During the protest era in the stormy '60s, literally and figuratively when black-and-white issues divided this nation, demonstrators had clear objectives and made well-defined demands: integrate schools, outlaw racial discrimination, pull U.S. troops out of Vietnam.

Those protests began with small marches and campus sit-ins that slowly escalated into massive, often violent clashes. Eventually they helped change history.

The rallies that began on Wall Street a few weeks ago with similarly modest initial support - a handful of sign-wielding demonstrators chanting slogans - are taking aim at a target much less tangible than racism and war: corporate greed.

Initial protests, like the early civil rights and anti-war demonstrations of the past generation, have been largely ignored, but now that they are spreading beyond Manhattan's financial district - over the weekend anti-greed rallies popped up in Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston and Columbus, Ohio; police arrested 700 demonstrators blocking traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge - they appear to be part of a growing movement. Unions are also joining the cause.

It may be tempting to dismiss these protesters as a bunch of directionless young people with nothing better to do - but that's exactly the point.

Many are unemployed or underemployed, in large part because this nation's economy continues to reward Wall Street and penalize Main Street. The protesters are right to blame our government for allowing - or in many ways, encouraging - corporations to reap enormous profits by laying off workers and outsourcing jobs overseas.

This newspaper agrees that it's conscienceless for companies to hoard cash or pay generous dividends to stockholders rather than share their wealth with workers. We have urged lawmakers to take away many loopholes that allow well-heeled businesses and individuals to pay proportionally low taxes, while sticking the less-fortunate with a higher percentage of the tab.

In many ways, though, it's much more difficult to end these practices than it is to end a war or pass civil rights legislation. The issues - tax policy, trade, the proper role of regulation - are extremely complex.

The protesters' ill-defined goals reflect a contemporary twist to the movement's organization. Back in the halcyon protest days, demonstrations were organized by leaders who acted as official spokesmen and occasionally attained considerable prominence. Martin Luther King Jr. transformed from a small-town Baptist preacher in Alabama to a celebrated civil rights leader and Nobel laureate as the movement he helped found grew.

Bernie Sanders developed skills as an anti-war organizer that helped him become mayor of Burlington, a congressman and now a senator from Vermont.

As with the "Arab Spring" movement a world away, the new social media, rather than a central command, has orchestrated the growth of the anti-Wall Street movement. Instead of taking instruction from a single charismatic leader, these modern movements arise from a consensus of thousands of voices on Facebook and Twitter who agree that things have to change.

The "tea party" movement, also assisted by the new media, fueled anti-government, anti-tax fervor that transformed Congress, but soon found itself co-opted and sometimes manipulated by powerful political interests that sought to benefit from its success.

Whether the latest protests will likewise blossom and grow by tapping into anti-Wall Street fervor in the greater population remains to be seen.

In any event, Bob Dylan's lyrics still resonate: "The times, they are a-changin'."