To the Occupy Kids -- Some Words from a Geezer

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Carl Davidson, Bill Ayers, and Zig Ziglar Moments

Adapted from an article originally published in the May 2011 Indianapolis Peace & Justice Journal—GF

Andalusian Uprising: The Empire that Unites the Arab Spring and European Anti-Austerity Protesters

     In the seventh century, Musa bin Nusair, born in Syria, traveled and fought his way through the Middle East and across North Africa, expanding the Muslim empire headquartered in Damascus, Syria. With his general Tariq bin Ziyad in the lead, he crossed the Mediterranean from Morocco with an army of several thousand, taking control of most of Spain. From 711 until 1031, the Umayyad Empire stretched from Córdoba to Damascus.

Credit cards substitute for student ID's: Next up in the US?

Thanks to a recent blog at the website of a UK teacher union activist, we know may be coming down the road in the corporatization of US public higher education.

Sharing the Torch: Youth of the 60s Meet With the Youth of OWS

     The evolving Occupy Wall Street movement continues to confound and surprise even its ardent supporters. Two days after Mayor Bloomberg’s brutal nighttime eviction of sleeping Occupiers from Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan, a massive candlelight march in support of Occupy Wall St. wound its way from Foley Square (opposite the federal courthouse), around City Hall and across the Brooklyn Bridge (police estimated 32,500 participants).

Occupy the Democratic Party? No Way!

     At a moment when Occupy faces severe police repression and cold weather, and as we are both extending our movement to the streets and rethinking our future, various pressures are beginning to build with the objective of taking our movement into the Democratic Party.

The Camel and the Needle's Eye

A certain ruler asked him, "Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? . . . Jesus said to him, You know the commandments . . . . He replied, "I have kept all these since my youth." When Jesus heard this, he said to him, "There is still one thing lacking. Sell all that you own and distribute the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me." But when he heard this he became sad; for he was very rich. Jesus looked at him and said, "How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!

Gertrude Ezorsky: From Left Democratic Socialist to Left Democratic Socialist

(A presentation at a conference at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York on November 18, 2011, held in honor of Gertrude Ezorsky and sponsored by the New York Society For Women in Philosophy)

     There is a famous quip by Georges Clemenceau: "Not to be a socialist at twenty is proof of want of heart; to be one at thirty is proof of want of head."

From Occupy Wall Street, to Occupy America, to Occupy the World

The emergence of a mass movement, the beginning of a new radicalization