All these protests, left and right, leave me feeling sort of empty inside. I’m politically active and interested but have yet to find a movement for which I’d take to the streets. Most of the nation’s institutions strike me as ossified, self-interested and eager to demonize, rather than engage, their opposition. That goes for unions, corporations, Congress, the White House, Democrats, Republicans,... etc. Whether Tea Partiers or Occupiers, the marchers’ slogans and stunts are pithy, often entertaining and full of good old American spit and fire but also simplistic, at times downright ignorant or – and these are deal breakers for me in any political cause -- egregiously misspelled or Hitlerized. I reckon I’d join a movement that started by recognizing the extraordinary complexities of the times, eschewed the notion they can be easily blamed on one faction or another and was realistic about what can be achieved in a nation split down the middle. But, man, we’d sure have to lug some big-ass picket signs around, wouldn’t we?