Campuses are waking up again...

Revolution received the following correspondence:

Friends,

Campuses are waking up again. The recent Occupy Wall Street movement and the others that have followed in its footsteps are causing a stir. For the first time ever, I've been able to talk with a variety of students on my campus about something and they actually know what's going on! For one reason or another, this particular movement has really hit on something. Many students are talking about how they know that when they graduate, the debt they have incurred from student loans is really going to kill them. Add to this the really, really poor employment prospects for many college graduates today, and students are getting caught between a rock and a hard place.

I was in Chicago recently, and I spoke with protesters at the Occupy Chicago protest near the Chicago Board of Trade. One man told me how people are coming from all over the region to join in the protest, which goes 24 hours a day. One of the main problems facing the Chicago movement is that the police are not allowing anything to stay still; this means that all the supplies of the protesters must be constantly moving; the police are not allowing a base camp to be set up. This is incredibly draining for the protesters, and is a clear attempt by the forces of counter-revolution to wear down the protesters.

There have also been university walkouts all over the region. There is a clear and growing solidarity on behalf of students and the protesters, even if they are separated by hundreds of miles.

While these protests are clear evidence of the crisis that parasitic capitalism-imperialism is facing on its home turf, we also have to learn from the example of Egypt. While the people of Egypt were able to effect change, the system of exploitation in Egypt remains fundamentally the same. The RCP, its members and supporters, have to actively work to expose the system we live under for what it really is; we have to make clear that there is an alternative. If we hear someone talking about the protests, or if we are able to actually get to the protests themselves, we have to be spreading the message of the RCP and of Bob Avakian. Getting out there with BAsics can show people who are actively resisting the system right now that we have a real alternative. These movements have to be greeted joyously, but we also have to see them as opportunities for us to spread our message too.

People are talking now about these protests, the Wall St. one in particular, being America's "Tahrir Square." Let's get this straight; we need more than Tahrir Square! We don't just want a change in who the exploiters are, we want to end exploitation! Keep struggling in any way you can. Make sure everyone around you knows what's happening with these protests.

In struggle,

College student in the Midwest

Send us your comments.

If you like this article, subscribe, donate to and sustain Revolution newspaper.