The enemy of my enemy is my friend, until the said enemy is gone.

Are you so personally devoid of values that you have to hold what Russell Simmons believes as the right thing to do, or is it that you happen to believe that businesses should be providing a lot of great opportunities with graduates of cultural antropology, woman's studies or art history?  Or beyond this, is it that you don't believe in universal truth, so the only measure you hold someone to is their own?

In regards to your first point, it is interesting.  It is very easy for individuals who say what you do regarding the protestors to then blame government for every single thing gone wrong.  When it comes to the financial meltdown, the government gets blamed and golly, NO ONE could of saw that financial collapse and bubble at all.  Those poor hedge fund managers and banks on Wall Street were snookered by the government.  Apparently, the only think that causes the elite to make mistakes is the government.  If it wasn't for the government, golly gee, their leveraging wouldn't of happened.

What is going on in this thread here, and others, is a total discounting and sweeping under the rug of the middle class being sold out and a system of outright lies to people, that says that college is the ONLY way to get ahead, and individuals who bought into this lie, now finding out it is a lie.  But nope, the system isn't a problem, everyone who fell short is their own fault for doing it... well, unless it is the government, and affects wealthy folks, then golly, don't blame them.  Apparently, personaly responsibility and self-reliance only goes as far as the government isn't involved.

Hey, here is a great idea implemented by Napoleon.  Have protestors and whiny snots like them?  Just break out the cannons and fire on the crowd.  You kill these loser and thin the herd.  Nah, that means you do it.  Best to have liberty produce natural predators instead, so you can go scott free, and not have to listen to them.

Fox New pro-corporate stance on most issues would annoy a lot of average American people struggling to make ends meet. Fox News makes light of most issues and can not be taken seriously. 

I still don't understand why you keep saying that republics are supposed to protect minorities from the majority. If that's the case, you should really tell that to Iran. Protecting minorites from the majority is an attribute of the liberal democracy. Being a republic in no way guarantees that minorities will be protected. Republics that are not also liberal democracies (i.e. Iran, the Soviet Union), won't really be caring much about human rights, protecting minorities etc.

And the reason why direct democracies wouldn't work today is that it would be too complicated. Nowdays you'd have to allow pretty much everybody, man or woman, all ages abouve 18, to be able to vote. Add the fact that countries nowadays have populations of millions (300 million in the case of your country), and the result would be pure chaos. Direct democracies worked in Antiquity only because even then only a small number of people fulfilled the requirement to participate (only men who had a certain age and a certain status). Women and slaves weren't even considered to be human beings. The group ended up being not much larger than the one in current representative democracies.

As for the 'tyranny of the majority' thing, that can be prevented in any state which has a constitution, bill of rights etc. Just as the Parliament can't vote away the right to fre speech, the group of citizens wouldn't be able to do that due to the Constitution.

What people really believe is usually demonstrated in what they do, not what they say. If you say that it is wrong for corporations to turn profits rather than hire useless people, and are in charge of a highly profitable corporation that is not hiring these useless people, what does that say about your beliefs?

The banks are not devoid of fault, but the appropriate way to handle their part in the financial crisis is to let them fail ...

I don't think you're paying close enough attention to what these individuals are saying ...

They aren't upset that they were lied to and received a useless education, they're upset that they will pay for this useless education; and they feel entitled to a high paying job because they received this education. If they were upset about being lied to and getting a useless education they would be protesting for more accountability from the education system.

The "death" of the middle class is more of a suicide than anything else. Those individuals who study useful things (engineering, math, computer science, nursing, pharmacy, the trades, etc.) are mostly doing just fine; but those who go to college because it is an “experience” without thought of a career often find themselves building up massive debts and having few skills for it to make them more valuable employees.

How about we do the radical thing and treat them like adults and expect them to take responsibility for their own decisions?

Well for one... Iran isn't a Republic or a Democracy.

It's government is completely controlled by the Rahstakhiz.  It's a single party system in the vein of Nazi Germany, Communist Russia and Iraq.  I mean.... Iraq had elections, doesn't make Iraq an actual Republic or Democracy.

In general actually you find a lot of single party states like that actually call themselves "Democratic Republics".

I mean, looking at the countries called that in history....

People's Democratic Republic of Algeria

Democratic Republic of Congo

Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste

 Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia   

 German Democratic Republic

 Lao People's Democratic Republic

  Democratic People's Republic of Korea

 Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal

Democratic Republic of São Tomé and Príncipe

Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka

 People's Democratic Republic of Yemen

Iran is a Republic. It's called an 'Islamic Republic'. Republics don't really need to have more than 1 political party. Several politcal parties are characteristic of states which are liberal democracies (be they republics or monarchies). You're giving attributes specific to liberal democracies to republics.

You seem to miss the point.  All of the above called them selves Democratic and Republics... and they were neither.  Iran is Islamic, it ain't a republic though.

To be a Republic you need real voting, you can't have real voting in the confines of one political party, because eveyrthing considered important is already decided by the oligarchy in control.

You can have a Republic, and not have it be Democratic, or reflect diverse opinions.  You do as Communist nations do, and have only one political party and allow for people to select who they want among members of the one party.  Like you has the USSR, for example, which made no claims at being Democratic, but did say it was a Republic.

But Iran IS a republic. And not because it calls itself a republic (like East Germany had the word 'Democratic' in it's official name, because it sounded nice), but because it has the structure of a republic. The problem is that you seem to simply not understand what a republic is (like many Americans appearently don't, especially those of the REPUBLICan persuasion). What you call 'republic' is actually 'republic + liberal democracy'. Not all republics are liberal democracies (e.g. Iran, the Soviet Union), and not all liberal democracies are republics (e.g. the UK). Try to separate the two, and don't fuse them together.