It's over.

On December 31, 2011, while everyone was busy partying, Barack Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012, which established new police-state powers for the U.S. military (read this for the details: http://www.salon.com/2011/12/16/three_myths_about_the_detention_bill/sin... )

A year from today, something amazing will happen that's never happened before: around the globe, millions of New Age true believers will simultaneously become crestfallen when nothing happens after many years of anticipatory hype.

A neo-conservative writes on the Occupy movement and tries to link it up with the history of utopian socialism and revolutionary anarchism. If you get bored with all the stuff on pg. 2 about Fourier and early communes, skip ahead to the parts on anarchism...this is quite a surprisingly enjoyable read:
"Anarchy in the U.S.A." | The Weekly Standard

I started off cynical about the Occupy Movement, but now I'm very enthusiastic. Here's how it happened:

A tragic expression of unmet needs. While protesters like to think they're, "sticking it to The Man", their detractors believe the protesters want to stick it to the "common man" and woman.

See this video about an iPad factory, and why it exploded, killing workers.

http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/activate/2011/09/201194144739197...

There's a new regional group (or "Spore") of the Evolver Social Movement, in Washington, D.C.: http://www.evolver.net/group/evolver_dc

I've long been pondering the question of how power functions in this society, the damage wrought by uses of power, and strategies to redistribute power in order make the world a better place for everybody. Of course, the first areas I investigated were politics, economics, and religion. And sure enough, greed and megalomania are sufficient to explain most of the ills of the planet. Most of them.