For related articles and more information, please visit OCA’s Politics and Democracy page.

The protests that began in Wisconsin this year, and which now also fill the streets of Manhattan, Boston, Chicago, and this week, Washington D.C., have gotten the attention of the American political class. And how could they not? 2011 is becoming a remake of the 1999 Battle of Seattle, except this time the protests are ongoing, national and global, and the target is not just the World Trade Organization, but the entire edifice of corporate capitalism.

So the political class, rather than ignore this wave of protests, pulls a card from the past. They know we are angry, they say. They just don’t understand what we want. We speak in too many voices. According to the American Pravda, The New York Times (which tells the professional classes their truth), we are a “hodgepodge” and “confused” movement with “unclear goals” and “nowhere to go.” Why can’t we settle on a couple key demands?

What some can’t accept, they pretend not to understand. And the political class can’t accept that the common demand of the current protest wave is for democratic revolution. We want them gone. We want power.

We haven’t been secretive about our goals. The Wisconsin Wave was launched in February as a “democracy movement.” Occupy Wall Street calls for an “American Revolution.” The October2011.org occupation of Freedom Plaza in D.C. intends to “Create a New World.” Perhaps, as Thomas Paine once penned, “The birthday of a new world is at hand.”