One of my great frustrations about the digital age is how poor our language is to explain and understand what is happening in our midst. At the outset of Future Perfect, Johnson offers us a new word to describe an emerging political consciousness: peer progressive. It is an apt term, well-coined. Peer progressives believe in the progress of humanity – that we are on a path of continual improvement, and that the exciting technological innovations of the digital age offer new and compelling ways forward. While embracing a progressive worldview, peer progressives believe in the power of peer-to-peer networks, not institutions. They are “wary of centralized control, but they [are] not free-market libertarians…they [are] equally suspicious of big government and big corporations.”

During the 2008 election, the late great people’s historian wrote about “election madness.” He said every four years it “seizes the country” because “we have all been brought up to believe that voting is crucial in determining our destiny, that the most important act a citizen can engage in is to go to the polls and choose on of the two mediocrities who have already been chosen for us.” It deeply bothered him that all were so “vulnerable,” whether they were liberals or radicals, to spending so much time discussing presidential elections.

While writing a book about ACORN, I got to know Wade Rathke, spending dozens of hours hanging out with him, interviewing him, e-mailing back and forth, interviewing friends and enemies, and literally following Rathke as he worked. In an age of stylish cynicism, whatever else you might say about Wade, he believes in the basic goodness of people, our capacity for empathy, kindness, and caring. These traits are expressed not only through individual acts with his family and friends; but also with strangers, especially those who inhabit the squalid urban communities across the globe–the people ignored by the public officials and exploited by the rich and powerful.

Dustin M. Slaughter of the David and Goliath Project has been with Occupy Wall Street since the first week. He has posted a reflection on his time with the occupation that is very similar to a conclusion that I and others are making: the occupation is the message. It doesn’t need a set of demands. The movement only needs to continue to build and grow itself.