“One perCENT! One perCENT!”
“Why would you occupy Harvard, anyway? We have the most diverse student body in the world. What is there to protest?”
“So, what’s the point of all this?”
“You know, in principle, I think some of the things that you stand for, I mean, the things that I imagine you stand for, I guess, are laudable, but …”
“Is this some kind of protest? I don’t get it.”
huh…: )
so what’s the vibe… ? like the anit apartide protests at the university of utah in the 1980’s? which i do think cause the university to divest itself of all holdings connected to the south african government. so i guess every little bit helps.
but isn’t harvard in the business of educating the one percent? … i mean isn’t the system working for these particular kids?
i know it’s broader than that…
Eh, I wasn’t at the anti-apartheid protests at the U in the ’80s, so it’s hard to compare. But yes, every little bit helps.
I’ve been thinking about the relationship between Harvard and the 1%. First off, Harvard is a big university with many parts. So people at the Div School or the Ed School are pretty far from the 1%, for the most part. Even most of the undergrads or law school students didn’t come from the 1%. But a lot of them aspire to it. Or aspire to be the top-level servants, like the head butler or something. And the university is massively rich and pretty insulated from economic problems. On the other hand, there are plenty of us who aren’t the 1%, never have been, and never will be. And, 1% or not, you can recognize that something is deeply wrong with the current system, and you can decide to try to help change it.
Besides, how are some of these undergrads going to get laid without a good protest movement?
not to detour too much, but yesterday I saw my favorite sign of the movement so far. (probably a few weeks old by now):
“I won’t believe a corperation is a person until Texas executes one.”
I was totally at the anti-apartheid protests in the ’80s, and that’s where my first protest chant was etched into my brain forever: “UC! USA! Out of South! Af-ri-CA!” Not too clever, but it’s deep in the grooves now.
So in homage to that primal locale, here’s what they’re saying about OWS there:
http://www.dailycal.org/2011/11/10/what-would-mario-savio-say-about-the-occupy-movement/
and, unfortunately, here’s how it’s turning out for them now:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/11/09/1034955/-Are-you-f-ugh-cking-kidding-me-These-kids-are-saints
Yeah, solidarity with #OccupyCal. That shit was fucked up.
i guess what i meant dave, was the tone of your post suggests a lot of students around you are expressing these kinds of undergraduat-y simplistic… wishy washy sentiments. “like, i dunno, my dad is a banker…” or what have you.
my question is, is the campus AWASH in activity? or is it just a few dozen kids in pup tents?
and thinking about this this am…. that california video is amazing… everything cool always happens in california… even student smack downs.
i’m sure the shanty towns at cal were WAY cooler too.
It’s a fairly small group of students who are actually camping out. Yesterday (the day after the tents were set up) was rainy and dismal. When it cleared up in the evening I went down there and had some interesting conversations with people, including a conversation with someone so hostile that I actually got angry, which I don’t usually do in political discussions. It ain’t Berkeley.
yeah, everything that was good happened in 1968 or in Berkeley… 1985 or 2011. GEN X MISSED EVERYTHING! ALL WE GOT WAS LAZY ASS STEVE MALKAMUS! AND NOBODY EVEN LIKES HIS STU{ID SHIT ANYMORE>>>
ok drunk dial… but BAM and the cute little resturaunt after were great… happy eleven eleven eleven!