Occupy Wall Street should not be occupying discussions among elite and out-of-touch intellects in the Ivory Tower.
The movement has a ragged, undefined inclusiveness only because they claimed to represent "The 99%", an amorphous mass of the aggrieved, marginalized by the political process which has created multi-trillion dollar debts while benefiting an effect and limited class of wealthy lobbyists at the expense of the rest of us.
Instead of targeting the government to flex more state power, the unhappy and unruly many who want to see change must demand to see less government altogether. This populist movement, which has failed to articulate any coherent cause or enumerate a list of operational concerns, has merely devastated the public square at the expense of the very people whom they claim to represent.
If anyone should be held accountable for enabling such crass pandering by over-educated and under-serving adult-children, the professors must be held to answer. The academic world has argued, professed, and all but indoctrinated a growing number of college students that the answer to all of society's ills lies with expanding state power. The bias of centralization and controlled economies has bewitched a growing number of the younger generation that if they want to see results in their lives, they must petition the government at length, even violating the rights of the citizens and the several states to make their point.
Their inarticulate arguments, their incoherent collective communities has exposed the following of raging protest without ideas, strategies, or proposed solutions. Academics are funded with state money to speculate about the forces of economy, society, and nature. For the most part, their opinions have little impact beyond their enclosed coterie with other myopically scholastic colleagues. Yet their values have power, their flawed world view has vaulted a growing number of unprepared youth, armed with an entitlement mentality and vocal rebellion as their mission. The target of their rage, the wealthy and the influential, will only gain power to the degree that today's populist demand that government do more for them. Regulation, intervention, and expansion of government created the very problems which the Occupy Movement claims to challenge.
This dark irony — populism creates the problems it intends to undo — merits more attention from our academics and our youth. With a greater awareness of the dangers of state power, voters would dismantle government through the political process instead of damaging the rights of petition and grievance in the public square.