We are calling for solidarity actions by occupiers worldwide. Demand #Justice4Cecily. Every day that Cecily is in prison. . .

— Occupy Wall Street (@OccupyWallSt) May 5, 2014

HOW TO HELP: #YouAreNeeded Fightback Fund

“The corporate state, which has proved utterly incapable of addressing the grievances and injustices endured by the underclass, is extremely nervous about the mass movements that have swept the country in recent years. And if protests erupt again—as I think they will—the state hopes it will have neutralized much of the potential leadership. Being an activist in peaceful mass protest is the only real “crime” McMillan has committed.” – Chris Hedges

Statement from the Justice4Cecily.com Team:

We are devastated by the Jury’s verdict today. It has been clear from
day one that Cecily has not received a fair and open trial. The job of
a judge during a jury trial isn’t to guide the verdict to fit his
opinion. Judge Zweibel, who consistently suppressed evidence, has
demonstrated his clear bias by consistently siding with the
prosecution. In addition to suppressing evidence, he imposed a gag
order on Cecily’s lawyers, which is a clear violation of their 1st
Amendment Rights, and placed the burden of proof on the defense, not
the prosecution. He is rightly known as ‘a prosecutor in robes’.

Beyond Judge Zweibel, it is disgusting to see vast resources from
taxpayers wasted for over two years to prosecute Cecily. Manhattan DA
Cy Vance has refused to drop this case, pursuing maximum charges
against Cecily while ignoring police violence and misconduct. This is
unfortunately not isolated to Cecily’s case but is indicative of a
system concerned not with justice but with the unrelenting harassment
of dissenters and the powerless.

In the two years awaiting trial, Cecily was never offered anything
less than a felony charge, a charge that would stay with her for the
rest of her life. While awaiting a trial, Cecily has lived in limbo
for two years, not knowing what her future would be, forced to re-live
her trauma every one of those days. Beyond the sexual assault and
physical injuries she sustained, Cecily suffered PTSD and has had
difficulty finishing her master’s degree and continuing her work as a
union organizer and activist.

Despite the chilling precedent this verdict puts forth for activists,
we will not be deterred from seeking social and economic justice, as
evidenced in the courtroom today. Though we’ve held our tongues
throughout this trial as Cecily was personally attacked and degraded,
we could not stand silent today in the face of such a gross
miscarriage of justice. The people had to speak truth to power today
by standing up and will continue to do so as long as this justice
system continues to punish the 99% and protect the 1%.

As journalist Chris Hedges said in a recent article:

“The corporate
state, which has proved utterly incapable of addressing the grievances
and injustices endured by the underclass, is extremely nervous about
the mass movements that have swept the country in recent years. And if
protests erupt again—as I think they will—the state hopes it will have
neutralized much of the potential leadership. Being an activist in
peaceful mass protest is the only real “crime” McMillan has
committed.”

We recognize that, as poorly as Cecily has been treated these past two
years, she was lucky enough to have an amazing support system
comprised of representation from the National Lawyer’s Guild and
Mutant Legal, as well as significant financial help from supporters of
Occupy Wall Street and a team of ten who tirelessly worked to bring
her case to light and support her through this trying time. It’s
harrowing to imagine how many unfortunate people encounter this system
without the resources Cecily had, though we know countless innocent
people are forced to plea to felonies and ruin their lives every day
in this building.

We will be fighting this unjust verdict in the court of appeals.
Cecily’s lawyers are optimistic, given the circumstances of the case
and the gross bias demonstrated throughout, that we can win on appeal.
Thank you all for your ongoing support throughout this trial. We know
that many share our outrage at this verdict, if you would like to get
involved in jail support, please visit justiceforcecily.com to learn
more about how to best support Cecily.

6pm rally at Liberty Square
No JUSTICE?
No PEACE!
#Justice4Cecily

— Occupy Wall Street (@OccupyWallStNYC) May 5, 2014

A picture of Grantley Bovell, the #NYPD officer who sexually assaulted @CecilyMcMillan pic.twitter.com/kHC5EpF8oo #myNYPD #Justice4Cecily

— Occupy Wall Street (@OccupyWallStNYC) May 5, 2014

What if you could receive a guaranteed basic yearly income with no strings attached? Didn’t matter how much money you made now, or in the future. Nobody would ask about your job status or how many kids you have. The check would arrive in the mailbox, no matter what.

Sounds like a far-fetched idea, right? Wrong. All over the world, people are talking guaranteeing basic incomes for citizens as a viable policy. Half of all Canadians want it. The Swiss have had a referendum on it. The American media is all over it: The New York Times’ Annie Lowrey considered basic income as an answer to an economy that leaves too many people behind, while Matt Bruenig and Elizabeth Stoker of the Atlantic wrote about it as a way to reduce poverty.

The idea is not new: In his final book, Martin Luther King Jr. suggested that guaranteeing people money without requiring them to do anything in exchange was a good way for Americans to share in prosperity. In the 1960s and early 1970s, many in the U.S. gave the idea serious consideration. Even Richard Nixon supported a version of it. But by 1980, the political tide shifted to the right and politicians moved their talking points to unfettered markets and individual gain from sharing the wealth and evening the playing field.

Advocates say it’s an idea whose time has finally come. In a world of chronic job insecurity, stagnant wages, boom-and-bust cycles that wipe out ordinary people through no fault of their own, and shredded social safety nets, proponents warn that we have to come up with a way to make sure people can survive regardless of work status or economic conditions. Here are five reasons they give as to why a guaranteed basic income might just be the answer.

It would help fight poverty

America is the richest country in the world, yet widespread poverty continues to afflict us. Social Security has arguably been the most successful program for reducing poverty in American history, dramatically cutting poverty among the elderly and keeping tens of millions above the poverty threshold. Why not expand it to all?

Matt Bruenig calculated that by giving everybody a mere $3,000 a year, including children (who would receive the money through their parents), we could potentially cut poverty in half. The program would be simple: you get it no matter how much money you make, which would prevent poor people from having to worry about losing the benefit. With everybody in it together, you get a much larger base of political support (one of the reasons means-testing has always been a back-door way of killing Social Security— it reduces support).

In the 1970s, the small Canadian town of Dauphin ran an experiment through a social policy called “Mincome.” Everybody in the town was allowed to get a minimum cash benefit during the duration of the program. Poverty was eliminated, because people living below the poverty line saw their income boosted through monthly checks. But the results were about more than an official line marking the poverty threshold. Mincome positively impacted the horrible conditions associated with the cycle of poverty. When people had a basic income, they were able to better care for their families, stay healthy and improve their education — all the things that help people stay out of poverty in the future.

It could be good for the economy

A basic guaranteed income has the potential to positively impact the economy in several ways, which is why economists from John Kenneth Galbraith to Milton Friedman have advocated it.
For one thing, it could help solve the problem of demand. The great driver of the economy in a capitalist system is something economists call “aggregate demand.” The Econ 101 lesson is simple: when ordinary people have money in their pockets, they spend it on goods and services, which in turn allows businesses to thrive because they are able to invest and to hire more people. Proponents argue that a basic guaranteed income would increase demand, which would help the economy to prosper.

But wait, wouldn’t people get lazy if they had a basic income? One of the things the Mincome researchers wanted to know was whether a guaranteed basic income would cause people to stop working. Despite all the dire predictions that had circulated in academic literature before the experiment, the Mincome effect on number of hours worked was actually quite small — hours dropped 1 percent for men, 3 percent for married women and 5 percent for unmarried women.

The decrease in hours was mostly the result of people taking the time to raise newborns, care for family members, and pursue their education — people did not cut back on work just to loaf around. In addition to activities which would serve as economic investments for the future, the experiment also resulted in things like fewer hospital visits and illnesses, all of which reduce public health costs. Many argue that a guaranteed basic income is also potentially good for entrepreneurship, making it easier for people to start a small business or switch careers.

It could have many benefits to society

Clearly, we want policies that help us create a more stable society where more people can reach their potential and fewer people resort to crime and violence. Advocates say a guaranteed basic income does just that.
Researchers found that during the Mincome years, more people in Dauphin finished high school, more adults pursued education, and students achieved higher test scores. As noted, people got healthier, too: Fewer people visited the hospital, mental illness decreased, and the number of work-related injuries went down. Plus, social ills like domestic abuse dropped.

As a recession hit and the center-left politics of the 1970s shifted rightward in Canada, interest in the Mincome experiment waned. However, Canadian economic researcher Evylen Forget notes that most people who participated in Mincome wish the program had continued, citing benefits like increased opportunity to pursue an education.

Canadians are now reviving the idea, many arguing that such programs would actually encourage people to work because they would eliminate welfare provisions that penalize the poor who take very low-paying or part-time jobs. In Brazil, advocates have pointed out that a basic guaranteed income could help guard against such scourges as child labor, while Swiss activists make the case that it would help people do more meaningful work, making for happier and better workers.

Philippe Van Parijs, a Belgian philosopher, argues that a basic income is a powerful tool for social justice, allowing everyone, no matter what their circumstances, the possibility to pursue their conception of a good life. He notes that a guaranteed basic income could address some of the issues associated with sexist divisions of labor in which women are expected to do more of unpaid, care-giving work in our society.

It might be more efficient than present systems

In the current patchwork of systems confronting poverty, like welfare, food stamps and vouchers, people can fall through the cracks. A guaranteed income could help solve problems caused by rules and restrictions that leave some without subsistence income when they need it.

It’s not just liberals and progressives who like the sound of a simple basic guaranteed income. Something streamlined appeals to conservatives who like versions that could replace existing tax credits and social assistance programs — though it’s important to note that most advocates don’t propose it as a full substitute for existing programs. The American Enterprise Institute’s Charles Murray points out that a streamlined system would obviate the need for people to fill out multiple forms and visit myriad offices to receive benefits. (In his book In Our Hands: A Plan to Replace the Welfare State, Murray suggested an income of $10,000 a year to anyone who was American, over 21 and out of jail.)

Let’s not forget simple human dignity

Why is living in dignity not a right? These days, even Americans who get up in the morning every day and report to full-time jobs may not earn enough for a decent standard of living. People like fast-food workers, big-box store employees, caregivers, beauty salon workers, and farm hands often can’t earn enough to feed their families and keep a roof over their heads. Millions have seen no real increase in earnings in decades. Material security, as well as the intangible things that come along with it, like self-esteem and peace of mind, are often out of reach.

A guaranteed basic income is one way to help people to survive with dignity and free them from the humiliation of having to participate in criminal activity and accept abusive work conditions. Because everyone gets it, such a program might serve to eliminate the stigma of a hand-out. Of course, the payment has to be large enough that it helps people actually live in dignity, and some, like economist L. Randall Wray, prefer it as a supplement to something like a jobs guarantee program for this reason.

What’s clear is that our current capitalist system and social safety net have failed too many of us. It may be that in order to confront that epic fail, policy makers will need to get bolder in considering universal guarantees to all citizens.

*Lynn Parramore is an AlterNet senior editor. She is founding editor of New Deal 2.0, and author of Reading the Sphinx: Ancient Egypt in Nineteenth-Century Literary Culture. Follow her on Twitter @LynnParramore.
This article originally published on Alternet

A new organization has been launched by some of the Occupy Wall Street founders. It is what they hope will be the future for a populist movement in the U. S. and they want you to join its first mission a Flash Mob Mutual Aid action in Detroit, May 2nd. Did the Occupation of Wall Street in 2011 and the movement that followed it fill you with hope for the future?

Have you wondered “What Now” ? Tune in to A Deeper Look,Thursday April 24th at 9:30 am on KBOO. Justin Wedes, founding member of The New York City General Assembly and Micah White, PhD—Occupy Solidarity Network board member and former editor of Adbusters—will join host, Linda Olson-Osterlund to talk about the founding of The After Party, its platform, its manifesto and its plan for action.

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This piece was written for our contemporary myriad movements, but it is particularly poignant in regards to the Wave Of Action, which is attempting to tap into the incredible creativity around the globe. As events, actions, and images are being crafted, remember to look for opportunities to strategically collaborate with one another. We can increase our strength by working together not only in name, but in coordinated actions. This essay was inspired by a group of women during a Women Weaving the World discussion. Many thanks to all of them for the deep reflections, but particularly to Kathe Schaaf who spoke of the movement of movements in an eye-opening way. Learn more about Women Weaving the World here. ~ Rivera Sun

This article originally appeared on WaveOfAction.org

I feel like shaking everyone and saying, don’t you get it? We are a movement of movements.

My friends, we have been trapped in old dominant paradigm thinking. We have been steeped in warmongering, hierarchical, competitive, control-based mindsets since birth. We think we are lacking something, or that we’re ineffectual at organizing, or we’re failing. We call for a Movement of Movements, like the War to End All Wars, a rallying cry that will amass the allies on the edge of the battlefield so we can massacre our enemies.

It makes me want to laugh – and cry.

We want to name, label, categorize, and control the emergent phenomenon of this revolutionary resistance. We want to take the wild flurry of activity that is erupting on a thousand fronts and turn it into an army for change. We want to call it something because then we can control it. This is what our lineage of science and religion has taught us: if we give it a name, it is ours. If we trademark the Movement, we can capitalize on it. If we organize it all in one place, we can make it work to what we consider its highest potential.

We need to let go.

We need to surrender to this very large phenomenon and join with it. We need to trust each other, the causes, and the organic, emergent nature of what is happening . . . this is revolutionary.
This is a way of participation that is radical in our society. The long history of invasion, conquest, genocide, wars of aggression, and abuse of people and the planet has indoctrinated us in false beliefs that we must organize everything in order to survive. But these old patterns of competition and control are a worldview perpetuated by the wealthy elite, who profit from such mentalities at our expense. To this end, they have abused the theories and philosophies of the Judeo-Christian God and Darwin, alike. They school us in fear-based, violent mindsets to ensure that we will never pose a serious threat to their dominance. If we do not emancipate our minds from their worldview, we will remain blind to the greatest strengths of our movements.

Building a Movement of Movements seems to be the logical, strongest, and wisest approach to breaking our opponents’ power, but our real strength may lie in our myriad movements. The empowered elite are fighting us on all fronts. We have them surrounded on all sides. Our plethora of issues distracts them, divides them, and weakens their centralized position. They sit in the fortress of wealth and power, staring wild-eyed into the living, breathing, diverse jungle of opposition. There is nothing they would like more than to see us assemble all of our strength in one place and march down the road to their fortress. Then they could destroy us in one swoop. So, from the balustrades of their socio-political system, they taunt us and mock us, calling us disorganized and inefficient.

We are not disorganized. We are organized differently.

“We are the ivy crawling up the buildings, the moss breaking down the bricks, and the dandelions shooting up in the sidewalks. We’re as vast as the planet and as microscopic as infectious disease. The Dandelion Insurrection isn’t a handful of radicals. It’s all of Life itself!” – from The Dandelion Insurrection

We must learn to look at the interconnections of our myriad causes and wage struggle through collaboration, not control. Our causes are not at odds with each other, nor do they need unification under one name or coordination from a central command. Instead, we need to collaborate strategically, using our diversity of issues as our strength. If we look at the overlapping issues of health, economy, jobs, peace, surveillance, education, energy, housing, environment, democracy, and so on, we will see that every movement is working to replace destructive, corrupt systems with constructive, life-supporting, sustainable alternatives. Our strength lies in our inherent unity, not in the label attached to it. Our only weakness is in our uncertainty . . . and the fact that we remain unaware of the power of our situation.

We can tap into the collective and coordinated strength of our many movements by learning to strategically collaborate with one another. A few key elements of such an approach are:
- Celebrate other’s achievements; the success of one cause is the success of the whole.
- Support each other’s efforts through solidarity, encouragement, resources, media campaigns, etc.
- Take time to analyze the interconnections of the movements. Search for untapped strengths and sources of support. Identify pivot points of change and opportunities for other movements to help sway a critical element of your own movement.
- Talk with each other. Find out how your efforts overlap and look for opportunities for strategic collaboration.
- Our movements are revolutionary; their manner of collaborative, horizontal organization is the most natural, organic system on Earth. We terrify the empowered elite because we reflect, in our very structure, the most powerful force on the planet: Life. In what they call our disorganization, we embody the natural systems that the patriarchal, Puritanical European colonizers have been trying to repress and control for thousands of years. Our movements are as frightening to them as a liberated woman, or the pagan religions of old Europe that succumbed to the first invasion of the mentality that now engulfs the empowered elite around the globe. We are organic and uncontrollable…and we are, ultimately, unstoppable.

Instead of codifying our movements under one name, we must learn to recognize who and what we are. We are a movement of movements, a great multiplicity of motion.

Author/Actress Rivera Sun is a co-founder of the Love-In-Action Network, a co-host on Occupy Radio, and, in addition to her new novel, The Dandelion Insurrection, she is also the author of nine plays, a book of poetry, and her debut novel, Steam Drills, Treadmills, and Shooting Stars, which celebrates everyday heroes who meet the challenges of climate change with compassion, spirit, and strength.

HOW TO HELP: FOOD FUND

This article was written by @TysonKelsall and originally published at Over The Edge. We’re reposting because Cascadia is the future. Stay in the loop. – OSN

There is a separatist movement building slowly in the Pacific Northwest. Its speed reflects the pace of the people outside of its metropolitan centers.

It is not your typical movement based on the right and left spectrum, nor is it necessarily about protecting a certain culture. More so, it is about creating one, building off the foundation of what already goes on in the westernmost bioregion. It is about decentralizing two governments that seem to disregard what the population wants on the West Coast. The movement calls for a new sovereign state: Cascadia.

@freightliner Free #FreeCascadia! bumperstickers for all Freightliner #Cascadia drivers pic.twitter.com/QFMk5w9FoG

— CascadiaNow (@cascadianow) March 13, 2014

The map is not perfect yet. To some it stretches from Northern California to the Alaskan Panhandle. For Cathasaigh Ó Corcráin, co-editor of underground journal Autonomy Cascadia: A Journal of Bioregional Decolonization, since Cascadia is based largely on ecological designs its borders would reflect that, more so than current political ones. Corcráin, following Dr. David McCloskey’s influence, says that watersheds should dictate Cascadia’s region. For example, he uses the Alsek River in the Alaska and Yukon as the northernmost border, and the Klamath River as the southernmost. He also points to the importance of sharing the Salish Sea. Others include Idaho or use current political borders.

Flowing from that, Corcráin also sees the focus of bioregionalism as challenging the current way we associate ourselves with the land. Bioregionalism, as defined by Brandon Letsinger, founder of the Cascadian Independence Project and manager of Cascadia Now’s web presence, is “a way to reframe and rethink a lot of the boundaries and borders on this region to better represent economic, political, social and environmental realities.” Corcráin, who traveled around theoretical Cascadia when filming Occupied Cascadia, says that he also noticed many similarities to communities around the region who shared similar relationships with natural resources and surroundings. For example, a logging community in rural Washington likely shares many cultural characteristics as a logging community in rural northern British Columbia. Furthermore, Corcráin points to that fact that Cascadia is a very wild place, and the wilderness is rugged and “in your face, hard to ignore.” Letsinger said that Cascadia is the birthplace of the idea of bioregionalism. Further, Cascadia has much of its ecological systems still intact relative to the rest of North America.

What is #Cascadia? #Culture Editor @TysonKelsall looks into what the movement means: http://t.co/ZPTp0UJES8 @cascadianow #freecascadia

— Over the Edge (@OVERtheEDGEunbc) March 20, 2014

In 2004, there was the creation of the Cascadian Cup; an intense soccer competition between the Seattle Sounders, Portland Timbers and the Vancouver Whitecaps. Perhaps, if Cascadia ever were to form, the Vancouver Canucks would change their name to the Vancouver Cascadians and have an entire nation behind them. Maybe then, they could finally win a cup. Letsinger says that Washington state residents are the only state to tune in and cheer for the Canucks. He says the same can be said for British Columbians and the Seahawks. In 2011, the “Republic of Cascadia” made it onto a Times Magazine list as number 8 of the Top 10 Aspiring Nations, which, despite the journalist’s throw-in that Cascadia “little chance of ever becoming a reality,” maybe it is just the beginning.

Many British Columbians have probably inadvertently seen Cascadia’s flag, amicably nicknamed the “Doug Flag,” as it has made its way onto the packaging of one of Victoria’s most popular brews, Blue Buck. The Doug Flag depicts a Douglas Fir over a typical horizontal tri-colour flag. The three colours, blue, white, and green, represent the bioregion of Cascadia. The blue is for our ocean, lakes, rivers and other bodies of water; the white for our snow-capped mountain ranges and glaciers; and the green for our lush forests.

The environment is a key factor in any movement towards Cascadia. Letsinger points’ to the 1970s novel Ecotopia, where a country formed by Washington, Oregon, and northern California is a different sort of place, with a sustainable and socially just foundation. Emmanuel Brunet-Jailly, PhD, associate professor of Public Administration and Jean Monnet Chair at the University of Victoria, sees similar outlooks and values on the environment throughout what some call Cascadia. British Columbia and Washington have similar ecosystems; as both Letsinger and Corcráin point out, an oil spill in the Salish Sea, or, Puget Sound is going to transcend a man-made border. Brunet-Jailly adds that Cascadia, or, the Pacific Northwest consists of a culture very engaged with the sea.

Letsinger sees growing support for Cascadia. He points to lack of other alternatives and general unhappiness when it comes to the Canadian and American federal governments. He sees this largely due to the fact that Cascadia focuses on positives and a new, untainted prospect. According to Letsinger, Cascadia Now is in direct communication with 10-15,000 people and also acknowledges the many social media groups with 1000s of followers surrounding the idea of Cascadia. Corcráin agrees, saying that he himself has seen the idea of Cascadia grow since he was first involved. He agrees that Cascadia comes without “ideological baggage,” and says that the WTO protests of 1999 were a re-awakening of the bioregional movement in Cascadia, previously being popular in the 80s. He also points to the bankruptcy of some Oregon counties, stating that economic collapse can be tragic, but it can also lead to opportunity for something new; and that through this, change is on people’s mind in a very basic and practical way.

Going further down the road of politics, of course colonialism and unceded lands in Cascadia would still exist if the moment of independence were right now. So, what could be done about this? What does decolonization look like in an independence movement? As a comparison, the Mohawk population in Quebec says they will hold their own referendum for independence if Quebec wins theirs. Alternatively, Corcráin views a tenant of decolonization as looking at how a colonial power dominated local governance, and sees the potential separation of Cascadia as being Indigenous-led, settler supported. To him, it would be interesting to see how traditional laws can be applied to a modern region with a settler majority. Part of this may be the ability to move throughout the Cascadia bioregion unimpeded by borders. Is there potential in seeing how Cascadia could play to fair land title and rights compared with British Columbia, Canada, and America, all of whom have failed to do so?

Some say Cascadia is a chance to break the old, traditional left-versus-right spectrum. Letsinger argues that it is not a red-versus-blue issue, but one of empowering communities. He says that there has been some energy in Cascadia behind a “progressive libertarian” movement. Is localizing the economy really a right or left argument? Are many people in Cascadia really chasing corporatism as a political ideology? Of course, mix in the Cascadian respect for the environment, and the political landscape starts to unfold. Letsinger points out transparency and real democracy as important tenants to Cascadia; he says the question then becomes “why are we not doing this?” when we consider the “dirty corruption” and limited democracy currently in Canada and America. He says Cascadians are further united by a love of place. He claims that none of these things are attainable within the current system.

So, is a sovereign, but undefined Cascadia possible? Letsinger says surely, and that the foundation is already being built. Brunet-Jailly says the idea of a country is too far-fetched and not something he considers, but does see much cooperation across the British Columbia and Washington border. For example, when BC-based officials were concerned that Americans would not attend the Vancouver Olympic Games, the two sides came up with an enhanced driver’s license so that border crossing would be easier, which Brunet-Jailly states is an incredibly complex process. Letsinger uses the renaming of the Salish Sea as an example, breaking down cross-border division that had an arbitrary meaning at best. Only time will give clear definition to Cascadia.

What is a #FreeCascadia? A new article featuring @CascadiaNow, @CorcranIsAinmDm and more. http://t.co/UCp6A8f0rb #Cascadia @LeaderlesRevolt

— Tyson C. Kelsall (@TysonKelsall) March 20, 2014

While a rag-tag group of young activists were setting up tents in Zuccotti Park, New York Magazine writer Kevin Roose was occupying Wall Street with a very different mission: to get inside the lives of Wall Street’s new recruits. From the other side of the barricades, Roose finds himself immersed in a world of over-worked and morally bewildered young bankers. He writes about his experience in his new book, Young Money – Inside the Hidden World of Wall Street’s Post-Crash Recruits.

Justin Wedes sat down with Kevin via Skype recently to ask him about his multi-year dive into the depths of Wall Street:

JW: This isn’t your first book. Before Young Money you went undercover to a semester at “America’s Holiest University”. Tell me about that.

KR: That’s right. Liberty University, which was founded by basically the most conservative televangelists in America.

JW: Tell me about how this experience was similar or dissimilar to the last book you wrote.

KR: One of the things that attracted me to Wall Street as a topic, in 2010 when I started the book, is that it’s an area that many people feel very strongly about but that there wasn’t much actual information about out there.

We’ve all read the books and seen the movies about the financial crisis and we feel like we understand what the CEO’s of these big firms were doing and how they acted/reacted. But no one had really ever gone inside the trenches, to the 1,000’s of young people who come to Wall Street to start working their way up the ladder. I was curious after the crisis: why would any 22 year-old want to do this?

Also, how are they educated? How do you take someone fresh-faced and turn them into a Wall Street banker?

JW: You followed eight Wall Street recruits, right?

KR: Yes, and they were all doing this unauthorized. These firms did not permit me to talk to their employees, but the employees took a chance anyway even though they knew they could have been fired for talking to me… They’d be fired within 10 minutes.

I changed all of their names. I changed some details about them. That was part of the terms of participation. They said, “Look we’ll be open with you, but you have to protect us.”

JW: So what were some of the common threads you discovered as you were shadowing these eight young Wall Street bankers?

KR: We tend to think of Wall Street as this go-go, happy place where the cocaine and the champagne run freely and everyone is having the time of their lives. But for the eight young people…It’s hard to feel sorry for people who are making so much money, but I almost did start to feel sorry for them. They’re working 100 hour weeks. There’s this thing called the “Banker 9 to 5” where you get in at 9am and you work until 5 am the next morning, so a twenty-hour shift. They were just completely miserable.

JW: We have what’s called the “Occupy Wall Street 9 to 5”, but it’s in a media tent in the middle of Zuccotti Park. You mention Occupy a few times in the book. Question: What was it like to be on the other side of the barricades?

KR: I think Occupy was a turning point for my book and a lot of the people in my book because it came about halfway through my reporting. For the CEOs at the big banks, I don’t think many of them truly paid attention. It wasn’t really on their radar. But for the young people – imagine, you’re 22 years old and you’ve just gone to work for a big investment bank. Many of your friends and roommates are involved in the Occupy movement. There’s a lot of cognitive dissonance there. I talked to one guy who was working at Goldman Sachs who said, “It’s very weird to be on this side of things, to be the one in the office looking out at the protests, and knowing that they’re protesting, in some part, what I’m doing.”

So I think it was very odd for them and it also led to some real social fallout where people had gotten used to not talking about what they did when they went out. I talked to several of them who said they no longer say they’re a banker when they go out to bars. There’s too much of a stigma attached.

JW: Interesting. I’m trying to compare this to some of the experiences I’ve documented as an independent journalist covering Occupy protesters in the various different encampments across the country. You know, one of the critiques of OWS was that it was largely young, white, well-educated people. And that’s not, obviously, the entire truth. At the height of the movement we did see a beautiful cross-section of Americans. But I still believe that to be a very legitimate critique. Many of these young people at Occupy protests may have come out of the same elite or second-tier universities that your bankers came from. What kind of emotions and comparisons did that evoke when you spoke to them about Occupy?

KR: Well, there’s one scene in the book where I go up to Yale University during their sort-of Wall Street recruiting season. Traditionally, about 25% of their graduates go to work on Wall Street. I went up there during the height of the protests and there was actually an Occupy Yale movement had sprung up. Part of what they were doing was challenging their classmates, saying “Why are you going into finance? You are a talented film-maker or a talented historian or there are any number of things you could be doing. You went to Yale. You can have your pick, so why are you doing this thing that seems so useless.”

They actually stood outside the recruiting sessions of big banks like Morgan Stanley holding signs that said things like DON’T GO INTO FINANCE or MORGAN STANLEY IS BORING!

I think it really had an effect. I talked to one Yale professor who compared it to ROTC recruiting during the Vietnam War. He said, “There’s this real feeling that there’s a tension brewing and that something is very amiss when we have students sort of turning against their fellow students.”

JW: It sounds like on college campuses this was a real dialogue that was happening. Do you get the sense that on Wall Street this was happening as well, or did these banker’s lifestyles insulate them from some of the critiques of their career?

KR: It certainly didn’t insulate them from criticism, because they started to lie about where they worked when they went out beyond their finance bubble. I think there’s an interesting phenomenon that I observed among these eight young finance bankers where I observed that there’s a kind of compartmentalization going on. They have these very demanding jobs that require attention to very small details and doing Excel spreadsheets and making PowerPoint presentations. That takes up the majority of their brain cells. It’s very rare that they have the time or the energy to step back and contemplate the sort-of bigger issues: “What am I doing with my life? Is this creating value?” It’s almost like triage in their brains.

“Maybe I have misgivings about this, maybe I sympathize with the Occupy movement, but right now I have this Excel spreadsheet due in ten minutes and if I don’t get it done my boss is going to scream at me so I better get the excel spreadsheet done and worry about the big picture stuff later.”

JW: Did you get the sense that their bosses – in other words the Associates and the higher-ups – sensed a kind of hesitation amongst these young recruits? Did they respond in any way?

KR: There’s a huge change in morale right around the time of the Occupy movement and part of that was because of things going on in the financial sector: you had layoffs, bonuses that were shrinking, firms that were closing. This was a bad time for Wall Street regardless of what Occupy was doing. But then you add Occupy to it and I think it created a crisis of conscience and a sort of self-awareness that hadn’t been there before in young people worked on Wall Street. People asking themselves “maybe this isn’t what I want to do with the rest of my life.”

In the book, I talk to at least a handful of people who saw that as a moment where they realized “maybe I want to be starting a tech company” or “maybe I want to be working in something that’s a little closer to my passion”. I think that was something that banks were a little late to catch on to. Now they’re trying to catch up and deal with it and stop the brain drain.

JW: At Occupy Wall Street we saw a couple of what I like to call the “Wall Street defectors”. Alexis Goldstein is a good example. She’s been an outspoken critic of Wall Street since she left Wall Street to join Occupy. Are there more of these now, leaving Wall Street at a young age to join tech companies, or non-profits or government?

KR: I don’t think any of the eight people that I followed join the Occupy movement and it would surprise me if they did because I think they’ve all moved onto new jobs or are still on Wall Street. I would say that going to Silicon Valley, as so many people of done, is a form of protest. It’s not always easy to see that. To a lot of people that just looks like following the money. But if you really ask people why they’re doing this – why this shift is happening – it turns out that a lot of people want to feel good about what they do. They don’t want to have protesters outside their window. They don’t want to be hated for trading derivatives or what-have-you. That reflects a shift in the millennial consciousness. You have people that not only want to make a lot of money but also want to feel good about what they’re doing for the world while they’re making it.

JW: Has Wall Street’s culture changed since 2008?

KR: Yes, absolutely. I think Wall Street has changed in many ways. It’s obviously not a total change and I would say more change is needed. But I would say the lessons being imparted to young people – some of the bosses are still hanging on to the old Wall Street culture. But I talked to one analyst who put it pretty succinctly. He said this isn’t like the days of 2007: the bosses who do cocaine off a stripper’s ass are not there anymore. This is a very different financial sector than the one that existed in 2006.

JW: Now, at the same time, you documented sneaking into the Kappa Beta Phi secret society dinner at the St. Regis. Could you talk about that and perhaps how it shows that Wall Street’s culture isn’t changing?

KR: So the Kappa Beta Phi dinner was one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever seen. It was a secret society of Wall Street executives formed in 1929 during the Great Depression. It’s a sort of friar’s club for the 1%.

So I snuck into this. I was the only reporter who has ever gotten in the door. I sat there and watched as these millionaire and billionaire financiers, dressed up in drag, told off-color sexist and homophobic jokes. Actually, one of the young analysts that I later told about it said it sounded like something Occupy would make up as propaganda for the movement because it was so evil. These people were just laughing about the bailouts and doing skits about the Occupy movement. It was one of the most offensive things I’ve ever seen purely on a citizen level.

I was depressed and thought “OK, perhaps Wall Street hasn’t changed” but when I talked to the young analysts they thought it was as ridiculous as I did. So that cheered me. That made me think that maybe the next generation is going to be a little bit better because they weren’t asking “Where do I sign up?” but rather “This is totally ridiculous. I can’t believe this exists. What a terrible idea!”

JW: So there was a different sentiment amongst older and younger bankers. I have to ask, though, for all of the thousands of Occupy supporters out there who want to know: What did they say about Occupy? What does it reveal about them?

KR: There was one skit with a guy who runs a bond investing firm who went down to Zuccotti Park with a camera – this was a pre-taped skit – and he found a guy with a face tattoo and he said, “Wash it off! Get a job!” and stuff like that.

There was another skit where there was a private equity executive and a hedge fund executive who were sort-of role-playing. One was dressed up in tie-die and raggedy clothes as an Occupy sympathizer and another one in a suit as a 1%’er and they were tossing back and forth lines like “Why don’t you take a bath, you dirty hippy?” and “We need to create jobs!”. It was very offensive.

JW: Have there been any repercussions from that event from any of the people that you quoted?

KR: Not officially, but one of the people who made a homophobic and sexist joke about Hillary Clinton and Barney Frank had to issue an apology because he’s a Trustee at the University of Richmond and the students were outraged.

JW: It’s interesting because one of the main tenets underlying the Occupy movement is this notion of transparency. That if we could peak into this top-secret Wall Street culture people could judge for themselves what they think about it. Does your book do that?

KR: Absolutely. That’s why I wrote it. I wanted to get inside this world and I was sick of just reading about CEOs filtered through the press apparatus. Forget the stereotypes, forget The Wolf of Wall Street. What are these people actually doing and what are they like? These are the stories of eight actual people who work in finance. It’s the story of their lives and what they actually think about their work. And for me it was totally fascinating and I hope that other people will feel the same way.

JW: I have to agree there, Kevin. I think the book is absolutely eye-opening and it’s actually a very human account of what is going on. It’s very easy to abstract and say “Wall Street is this” or “Wall Street is that” but Wall Street is made up of human beings, many of them young people…

KR: Totally! Corporations are people! [both of us laugh]

JW: Of course, my friend! [sarcastically]

KR: I think it’s important to separate the institutions from the individuals.

JW: I think some of the people on this end may want to see some accountability for the individuals instead of just accountability for the institutions, but that’s a whole other question…

We talked about “has Wall Street changed?” In some ways it has, and in some ways hasn’t. But after reading your book, it’s clear that the young people on Wall Street have changed. In what ways have they changed, and does it reflect a larger change in young people in this country today?

KR: Absolutely. I think the change that’s coming to Wall Street is a demographic tidal wave. It used to be for many years that if you went to Princeton, or Harvard or Yale orPenn – one of these Wall Street “feeder” schools – you went to Wall Street just because everyone else did it. Even if you were an art history major or a music major you could still get a job at a big Wall Street bank by virtue of where you’d gone to school. For many years it was sort of the default option. That’s not really true anymore. Those that are going there now are the ones who truly want to be bankers. It’s no longer the catch-all for Ivy League graduates. It’s a little more professionalized. It’s not the kind of crazy go-go atmosphere it used to be.

My hope is that when the people who are young today are running the show, they’ll remember what it was like to be in the industry when finance was under the gun.

JW: I agree with you, but when I see the struggles of young bankers who are upset because they only got a $20,000 bonus it seems a bit petty in the context of the broader picture of the economy. Can you abstract from the experience of these eight young people any kind of statement about the larger population? Many people would probably say that they never even had the opportunity to be in the shoes of these young bankers.

KR: Totally.

JW: What do you see as the broader difficulties facing not just young Wall Street recruits but young people in general?

KR: Well, obviously, it’s a tremendously hard time to be young in this economy and youth unemployment is still high and we’re having all sorts of trouble still that’s a result of the crisis. The thing that buoyed me and gave me a bit of optimism is that they weren’t just pre-occupied with making money. Some of them were. But for most of them, money was not the foremost concern when they were thinking about their lives and what they want to accomplish.

One guy who talked to me is in private equity – living the dream, on the surface – and he said to me “The guys who really do shit in the world, the sort of Mark Zuckerbergs, the guy who created Instagram… those guys are not just sitting around in an office making Excel spreadsheets. They’re out there in the world making stuff. So if there’s one note of optimism about the next generation, it’s that they’re not just satisfied making a six-figure paycheck. Many of them, I would venture to say most of them, want to do something more productive.”

JW: Kevin Roose, everybody. Author of Young Money – Inside the Hidden World of Wall Street’s Post-Crash Recruits. Check out this book, it’s great. Thanks, Kevin!

KR: Thank you for having me!

Justin Wedes is a Zuccotti, activist, educator, media-maker and community organizer. He is a stubborn optimist and sometimes-workaholic. You can read more about his work at his blog.