[Ed. Note: This is a guest post from graduate student Peter Wirzbicki, who is helping to organize a student walk-out today at NYU in support of Occupy Wall Street.]
Today, at 4 pm in Washington Square Park, hundreds of NYU students like myself will gather and march down to Wall Street to support the movement for economic and political justice that has taken shape in Liberty Plaza. We will join a major rally downtown that will unite students from across New York, labor unions, and other activists. You should join, because as a student, whether graduate or undergraduate, your future rests on our nation’s ability to reform the economy.
You should join because NYU students are starting off their lives with crushing student loan debt. Across the country, the average student now begins a career with $24,000 in debt. Given the especially high costs of tuition at NYU, there are certainly many here who will have far more debt. And it wasn’t always this way. Before the mania for tax cutting and budget slashing, public universities were well-funded and nearly free. And when private schools had to compete with affordable high-quality public universities, even private universities were cheap. Since the 1970s, the cost of education has shifted from the society as a whole to the private individual with devastating results for those who have to fund their own education.
You should come protest because when you do graduate there will be fewer jobs available. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, less young people have a job right now then anytime since 1948, when they started keeping track. The official unemployment rate — which is always lower than the actual amount of jobless people — for Americans between 20-24 has been hovering around 15% for years now. Last year 85% of college graduates planned on moving home with their parents after graduation.
You should come protest because if you do get a job, it won’t pay nearly as much as it used to. With unemployment so high, and with unions under attack, employers can pretty much name their wages and conditions. Thousands of us have interned for free, doing work that in the past we would have been paid for. Others will work jobs they are over-qualified for, staffing coffee shops and waiting tables. When we do finally start our careers, the wages don’t match our experience and education. And the type of job we get now, right out of college, is one of the biggest determinants of how much money we’ll make 10 or 20 years down the line.
You should come protest because it doesn’t have to be this way; another world is possible. Our generation has done what we were supposed to do: we worked hard in high school, got into a good college, and took on debt to pay for an education. But our government and economic elites have not held up their end of the bargain. The good-paying jobs that are supposed to be our reward don’t exist. Meanwhile the politicians that ran up debt with tax cuts and unnecessary wars want to pay for it by slashing our education budgets and punishing the working class. The same factors that have eroded our generation’s opportunities — cutting taxes on the rich, slashing state budgets, relentless off-shoring, union-busting, and reduced investment in education — have all allowed a tiny minority on Wall Street to gain unprecedented wealth and power. Our country has gotten richer over the last 30 years, but almost all the gains have gone to the top 1% of the country, while the rest of us are pushed into ever more precarious straits. Our democracy cannot long survive such inequality.
The first step towards fixing a problem is drawing attention to it. No one listens to one person, but if enough of us raise our voices, they cannot ignore us. All across the world people are watching what has been building in Occupy Wall Street. Now it is NYU’s turn to join in.
This is all great and well-written, but what about us NYU-ers who have shitty jobs that are the only thing that stands between paying our rent and having to live on the streets because we have no money, not for the shabby nobility of an aimless protest?
There are things about Occupy Wall Street to be admired, there’s no doubt about that, and the feeling of exhaustion and revolution is sweeping more than just New York. However, the reality is that most people, those of us who pull 18 hour days trying to get through classes and still pay for food and shelter, simply cannot move in down on Wall Street and drop out of life for days on end.
It’s ironic that the protest is set against the 1%, the wealthiest Americans, the privileged, because only those are are either unemployed currently or incredibly privileged to be able to afford that many days off of class, work, and all their other responsibilities.
that last sentence should read *would be able to participate in this protest.
Lauren you make some great points. I’m also not able to occupy wall street indefinitely but the beauty of their action is that only some of them do. The rest of us can go down there or otherwise show our solidarity however we can. Today there are a bunch of marches to do just that. It’s all about bringing together a diversity of tactics.
Lauren, no one is suggesting you quit your job to sleep in a park for weeks. Do what you can! Try to convince your boss that he or she would become richer by supporting demands for some of Wall Street’s cash being spread around. Ride your bike past OWS on your way to school and shout your support. Re-route your next pub crawl downtown toward Wall Street. Combine some of your heavy homework load with research on the exploitation at the heart of capitalism–well, it seems you already do that, so write a paper about it. You’ll be sure to get an A.
Wait a minute…where was your sense of injustice when you CHOSE to matriculate at NYU knowing full well what it would cost? Where was the puling about “crushing student loan debt” then?
It’s nice that you pontificate about having done “what you’re supposed to do,” but you know what else you’re “supposed to do”? PAY YOUR DEBTS. That’s what I and “hundreds of NYU students” like me have done, whether it’s by dutifully writing that check every month or just by getting a self-sustaining job after college. You folks “occupying” Wall Street want to have your cake and eat it too, all the while thumbing your nose at those of us who behaved responsibly and with an eye toward reality.
Oh, and well-written? I’ll see your “According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, less young people have a job right now then anytime since 1948, when they started keeping track.” and raise you “According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, FEWER young people have a job right now THAN ANY TIME since 1948, when they started keeping track.”
Nobody said that taking on debt was what “we were supposed to do.”
There was no bargain that I made with government elites that was supposed to give me a “good paying job” after I graduate.
Did anyone stop and think about what unions did to auto production here in America? The UAW nearly drove Chrysler and GM through the ground in the late 70′s and 80′s and sales and production have never been the same. High cost of labor has driven production abroad, thus minimizing the amount of production jobs here in the States.
How is it possible to “reform an economy?” Shouldn’t the government just stay out because they’ve continually failed to “stimulate the economy” by printing money and giving huge bailout packages to major banks and producers in America? Shouldn’t we be pissed at Obama for cutting the check and not the CEO who still took his bonus?
Wasn’t the cost of public education driven up by the cost of paying out pensions to retired state workers and not cutting taxes? Look at the size of California’s penal system, and think about how many incarcerated people that they must fund, and the amount of law enforcement that must get paid their full salary until they die. Shouldn’t we take a good look at the state governments financial irresponsibility when we look at the collapse of state colleges? Why would minor federal tax cuts have anything to do with that?
Now what REALLY has “…allowed a tiny minority on Wall Street to gain unprecedented wealth and power.” Not the cutback of the unions, not reduced investment in education, not the cutting of state budgets. Those are all just REactions to the current situation. We need to take a hard look at our central banking system and the military industrial complex. The only things happening in America right now are arms manufacturing and financial services. This is because our government has taken cues from these industries and built up unelected organizations to protect the, like the Federal Reserve.
“The first step towards fixing a problem is drawing attention to it.” While I agree with this, we must educate ourselves and avoid the mob mentality that creates an idea that we can just “blame wall street” for these problems. We need to take a hard look at things and realize that some of us took on risk and that we’re not all fiscally perfect people. We need to look at our government’s policies to preserve the sacred cows of industry and make sure those people don’t get elected again. Corporatism is not capitalism, so we must not get those confused. Free markets will always be our savoir from a government that seeks to control them.
A graduate education in anything other than science, public health, nursing, engineering, public administration or medicine at a private university is not a right. It is a luxury owed to nobody. One shoulders the ensuing burdens at his own risk. And there are alternatives. CUNY, just up 5th Avenue, is at least 85% cheaper, but apparently lacks the brand cachet.
The same follows for a private undergraduate education. You can go to CUNY or SUNY for a fraction of the cost, and graduate with very little debt. If you are a scholar, you’ll be alright.
As an aside, the protest is annoyingly incoherent, like the ones in Greece, which is why it will ultimately fail. In Libya, Syria, Egypt and Yemen, it’s so simple and powerful (“our dictator kings are crushing our very souls; rise up for basic freedoms”) that they resonated across all sectors of society: the army, the police, the students, the everyday citizens. Here there is just not enough coherence and resonance. For this reason, unless something changes, this will peter out in a few weeks.
Have a safe, satisfying march today.
[...] Why you should participate in #NYwalkout, from NYU Local: Today, at 4 pm in Washington Square Park, hundreds of NYU students like myself will gather and [...]
[...] – to Zuccotti Park (City Room, by the way, introduces us to the park’s namesake today). And an op-ed at NYU Local is encouraging New York University students to join in a march from Washington Square Park at 4 [...]
I would just like to remind the commenters on this article of one very important concept- we live in America.
While this might seem like a really redundant point, I think we might need to be reminded of what this means, and its possibilities.
One of the most exciting concepts of America is the idea of the American Dream. We have the chance, the opportunity to explore new careers, to go to school when our forefathers could not. The ability to continue our education past our parents, past our grandparents. To learn more and to have access to more opportunities. That’s why people are still coming here- to give themselves and their families a chance.
As part of this, we have the freedom to pursue any career, any major, any concentration we choose. We are incredibly fortunate not to live in a system where our schools choose our paths from an early age. Part of America is the fact that we get the chance to pick something we might not be the best in, something that we have the freedom to fail at.
And while I agree that we should be financially responsible, that we should consider public education rather than name-brand-crippling-debt institutions like NYU, we also need to recognize that this we should be able to choose our dream school, our dream major. You might scoff at someone going into debt over a major in Acting or the Internet, but they should at least be given the chance to try. They should be given the chance to at least try to pay off their debts, the chance to have some kind of future. It is not just the 1% that should be able to pay off their decisions in creativity.
We live in a country that values creativity. Our creativity in all fields should be a valued commodity, and people should recognize the importance of students not choosing careers in sectors like engineering, medicine, public health. Equal access to education, in any field should be a right, not a luxury.
Calvin,
Convince my boss? You really think that in this economic climate, trying to push a political agenda on your employer when you need the job much more than they need you is a good idea? I’m sorry, but I’m not willing to sacrifice my ability to eat, to pay my rent, and to finish my education (things that I work very hard to be able to do, I easily pull 40 hours a week in addition to my class schedule) in order to support a protest that at its’ core is poorly organized without any kind of clearly defined goal or outcome.
As I said, the protest is to be admired for its spirit, and I have long said that the apathy of our generation will lead to our being taken advantage of by the system, but there is absolutely no benefit to ignoring reality.
It’s not the protest I object to, the content of the protest and its goals could be discussed at great length in a thousand places all over the internet, as well as its relative merits. What I object to is the pretension of this “call to action” and NYULocal seeming to ignore the fact that most NYU students are UNABLE to participate in Occupy Wall Street unless they are themselves very, very privileged and coming from a family of means, which seems to be antithetical to the entire purpose of the demonstration, no? Though, as anyone who has taken a class in Gallatin will tell you, we have no shortage of “activists” whose rent is being paid by mommy and daddy so they can live at a trendy address in the East Village, who love to talk about the oppression of capitalism while at the same time reaping the rewards of the system.
Insisting what you should have the ability to study what you want to study, at the private institution you wish to study it at, for the price you can afford to pay, is simply not a right in any broad sense of the term, especially when viable SUNY and CUNY-like alternatives exist.
It is an unjustified claim, even in our democracy.
The American Dream requirement is satisfied by a sufficient number of satisfactory places to obtain higher education at a moderate price, not by mandating that private institutions be affordable to everyone. This exists in the form of numerous state and local university systems.
So please don’t complain that you can’t afford to go to the protests because NYU requires you work hard for your tuition. It’s like complaining that your diamond slippers are too expensive.
This is well said. It’s possible for pretty much everyone to get involved here in one way or another, no matter what your commitment level: just talk to people or swing by the protest for a few minutes.
I’d also remind current NYU students that there’s an economic justice fight going on at their own campus that they might want to also get involved with: UAW is trying to get union recognition for teaching assistants.
Steven-
Gross misreading of my post there, well done. I’m not complaining that NYU makes me “dance for my dinner” as it were, I prefer working and generally do not take issue with my job. It pays me money which I then use to cover my expenses. About as fair as it gets, really. What I have problem with is that the kind of people who are targeted by NYU’s recruiting and the kind of people who can afford to protest in this manner are precisely the people being protested against. An East Village hipster living off daddy’s banker paycheck is no more a victim of capitalism than a kid on Halloween is a victim of a sugar high.
I know there is a planned “walk-out” in “solidarity” today and it really hits the point home for me. The types of posts I’ve seen on Facebook, comments overheard both on campus and from friends, have all made jokes about how it’s a great excuse to get out of class, or to go get a beer. Yep, these are really young people devoted to a cause. Sure.
Also, Ned, I have been down quite a few times as I walk through the area for work pretty regularly, but I doubt my “dropping by” is the kind of action that is being preached about in this “call to action”.
Hey Ana! — I just wanted to think about the concept of the American dream as something that is not ever a right, but rather an idea that encourages commerce and a hard working spirit in America. I’m not sure many people equate the concept of the American Dream to someone’s spending around $60k a year on undergraduate acting school in New York plus the debt and interest that comes with it.
We need to re-examine the question of how this looming student debt crisis arose. We need to look at Fannie and Freddie and how the federal reserve system manages interest rates and credit. Then we can use the fervor of this movement towards more focused changed and a more intelligible message. This is only one example.
I 100% agree with Lauren.
I have a few issues with this so-called movement. As some previous commenters touched upon, OWS is far too directionless and disorganized (a poorly written fb event invite doesn’t count for much) to be effective.
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At the heart of the matter, from what I’ve gathered, is an unhappiness with the continued shift of purchasing power away from average joe. So how do you fix it, and in whose hands lies the antidote? Some argue that Congress should pass legislation to restore balance, while others say the government’s over-involvement has led us to this predicament.
But one thing is for sure: if you expect CEOs to toss suitcases of cash to picketers downstairs, you’re wasting your time. The hot-shots on Wall Street can’t hear even a peep of the protests from their 40th floor offices. Don’t expect them to show any sympathy.
So can someone help me out? Why Wall St? Hell, why not W4th Street? OWS has parked its ass for 3 weeks now and has barely received any respect from the media (which gets hard at the mere sound of the word ‘protest’). Here’s a suggestion, try taking the movement to 1500 Pennsylvania Avenue. Maybe that’ll make a headline or two.
Also,
“According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, less young people have a job right now then anytime since 1948, when they started keeping track”
Can someone please remind the author that we’re crawling out of the most devastating GLOBAL recession since the 1930s? That might have a little something to do with the high unemployment rate. And if you say that the big boys on Wall St. caused the sub-prime mortgage crises that led to the recession, you should point an equally disdainful finger at the millions of irresponsible Americans who defaulted on their debts.
[...] can’t end this without linking to this piece, written by my younger son, who is involved in urging NYU students to leave their classes and hit [...]
Hi, I’d like to ask all of you who are “occupying” Wall Street one thing:
What exactly are your goals?
What do you expect to accomplish?
You have these high and mighty goals of equality, these lofty ideals of justice, and yet, when people are asked what they want, they respond with: “We’re protesting greed” or “we want more jobs”.
What do you expect to happen? Mayor Bloomberg to sign an anti-greed act? The government is going to force companies to hire employees to do nothing?
I am terrified of our country right now, but not because of the greed of Wall Street. Every day I see our country becoming a little more like the dystopia of “Atlas Shrugged” and I wonder where the real world Atlantis is…
I was at #OWS this past week and not once did I hear anyone insist that people should come by or ask their boss anything. In fact, when the people who did come by relayed the message that many people who can’t get there do appreciate what they are doing, they were so pleased by this and thankful. It gives them a lift. Whether or not you’re aware of it, the things that #OWS stand for and fight for will benefit everyone (with the exception of a tiny elite circle of people). Regardless of the arguments back and forth about fees and what it takes to get by and whether or not people think there is a clear demand from OWS, they are working to change things that are much bigger than what is being discussed here. The very fact that anyone asks why they are there is plenty of indication as to the need for them to be there. The one thing that seems to be most overwhelming is the lack of information that the average American has to work with.. No wonder they don’t know what’s going on.. media organizations will not allow it. Everyone is entitled to their opinions and in fact this is one of the very important things that OWS is working towards.. for every voice to be heard, however, when these opinions lack the kind of context that is not available, how are you to know.. perspective needs context and that is what is lacking here. So when you set down to write a response to this, do a little reading. George: look up ‘Occupy Wall Street Statement’ – simply cut and paste this and Google it. You will have your answers. In fact, here it is.. you have no work to do at all. Now tell me that this does not resonate even if you have been saturated in propaganda…
Declaration of the Occupation of New York City
As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies.
As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.
They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.
They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses.
They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one’s skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.
They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.
They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless nonhuman animals, and actively hide these practices.
They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.
They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right.
They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers’ healthcare and pay.
They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility.
They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.
They have sold our privacy as a commodity.
They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press.
They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit.
They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.
They have donated large sums of money to politicians supposed to be regulating them.
They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.
They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people’s lives in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantive profit.
They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.
They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media.
They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt.
They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad.
They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.
They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts.*
To the people of the world,
We, the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power.
Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.
To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.
Join us and make your voices heard!
*These grievances are not all-inclusive.