The Usual Suspects
True Liberation Begins at Home: A reminder to my Colleagues after several of their names appeared in a petition being circulated on Hunter-L, a principal Hunter College listserv, in support of OCCUPY WALL STREET. A copy of the petition is just below this note included in an Hunter-L post response about the petition:
As a result of Jed Brandt – of Envoy & SLAM Infamy – being identified as one of the co-founders of the OCCUPY Newspaper, this came to mind: There are Colleagues who like to proselytize, and are already exhorting students to join the Z-Revolution, thus, we need to remind students to beware of nefariously opportunistic, carpetbagging ersatz Freedom Fighters (posing as liberals, super-liberals and super-super-liberals) who will exploit and mislead them (the way that SLAM did many Students of Color on this campus).
STATEMENT BY FACULTY MEMBERS OF HUNTER COLLEGE, CUNY, IN SUPPORT OF THE OCCUPY WALL STREET MOVEMENT
We, the undersigned faculty and staff of Hunter College of the City University of New York, express our support as professionals and citizens for the protest movement, “Occupy Wall Street.” We see it as a new, creative awakening about the need for social justice that reflects the best traditions of American democracy and resonates with democratic protests across the globe.
This movement emerged in response to the continuing economic crisis in our country and much of the world, starting with “the economic meltdown” of September 2008. When that crisis occurred, our governmental leaders told us that the livelihoods of all Americans were threatened if we did not respond immediately with massive taxpayer support for our country’s biggest financial institutions. They were “too big to fail.” Since then, the endangered big banks have recovered; corporate profits have skyrocketed; executive bonuses continue unabated; thousands of small banks have been forced out of business, and millions of Americans have been put out of work. Yet the response by our elected leaders to the many Americans who have suffered because of the irresponsible and dangerous behavior of a few has been meager. Since 2008, thousands of families have had their homes taken from them; students are increasingly burdened by colossal debt to pay for their college education; New York State’s governor remains intent on lowering taxes for the richest New Yorkers while cutting back on education and health care, and economic inequality has reached its greatest heights in this country since the Great Depression. These economic and political phenomena evidence a continuing policy that regards most Americans as “too little to help.”
Democracy only can flourish if all voices are both heard and heeded and if the political order is understood. The Occupy Wall Street movement has given voice to citizens from across the political spectrum that have been neither heard nor heeded; it has shed light on the way in which the economic and political system in our country unfairly, but really, works. In this vein, it honors free speech, intellectual inquiry, and human well-being. It also has found common ground with economically and politically disenfranchised persons throughout Europe, the Middle East, Latin America, Africa, Asia, and Australia–all protesting corrosive inequalities.
As civic intellectuals and professors at a great public university, we hereby declare our support for this important movement. In so doing, we join our colleagues in colleges and universities across the nation and the world. May it grow.
SIGNATORIES
John R. Wallach (Political Science/Human Rights)
Ros Petchesky (Political Science/Women & Gender Studies)
Tami Gold (Film & Media Studies)
Bernard Stein (Journalism, Film & Media Studies)
(continued)
Gregory Johnson (Anthropology)
Isabel Pinedo (Film & Media Studies)
Rupal Oza (Director, Women & Gender Studies)
Diana Conchado (Spanish, Romance Languages)
Ricardo Miranda
Sarah E. Chinn (English)
Tim Portlock
Cheryl Harding
Kelly Anderson
There be phonies among the SINATORIES. Guess which ones?
More later.
Tags: Liberation, OCCUPY D:F/M, OCCUPY WALL STREET