As the top 1% grabs most of the new wealth created in the United States, a conversation about inequality has risen to the top of national discourse. This will likely lead to a new focus on class that is always the central issue in capitalist societies. What is remarkable is not that the capitalist class […]
#Occupy
The Unity of Class and the Division of Nationality
This world is divided into unrepresentative and irrelevant categories. Rather than looking at what we have in common with others, we are told to focus on the differences. It was in Austria, whilst staying with friends of mine in Vienna, that this became apparent. The only divide I had with these people was that of […]
It’s not only the rich who carry out classism
Should the one percent be exclusively blamed for creating our stratified society? Occupy Wall Street came, and to some degree, has gone. Like many professional middle class progressive movements, its main focus has been on inequality between the owning class and everyone else. However, is the 1 percent owning class completely guilty for the stratification […]
Who Are Congress’s Protectors of Class Privilege?
Mitt Romney and I both grew up in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, a wealthy suburb of Detroit. For much of our childhoods, we were represented in Congress by a tireless defender of the rich and powerful, U.S. Representative William Broomfield. Indeed, we would be hard-pressed to find a politician more faithful to the interests of the […]
Upsides of sky-high youth unemployment
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 […]
The 99% Gets A Break Down
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 […]
What about those hand signals?
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! Using the six measures of degrees of movement culture that my […]
Thoughts about Thanksgiving (& -isms we may encounter at the table!)
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 […]
Have pity on the rich
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 […]
Diversity & isms in #Occupy
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 […]
The Occupy Together Movement: 5 Points, for Your Consideration
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 […]
Horizontal Participatory Democracy is Worth the Wait
“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 […]
Occupiers’ Demands and Working-Class Activist Traditions
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 […]
Occupy DC: Chamber of Commerce helps ‘built-to-loot’ companies
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: A coalition of Wall Street companies —and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce — are pressing […]
Wall Street occupation for the 99%
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. Now, in what might become the American Autumn, hundreds of men and women, mostly in their 20s and […]
