AUDIO: Chris Hedges Speaks at #OccupyHarvard Rally

Cambridge, Mass. - Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Chris Hedges addressed a rally of 75 Occupy Harvard protestors and supporters on Monday near the Science Center at Harvard University - just outside Harvard Yard, which has been locked down to the public and press since the Occupy Harvard movement was launched on November 9th.

Hedges, a Harvard alumnus, spoke for several minutes and took several more minutes of questions before giving a formal presentation elsewhere on campus - and then spending the night at the Occupy Harvard encampment ... thanks to a "Yard Pass" that he was granted by the Harvard administration.

His remarks included some tough words about his alma mater, "Harvard exists essentially to feed the plutocracy and it has since it was founded. It is an institution that epitomizes the dead ideas of the one percent. It harbors within its walls some of the most capricious and corrupt figures - Lawrence Summers, Robert Rubin and others - who are responsible not only for the meltdown of wealth within the United States -17 trillion dollars virtually evaporating of 40 trillion dollars in worldwide wealth. And if there's any poetic justice, we can take heart in the fact that while they were at it they trashed one-third of the Harvard endowment.

"This movement is important, not because of its size, but because it is run by people within the institution who have access to these figures and begin to call them to account. And that's extremely important for those of us who don't carry Harvard ID cards. We can't get inside Harvard Yard. Much less to an event that has figures like Summers or Rubin present. It is also important that this movement continues to express what I think is the fundamental message of Occupy movements across this country. And that is a message that is revolutionary. It is a message that seeks to reverse the corporate coup d'etat that has taken place in the United States."

Audio: Chris Hedges Address to 11/28/11 Occupy Harvard Rally, 6 minutes 52 seconds