The protest that began as Occupy Wall Street is spreading to cities across the nation. But what isn't spreading is awareness of what the participants are protesting for. After numerous media interviews of people who are unable to articulate why they're there or what they want, many are writing off the movement as silly or even a failure. But could protest for protest's sake without any specific grievance be the plan? Could the impossibility for government, Wall Street or any other actual entity to address the unrest mean success because unrest is in fact the goal?

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Whether one believes this is a grass roots movement or 'astroturf', there is no denying that social media has played a large part in the organization of the participants. That also means it would be quite simple to arm the protestors with a list of easy to remember and easy to understand 'talking points' that explain the goal of the movement and how they believe the protesting will help them achieve that goal.

Certainly the leaders of Occupy Whatever, whether they are devoted believers or professional organizers, can't be pleased with the portrayal of their foot soldiers as ignorant and unwashed slackers who just want to interfere with city operations and take up city resources for no purpose. Unless of course that is their purpose.

As coverage of the occupiers has increased, both the media and the American people are acting as if it is their responsibility to understand what has not been explained by the participants. We keep searching for some reasonable grievance because we know that we would not waste our time protesting unless we had a reasonable grievance.

But instead of intellectual empathy, what we should be applying to this situation is historical perspective. These protesters-without-a-clue are the same brand of individuals that first prompted the creation of the phrase 'useful idiots'. Throughout the Cold War, people without a full understanding of the communist system and its proponents' motivations were manipulated by those proponents into unwittingly supporting their cause. The anti-capitalism (and usually anti-American) message is often so muddled by this particular type of idiot that the audience is left unsure of exactly what the message is and where it originated. Sound like any current movement sweeping the nation?

If one wants to, it's not difficult to trace the origins of Occupy Whatever to Adbusters; an organization with the self-proclaimed aim to "topple existing power structures and forge a major shift in the way we will live in the 21st century." Yet the mainstream media continues to portray this movement as "the liberal flip side of the tea party;" enticing mainstream liberals such as organized labor and students to join in. And what a useful batch of idiots they are turning out to be.