OWS was also dramatically unfocused.

Its not that the youth is any more complacent, its that the people who used to protest are the ones in the government. So they set about learning a few things from the war; not letting journalists have unlimited access to things, strict control of information, etc.

The bad things come out gradually; we hear things about some kids getting shot, but I mean hey, WMDs right? Gotta kill that evil dictator. Awesome. Oh, there's torture? Well I mean. That's not good. Oh they punished the three people involved, awesome. Hey, more civilian deaths? That's pretty bad guys.

Give people bad news slowly and they get used to it. All you need to do is distract them long enough until what is occurring becomes every day, and from that point on you can basically do whatever. Shit, drone strikes? We've already killed or displaced so many people either directly or indirectly that a few drone strikes here or there don't even register on my moral radar. We'd need to nuke a country for people to take notice.