The hammer has come down on the Occupy movement nationwide.  At its peak, Occupy looked to be a second coming of the mass protests of 1968, a zeitgeist- defining, generation-galvanizing cultural and political surge that would sweep the corruption, bigotry and ignorance out of our political system by sheer popular will. This was the elusive people power the current generation had so looked forward to while spending so much energy cynically dismissing the possibility or even the usefulness of such a movement.  For a shining moment, it seemed as if the self-centered despair and unthinking complacency of 21st century young America would be transformed into the kind of boundless, slightly loopy optimism and determination that had marked the progressive movements in the early 20th century and the 1960s. For two dizzying months, the numbers in Zuccotti Park swelled toward the 100,000 mark.  Every major city had its own encampment.  The media decried the movement as the whining of a spoiled, degenerate youth, but everyone who recognized the true ideals of the movement paid the howling of the corporate mob no mind. Here was a leaderless, all-inclusive movement that encompassed every group and issue that had activists to push it.  The lack of a hierarchy and uniformity seemed a necessary form for representing the din of a globalized humanity.  From the revolutions in the Middle East to the student protests in London the previous year, Occupy felt like the drive for equality in society and honesty in government had truly arrived. I spent many days at the local Pittsburgh camp, breathing in the idealism and diversity that escapes the homogenous way our society represents itself.  But the euphoria wore off, and I began seeing the cracks in the movement. One of the main reasons I had left the leftist activist scene in high school was the incessant, bitter sectarianism between the two main factions: anarchists and socialists.  The rancor and dogmatic ideology that both sides clung to ensured that they spent as much time denouncing and undermining each other as organizing against their common capitalist enemy.  In my opinion, it is this schism, consisting of nothing more than cliquish snobbery and a childish refusal to compromise, that prevents an effective left wing in this country. Occupy Wall Street began with the common goal of battling the kleptocratic oligarchy who are in the process of financially and morally bankrupting this country, as well as the political lap dogs who allow them to escape criminal prosecution.  The influx of different activist groups and people from all walks of life spurred the proliferation of countless side issues and the muddying of the original agenda. There was never any core document that stated the main goals of the movement, a move that I regard as a massive mistake. The media were able to spin the movement as a collection of spoiled brats and homeless miscreants in part because the main goal of the movement was obscured by performance art nonsense, hyperbolic identity politics and the anemia that comes from a mass movement that had no clue where to go from its initial formation. Even worse, there has been proven allegations that provocateurs, mainly undercover police, infiltrated the movement from its earliest stages.  The overblown demonization of the movement by the likes of Fox News, which fixated on the misdeeds of a few members of the occupation, many of whom were later identified as police officers, was part of an obvious government move to smash the movement, no doubt ordered by the corporations who felt the main threat from Occupy. The despicable police brutality that peaceful protesters have been subjected to is on a scale that hasn’t been seen in this country since the Vietnam protests in the 1960s.  Nationwide, the mayors of the cities in which encampments had sprung up coordinated their actions for a nationwide purge, which gutted the movement. How was this possible?  During my time with Occupy Philadelphia, I witnessed a near mass brawl break out between opposing sides of the encampment, which had split down the middle between those who wanted to cut a deal with the city government and relocate somewhere much less visible, and those who wanted to stay the course. The collaborators had the final say, just in time for the city to serve the camp with an eviction notice. As it turns out, the collaborators went behind the camp’s back and cut a secret deal with the government, agreeing to move without the consent of the camp. It is exactly this kind of infighting and probable infiltration that weakened the movement enough for the mass arrests and media propaganda to finish it off. I am not optimistic for the future of Occupy Wall Street unless it decides to address the flaws that allowed its defeat. What it needs is less individualistic posturing, more proactive strategy.