Why Occupy Wall Street deserves respect, even from conservatives

A lot of the criticism directed at Occupy Wall Street–even from the Left–concerning their lack of a concrete platform or unified message at this point is very wrong-headed when you think about it. That expectation is elitst (and, depending on your politics, quite hypocritical), as it assumes that a democractic movement is only legitimate if it's run from the top down. Democracy is supposed to be about citizens debating and building a national consensus, not obeying orders from activists who have everything figured out for them. So OWS deserves a lot more respect than it's getting in the media. This is democracy in action, we've just forgotten what that looks like.