Robert Reich: "The days of apathy are over"

The former U.S. labor secretary vigorously defends OWS during a speech at Berkeley

Published November 16, 2011 7:30PM (EST)

Thousands of students and activists gathered yesterday at the University of California, Berkeley, to listen as former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich delivered a rousing speech on the importance of the Occupy Wall Street movement. The address, which followed a "daylong strike and peaceful demonstrations against big banks and education cuts," implored students to continue pursuing the issues they were passionate about, and to be persistent in the face of opposition:

I urge you to to be patient with yourselves, because -- with regard to every major social movement of the last half-century or more -- it started with a sense of moral outrage. Things were wrong. And the actual coalescence of that moral outrage into specific demands, or specific changes, came later. The moral outrage was the beginning. The days of apathy are over, folks! Once this has begun, it cannot be stopped, and will not be stopped.


By Peter Finocchiaro

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Occupy Wall Street