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Posted on 11/17/2011 5:32:02 PM PST by SJackson
American youth have realised the dream they have been prepared for won't happen - now they fight for a fair future.
Something is unravelling in America. The dream, the purpose and the drive are worn and tired. The people are under siege.
Occupy Wall Street is organic; it's homegrown and native. The voluntary, viral and near-spontaneous movement began as a reaction to a political system governed by a venal class of politicians and financiers. The story of their ascent to power is the story of the pauperised American worker and the indigent American family. It is the story of a stealthy coup and a government at war against its people. It is the story of the one per cent versus the 99 per cent.
It has been two months since the first OWS protests began in New York. The young un-and-underemployed people who seeded the movement saw their efforts replicated in cities around the country and around the world. And while it quickly became clear that a globalising economy means a world with globalised grievances, the movement has simultaneously remained local.
In Boston - an American city with a storied revolutionary past - an Occupy nucleus quickly took root and developed. Protesters here channelled the city's potent symbolism by building their encampment across the street from the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. Shortly thereafter thousands of labour union members, regular citizens and students from local universities joined the Occupy Boston movement to march for the restoration of their economic and political rights.
Weeks later, on November 9, several hundred students, faculty and staff and members of the community employed the lessons learned in New York and Boston to occupy Harvard.
"Harvard... [is] a factory that produces the one per cent, the very people that have caused a great deal of our present suffering."
- Tim McCarthy, Public Policy professor
We collected in the heart of the university, marched along its breadth and out into the surrounding community to protest university policies. Most visibly, there is evidence that Harvard holds investments in funds that derive profits from speculative land acquisition in Tanzania .
The University has not embarked on its African expedition alone. Other American institutions of higher education have also aggressively pursued high returns on their endowments, often by undermining the code of ethics they seek to uphold elsewhere. HIV research cannot come at even the partial expense of the weak and vulnerable people for whom it is ostensibly being undertaken.
Harvard and the one per cent
Nor is it clear that a code of ethics is being effectively communicated to young and impressionable students. An outsized number of undergraduates here - roughly 20 per cent of every class - enter the financial services industry upon leaving the university.
Or as Public Policy Professor Tim McCarthy put it to me, "At Harvard, we would like to believe that this is an institution that works solely on behalf of the broader good, and there are many instances where we try to do just that. But in reality Harvard, as an institution, is also a factory that produces the one per cent, the very people who have caused a great deal of our present suffering."
Indeed, the university has likely produced more privilege than any other in America. While that alone is not a meaningful indictment, too many students employ their privilege in service of their own needs, often at the expense of their fellow citizens. Their decisions are the rational product of a society that has failed to provide them with better choices.
The past 30 years have witnessed a redefinition of what it means to be an American. The land of opportunity grew anaemic on a diet of easy credit and stagnant wage growth for all but the uppermost segments of society. Today, the broad promise this country once held has been replaced by a zero-sum relationship; I grow richer only when you grow poorer.
Moreover, our agents of change - young people - are handicapped by staggering student debt that restricts their choices. That debt further impoverishes a country which cannot gain the benefit of their diverse talents. Graduates from top universities are now faced with a decision: Either join the ranks of a self-serving, unproductive elite, or quickly fail under the weight of an unmanageable student loan burden. It is extraordinary that in today's America having any choice at all is a measure of privilege.
The broader OWS movement has been criticised by sideline observers as being directionless and unfocused. But young Americans do have an objective. They seek to forge an equitable future - "to [reclaim] democracy from a corporate oligarchy," as Professor Brad Epps said to me.
Towards the end of our march, we turned back in the direction of the yard at the heart of the university. We found that security guards and police had sealed the gates; we were locked out. As I looked on, I was stricken by the allegory. Here was our America. An America of gates and gatekeepers.
Ahmed Moor is a Palestinian-American freelance journalist based in Cairo. He was born in the Gaza Strip, Palestine.
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I didn't go to Harvard, though I have visited. Still, i can't relate to this nonsense.
The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct “Palestinian people” to oppose Zionism.Off-topic thought, but it sure is funny that the OWS people have not targeted the United Nations at all, ain’t it?
For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan.
I want to know when someone is going to speak up and remind Washington that all is quiet on the flyover front. We ain’t happy but we ain’t out of control either.
Id use ‘em till we lose ‘em
He is right that Harvard produced the venal and corrupt class that has looted America
I stopped reading at this point. I can guess the rest.
Stop posting these OWS pamphlets, willya? ;)
Agreed - 'cause getting out of control isn't what we do. We make the things, and grow the food, and ship it, etc., that keeps everyone on the coasts from starving to death...
I love being in flyover country...
These people are in for a very rude awaking when sometime in the very near future they will be out of a job!
All I know is that America can’t continue to let idiots like this educate anyone.
A Palisimian is calling the American worker a pauper and the American family indigent?
Comments such as the above are to be expected when humanoids like the Palisimian Rage Boy are admitted to Harvard.
I’ve herd these idiots say that America has been enslaved since the day “George Washinton sat on his throne”
Harvard is a 24/7/365 non-stop freak show and sex circus with the biggest collection of overblown egos in the universe.
They know Harvard is the center of the galaxy and look down at those who think otherwise.
Hey Al Jazeera we have the play book.
- Understanding the role of the Muslim Brother in North America:
4)The process of settlement is a “Civilization-Jihadist Process” with all the word means. The Ikhwan must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and “sabotaging” its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious
over all other religions.
Without this level of understanding, we are not up to this challenge and have not prepared ourselves for Jihad yet. It is a Muslim’s destiny to perform Jihad and work wherever he is and wherever he lands until the final hour comes, and there is no escape from that destiny except for those who chose to slack. But, would the slackers and the Mujahedeen be equal.
5- Understanding that we cannot perform the settlement mission by ourselves or away from
people:
A mission as significant and as huge as the settlement mission needs magnificent and exhausting
efforts. With their capabilities, human, financial and scientific resources, the Ikhwan will not be
able to carry out this mission alone or away from people and he who believes that is wrong, and
God knows best. As for the role of the Ikhwan, it is the initiative, pioneering, leadership, raising
the banner and pushing people in that direction. They are then to work to employ, direct and
unify Muslims’ efforts and powers for this process. In order to do that, we must possess a mastery
of the art of “coalitions”, the art of “absorption” and the principles of “cooperation”.
See: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2808812/posts
Thanks to al-Tarqaya and kitman, nothing a Muslim tells a non-Muslim means anything. Seems MadMo gave his followers permission to lie.
Islam Delenda Est - because of what Islam is and because of what Muslims do.
I keep hoping that they will be spread so thin taking care of the turmoil in the urban areas that they simply won’t have anything left over for us.
Everyone needs to think carefully when voting for Sheriff.
>>>I keep hoping that they will be spread so thin taking care of the turmoil in the urban areas that they simply won’t have anything left over for us.<<<
My thoughts, too. Some places will be serene, like the situation in Minnesota and Maine during the Civil War. Other places will look like that stretch between Macon and Savannah. I just hope I’ve made a good choice.
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