It’s Going Down | September 17, 2021
Statement from Metropolitan Anarchist Coordinating Council (MACC) on the anarchist legacy of Occupy Wall Street on the movement’s 10th anniversary.
Lenapehoking, Turtle Island (also known as New York City) – Since its demise in the Fall of 2012, various individuals, websites, social media accounts, and politicians have tried to claim the mantle of Occupy Wall Street. The associations are endless, from Bernie Sanders-aligned “socialists” to neoliberal Twitter accounts praising landlords for evicting people. Any journalist writing about the OWS movement should know its actual history, separated from the machinations of those who later tried to co-opt its message for themselves. OWS was anarchism in practice, and that is its legacy.
Several members of MACC were present for the early days of Occupy Wall Street, and, along with thousands of others, helped to build it into what it became. We have drafted this press release to ensure journalists understand that in all likelihood, if you are seeing a website or Twitter account that is “Occupy” branded today, it does not reflect the politics of OWS. On this, the tenth anniversary of Occupy Wall Street, we, as anarchists, activists, and witnesses to history, want to clarify and reclaim the legacy of this incredible movement.
