Upsides of sky-high youth unemployment

Tuesday, May 1st, 2012

Posting Class Action internships gives me a window into the massive under-use of young adults’ energy in this lousy economy. Even for unpaid internships, we get dozens of bright, motivated students, and even college graduates. And whenever we can afford to offer internships with small stipends, the applications come in by the hundreds. These applicants have an amazing array of skills and experience to offer employers. What kind of sick economy wouldn’t have decent summer jobs and good entry-level jobs for all these young idealists?

The 99% Gets A Break Down

Thursday, March 15th, 2012

This last weekend I was asked to do a training on class for a group of Occupy activists in upstate New York.  I was delighted, thrilled — and then terribly nervous.  Why?  Well, I love the 99% framework.  But when it comes to getting deeper in class, it’s a little … uhm… conflating.  I worried people would refuse to break apart that 99% framework, keeping class as a simplistic two-dimensional dynamic.

What about those hand signals?

Friday, November 25th, 2011

The same week that Steven Colbert pretended to mock Occupy Wall Street’s hand signals, I saw them used at an Occupy Boston General Assembly, and my Social Movements class studied the pitfalls of too much and too little “movement culture” – quite a serendipity!

Thoughts about Thanksgiving (& -isms we may encounter at the table!)

Thursday, November 24th, 2011

After listening to a NPR segment about Thanksgiving and some anxiety that this very social holiday brings up for folks, I realized that this year may be challenging in new ways. Not only has the economy been stagnant, unemployment is rising, and political movements are taking place nationwide and internationally that put class inequality at the heart of the discussion. What do we talk about when we see each other?

Have pity on the rich

Monday, November 14th, 2011

Rich people must protest the way they are treated here in the US of A. And Marin County is THE place to start, cuz we got a LOT of rich people here. Why, just recently we were proudly cited as one of THE richest counties in the US. Filthily so. It’s clear that the rich have been horribly mistreated. Let us recount the many, many, MANY ways:

Diversity & isms in #Occupy

Monday, November 14th, 2011

The various “Occupy” developments around the country have opened the long-neglected and marginalized question of economic equality, and the power of concentrated income and wealth over the nation’s nominally “democratic” political system.  Nothing could be more welcome.  At the same time, the historic struggles of various “identity groups” for their place in the sun is off-stage in this new conversation, though there is growing acknowledgment by various Occupy groups of the need to “diversify.”

The Occupy Together Movement: 5 Points, for Your Consideration

Thursday, November 3rd, 2011

The Occupy Together Movement, starting with Occupy Wall Street, has been, in the words of an old television commercial, ‘simply marvelous’.  This is an exciting, energizing repudiation of the politics of economic injustice.  For this reason alone the movement needs the support of those of us on the left-side of the aisle.  Yes, there are concerns, limitations, etc., but that must be put in the context that this is an excellent moment of resistance to the neo-liberal economics that have driven this world into a deep, dark hole.

Horizontal Participatory Democracy is Worth the Wait

Friday, October 21st, 2011

“Mic check!” “MIC CHECK!”   “I just want to say” “I JUST WANT TO SAY”     “that this is my first time here” “THAT THIS IS MY FIRST TIME HERE”      “and that being here right now” “AND THAT BEING HERE RIGHT NOW”      “and participating in this process” “AND PARTICIPATING IN THIS PROCESS”     “is the happiest” “IS THE HAPPIEST”     “I’ve ever been in my life!” “I’VE EVER BEEN IN MY LIFE!”

Occupiers’ Demands and Working-Class Activist Traditions

Saturday, October 15th, 2011

Thanks to Occupy Wall Street and its spin-offs, a national conversation has broken out over the purpose of protesting. I understand why defenders of the Occupy encampments say that it’s OK to put forward only general issues; it’s true that just being there spotlights the problems with the economy. But last Sunday’s New York Times editorial declared, “It is not the job of the protestors to draft legislation. That’s the job of the nation’s leaders.” What kind of elitist baloney is that?

Occupy DC: Chamber of Commerce helps ‘built-to-loot’ companies

Thursday, October 6th, 2011

On Thursday, October 6, more than 2,000 people assembled at Freedom Square and marched to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. We brought thousands of resumes of people looking for jobs. Many testified about their job searches. Here were my remarks:

Wall Street occupation for the 99%

Monday, October 3rd, 2011

The first thing I felt when I arrived at Liberty Park in New York City this past Saturday was the energy. It brought me back to the late ‘60s when I was a graduate student in Wisconsin.