Randall Amster

Randall Amster, J.D., Ph.D., is the Graduate Chair of Humanities at Prescott College. He serves as Executive Director of the Peace & Justice Studies Association and as Contributing Editor for New Clear Vision. Among his recent books are Lost in Space: The Criminalization, Globalization, and Urban Ecology of Homelessness (LFB Scholarly, 2008), and the co-edited volume Building Cultures of Peace: Transdisciplinary Voices of Hope and Action (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009).

Welcome Home: Building an Inclusive Movement for the 99 Percent

I’m on a number of email lists across the activist spectrum, and have noticed an increasing tendency toward what might be termed “ideological opportunism” on the part of some sectors that ostensibly stand in support of the Occupy Movement.

The idea that certain segments—most viscerally the derogatory and divisive tropes of the “freeloading homeless” or the “violent anarchists”—don’t belong in the movement and should be excised due to their conduct and/or status is offensive, shortsighted, and ultimately contradictory to the aims of the movement.