For the past eleven days, protesters have been causing a commotion near Wall Street in New York City. Positioning themselves as the 99 percent who are rallying against the 1 percent who control all the money and power in America, the "Occupy Wall Street" movement aims "to use the revolutionary Arab Spring tactic of mass occupation to restore democracy in America." Left-wing celebrities like Susan Sarandon and Michael Moore have shown up to lend their support and the protest is starting to find its way to the front page after a few clashes between activists and local law enforcement.

Now this anti-elite protest is coming to Maine. This Saturday, organizers are planning a similar rally in Portland, Maine's Monument Square. The rally goes from 11am until 2pm and is being organized on Facebook.

Considering that the "Occupy Maine" Facebook page currently has only 392 fans, this does not look like the start of a revolution. We can't even identify a contact or leader in Maine for comment, although that is sort of the point it seems. Activists are labeling their cause as a "leaderless resistance movement" according to the "Occupy Wall Street" website. Update: there is also an "Occupy Maine" events page on Facebook. According to this page, Leah Alley of Calais is the organizer and 61 have confirmed they are attending, with another 41 listed as maybes, as of Wednesday afternoon.

This has led pundits in the mainstream media to dismiss the protests as a "utterly pointless, meaningless, futile exercise."

What do you think of these protests?

Image a composite of public domain protester photo and CC 2.0 photo by Flickr user "dougtone."