Occupy movement turns 1 year old, its effect still hard to define NEW YORK - They linked arms, sat and waited for arrest at Zuccotti Park. As police - well, activists playing the role - yanked them into custody one by one, they began chanting: "The whole world is watching!" Occupy Wall Street's dress rehearsal this week came ahead of demonstrations in Manhattan and around the country Monday, when organizers hope to again draw attention to economic woes facing "the 99%." On Monday, a year will have passed since activists took over the park near the symbolic heart of American capitalism, sparking a movement with offshoots in Los Angeles, Chicago and elsewhere around the world. But the movement has yet to have a broad tangible effect, leaving some to wonder whether it will fizzle. Polls have shown that the public generally supports Occupy's message but not its disruptive tactics. A majority of respondents in one poll this spring said the movement had run its course. As the Occupy movement turns 1 year old, its primary target - Wall Street - keeps churning out scandals. Major banks have been caught rigging key interest rates, laundering money and taking risky bets that lose billions of dollars. Yet the movement cannot claim any new policy, law or regulation as its own. Unlike the Tea Party on the political right, there is no cohesive Occupy group promoting candidates in November's national election. "After the media effects wore off, a lot of politicians just figured out that these people weren't going to matter," said Theda Skocpol, a professor of government and sociology at Harvard who co-wrote a book about the Tea Party. "Politicians pay attention to people who vote or who organize and spend money in elections," Skocpol said. That's what Tea Party did and does, and that's what Occupy doesn't do. I don't think it matters very much anymore. Occupy activists achieved scattered local victories involving a number of issues, including labor rights and foreclosures. Unions and housing advocates have joined forces under the decentralized movement's umbrella cause against income inequality and the financial system's unfairness. "We changed the conversation," said Amin Husain, a former corporate lawyer who was among Occupy Wall Street's lead organizers last year. We're ringing that alarm bell with our bodies, with our voices, and we're telling people, 'Come out in the streets.' Although activists say they're building a long-term movement whose goals and measures of success are evolving, the leaderless alliance of myriad activist groups and anarchists has struggled to organize. In New York, the group's general assembly halted meetings in the spring following internal disputes and disorganization. Activists here have been meeting in separate groups focused on more particular causes, such as the environment, labor rights, debt and discrimination. Activists say their goal is to create a way to channel energy into affiliated groups seeking social or economic change, often locally and in ways that do not attract media attention. "What we are doing radicalizes communities," Husain said. It makes them come out of the shadow to make the demands that they feel are just, that are necessary. Activists recently claimed victory in a labor dispute with workers at a restaurant in Manhattan's wealthy Upper East Side. The Occupy Our Homes group takes credit for stopping dozens of foreclosures nationwide. And on Wednesday, a group called Occupy Monsanto blocked access to the biotechnology giant's Oxnard seed distribution center, where nine protesters were arrested for trespassing. The movement takes partial credit for shaping the political climate that led New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to reverse course and extend a so-called Millionaire's Tax. Speeches by Elizabeth Warren, the U.S. Senate candidate from Massachusetts who has long been an antagonist of the financial industry, overlap with many of Occupy's messages. Some Occupy activists have pushed for particular policies, such as a financial transaction tax. But the movement's core activists generally are wary of politics. Some identify as anarchists, but they are generally suspicious of politicians, worried about having their agenda constrained.