One of the few things that seems certain about "Occupy Wall Street" and related protests is that these are the most positive and hopeful political events in the United States at this time. Beyond that, I find myself curious and uncertain. I do believe, however, that those of us who embrace these protests should be thinking and talking about how to make them better--or more precisely, how it might be possible to build on them to foster a robust social justice movement in our time. Such a social justice movement would work to build a society--indeed, a world--in which the pursuit of profts and pursuit of economic growth (as measured in GDP or other monetary terms) are subordinated to insuring universal access to high quality health care, high quality education, and food security. In terms of thinking and talking about how to build on the Occupy protests with this goal in mind, I find myself concerned about the slogan, "We are the 99%," that figures prominently a
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