Justin Wedes has emerged as one of the key spokespeople behind the Occupy Wall Street movement. Justin, a 27 year old former NYC teacher, was on WNYC radio a couple of weeks ago, and on the Colbert report last night (see video below), the first of a two part segment, the second of which will air tonight.
Though the reach and success of the Occupy Wall Street movement has been tremendous, Justin’s role doesn’t surprise me, since over the last year he has done some amazingly creative and compelling advocacy work, in addition to consulting with Class Size Matters and Parents Across America on our social media.
Among Justin’s accomplishments over the past year:
- He collected more than 11,000 signatures on a petition in a few weeks against the appointment of Cathie Black as Chancellor;
- As part of the Yes Men, he helped put together a hoax that convinced the AP, among others, that General Electric had agreed to voluntarily pay back to the government its 2010 tax write off of $3.2 billion, simply by issuing a convincing press release linked to a fake GE website, which Columbia Journalism Review called "the most amazing corporate press release in history."
But my personal favorite Justin moment was his hilarious appearance at a Panel for Educational Policy meeting last year, pretending to be Jason Wharton, Chicken of the Sea’s quality assurance representative, and giving out free tuna sandwiches to protest Bloomberg’s remarks that the PCBs in one tuna sandwich were more dangerous than the PCB-leaking lights in our public schools.
Two videos below: Justin at the PEP last year and on the Colbert show last night. | The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| Colbert Super PAC - Occupy Wall Street Co-Optportunity - Stephen On Location | ||||
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Go Justin!
ReplyDeleteMay want to hold the kudos.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/brooklyn/ows_teach_faked_docs_Ld31gs3UxFC4poW3b6ZWJL
I don't understand the temerity of this man or others like him who would demand basic behavior changes in others while practicing dishonest, greed and selfishness on their own part.
ReplyDeleteGood example for the children Justin Wedes was teaching, trying to forge a document to get a five thousand dollar federal education grant. OWS apparently has no problem with this at all since he's still active with them.
ReplyDeleteThere are those of us in #OWS who most certainly have problems his lack of ethics which goes well beyond this official incident.
ReplyDelete