Jones, an Obama administration official who resigned under pressure because of his far-left positions, is a fixture at the annual gatherings and a fiery orator. But this version of his yearly pep talk was laced with disappointment. “I’m watching that movement that inspired the world . . . that stunned the world, in the moment of maximum peril now sit down,” he lamented at the opening session, where half of the 500 seats were filled. …

Nelini Stamp, an Occupy leader, spoke at one of the sessions about how the movement went from a day in September when “all of a sudden something happened” to the “dismantling of the parks, city by city.” Stamp described the events of the fall as “a moment in time, and that moment sparked a movement.”

But that movement, by most indications, lacks the energy it once had. Sarita Gupta, with the labor-backed Jobs With Justice, told the conferees that she is looking for alternatives to “getting stuck in these corporate fights that at the end of the day aren’t breaking through.”