Repost from another discussion about the perceived "lack of direction in Occupy," which was the most common criticism we encountered then and still continue to encounter:

Our list of grievances was massive. We took issue with income inequality, the idea that 1% of the global population controls somewhere between 50 and 80% of all wealth. The widening gap between rich and poor was another major issue, the lack of social mobility for people born in the projects or other disenfranchised areas, who would probably never rise out of their circumstances due to heavy-handed drug laws, gang violence, the lack of accessibility to higher education and healthcare. We took issue with mortgage fraud and the sub-prime mortgages which were bundled together (Securitization) and resold as normal loans to investors, causing the collapse of the American real estate industry and thousands of unlawful foreclosures. We had protests against GMO food, the drug war.

We weren't just mad about one thing, but it all starts with income inequality. The rich buy the elections so we can't elect leaders who have our interests at heart and there's no chance for anyone to be elected who's not a Democrat or Republican with all the money and resources those parties offer to their candidates. We wanted Glass-Steagall reinstated and Citizens United overturned, and yes we obviously wanted more oversight, but do you really think that if we got Glass-Steagall reinstated, we would've just packed up and left? And how would we have even gotten it reinstated when the most major obstacle everyday was making sure everyone in the park got fed and clothed, making sure food wasn't stolen from the Kitchen by crackheads and that nobody got shanked by a drunk or arrested for climbing a statue?

Do your research and don't tell an Occupier, a member of De-Escalation and the Finance Committee, why he went to DC in October 2011 when you probably didn't even leave your room. If you really want to talk about the failure of Occupy, and I will freely admit that we failed, let's talk about it and don't make assumptions that you can't back up. The whole idea of Occupy was "let's get together and figure out who's really at the bottom of all this, and then hold them accountable." If you had come to our General Assembly and started talking in vague terms about "big corporations being able to make laws" we would have laughed you out of the park. We wanted the robber barons in prison and the plutocracy to be dissolved. Where you say something general like "big corporations," we say, "JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America, TD Bank, Wells Fargo, Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Conoco Philips, IBM, BP, Viacom..." Get it? When you try to distill a movement down to a single issue platform, you lose sight of the bigger picture. Here is our Declaration of Occupation, unanimously supported by the GA in Zuccotti on September 29. Do yourself a favor and read it before you reply.

And here's some relevant documentaries:

American Autumn: An Occudoc

The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power