OK…… while I can see your point in general, I dunno about this bit specifically. There is a BIG difference between saying to someone holding a sign daubed with racist slogans “your world views are unacceptable in a civilised society and I politely insist that you remove your sign, and yourself, from this rally which was organised for reasons other than racial hatred”, and going up to someone throwing petrol bombs at a police cordon and saying “violence is unacceptable in a civilised society, and I politely insist that you OW OW OW PLEASE STOP STAMPING ON MY HEAD”. The latter carries much more significant personal risk.

“One can’t even state with certainty what, in fact, is being protested. There is absolutely no set of actions any government or private entity could take that would result in “the protesters” … going home.”

Yeah, fair enough, with you on that one, agree completely.

“But in my personal opinion, if you live in the Western world and economic globalization is the issue you choose to get worked up over, then you’re a complete lightweight and not worth taking seriously.”

This I am not so sure about. I would mention the old saying “money is at the root of all evil” and suggest that a (not “the”) root cause of many of the more obviously-repulsive problems in the world is indeed the rise of global corporations in which the few make a lot of money while the many scrimp and starve, because that is reflected in the global society as a whole, and which not only encourages an “us and them” mentality but allows such things as governments (or dictators, or religious movements) that oppress the populace in general, and women in particular, to take hold. And all those totalitarian states out there? For the most part, freely allowed to get on with it as long as they don’t have oil. Why is Somalia ignored and Ethiopa left to starve, while Iraq and Afghanistan were invaded? (Not, I hasten to add, that I necessarily agree with a military solution, I’m simply pointing out which kinds of problems have any kind of solution attempted for them at all).

Or, from a more direct perspective, he recent global economic collapse cost (in aggregate) EVERY LIVING PERSON ON THE PLANET $2000 to fix (if one can even say it has truly been fixed), and already they’re going back to the old ways of big bankers bonuses, even after most of the banks got bailed out despite their transgressions. I find it easy to understand why a lot of people are pissed off with that. It does bother me that our governments have stumped up seventeen quadrillion million trillion brazillion dollars (approximate figure) to bail out the banks, while people starve in Darfur.

So as both an underlying cause and something that is morally questionable in its own right, the rise and rise of amoral capitalism is, I think, something that I can understand people protesting against.

Just my thoughts…