On my way to visit the Occupy Wall Street protest this week, I walked along the heavily barricaded street, past the still-pockmarked masonry of the former J.P.Morgan building where Italian anarchists are thought to have detonated a bomb in 1920, killing 38 people. Then I turned right at Trinity Church and up to the camp in Zuccotti Park.
There are some anarchists among the young protesters who have worked their way into the headlines during the past week – notably when 700 of them were arrested for blocking the Brooklyn Bridge last weekend – but the ones I met were a sweet-natured and gentle bunch. The noisiest they got was when one group sat in a circle and sang We are the change, we are the rising sun, to a hand drum.
The Occupy Wall Street protest, now three weeks old but only just spreading to other US cities, has been criticised for being leaderless and inchoate, without an agenda. I think they should stick with it – their disenchantment with bankers is shared by virtually everyone, and vagueness hasn’t hurt so far.