She added, "But the refusal to conform to conventional power structures is not just a procedural oddity - it constitutes an essential aspect of the protesters' message."

This may be true, but that shouldn't prevent The Times from developing a template that can help explain Occupy Wall Street to readers.


peer to peer protesting - it's really giving authoritarians a headache. that alone makes it worth supporting.

if the OWS movement had a small set of easily identified leaders, then they'd be vulnerable. various corporate research teams could dig up their backgrounds, they could examine their finances, look for skeletons in their closet. they could tag, track and number the opposition and then shelve them away in a neatly labeled niche on a wall somewhere. But this movement doesn't have that sort of weakness. it's peer to peer - no one leader, but a bunch of nodes all moving in more or less the same direction.

LectertheChef: moralpanic: Here's adbusters reply on this Link (new window)

And adbusters is Canadian. They didn't 'organize' this, but it was their idea. Others just picked up and ran with it.

So instigators, or agitators would be a more accurate description than leaders.

no. this has been buliding for a while now.

Spc419k: Man, news and government are really trying to make something stick aren't they?

its driving them nuts.

LectertheChef: moralpanic: Here's adbusters reply on this Link (new window)

And adbusters is Canadian. They didn't 'organize' this, but it was their idea. Others just picked up and ran with it.

So instigators, or agitators would be a more accurate description than leaders.

Depends on what you were trying to describe. But nobody really cares what some soft ass sitting at home thinks about people who actually do stuff, anyway.

Who knows? The Shadow Leader knows. Dumb article, absurd headline.

jso2897: LectertheChef: moralpanic: Here's adbusters reply on this Link (new window)

And adbusters is Canadian. They didn't 'organize' this, but it was their idea. Others just picked up and ran with it.

So instigators, or agitators would be a more accurate description than leaders.

Depends on what you were trying to describe. But nobody really cares what some soft ass sitting at home thinks about people who actually do stuff, anyway.

Do stuff? Like camping illegally, causing destruction and disrupting lives of normal people?

I, for one, enjoyed reading about how the Bilderbergs are actually behind OWS, with help from the Trilateral Commission.

jehovahs witness protection: Do stuff? Like camping illegally, causing destruction and disrupting lives of normal people

Sure, if any of that actually happened in Zuccotti Park.

Now, almost two months into the protest, it's time to ask: How should The Times report on the movement going forward?

Oh, I dunno. You could try being honest, unlike your contemporaries.

Maybe try to pick up more of the story than just the police raids. The whole world is watching, and they see you waiting in the wings, a safe block or two away, ready to swoop in right as the pepper spray starts flying.

/who am I kidding

whandall: Right. A shadowy organization, led by Soros, has constructed a master plan to camp out in public parks and not bathe. Brilliant, Subby!

And really, does it really matter whose idea it was? Right now, its a decentralized non coercive democratic protest. You hate it or you dont. You think it's effective or you don't. If you are looking for origin stories, buy some old comic books.

I wonder if anybody is going to get pissed that Reddit didn't get credit.