Idealism as Belief System

"Activists weren't some fringe element back then. They had defeated the naked bigotry of the Jim Crow south. They had waged war on poverty. Now they wanted to end a senseless war. People believed that taking to the streets could change the moral condition of the country. There weren't nearly as many screens in our lives; we hadn't begun pouring so much of ourselves into them. Idealism wasn't an object of ridicule. It was a legitimate, even laudable, belief system."

Steve Almond gives the Occupy Wall Street protests some proper historical context.