“So we struggle, in our own humble way, to destroy the United States!” (See 1:20 to 1:50 of the documentary Making Sense of the Sixties:)

I try not to cut people down for trying, but I can’t help but observe that Occupy Wall St’s 99% do not want fundamental change; they want only the status quo ante! The empire was fine and well for them, as was credit-driven consumerism, easy credit, and oversized houses in distant suburbs driven-to by gargantuan trucks. _That_ is what they want (and here’s the crucial word:) _back_!

Just about every analyst of the Iranian Revolution I’ve read pointed out that the pivotal shortcoming of the Left was that they had not (successfully) tried to get buy-in from the masses. So, when the moment came, the hoi polloi did not have any reason to follow them. (There were other factors involved in the events of the time, but that’d be another topic.)