FB memories brought up this old poster from December 2011...
The Occupy Wall Street movement had spread to university campuses by November 2011 and students had begun organizing. There was a viral video of a policeman casually pepper-spraying students seated on the ground (it later became a meme too).
It started out as a conversation with GG about basics: Pepper-spraying students is wrong. Before long, we were organizing a teach-in with Nathan Brown from UC Davis, Pranav Jani and Steve Conn from OSU, and various Yellow Springers.
Sometimes people belittle Occupy, but it held the seeds to the popularity of Bernie, the resurgence of the youth labor movement, and current university protests... People supposedly get conservative as they age, but in my case, I think I get more radical and angrier as I get older and learn more.
I'm thinking about these things because I'm proud of At, who is off to Seattle today as an invited speaker to the UFCW about democratically organizing a union. One of our dinner table jokes is that Pete Buttigieg's and Kamala Harris's parents must be disappointed in them--both of them had professor parents whose Marxist politics were probably more radical than that of their kids. We're definitely on more equal footing over at our place.
8 comments:
Great job At!
Perhaps at one point it was true that people get more conservative as they age, but I haven't known that to be the case among those that I know. Among my friends and family, we've all gotten far more liberal and some even radical.
Then again, birds of a feather and all that. But good for At; it's a worthy cause and rejuvenating the labor movement with young blood is beyond important.
Good job
Thanks, Nicole!
Nance, thankfully--I don't know any people my age who've turned conservative either. All my real friends--peers/younger/older--are all on the liberal-to-radical range. But some of the peers I grew up with are fairly conservative... I think they always were.
Thank you!
I don't feel as if my core beliefs have changed as I get older but I do feel more willing to accept compromise in order to move the ball in the direction I want. Could that come off as moderation? Possibly.
That's a very useful distinction, Steph... thank you for sharing this.
Post a Comment