I judge today’s self styled anarchists as people pretending in a academic ghetto almost completely irrelevant if they don’t connect with the wider public. They don’t push or lead Obama, Democrats, human rights activists (gays, lesbians, transgendered, people of color). They turn them off.

On the left we see a similar struggle. This is where OWS is important, I agree here with Jeff, but I would read the movement more radical. Push left, as far as we can, without losing the imagination of the public. Jeff thinks that Obama tries to move the center to the left (I agree again), but quite honestly, it seems like a dead-end road. We have to go further, mobilize and educate enough people on the left and for the left, to have a real voice left of centrist Obama (I am not speaking of revolutionary/anarchist action, but a core understanding and commitment of social-democratic politics that is missing). Only then Obama and the democrats will do their job even against Republican opposition, which does not just entail shooting and bombing terrorists overseas.

In this context, I do disagree with the assumption that a presence of the radical left is necessarily only destructive as Jeff fears. The problem is that a movement needs a strong commitment and broad base to actually gain something from the radical critique, because the movement as mass movement also needs to be able to resist at the same time the militant tendencies of its radical elements. I do not think OWS is there yet, it is pretty fragile, so their is a problem, that Jeff rightfully describes. But there is something to be said about the radical element in mass movements. What would the Civil Rights movement have been without its Black Panthers, where would the 68 movements have gone without its radical voices (sorry, I do only now the German example Rudi Dutschke)?

I understand, that I am more hopeful for these substantial tendencies on the left, while I dismiss them on the right. Both are caught in a similar struggle, but come on, Cain? On the other hand, Cain or Gingrich are not the ideological core of the radical right, that is defined by Blomqvist, Cheney and Rove. Maybe I live in la-la-land and Obama could actually lose against Cain and Gingrich, these comical caricatures of the radical right. Then goodbye and goodnight America.

And unfortunately, we are running out of money which, just like with individuals, severly limits choices.

Most corporations and business just plug along trying to make a profit by making and selling things people want. That’s hardly a threat to society; and in fact, it is how we create wealth that everybody can enjoy in this country.

You ignore the real excess which is the crony capitalism practiced by the permanent political class entrenched in Washington. Nothing is ever going to happen because these “leaders” and their corporate friends all like business the way it is. They’re making very good money feeding at the public trough.

The fault lies in both political parties, not just the Republicans. As to the candidates in the primary, there are some like Newt and Romney that would change little except perhaps re-arranging the deck chairs. The other one you name, Herman Cain, may be weak in your eyes, but if he were elected, things would certainly change. You and I would disagree on whether that change would be good or bad.