Last month Oysterfest goers may have passed this Occupy Wellfleet banner on their way to the festival, but it was the original Occupy Wall Street movement that preoccupied the minds of a number of our nation’s great thinkers, who met near Cahoon Hollow Beach last month. Sven and I were invited to the final evening of the seminar several years ago, when my friend BJ Lifton was alive. Her husband, Robert, continues to bring together an exclusive group of friends with the goal of thinking about the world situation. Each year they focus on a different topic. The 2011 gathering seems to have discussed the Occupy Wall Street movement. In a most unusual move, the intellectuals present decided to issue an open letter in support of OWS. Here it is:“We are writers, historians, psychologists, doctors, sociologists, lawyers, theologians, journalists, poets and activists who have gathered at the Wellfleet Conferences convened each year by Robert Jay Lifton to consider fundamental issues facing human society. The 46th Wellfleet Conference has just concluded.
We represent a variety of callings, faiths, generations, political persuasions, nationalities and disciplines, but we share a continued commitment to a humane society. At a time when democratic ideals are violated with impunity, we have been hoping to see a revival of initiative and of civic conscience. We applaud your demonstrations in New York City and throughout the country and abroad. We are deeply impressed with what you have already accomplished to begin a popular movement on behalf of essential democratic values of fairness, justice, human dignity and hope. We all belong to the 99%!
We join in your quest for social and economic justice. We stand in protest with you and urge others to raise their voices as friends, supporters, and brothers and sisters of Occupy Wall Street.”
Read the names of the attendees at The Nation.
