US History 1973 - 2014 Commonplace Book: Lecture 31, Occupy Wall Street & Other Politics of the Obama Years (Con't)

To all those across the world currently occupying parks, squares and other spaces, your comrades in Cairo are watching you in solidarity... [W]e are now in many ways involved in the same struggle.... An entire generation across the globe has grown up realising, rationally and emotionally, that we have no future in the current order of things. Living under structural adjustment policies and the supposed expertise of international organisations like the World Bank and IMF, we watched as our resources, industries and public services were sold off and dismantled as the "free market" pushed an addiction to foreign goods, to foreign food even.... The current crisis in America and western Europe has begun to bring this reality home to you as well: that as things stand we will all work ourselves raw, our backs broken by personal debt and public austerity.... Spaces for gathering, leisure, meeting and interacting – these spaces should be the reason we live in cities. Where the state and the interests of owners have made them inaccessible, exclusive or dangerous, it is up to us to make sure that they are safe, inclusive and just....We are all watching one another now, and from Cairo we want to say that we are in solidarity with you, and we love you all for what you are doing.

—Message from Tahir Square occupiers to Occupy Wall Street & other occupations, October 25, 2011

Introduction to (and explanation of) this quote series can be found here.  Read this tag to see all of them.