Saturday, October 15, 2011

Here is an effort by the New York Times to have a discussion between a leader of the Occupy movement and a 14 hour a day, stockbroker.

Opposite Sides of the Protest Come Together, Briefly
By COREY KILGANNON, NYTs

Two men at Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan on Thursday could hardly have looked more different.

One, Edward T. Hall III, 25, was barefoot and dressed in loud, multicolored tights. He wore a beaded American Indian necklace and New Age jewelry, with a baseball cap pulled sideways over his long hair.

The other, Jimmy Vivona, 40, wore a smart blue pinstripe suit, a conservative red-and-blue striped tie and good shoes. He had neat hair and a close shave. He has caught glimpses of the protesters on walks during his lunch break.

In a way, they could serve as shorthand for a divide that has been come into stark relief during the Occupy Wall Street protests in downtown Manhattan, which are now in their fourth week.

Mr. Hall is a well-educated young man with a privileged upbringing who said he was following a calling greater than getting a job and making money. He said he saw the protest as a global movement to help fight poverty and economic inequality. He has spent the past month sleeping in the park and is one of the organizers of the protest.

Mr. Vivona grew up in a working-class family on Staten Island and now lives in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, with his wife and two young children. He has been a stockbroker for 17 years, works “13- or 14-hour days” and has done well for himself on Wall Street.
(snip)
"Mr. Hall said that he grew up in New Mexico and that both his parents were politically active lawyers who were thrilled that he was pursuing a socially conscious life and was involved in the Occupy Wall Street protest. Mr. Hall said he attended Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and then transferred to Bard College in upstate New York because of its reputation as a socially conscious school.

He had been renting in Washington Heights for the past two years while attending doctoral classes at Columbia University as a nonmatriculated student. He said that he supported his modest lifestyle with savings from working as a teenager and that he also had “a small trust fund” from his grandfather that he had not drawn from yet. For the past four weeks, he has eaten free meals and has slept in the park
article here

If you are curious to learn more about this "privileged" trust fund baby who's parents are both lawyers, who lives a life of leisure and pleasure seeking with a financially secured and privileged future guaranteed, than was revealed in the sympathetic NYTs article, and wonder if marijuana may have damaged the brain of this permanent student, then look at this video of him in real life.

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