The text is a translation of a subchapter from David Graeber's book Democracy Project: A History, a Crisis, a Movement. The author analyses what slowed down the movement Occupy Wall Street, and led so many to believe the movement was collapsing. He argues that it was unhappy concatenation of several factors: the sudden change in police tactics, which made it impossible for activists to create any sort of free public space in an American city without being immediately physically assaulted by police; the abandonment by movement’s liberal allies who made no effort to make a public issue of this new policy; and a sudden media blackout, that which ensured most Americans had no idea any of this was even happening.
