You said in “On Occupying Wall Street” to call you when there’s blood in the streets. Now that it’s been a month, and there’s blood running in the streets, has your opinion changed at all?

Sure, my opinion has changed. A month ago Occupy Wall Street was fairly flaccid and unimpressive, but now it’s a rock hard, throbbing populist movement pounding away at the socio-political zeitgeist.

If the protesters have the stamina to last into 2012, they may alter the country’s political discourse and have a measurable effect on the upcoming elections. Of course, for that to happen the police will have to keep acting like brutal thugs through the holidays, lest the bloodthirsty mass media lose interest.

I’m hopeful that the movement will continue to grow. I want it to expand. I want it to mature. I want it to reinvigorate left wing politics and grow hair on the chest of American liberalism.

We’ll see. As of now, the blood in the streets belongs to the wrong people, and I’m still looking forward to the day when investment bankers are fleeing the country in exile.