Occupy Wall Street was cleared out by police starting at 1 AM on Tuesday, November 15th, 2011. It was done at 1 AM as they only had to deal with people staying at the park at that time. They arrested 200 people in a well-planned operation. One of the reasons given for clearing the park was unsanitary conditions, which I can personally attest was BS - OWS was always sanitary, and when the mayor began using sanitation as a reason to clear things out OWS became fanatical about cleanliness. I watched people sweep the same spot of ground multiple times an hour. Compare that to the parks and recreation cuts where some NYC parks can go more than a week without any cleanup.
The police pushed back attempts to re-occupy the park in the day of November 15th and November 16th. A more organized effort to get back in the park was tried on New Year's Eve, and was met by pepper spray, dozens of arrests etc.
While this is the reality, which can be easily verified, I realize there is this hegemonic false way of thinking. I realize this requires reporting that OWS were a bunch of trustafarians not affected by Wall Street shenanigans, and who went home when it got cold. Because to talk about what really happened, as opposed to the invented ideas of what would happen from someone embracing a propagandistic model of explanation, would require revealing things which are not allowed to be revealed.
While I embrace ideas that came out of OWS, I didn't go for the first week or two even though I knew about it before it happened, because I didn't see how occupying an area would do anything, and I didn't think people were interested. On that latter point I certainly misjudged - people from NYC and surrounding areas who had pent-up frustration about unemployment and the economy came flooding into OWS. Any how, it's funny how Russian governments or Chinese governments and their press organs lied, and much of the population knew its BS, yet the corporate press organs in the U.S. lie and say it got too cold so OWSers went home, and it is accepted as fact by so many. That the press lies is not surprising, that Americans are so credulous is what's surprising. I guess with so much fundamentalist religion among the working class and a different sort of warped thinking among professionals in the US, I shouldn't be continuously surprised by this, but I am.