In any case, it seems like the movement is at it's peak right now, it seems it could go on forever: it might be better to let the police force them out and martyr the movement so that it can claim its small victory and organize for the next maneuver. Better to get violently, visibly snuffed out by the rough hands of the police than to have people simply get bored or frustrated and leave. But that's not to say I don't think staying has it's own benefits.
I was down at Occupy DC today and my sense was that there are two things they are doing and they are at cross purposes. On the one hand there is the sort of prefigural politics a la Graeber that is effective on the ground level--we are living in a small way the kind of society we would like to see created, sharing, democratic decision making, commons, etc. If they focused on doing this, despite sectarian differences (united to basically keep the occupation going for as long as possible--maybe even started planting some crops and building some shanties. I'm thinking of the diggers) then it would likely be a good overall experience, showing them the things that are possible through this kind of intentional community.
On the other hand, they have this pressure to create some sort of effective political movement and this means taking some sort of decision that will eventually be unpleasant for some member of the group. In Occupy DC, this is already visible in the fact that there are two separate occupy movements, one in McPherson square that is more focused on economic justice and the OWS line of 99%, etc. while the one in Freedom plaza (about half a mile away) is more focused on the wars (code pink, etc.) I talked to someone in the latter group , however, and she said that even they were all having a hard time agreeing in the meetings at the end of the day what their strategies or targets should be. It is "an emotional roller coaster" and many people debate leaving every day. This degrades the overall potential for the occupation to last, but doesn't really produce any movement In terms of action. Instead, it leads them to piecemeal projects of activism (today they just walked over to the capital building to see if they could watch the senate arms services meetings or talk with representatives. Then some of them did a little marching. Others took the sleeping bags to the dryer. I think focusing more on the latter is more valuable to the long term viability to the movement.
If they can really stick it out for two months, talking about these things in an open way, maybe eventually they'll all come to some agreement about what needs to be done or what their overall platform is. But in some ways the pressure to define this right now is probably going to be venomous to the movement as a whole--and more important, exhausting. They may not be winning anything by just being there (I'm with Doug and Malcolm Harris on this) but they will probably get more out of it and set an amazing example. If American's like anything, it's extreme sports. On this level, I hope they get to stay after tomorrow. But in terms of the larger political effect, it might be better if they get kicked out rather than having the excitement simply peter out (though I guess that isn't necessarily the only other option.) They are excited and all the other movements are as well: they will have a lot of energy to work towards the next project. And it seems to have been cemented in the popular memory pretty well (or at least very well documented and discussed on the interwebs). We've probably produced hundreds of times the size an archive as existed for previous kinds of movements (like the diggers or the Paris Commune, not that they are all equivalent in meaning or effect.) It's not perfect, buy strategically, it's not completely bad either.
Thoughts? Sorry, it's late here and just been thinking about this. All mistakes or misstatements are due to exhaustion.
s