Occupy Wall Street rallies in Foley Square yesterday (Reuters)
Those obnoxious outliers who call themselves Occupy Wall Street are wrapping up a three-day anniversary reunion today every bit as much in need of a purpose as when they first gathered in Lower Manhattan a year ago.
After a weekend of politically pointless events, the group planned to pounce on the financial district this morning for a nostalgic trip down Nonsense Lane.
* At 7 a.m., there were to be “99 Revolutions: A swirl of mobile intersection occupations.” (Those showing up so early could figure out what the heck that means on their own.)
* At 10 a.m., they were to stage “an ecologically themed convergence for a sustainable future.” Windbag power, we’d guess.
Last year, the ragtag assemblage of stragglers, radicals, moochers, trust-fund sophists, bums, rapists, drug-dealers, petty criminals and cop-car poopers managed to generate headlines for months.
But not much else got done.
In part, that’s because OWS never managed to figure out what it wanted.
And to the extent it did, it fell short: If the goal, after all, was the end of capitalism, well — they might as well have tried to outlaw gravity. If it was to have Wall Street bigwigs hauled off in handcuffs, that certainly backfired, as cops rounded up thousands of their own ranks instead.
True, labor groups like the teachers unions “seen their opportunities and took ’em” — putting the movement to work on behalf of their own efforts to keep lousy schools open, charter schools out and incompetent teachers on the payroll.
And, yes, the prospect of appealing to “99 percent” of voters proved irresistible to more than a few cynical pols: In December, Gov. “Read My Lips” Cuomo broke his vow and hiked taxes on millionaires — in reaction, no doubt, to a populist atmosphere the OWSers helped create.
What else did the movement accomplish?
Well, it certainly caused a ruckus for Downtown residents and workers with their endless, meaningless drum-banging. It shut traffic, depressed commerce, killed jobs and clogged up the courts with thousands of staged arrests.
Then there were the sexual attacks, theft and drug use at Zuccotti Park, which the group had swiped from the public.
But when City Hall finally summoned the courage to delouse the park, the movement — leaderless, purposeless and embarrassingly irrelevant — swiftly fizzled.
No doubt, it’ll try to reconstitute itself as the presidential election comes to a close.
But it’ll just be theater.
That’s all Occupy Wall Street ever was.