Revolution delayed due to snow on the barricades

So there's been this big row going on while I was away from the interwebs over Christmas (happy Christmas, everyone!) over the student protests and whether they're self-organising and the old left (whatever that is) should just curl up and die quietly. I have nothing insightful to say on the matter but I did like this bit of wisdom:

It is a minor sociological irony that those movements which think of themselves most readily as counter-cultural are least likely to be significantly counter-cultural. It is, in the conditions of late capitalism, far more counter-cultural to demand a quiet life with a steady income than to have every accessible fold of skin pierced whilst listening to professedly alternative music.

Certainly "a quiet life with a steady income" looks about as unobtainable to me and half my generation as a full-blown socialist paradise with stuffing and sprouts and all the trimmings.