Tag Archives: #OCCUPY

Our Pass-Fail Moment: Livable Ecology, Capitalism, Occupy, and What is to be Done | Critical Education

CRITICAL EDUCATION
Vol 3, No 10 (2012)
Our Pass-Fail Moment: Livable Ecology, Capitalism, Occupy, and What is to be Done
Paul Street

Abstract

The ecological crisis is the leading issue of “our or any time” posing grave threats to a decent and democratic future. If the environmental catastrophe isn’t forestalled, “everything else we’re talking about won’t matter” (Noam Chomsky). Like other issues leftists cite as major developments of the last half-century, the environmental crisis is intimately bound up with numerous other deep changes (growing inequality, authoritarian neoliberalism, corporate globalization, U.S. imperial expansion, and more) and grounded in the imperatives of capital and the profits system. Tackling the crisis in a meaningful way will bring numerous related and collateral benefits (including significant opportunities for socially useful and necessary work/employment) beyond and alongside environmental survival. To prioritize ecology is not to demote or delay radical social reconstruction. It means the elevation and escalation of the red project. It is highly unlikely that the crisis can be solved within the framework of capitalism.

This article was originally delivered as a Keynote Address at the Rouge Forum 2012: Occupy Education! Class Conscious Pedagogies and Social Change, on June 21, 2012 at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.

Keywords

Social Movements; Capitalism; Ecology; Occupy; Green Jobs; The Profits System; Revolution; Envrionment, Green Marxism; Rouge-Verde; ecological crisis

Changing Nature of Campus Protests Frustrates Administrators

The Chronicle: In California and Beyond, the Changing Nature of Campus Protests Frustrates Administrators

Campus protests don’t always arise locally or focus on discrete issues or demands. Sometimes, they’re not even led by students.

Those characteristics vex some senior student-affairs administrators in the University of California system, where a tumultuous combination of steep tuition increases and the high-profile national “Occupy” movement resulted in demonstrations that have ensnared at least two campuses—Berkeley and Davis—in lawsuits.

McGill Students Occupy Office Against Administration’s Autocracy

Occupy McGill The occupiers explain the circumstances for this action in a communiqué:
“In the summer of 2010, Dr. Morton Mendelson (Deputy Provost, Student Life & Learning who is mandated to represent the interests of students to the administration) shut down the beloved Architecture Cafe, taking away our biggest student-run cafe and giving Aramark – a company that provides food to most US prisons and the US military – a monopoly on food services on campus. Last year, he and the administration forced all clubs and services to remove “McGill” from their name,as if we, the students of this university, have no right to associate with the brand they wish to put forward. Then, this winter, Mendelson announced the administration would ignore and seek to invalidate the overwhelmingly clear results of the CKUT and QPIRG fall referendum question. […]
There is no doubt in our mind that this administration – and Dr. Mendelson in particular – need to understand the consequences of their actions towards students. We are here to hold them accountable. We have undertaken this action in full knowledge of its potential consequences, yet maintain that, given the current context of administrative disregard for student autonomy by the administration and the radical imbalance of power between students and administrators, this action is justified.”

Rouge Forum 2012: OCCUPY EDUCATION! Class Conscious Pedagogies and Social Change

OCCUPY EDUCATION! Class Conscious Pedagogies and Social Change

The Rouge Forum 2012 will be held at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. The University’s picturesque campus is located 50 minutes northwest of Cincinnati. The conference will be held June 22-24, 2012.

Proposals for papers, panels, performances, workshops, and other multimedia presentations should include title(s) and names and contact information for presenter(s). The deadline for sending proposals is April 15. The Steering Committee will email acceptance notices by May 1.

Read the Call for Proposals.

Will Non-Tenure-Track Faculty Occupy the MLA Convention?

The Chronicle: Will Non-Tenure-Track Faculty Occupy the MLA Convention?

Feeling downsized, disrespected, and exploited, disgruntled members of the Modern Language Association—seeking to capitalize on the Occupy Wall Street movement’s messages about income disparity—have called for action in advance of the group’s annual meeting next month.

Those members, mostly faculty who are off the tenure track, have turned to blogs and a Twitter feed called OccupyMLA to air grievances about deteriorating labor conditions on their campuses for part-time instructors. Among their list of complaints: low wages; no health insurance; lack of access to office space, phones, and computers; abrupt decisions by administrators to cut programs and courses; criticisms of unions; little or no openness about spending; job insecurity; and fear of retribution if they speak out.

Anonymous – UC Davis Police Brutality – Strike on Nov. 28, 2011

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Op-Ed: ‘Sympathy’ For Pepper-Spraying Policeman

NPR’s Talk of the Nation

A video showing an officer methodically spraying pepper spray in the faces of seated protesters has created an uproar. While some say the incident represents a wider problem with the way police confront protesters, Santa Clara University professor (and founding editor of Workplace: A Journal for Academic Labor) Marc Bousquet argues that misses the point.

Police club and pepper spray students and professors at the University of California #OccupyCal

Police club and pepper spray students and professors at the University
of California

Nov. 18, 2011: letter from English professor Nathan Brown to Chancellor Katehi:

http://bicyclebarricade.wordpress.com/2011/11/19/open-letter-to-chancellor-linda-p-b-katehi/

Nov. 18, 2011: UC Davis students pepper sprayed:

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Nov. 9, 2011: police club UC Berkeley professors and students:

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Nov. 9, 2011: UC Berkeley students drive out police:

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UC Berkeley professor on her arrest:

http://utotherescue.blogspot.com/2011/11/why-i-got-arrested-with-occupy-cal-and.html