Here’s how Occupy Wall Street nearly ended (from a message an organizer sent out):

The drummers are fighting among themselves, there is no cohesive group. There is one assemblage called Pulse that organized most of the drummers into a group and went to GA for formal recognition and with a proposal. Unfortunately there is one individual who is NOT a drummer but who claims to speak for the drummers who has been a deeply disruptive force, attacking the drumming rep during the GA and derailing his proposal, and disrupting the community board meeting, as well as the OWS community relations meeting. She has also created strife and divisions within the POC caucus, calling many members who are not ‘on her side’ “Uncle Tom”, “the 1%”, “Barbie” “not Palestinian enough” “Wall Street politicians” “not black enough” “sell-outs”, etc. People have been documenting her disruptions, and her campaign of misinformation, and instigations. She also has a documented history online of defamatory, divisive and disruptive behavior within the LGBT (esp. transgender) communities. Her disruptions have made it hard to have constructive conversations and productive resolutions to conflicts in a variety of forums in the past several days.

Progressives, wow.

The crisis was averted,    which is good, because if the protest had collapsed, an angel in heaven would have lost his dreadlocks. Megan McArdle said:

[I]t’s kind of funny that the biggest threat is a damn drum circle.  A drum circle!  It’s like hearing that Ghaddafi was brought down by a mime rebellion.

Read McArdle’s entire post for some sensible thoughts about the problem of authority in a protest like this.

UPDATE: More progressive preciousness, this time from the Occupy DC crew:

The protesters have agreed upon 16 guidelines, which include respecting one another, not inhibiting another person’s right to speak, and keeping the space clean.  Guideline number 10 reads, “Don’t assume gender.  When possible, go with gender-neutral pronouns.”