Maybe the time for street action is over. Maybe it's time for Occupy to move on to a different strategy. Protests did serve to grow the Occupy movement and make people aware of it. They would have done that better if the media had been willing to cover them, but still they brought the issue of 1% vs. 99% into the public conversation.
At this point protests face a couple of big dangers. One is the one you raise: the brutality that is likely to be used against them. I just don't like to see blood. I can't accept the thought that to bring about change they have to suffer violence. The other danger is that Occupy will be infiltrated with violent actors to the point where their message is undermined.
For these reasons, I think Occupy must look elsewhere, somewhere other than the street, for their next actions. Historically, agents of change have worked by forcing the machine to stop, whether by withholding their labor or by somehow getting in the way of business as usual. But things have changed since earlier protest movements. What's the meaning or effect of striking when so many are unemployed and so much of what the system needs is made overseas anyway? The risk to life and limb is greater now, because of the drones you refer to as well as an arsenal of equipment that can be used against peaceful protestors. And the media coverage is thin and biased.
Occupy's challenge now is to find a way to get the American people to see the system for what it is -- a means of ensuring that more and more wealth and power get funnelled to those who have the most already and that fails utterly to protect the rights of the rest of us -- and to be willing to change it. Street protests? Maybe. But I hope they can find another way, one that is as effective but less risky to their well being.
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