a little sidebar... i love 70s-era cult fiction, and recently read a critical analysis which posited that paranoia was the dominant style coming of the experience of Watergate and the Vietnam war.
That's not such a big statement, but it made me wonder... given the level of state transgression since 9/11 (with the PATRIOT Act, domestic spying, whistleblower clampdowns, etc), what's our dominant style? is it a rehash of 70s paranoia, or has it gone beyond.
Having spent a lot of time with young people at Occupy I say it's gone way beyond. Almost to a point that we have to struggle for common ground for action. Take the Russell Brand controversy over voting -- that's very typical of Occupy thinking, and a huge impediment to change.
It's like we've skated right past paranoia into a kind of "principled" apathy. Principled is in quotation marks b/c I don't agree that apathy can be principled, and that "stand" on my part is something that requires a good bit of defending with the younger Occupy folks.
/rant off -- just some random thoughts on how everything's changed. 
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