The folks at Reason.tv, ever watchful for important, breaking news, headed down to Manhattan to get a first hand look at the protesters who are currently Occupying Wall Street. (Or at least a park in the vicinity of Wall Street. Or something.)

The crowd was relatively small at about 300, and included educated but unemployed workers, college students and recent graduates, homeless drifters, performance artists, 9/11 truthers, and a not-insignificant number of journalists.

The “leaderless” movement is made up of more than a dozen smaller groups, such as the “Information” group with Macbooks hooked up to generators who maintain the “OccupyWallStreet” Twitter feeds and liveblogs, a “People’s Library” consisting mostly of donated leftist literature, and a well-stocked kitchen where organic vegetables are sliced for communal salads.

Student loan debt, campaign finance reform, and general anger with the sluggish economy were the more frequent grievances aired, but the demonstrators are hardly monolithic in their passions or opinions. Among the boilerplate anti-capitalist rhetoric included a lifelong Democrat professing his support for Mitt Romney, an unemployed aviation mechanic declaring his continued support of capitalism and disgust at corporate welfare, and a homeless man expressing skepticism that any of the protestors would remain in the park if just “one bad wind” rolled through the area.

The resulting video is a treat for all concerned and provides an insightful look into the very real and important message the protesters are bringing to light, as well as their concise, yet reasonable demands for change which will surely…

OK. I’m just kidding. It’s all fairly incoherent, but a fine way to spend six minutes of your Friday afternoon. Before we get to the video, though, I just have one question… What the heck is this dude doing?

He appears to have taken time out of his busy day to craft a fake Fox News Channel camera out of a cardboard box and some magic markers. Yet during the entire time he’s being interviewed, he gives no explanation whatsoever about why he’s carrying this particular totem around with him. There’s also someone calling for a return to a barter system economy, as well as some supporters of both Ron Paul and Mitt Romney! (Though apparently they’re not quite supportive enough to not vote for Obama next year because.. you know.. you just have to.)

I give up. Let’s just go to the video.