Pre-Occupied: The Origins and Future of Occupy Wall Street

This is how Occupy Wall Street began: as one of many half-formed plans circulating through conversations between Kalle Lasn and Micah White, who lives in Berkeley and has not seen Lasn in person for more than four years. Neither can recall who first had the idea of trying to take over lower Manhattan. In early June, Adbusters sent an e-mail to subscribers stating that “America needs its own Tahrir.” The next day, White wrote to Lasn that he was “very excited about the Occupy Wall Street meme. . . . I think we should make this happen.” He proposed three possible Web sites: OccupyWallStreet.org, AcampadaWallStreet.org, and TakeWallStreet.org.

“No. 1 is best,” Lasn replied, on June 9th. That evening, he registered OccupyWallStreet.org.

Source: The New Yorker
Published: Nov 21, 2011
Length: 22 minutes (5,700 words)
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