This Is an Uprising: How Nonviolent Revolt Is Shaping the Twenty-First Century

by Mark Engler

Prior to Occupy, in the summer of 2011, congressional Republicans had effectively trained public attention on controlling the federal budget deficit, creating a debt ceiling, and implementing drastic, emergency cuts to government programs and social services. A ThinkProgress report showed that in the month before activists arrived in Zuccotti Park, news outlets such as CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News were mentioning government debt some fifteen times more often than problems of unemployment.

spent a week in Ohio in early November interviewing dozens of people and reporting on the run-up to the SB 5 referendum,” wrote Mother Jones reporter Andy Kroll. “I visited heavily Democratic and Republican parts of the state, talking to liberals and conservatives, union leaders and activists. What struck me was how dramatically the debate had shifted in Ohio thanks in large part to the energy generated by Occupy Wall Street. It was as if a great tide had lifted the pro-repeal forces in a way you only fully grasped if you were there.”