...been few notable cases of resistance to business-inspired practices in public education. Part of what makes people like Brian Jones optimistic, however, is the political transformation that has taken place due to the rise of Occupy Wall Street. For activists everywhere, Jones explains, Occupy represented a “huge injection of confidence in the public sphere. Our fight took on a vision of how people should be educated and provided for in our socie...
...infest public space again. But they won’t be forming the core of Obama reelection rallies – or at least he hopes not. Only the most marginal Democratic officials would appear in close proximity to an OWS assembly.” If indeed Occupy Wall Street has failed to become a force in the political mainstream, it is because mainstream politics, and not the movement, is failing to constitute any class or even sub-class (unless that sub-class is the very ri...
On Wednesday, March 21, a panel discussed the formation of the Occupy Wall Street and Tea Party movements and their predicted effect on the upcoming 2012 presidential election. Mary Marshall Clark, the head of the Columbia Center for Oral History, moderated the event, the second of three spring panels held by the Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy (ISERP). The panel included political science and SIPA professor Dorian Warren;...
...uccotti Park is just around the corner. September 17 will be an important birthday, but it should not be viewed as the only litmus test. That’s because it’s not the only birthday, or birth, worth celebrating and planning for. Occupy Wall Street (OWS), like every single protest before it, was a combination of spontaneity and organization. It took months of planning, with General Assemblies convening for weeks before Zuccotti Park was anything more...
...at the political process will be dominated by a super rich group of donors, the 1 percent of the 1 percent if you will. One of the most visible responses to the influence of corporations on politics has been the launch of the Occupy Wall Street movement, which criticized the influence on Wall Street money on the political system. Jeff Smith, a member of the Occupy Press Team, called our new electoral reality “legalized bribery.” Their advocacy he...
...ent man, but President Obama did nothing. He didn’t even try to save Troy Davis’ life. He didn’t even make a statement. Not only that, when hundreds of thousands of Americans did put on their marching shoes and joined in the Occupy movement, Obama’s DHS coordinated a nation-wide crackdown, which included the passage of a law that allows anyone to be indefinitely detained. Either President Obama didn’t want to do anything to save Troy Davis and c...
...o the Republicans on tax increases, his failure to create a public option for health insurance, etc. In any other election year, fringe liberals would likely just brush Obama’s shortcomings off as bipartisanship. However, the Occupy movement instilled much furor among the far-left; while that Marxist insurrection effectively died (and by that, I mean lost any resemblance of support from the mainstream) nearly as soon as it had begun, its lasting...
...Valeria Hamel CPR: Are you content with the progress of the movement thus far? Many praise the Chilean student uprising for their focus in their ultimate goals and their ability to voice them clearly, while many criticize the Occupy Wall Street movement for a lack of aim and direction. Where do you think the Yosoy132 movement stands in relation? VH: I am very content with the progress of the movement so far. We have an organization, which allows...
...ng stairs to check on elderly and disabled housing residents, coordinating donations of clothing, batteries, and other essentials—regular, every-day New Yorkers. Tens of thousands of volunteers have built new networks such as Occupy Sandy and You Are Not Alone (YANA) or continued acting in longer-standing groups such as the Coalition Against Anti-Asian Violence (CAAAV) and delivered tens of thousands of hot meals, coordinated donation hubs, and e...
...ity to one of the biggest movements in recent American times, I sadly haven’t yet made the trip to Zuccotti Park. It’s especially embarrassing considering my role in this magazine. Thankfully, I’ve been able to experience the Occupy Wall Street movement vicariously through Alex Klein, who has done a wonderful job in this issue of presenting a holistic view of what the term “occupy” truly entails while also giving a personal account of his experie...
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