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University of California students crowd into Sproul Plaza to hear Professor Robert Reich speak on November 15

Things are evolving with the occupy movement. Crackdowns against the encampments are doing that.

In California, at U.C. Berkeley, before the latest crackdown by authorities tore down the encampment there early this morning, thousands gathered Tuesday outside of Sproul Hall to listen to Professor Robert Reich who declared, "The days of apathy are over". In the 1960's, Sproul Hall was the site of massive protests against the Viet Nam war.

From here, the college campuses are a natural habitat for the occupy movement to spread. Like their forebears in the 60's and early 70's, who had a self interest in resisting the Viet Nam war i.e. getting drafted into a war they opposed, today's students are being burdened with huge student loans (on average $25,000) and finding limited employment opportunities with few or no jobs in their fields of study, awaiting them after they graduate.

That's a failure of a system that basically says, "Work hard, study and the future is yours".

Today is also the two month anniversary of Occupy Wall Street, the symbolic beginning of the movement that has spread in solidarity across the country and the world.

Though the encampment in Zuccotti Park may have been raided by the police in the middle of the night Tuesday removing sleeping protesters, their tents, books and belongings, they returned en masse to the park that evening in jubilation, energized and determined more than ever to push on and continue; far from being broken.

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