The new OWS: Reset button or game over?

Has the push to clear Zuccotti Park of protesting campers who squatted for two months as part of the Occupy Wall Street demonstration helped the movement hit a “reset button” that will boost momentum and bring the next evolution of OWS?  Or has the imposition of law broken the back of the demonstration?  It depends on who reports the story.  At MSNBC, Miranda Leitsinger reports that the Occupiers have re-energized and have re-occupied Zuccotti Park, and are ready to take on the world:

Defiant Occupy Wall Street protesters streamed into Zuccotti Park late Tuesday in a bid to rebuild their cause less than 24 hours after police removed them from their camp, with one activist saying the eviction had helped push an important “reset button” on the direction of the growing grassroots movement.

A fired-up crowd of several hundred joined in the first general assembly since the Tuesday morning eviction. Some wore paper cutouts reading “99%,” others carried American flags and several held signs, including one that read, “You cannot evict an idea whose time has come.”

“We can’t fill this park with tents right now, but we can still fill it with our energy,” protester Sully Ross, a carpenter from Brooklyn, told the crowd gathered under a light rain and trees of golden-colored leaves. “We can fill it with our bodies and we can fill it with our ideas. …We’re declaring this night a night of celebration and a night of planning.”

Void of the tents that had filled it until early morning, protesters shared their experiences of the eviction and gathered in small groups to discuss the best ways forward. Ross said more than 80 working groups — tackling issues such as electoral reform and alternative banking options — were continuing their work and that the spokes council — made up of those working groups — would meet Wednesday.

Eighty working groups?  According to the New York Daily News team that live-blogged the action at Zuccotti Park all night long, that would be more working groups than people — even as late as an hour ago:

4:28 AM Erik Badia

Still a very small number of protesters here, have yet to see any fresh blood coming in. …

4:46 AM Erik Badia

The few protesters that are here just got into another confrontation with (I believe) one of the Brookfield security guards. …

It’s almost 7 a.m. and still Zuccotti Park is nearly empty, as you can see in the picture.  There are perhaps 25 protesters here and only a handful have trickled in over the last half hour. …

6:40 AM Matthew Lysiak

At Zuccotti Square members of the press now outnumber protesters. …

6:57 AM Matthew Lysiak

The same guy who attempted to tie the sign to a tree is now attempting to tie a rope. Again, he was ordered to take it down. Again, he complied.

Strangely, this is the most excitement to be found in Zuccotti Square – where only forty hours earlier had been the scene of non-stop energy.

Jammie Wearing Fool writes the epitaph:

This entire “movement” has largely been misrepresented by the media as “sweeping the nation” and a “worldwide movement” when it’s nothing but a clumsy leftwing movement aided and abetted by the Democrats and unions. Now that many of these Obamavilles have been swept up by Democrat mayors, only scattered remnants remain.

Don’t expect the media and their 60s-nostalgic editors to report the fizzle, though, especially at MSNBC.

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