Im playing a bit of devil's advocate here, but I think followers of Civil rights movements, with relative ease, would be able to answer similar questions. I sympathize with the energy behind the Occupy movement, but like most people I'm not sure what to do about it - who or what to support, and how to act. And that, imho, is why the Occupy movement fizzled.
Occupy needed to remain peaceful, no doubt about it. But without a large alternative group that wasn't afraid to use violence, Occupy was always going to be marginalized away. They had coherent messages. You and most people don't know them because they were bottled up, discredited and shut down. Exactly what will happen to any peaceful movement.
Personally, I think there's still time for a peaceful alternative though: we all need to start getting directly involved in politics.
There were things here and there that many seemed to agree on - but it was not nearly focused enough to matter. I think if it were accompanied by any kind of violent protests, the people in general would have completely turned on it - and without legitimate goals, I think rightly so.
Its not comparable to Civil Rights, imho. That was a moral imperative with clear, legitimate, practically implementable goals. There was moral high-ground, general sympathy among the people, and a roadmap (e.g. extend the rights to us that are extended to everyone else). I'd love to see something similar for the modern age of privacy violation or holding gov't officials accountable - but I haven't seen it yet.