Hundreds of protesters took to the streets of Manhattan's financial district early Monday to mark the 1-year anniversary of the Occupy Wall Street movement — choking traffic and crowding the area around the New York Stock Exchange but being met at most turns by walls of police who stopped them from occupying anything.

Many thanks to the cops who blasted peaceful protesters with pepper spray in those early days for making OWS blow up nationally (and condolences to the peaceful protesters who took eyesfull of the stuff). I don't think you can look back at those demonstrations without acknowledging that they've changed the type of conversations America has about wealth and taxation since. But, man, I don't think you can look at some of the megalomaniacal dipshits who, mistakenly, thought it was supposed to be about fighting with cops without seeing that they also drove those protests—and a lot of long-term public support with them—right into the ground.