Occupiers Acacia Brewer and Jason Potteiger spoke on NECN earlier about Occupy Boston and clarified some misconceptions. Check it out here.
Author Archive
Published October 4, 2011 in the Tufts Daily student newspaper.
By Gary Goldstein
Several articles, op−eds and an editorial have appeared related to Occupy Boston. I went down to Occupy Boston Sunday afternoon. I ran into another Tufts faculty member and an alumnus. It wasn’t easy to find other Tufts people among the several hundred encamped there. I know some of you were there.
Why did I go down to Occupy Boston? I saw the news that 700 “Occupy Wall Street” people were arrested in New York City! Is that freedom of speech? “Freedom of speech” for large corporations, e.g. Bank of America, Exxon−Mobil and General Electric was recently guaranteed by the Supreme Court. Corporations can virtually buy politicians and elections. What about the rights of citizens to protest? You might say, “Well, they blocked traffic!” What could threaten civil order more, blocking traffic and the inconvenience it causes, or taking away people’s homes, employment, health benefits, retirement pensions and education opportunities? Do we sit back while corporate and government policies leave 25 million people unemployed or underemployed? Do we accept that sending people away to endless wars of destruction is how our economy should be funneled? Do we accept that the United States has the highest prison population — well over 1 million — among industrialized nations? Do we tolerate the further erosion of opportunities for the growing numbers of poor among us? Well, 700 people who do not accept and tolerate these intolerable circumstances were arrested for speaking, shouting, protesting and marching. So I went to Occupy Boston. I urge you to do the same.
The Occupy Boston camp is a very impressive undertaking. People, mostly under 40 years old, are very well organized in non−hierarchical, open democratic ways, committed to the cause of economic equity and settled in for a long haul. They are attracting local media attention, at least for now. The police are not large in numbers. The feeling is very upbeat and hopeful. I am reminded of sit−ins, teach−ins and occupations of administration buildings over many years of being politically active during my time at Tufts and earlier. It is a good feeling! It will grow.
The criticisms that there is not a single guiding message or an identifiable leader are premature and, perhaps, misguided. Successful movements don’t spring up, fully formed out of nowhere. They build gradually, attract more and more attention and gel around central issues. Looking back at popular history can be misleading. Charismatic leaders like Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, Malcolm X and Nelson Mandela didn’t appear overnight with full−blown movements of thousands. They emerged from long struggles carried forward by hundreds of anonymous supporters of causes and strategies that cohered over time. Workers’ rights, gay rights, women’s rights, social welfare programs, unionism, the ending of the Vietnam War, the reduction of nuclear weapons all resulted from the efforts of thousands of people, now unknown, who were fired up to demand change.
We should support the beginnings of a movement that aims to ameliorate the social and economic inequalities that now plague the United States. We see huge corporations and banks cutting costs and workers, sending work abroad, while pulling in record profits. Most members of Congress spend their days cutting budgets for social programs, education, health and welfare, scientific research and grants for states and cities. The results we see — increasing unemployment and misery for many, especially among minorities, while the United States wages indefensible, enormously expensive wars of destruction, ruining the future for Americans and threatening the rest of the world. Tufts students are not immune. The search for suitable jobs after graduation will be difficult.
We are living in difficult times. Without support for meaningful change we will be left with declining prospects for the fair and equitable society that we all hope to inhabit in the future. There is much hope in this new movement. Go downtown to Occupy Boston! With your support and participation we may see a movement grow and succeed.
Gary Goldstein is a professor of physics and astronomy.
A nation-wide student walk out is planned for today, October 5, at noon. Students from across the country, from New York to Los Angeles, will march in solidarity with the Occupy Movement.
In Boston, students from universities and colleges across the city will join together in solidarity with Occupy Boston by taking part in the walk out. Boston University, Boston College, Northeastern, Tufts, Brandeis, and others—including Harvard, MIT, UMass Boston, Berklee, Simmons, and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts—will leave class and march with us. They have organized on the site studentsoccupyboston.com—which is “a central communication point for organizing Boston area college students to help Occupy Boston“—and on Twitter, at @studentsoccupy.
On Facebook, students are circulating an invitation to their friends that includes the following description of Occupy Boston:
What I can tell you is that attending an #OccupyBoston event is the only way you will ever have a shot at understanding what the movement is really about. I can tell you that the individuals involved with #OccupyBoston and #OccupyWallStreet are unbelievably passionate, organized, determined people of every age, race, ethnicity, nationality, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, class, and spiritual affiliation who are working unwaveringly in the spirit of democracy. I can tell you that members of the #Occupy movement’s General Assemblies are effectively drawing the nation’s attention to a number of alarming economic, political, and social issues that negatively impact each and every one of us. Finally, I can assure you that this movement will be what its participants make of it, and for that reason, I implore you to visit Dewey Square for a General Assembly and to have a say in what #OccupyBoston becomes. I cannot contain my excitement when I think of the potential a movement like this has to change the United States and the world for the better, and I know that the participation and support of every single student and recent graduate in the Greater Boston area will help it achieve its incredible promise.
We are so proud of our students! Boston is America’s college town—one third of people who live in the greater Boston area are under 30, and 60% of those are students.
For more information on how your school can get involved, please email studentsoccupyboston@gmail.com or follow @studentsoccupy on Twitter.
This release was given to the Occupy Boston media team at Dewey Square.
The Greater Boston Labor Council applauds the efforts of Occupy Boston to place a spotlight on the imbalance of power in our nation and the role that Wall Street has played in devastating our economy.
Faced with the worst economy since the great depression and saddled with college tuition debt young people are saying what labor has been saying for a long time. Shared sacrifice is a one-way street in our nation.
Occupy Boston and similar organizations in New York and across the nation are using valid tactics to expose the reality that there are two economies in America. One for real people and another for financial elites, the same people that created the economic crisis and have been untouched by its consequences, while millions of Americans have lost their jobs and their homes.
Richard M. Rogers.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NK7I1uC-ZsA]
The Matthew Filipowicz Show came by and talked to some of the 99% camped out on Dewey Sq. Want to know why we’re here? Listen.