The middle class has a thousand reasons to be mad as hell, and a thousand people to blame. In a weird way, that makes it all the harder to pinpoint a culprit.



REUTERS



The "Occupy Wall Street" protest might seem inchoate, disorganized, even chaotic and confused. That's to be expected. This is movement about a middle class crisis that has no easy culprit.



If you look across the placards at the protest, there is no one cause. Some signs call for student loan reform. Some call for tax reform. Some call for legal reform. Some are contradictory, such as the calls for anarchy and better government. Some don't make all that much sense. But so what? This is a populist movement, not a campaign platform. Not yet, anyway.



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The most moving part of the protests might be a Tumblr account called We Are The 99 Percent, a collection of testimonials. A homeowner who had to abandon his house. A student with $75,000 in debt. A daughter whose mother took her life after she lost her job and couldn't afford health care. What makes these stories effective is that most of them are not about pinpointing culprits. They're about explaining the crisis from the ground level. Here is the first testimony on the site today:



At 21 years old, I am... -One semester from graduating college with a degree no one seems to hire -In massive debt because of that once "dream degree" -About to become a mother to a baby whose illness has gotten us booted off government health insurance...at 9 months pregnant... -Scared for our future -I am the 99%-

This is the Millennial crisis folded into a single story. The student debt crisis, compounded by a weak job market (unemployment is highest for the youngest generation), exacerbated by the growing cost of rent and health care.