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Over 30,000 People Rally in New York City (NYPD estimated 32,500), including organized contingents of workers, students, and other members of "the 99%" Actions in at least 30 cities across the country and around the world Commemoration of 2-Months Since Birth of the 99% Movement, Festival of Lights on Brooklyn Bridge Blockade of all Entry-Points to NYSE; hundreds participate in nonviolence civil disobedience Sense that a powerful and diverse civic movement for social justice is on the ascent

"The funny thing is," my Egyptian friend told me, "you've been doing this so long, you kind of forget that you can win. All these years, we've been organizing marches, rallies … And if only 45 people show up, you're depressed. If you get 300, you're happy. Then one day, you get 500,000. And you're incredulous: on some level, you'd given up thinking that could even happen."

Just a few months ago, I wrote a piece for Adbusters that started with a conversation I'd had with an Egyptian activist friend named Dina: All these years," she said, "we've been organizing marches, rallies… And if only 45 people show up, you're depressed, if you get 300, you're happy. Then one day, 200,000 people show up. And you're incredulous: on some level, even though you didn't realize it, you'd given up thinking that you could actually win. As the Occupy Wall Street movement spreads across America, and even the world, I am suddenly beginning to understand a little of how she felt.

How the anthropologist, activist, and anarchist helped transform a hapless rally into a global protest movement