Sound comment on the Occupy Wall Street phenomenon by Paul Krugman:
The network and cable-news commentary on the demonstrations' presumed lack of coherence, and the occasional odd-looking character featured in the coverage, are of course attempts to change the subject. The OWS experience addresses a number of the population's core concerns, as routinely revealed in polling data. Movements and institutions based on democratic, popular energies arouse contempt among the elite echelons and always have. Founder James Madison warned about them, as did Vladimir Lenin - who is mentioned in Krugman's piece, but not the point, which he might have mentioned.
It is common, to the point of predictable, that power wants nothing to do with actual democracy. The reason is obvious: the population's interests are at odds with elite agendas. That being the case, in founder Gouverneur Morris's words, when the "reptiles" begin to "think and reason," "The gentry begin to fear this."
