Yesterday whoever controls the “Occupy Harvard” website — occupyharvard.net — made three potentially controversial posts purporting to represent the position of “Occupy Harvard,” none of which has been approved by a meeting of the “General Assembly,” the sole body authorized to approve such statements (which I know because I attended the last two meetings).
The first (here) expressed solidarity with the U.C. Davis protesters. To date the General Assembly has only approved expressions of solidarity on labor issues related to Harvard.
The second (here) spoke positively of Mario Savio and the U.C. Berkeley so-called “Free Speech Movement.” Both Savio and his movement are controversial in at least some circles (more on that, perhaps, later), and as best I have been able to determine this subject has never been put before the General Assembly for consideration.
The third (here) depicts a cartoon of a Harvard i.d. on which an image of someone in a Guy Fawkes mask from the movie “V for Vendetta” appears — the person in the Fawkes mask being identified as one of the 99% that Harvard seems to be afraid of. Both the real Fawkes, and the character depicted in the movie, were terrorists (see here and here), and thus by this image “Occupy Harvard” seems to be associating itself with, if not terrorists themselves, at minimum a glamorization of terrorism. As best I have been able to determine the General Assembly has never voted to approve anything alone these lines, so it’s pretty clear that on a routine basis the website is being updated with content, sometimes controversial, which is represented to be the position of “Occupy Harvard” but in fact is nothing of the sort.
Update: today there’s another use of the Guy Fawkes image on a Harvard i.d. card, here.
–“Major Tom”
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February 14th, 2013 at 4:10 am
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