I’m one of the 99% and the last thing I need is your socialism to impoverish the country even more. You write “We object to the prevailing rhetoric at Penn that vilifies so-called “flash mobs” while not acknowledging the University’s exercise of eminent domain to displace the Black Bottom neighborhood in making room for the expanding university.” Penn expansion into West Philadelphia is the one thing that might prevent a flash mob from beating all of us up including the authors of the above absurdity.” Penn expansion would bring prosperity and safety to the dangerous areas surrounding it which benefits everyone. Occupy doesn’t care about our safety, it’s a radical revolutionary left wing socialist organization that tries to claim it is for the 99% when its policies are a threat to all of us.

Object, object, object. Generally, positive things come from positive action — not from automatic gainsaying of others. A movement that has been challenged to identify their objectives now has — and the result is clear to see — a non-productive anti-everything stance that has few redeeming values. Gamma (above) is also correct. How nice it would be to put energy into positive things that aren’t so extreme….oh well….

If you hate Penn so much, why are you a part of it? Nobody forced you to attend. The best way to protest Penn would be to not give them your tuition money. Practice what you preach and go to a community college. We don’t need you here.

Who are you anyway? It is easy to stand behind the moniker of “Occupy Penn represents a diverse group of students, staff, faculty and members of the University of Pennsylvania community in support of the Occupy Movement.”

Are you not proud of your comments? Don’t you want your names attached to it?

Reading this “statement” actually made me feel physically ill.

Is this a credit dodge for the english department or a offshoot of the sustainability scam movement? obamabots on steroids?Your whole movement is the living definition of the term “useful idiots“any faculty that backs this group does a disservice to this institution and our great nation.shame on you.

Categorically objecting to all Department of Defense-funded research is ridiculous. It’s not as if researchers at Penn are developing weapons systems. DoD funds research on things like software, circuits, and biomechanics-area that aren’t inherently threatening-it depends on the application and it’s great that our society can benefit from DoD research. Occupy only serves to discredit itself with silly reductive arguments like this.

The “Occupy” movement is just the scarecrow of a defeated Communism dressed in dead leaves. Maybe after the Revolution they will learn to spell right and use their antiquated terminology correctly. That should be “proletariat” not “precariot.” Also President Spanier has resigned from Penn State: so your essay is out-dated that way also.

Right on, OP!
Now, head over to the Palestra and protest that evil capitalist Rosen, who persists in scoring a disproportionate amount of his team’s points.

“We object to gross wage disparities across the University.”

Great, I’d like to see your plan for leveling the wages of all university employees. You’ll be able to hire the best-qualified and most-skilled manual laborers in the world, but every administrator worthy of the title will leave to work for a university that pays more. Good luck.

Glad this is out there for all to see. I am in support of this statement, as a member of Occupy Penn and the Occupy Movement as a whole.

For those who object to these objections, that is of course your prerogative. That is part of the liberty we are fighting for. And to those who object with such strong vitriol, what would it be like if you took a minute to consider where these objections come from, and whether or not there is in fact any validity there?

“I may not agree with what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

Remember the values of liberty this country was founded on. Remember the once new-born American Dream.

PS online conversations are great, but look for us on the walk in the next week or two leading up to the March 1st Coalition day of action.

Are we correct to assume that the authors will redistribute their future wages in their entirety, or are they just generous with other people’s money? Perhaps they would like to explain why the employees they wish were paid more should not also in turn redistribute their income to the rest of the world? After all, PPP adjusted hourly wages are much higher in the U.S. than in many parts of the world. Surely a group of such moral luminaries would not abide hypocrisy.

What happened to editorial or journalistic standards? Can I write up anything, regardless of how senseless, and have it published in the DP?

Great initiative. For the person that told these brave students to “if you hate Penn so much, why are you a part of it?” I wonder if that same person would have told Martin Luther King Jr. to go away, because he saw and acted justly.

@Jared Dubin:
“That is part of the liberty we are fighting for…[insert quote attributed to Voltaire here]” Way to conflate first amendment rights with a socialist struggle. Too bad nobody was arguing against free speech (for which we don’t have Occupy to thank, by the way). As for the vitriol, while I do not feel it is necessary, I can empathize because Occupy clearly vilifies a large portion of the Penn community (pursuing high paying in jobs inside and outside of financial services.

@A: “brave students?” Really? I don’t see anyone’s names on this op-ed. Brave indeed.

I can’t say I’m anything but surprised at the rather acerbic rhetoric presented in these comments.

I should begin by disclosing my distance from these matters; I have not been involved in any real capacity with the Occupy movement and I graduated from UPenn last year. So, I suppose it is within the realm of possibility that were I at still UPenn, I, too, might find Occupy UPenn as odious as y’all seem to. However, I suspect contrary; I don’t understand why a movement that is dedicated towards creating a more substantially equal world is offensive, totalitarian or nefariously schemeing.

Occupy has frequently been criticized in the press, personal conversation and our national zeitgeist as lacking tangible objections, programs or solutions. Occupy UPenn seems to have responded to such criticism by presenting an enumerated and programmatic set of actionable positions. So, while I understand the silliness in comment threads on DP articles, I can’t help but respond to some of the previous comments.

First, I do not understand the obsession with asking the Left to have all the answers or asking the left to live according to some sort of devout path of goodness (aka will those on the left completely redistribute their wages?). To be for a more perfect, more just and fairer world does not require you to live a chaste life absent joy, celebration and participation in markets. Everyone deserves to be paid for their work.

So, I believe a better question to begin with, is will you redistribute wealth in your future employment? Let’s say these lefty commie crazies end their Occupy carreer and begin working for a non-profit dedicated to housing assistance work (or in some movement organized around labor wages (or even (dare I say it) in government)) and they earn an above average wage. That’s great! Enjoy it! If those individuals look at their work and say I tried or did make the world a less unfair, less unequal place, than they’ve in some ways participated in redistributive efforts. Maybe less directly, but hell—who cares? At the end of the day you gotta be happy.

Second, while I love the United States (I mean how can you not? This place rules), blind patrioticism and affection for your University are insufficient reasons to avoid seeking a more perfect union and a more responsible Upenn.

To begin with, it’s been incredibly well documented in multiple non-ideological metrics that
• The middle class has access to fewer benefits and, when adjusted, earns less income than it did 30 years ago.
• You are more likely to earn less than your parents did today.
• We have increasing wealth inequality that is quite close at the levels of the era preceeding the great depression. Moreover, this disparity is not just between the very richest and the very poorest: the disparity in wages between even the top 20% of the population and the top 10% is growing, and likewise for the top 10% and the top 1 and the top 1% and the top .1%.
• Women and under represented minorities earn substantially less than white males. Our country is also increasingly diverse…
• Ivy League and other like institutions (12 total (I forget which) generate aproximately 50% of the Congress and Executive branch and 50% of the CEO of Forbes 500 countries.
• Although Upenn is more superficially diverse than it was 10, 20 years ago, the growth of such diversity does not match national rates nor does it have a proportional number of low income students.
• Upenn is also one of the largest employers and probably landowners in Philadelphia. Their actions affect tens of thousands of people and rely on the infrastructure in place in order to prosper.

I could go on (please, don’t get me even started on crime statistics), but I won’t. I’m hoping to illustrate that there are real reasons to ask for Upenn to be better and real reasons to be upset with the US. Maybe you’re OK with poorly distributed wealth. I’m not sure why you would be to be honest (especially on empirical national stability, economic etc), ethical or philosophical grounds), but fine!

However, to treat those that are as pawns, ignorant or some combination of the two seems both mean spirited and distracting.

Also @Dogpile the whole point of the Occupy philosophy organizationally and in terms of execution, I thought the whole point was to avoid the elitism of earlier movements and try to actually embody a popular spirit. At UPenn doing anything other than microfinance club is at least impressively thoughtful in my mind.

Also sorry everyone for the word vomit.

The Occupy crowd doesn’t represent the 99%. Far from it. They represent the roughly 10% of the country that adds absolutely nothing of value to society. They are takers, first and foremost. Like spoiled children, they want life handed to them, and they don’t want to work for it. Even worse, they want to punish those who do work hard and succeed. They know they’ll never be successful, and they want to make sure no one else succeeds either, lest they feel badly inside. They’ll be content only when they’ve established a society where all are poor. Indeed, attend an Occupy meeting and then read “Animal Farm” and give me one meaningful difference in approach. It’s so stupid, it’s laughable.

You’re right, I got into and went to a private high school on a full scholarship and got into and now go to penn with no financial assistance from my parents, working full time over every break, because I want things handed to me. Thanks for making me realize how much I don’t deserve what I’ve been working for 8 years for. I acknowledge my privilege that I even knew that the private school resources were available to me, and that I have two college educated (one with a master’s, too) parents for pushing me in this direction, but how dare you say that I and many, many others in similar situations didn’t work for it.

@ Karl the Hun: https://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=precariat

A simple Google search would have answered the question you did not give your mind the time to think to ask…

This is a noteworthy initiative that deserves a warm welcoming just because it is happening, just because people are getting together and are not afraid to voice their opinion about a number of (perceived) injustices. Personally, I believe that quite a few of the issues raised are valid – and that there is a complacent culture at Penn that, in all its global do-goodism, glosses over the pressing local issues; asking “who is to blame?” and “how can we help?” has become a tacit taboo of sorts.

I do not agree with everything here:

1. Penn has helped West Philly, but it should be kinder and provide better wages, and benefits, and safe jobs – because we can, and because it is our home. We are building an empire to be ‘a force of good in the world’ and this is wonderful. The Penn Compact is wonderful, and I have supported it for both years since my graduation. That doesn’t mean we should be blind or ungrateful to our back yard.
2. DoD funding is important not only for national security purposes, but also for a series of other reasons mentioned above by other contributors. There are better ways to advocate for diplomacy and peace, I think, than stopping this federal push for science. Atomic energy has great uses, but it was used for the bomb too. We need progress, so keep the funding coming, but build the moral depth in future leaders to use science’s power responsibly.
3. Penn should be transparent about its finances! There’s no valid reason why not to, at least to the members of its community! It should be adamant about NOT supporting employers that treat their employees cruelly. Any delay in such issues smells of (the wrong kind of) politics. Period.
4. If the University treated its employees well, there would be no need to unionize… And I support the former, pre-emptive solution to the polarizing latter!

I am an analyst at a private investment consulting firm in NYC. I am from Greece, and feel the injustice of the tragedy that is unfolding there at the moment, I despise the Greek behemoth for a state and the corrupt political system, and yet I find distressed debt investing fascinating and not immoral. I took classes with both the most “left-wing” and the most “right-wing” professors at Penn. I believe in John Stuart Mill’s call for plurality of opinion and freedom of expression, as the best way to arrive to the truth is by approaching its multifaceted nature from many different starting points.

For all of the above, I find reactions such as this one: “ Reading this “statement” actually made me feel physically ill. “ as well as the general stubborn opposition to this initiative, a sad occurrence at a University proud for its inquisitive spirit and intellectual freedom.

Dear Aris : I did the google search you suggested and came up with some neologism ( that’s a newly coined word for us un=sophisticated rustics) by Some clown Dr. Standing to sell some lame book he’s peddling. Am I supposed to know every made-up phony word some academic comes up with? Since Noam Chomsky uses it ; That is an especial reason NOT to use or know about it . “ precariat” : a combination of “ proletariat” and “precarious” how cute! Here“s a word just for you moron-idiot defined as “jack-asa” , a combination of “ moron” and “idiot” !! I do NOT stand corrected the “Occupy-idiots “ ( see I can coin words too) mangled the word “ proletariat “ just like I said. Being in New York City , lucky-you missed the mangy Occupy rabble outside Jon Huntsman Hall where their mob tactics drove away a standing United States Senator Eric Cantor and prevented him from speaking—- a humiliation for the whole university. Can you ever bother to think in your mind Mr. Muckity-muck Analyst about the real reasons for the visceral reactions against the “Occupy “ crowd. I saw an Occupy crowd rapscallion dressed in a keffiyah ( whatever the spelling ) which hinted at what the mob was really about behind all the fancy and made-up words (” precariat “ indeed ). that hinted at anti-Semitism and resentment and hatred in general and we do not need it here at Penn or anywhere else !

Wow, Penn really sucks.

Institutional inertia being what it is, you won’t change Penn in your short tenure here. I suggest you escape to more reasonable academic climes to save your own souls; y’know, someplace like Berkeley or your local community college.

In case you’re unable to sense the sarcasm here (the idiocy presented in your statement of principles makes me strongly suspect you, and those allied with you, are mentally defective), what I am saying is get the (*&( out of Penn and Philly.