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College-hating is an OLD sport for the American right wing, and less-so but present in Canada and the UK. Colleges were of course hotbeds of "radicalism" for the Boomers, the first generation to have more than a few percent of their number go to college. I put "radicalism" in quotes because Civil Rights for black people are now uncontroversial, as is the proposition that the Vietnam War and the Draft were bad ideas.
It was also "radical", of course, to have the opinion that cannabis is a largely harmless intoxicant, unlikely to addict you or drive you insane. ("Reefer Madness" was already a joke-film to us, but our parents still believed that shit like gospel.)
But it goes back way before the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, of course. From the Wikipedia:

"God and Man at Yale: The Superstitions of “Academic Freedom” is a 1951 book by William F. Buckley Jr., in the author, based on his undergraduate experiences at Yale University, criticized Yale and its faculty for forcing collectivist, Keynesian, and secularist ideology on its students. "

1951 is ten years earlier still; somebody not born yet when it was published has been drawing (socialist) Social Security for a year already.

So, please, any notion that this is because 0.1% of the 4700 colleges in the US have recently uninvited a few speakers, spare us. The malice towards higher education goes back to an era when the ones forbidden to speak at Universities were all from the left wing. (Read up on the UCLA "Speaker Ban", which was applied mainly to communiists - but also to former VPOTUS Henry Wallace, just because he was speaking in opposition to Cold War policies:
http://www.jofreeman.com/sixti... )

The Republican Party still hated colleges even when the only speakers they forbade were Communists, Anti-Militarists, and pro-socialists in general.

You should maybe read this before talking nonsense.

The standard text is The Tyranny Of Structurelessness by Jo Freeman.

tl;dr: if a visible hierarchy isn't allowed, an invisible one will form and bite you in the ass.

Only a group of militant dykes from 1970 could have ever been stupid enough to advocate "structureless groups". Then again, maybe it was a deliberate con. It's a great way to dupe younger, more gullible women and girls into inferior, powerless positions where they could be manipulated into sex or whatever and exploited, all the while believing they were in rad "structureless" groups.

Oh I forget only men could ever do that, right?

The standard text is The Tyranny Of Structurelessness by Jo Freeman.

tl;dr: if a visible hierarchy isn't allowed, an invisible one will form and bite you in the ass.

No one expects Government to support civil disobedience.

That's what I thought to, but it turns out there are a lot of people who do believe such a dumb thing.

What holds them together is a monumental sense of unfairness and inequity which runs counter to their belief in what America should be about.

Actually this is an excellent description of OWS, I wish I had said it. Of course they all have different ideas for "what America should be about," some think it should be about getting a raise since they worked so long, others think it should be about deposing Obama, or getting rid of their student loans.

Its a pretty diverse group and its trying to give everyone a voice. So it will probably take time to congeal; if they persist.

They won't, due to several problems described in the original They Tyranny of Structurelessness. Protests are fine for raising awareness, but that's it. Some relevant quotes: "The end of consciousness-raising leaves people with no place to go, and the lack of structure leaves them with no way of getting there." "Unstructured groups may be very effective in getting women to talk about their lives; they aren't very good for getting things done. It is when people get tired of 'just talking' and want to do something more that the groups flounder, unless they change the nature of their operation." We've seen this movie before, and it won't end differently. Jon Stewart documented some of the problems. If you are familiar with the Tyranny of Structurelessness, you will know it before you even watch the movie.

"the destruction of the federal government..." Ah, now your talkin like a radical left-wing anarchist; or a right-wing EmmaGoldman anarchist.

But it's right, isn't it? Of course not complete destruction, but Rick Perry has three government programs he wants to get rid of, Ron Paul has five, Tea Party is all about reducing the size of government. And really, everyone has a government program they want to get rid of or reduce, probably even you. It's a concrete goal that people can work towards.

The difference between the Tea Party and OWS, is that the Tea Party has found a way to push the levers of power (get their people elected into congress, or get opportunistic politicians without morals to do their bidding, like Michelle Bachman), and OWS is still sitting in the rain.

And since when do open democracies take to the streets by the millions to topple presidents? That's mob rule, not democracy! And it only seems to happen in places like the Ukraine, Kyrzygstan, and Lebanon, where the people are tired of their corrupt politicians and petty dictators.

Like, maybe, Lyndon Baines Johnson who, faced with massive anti-Vietnam war protests that convinced Eugene McCarthy that LBJ could be beat, chose not to run again. Yes, youngster, US Presidents have been toppled by street demonstrations.

When hippies tried to levitate the Pentagon, they really didn't have enough computing power. It's not just coincidence this behemoth is located in Virginia....