By PAUL LAVERACK
POLITICAL MUSCLE

A tiny contingent of student activists takes up a small patch of grass on the main lawn at Cal State University Northridge for “Occupy CSUN,” standing in solidarity with the Occupy movement all over the US and across the world. The event on October 13, 2011 is timed to coincide with “Occupy Colleges,” which takes place on over 90 campuses around the United States.

Marlon Stern, CSUN class of 2009, is the event’s main organizer. Stern claims that at its peak, there were 100 students at the encampment, though as the day wears on, that number dwindles to approximately a dozen.

Participants do articulate a pointed critique of the present economic and political order, which they say favors the top 1 percent, at the expense of everyone else. Most point to the gutting of the public universities in California – fees are skyrocketing as services are repeatedly slashed – as an example of the broken system, with its misplaced priorities.

Unlike many other locations, the Occupy movement at this sprawling suburban campus of 35,000 students – one of the fifty largest universities in the U.S. – is unable to gain traction, and the encampment vanishes that same night.

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