Video of the Day: Understanding Occupy Wall Street

On a recent night out with some colleagues, a discussion over Occupy Wall Street (more commonly represented in the age of Twitter by #OccupyWallStreet) turned quite heated. As so often happens, camps got polarized and eventually we had the “they are all dirty hippies unwilling to work for things” camp jousting with the “these are people with a legitimate gripe about how democracy and the American dream failed them” crew. More likely than not, most of you fall somewhere between these two points of view. For the record, I am heavily in the latter camp and actively support, encourage and lobby on behalf of the various Occupy movements. My blogging on this front has been criminally negligent, but I direct you towards Aaron Bady for his excellent coverage of #OccupyOakland and #OccupyCal.

In addition, do watch this discussion at Columbia University, titled Understanding #OCCUPYWALLSTREET:

There is a little bit for everyone there: Suresh Naidu on the political economy aspect, Saskia Sassen from Sociology, Nadia Urbinati on political theory and Stathis Gourgouris from ICLS. 1 hour and 20 minutes well spent.

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