I've found it necessary to keep in mind a limit of history that I'm inclined to forget from time to time. I express this limit by extending Santayana's classic remark so that it now reads: '"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it"; those who only remember the past are doomed to repeat it."

T.S. Elliott wrote in "Burnt Norton",

Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.

What I get from that is that 'time future' is made up of both 'time past' and 'time present'. But, if that is the case, then 'time present' must have some part that is not contained in 'time past', something unique to 'time present' alone. To me, the only thing that could be is what 'time present' invents on its own - the product of the human imagination which is ever available in the present to conjure things which the past knows nothing about; in some cases cannot even offer any guidance about. That part is left to each moment of the present, whenever its time comes. This is one of the reasons I believe - except within the walls of its own domain and to create products that serve its own selfish ambitions, the 1% has always waged a fierce and violent oppression of the imagination which Diane DiPrima described when she said, "THE WAR ON THE IMAGINATION IS THE ONLY WAR THAT MATTERS." I call that unique offering which only 'time present' can supply as 'z-axis thinking'.

I do not say this to diminish the importance of this forum on history, in any way. Only that history may not be able to supply some lessons, some solution-sets, that are critically important to the future. It may be left to us and our reawakened imaginations to invent them, sometimes out of whole new cloth. What I find exciting about Occupy is that it both challenges the status quo ('time past' and 'time present') and also presents some of the inadequacies of the tools and solution-sets that have been handed down to us. For example, as I watch the battles over 'lateral' v. 'vertical' organization, or 'issues' (demands) v. 'principles' (say, non-violence or 99% control) I find myself thinking perhaps the problem is that we are framing matters in the same terms which they have always been framed (which, historically, the 1% has controlled and framed for us). I mean, these battles have been going on since Athens and Sparta (a lot longer, actually). Maybe, there is something here that history has yet to say anything about? I find that possibility not only exciting about Occupy, I find it hopeful in that we may be on the verge of solution-sets which do more than just resolve parts of problems and only temporarily; but which may offer solutions which permit us to actually move forward rather than simply replaying the same struggle (the perpetual struggle) over and over again, century after century. I don't know if that is so, but perhaps it is. Just perhaps.