protesters in New York did not shut down traffic, as they planned to do. Some 2,000 demonstrated in Athens, and 7,000 next to a Greek factory, one of the most poorly attended demonstrations in the recent experience of this troubled land. Workers marched in several other cities across the world, as they do on every May 1.
Most assuredly, a general strike that fizzles will not serve the cause of reducing inequality, or even help Occupy Wall Street find its sea legs. Occupy Wall Street will have more opportunities to show that it did not flame out; however, it had better come up with a more cogent strategy, or it will soon be one more wasted force, one more protest movement that vented feelings but engendered precious little real social change.