UCB Banner Drop – Solidarity with UCSD BSU

A banner was dropped on Saturday, Feb. 27th off the balcony of the Martin Luther King Jr. Student Union building in solidarity with the Black Student Union at UCSD.

March 4 the Regents!: How and Why a Movement gets Co-opted

March 1st

The regents think it’s a great idea. Blumenthal is beside himself. It’s so great that the students are mobilizing to go to Sacramento. Student leaders are excited: the regents are with us! Sacramento must listen!

On the regents’ side, it’s perfect. The shift to Sacramento solves two problems that the student movement poses. First, it gets the students off of their backs, displacing the anger further up – an age-old tactic of bureaucrats. The removal of antagonism between students and regents allows them to declare themselves on our side, which they of course could not do with the occupations or campus blockades, or when they needed busloads of riot cops with tear gas guns just to hold a “public” meeting. Second, it incorporates the movement, keeping it confined to sanctioned action. As soon as a coalition of student leaders, faculty, unions, and (oh how wonderful) administrators unites in Sacramento, the path is clear: lobbying, symbolic demonstrations, cliché-as-fuck chants and picket signs: in short, a managed movement.

Just as the university pits students against workers, making them compete for limited resources, so the state is now pitting all university stakeholders against prisoners and potentially against all other public programs. UCSA, the system-wide student government, is perfectly content to play this game, calling for a “March for Higher Education” starting with March 1st in Sacramento. Yes, the title is annoyingly snappy, but notice too that their version of the movement is reduced entirely to fighting for “higher education.” A mobilization that grew from a statewide conference of students, teachers, etc. from all levels of public education — an effort to build solidarity in order to combat the state’s divide-and-conquer techniques — is now being commandeered to push for a slightly larger share of the pie for our little divided-and-conquered sector. UCSA accepts and promotes the “we all have to compete for ever-decreasing resources, so we should do our best to get ours” logic. Most of the media does not even mention the component of the movement that is outside of “higher education” or outside of education entirely. But as long as this remains a student movement, it will do nothing more than what student movements invariably do: try to make the educational system marginally better for a little while. Those in power can use this tactic to the extent that we are divided: as long as there is only a student movement, no matter how strong it may be, it can easily be displaced, appeased, and absorbed.

The question, then, is whether we need/want fundamental change or just the reactionary reform that will get us partway back to the greatness of the UC in the 80s or the 60s. Another aspect of the same question is whether the administrators and politicians are with us – that is, benevolent, well-intentioned (if misguided in their policy decisions) workers who, with our constructive input and a lot of compromise, can help us improve things — or whether they are objectively opposed to us and our interests, inevitably an obstacle to any worthwhile goals (free education, free society, etc.).

It is becoming increasingly clear to most students that their education is going into the shitter, yet many still cling to the idea that the regents, as well as state legislators, are doing their best in a bad situation. They call us cynical for acknowledging that these powerful men can never give us what we need, but really they are the cynics, for it follows from their logic that education could not get much better than it is now: despite the best effort of so many intelligent, good people, nothing can be fixed.

It’s not difficult, however, to see that power serves itself — that those in power (and their representatives) will tend to make decisions that reinforce their own power — and that their very position opposes them to us. All one needs to do is listen to their words.

The Regents

“Students are a legitimate voice. [Students] are there as a consumer, and we are seeing if our product is fulfilling your needs,” said chairman of the board of Regents Russel Gould (emphasis added). Rarely do we see such a blatant expression of the market logic with which they govern the university. Of course it shouldn’t be surprising — Gould, like most regents, has years of experience as a CEO (Wachovia is his most recent gig, and he’s made millions from the bailouts — see the 2009 UCSC Disorientation Guide). And nobody can deny the capitalistic nature of the modern university system: he runs it like a business because it is a business. However, he does not admit the flip side of the knowledge-market game: we are not just consumers, but also producers in this all-encompassing system. Like workers in 19^th century factory towns owned entirely by the capitalists – where employees work in the company factory, live in company housing, shop at the company store, etc. – our lives are entirely monopolized by the university system.

We are paying to receive knowledge, while at the same time we are the producers of knowledge. Maybe professors do more of the ‘production’ while undergrads do more of the ‘consumption,’ but before one can teach or research or write one must pay to study for 4 or 5 or 10 years. In any case, it’s not as if students simply pay professors to teach them. Rather, there is a whole array of mediations, allowing a massive university bureaucracy to arise, allowing funding bodies to control research, allowing profits to be made at every level — from books to loans to standardized testing. The university employs an integrating strategy: all production and circulation of knowledge must pass through it; our desires to learn and to teach are forced into an increasingly privatized (that is, profitable) system.

Many students recognize that they could learn just as much by simply reading and discussing with their peers. Programs like the community studies field study program, which give credit for basically doing non-academic work independently, are praised as innovative. We recognize independent study as “a good deal” compared to traditional classes – less work, more flexibility, taking the classroom out of learning. Thus the tendency toward providing nothing. We know that self-directed learning is more effective and enjoyable than passive receipt of information, but then why do we need the university at all? Despite their talk, anyone who is a student (myself included) is unwilling to give the decisive “fuck you” to the university and drop out. Of course this is because what they want to do, what they want to be, does not depend primarily on knowledge, experience, etc. but on the degree. Academia is a closed system. It exists as a complex spreading out from universities into industry, government, and even social life. Knowledge without the degree gets you nothing; all paths lead through them.

The university system has monopolized knowledge, enlightenment, and even social advancement. Like the rest of the private (and public!) spheres, they have isolated a realm of desire and capitalized on it. The rulers of education are simply knowledge profiteers…

Schwarzenegger

“What does it say about any state that focuses more on prison uniforms than on caps and gowns?” asked Schwarzenegger recently. “It simply is not healthy.”

He takes his rhetoric directly from the movement. And activists can pat themselves on the back since, according to his chief of staff, Susan Kennedy, “Those protests on the UC campuses were the tipping point.” Never mind that the budget increase will never make it through the Legislature, as ex-chairman of the Board of Regents Richard Blum (among others) has confirmed. The significant thing here is that state politicians, just like the regents, are able to win popularity and de-escalate the movement by simply affirming its rhetoric and making empty promises. The fact that it’s working shows that all the movement is looking for right now is a policymaker who will “actually listen” (and make empty promises).

“Choosing universities over prisons . . . is a historic and transforming realignment of California’s priorities.”

Here he attempts to appease a group that has recently gained some political influence and public sympathy — students — by fucking over a politically powerless (and sympathy-less) group — prisoners. But in reality he’s not choosing education over incarceration, he’s simply choosing to capitalize more on both. The word realignment is a misleading appeal to the widespread sense of the UC’s lost greatness. Yet he doesn’t suggest reducing tuition to even the ballpark that it used to be in. There is no hope of tuition being reduced at all, nor even of preventing the increase (and future increases, to be sure). All he is doing here is making the rhetoric of “money for education, not incarceration,” fit with a neoliberal agenda — i.e. privatize everything.

But as always, only the profits are privatized — the costs are still socialized. Perhaps taxpayers will spend less on prisons, but that money will simply be invested in the university system, which has proven to be extremely profitable for private capital, especially in recent years. As professor Bob Meister’s excellent letter to students, “They Pledged Your Tuition,” explains, the tendency of the university in recent years has been to spend more on construction, development, and other investor-friendly activities (see http://www.cucfa.org/news/tuition_bonds.php). More than the scandalous amount paid to execs, the real drain on university funds is the constant flow of capital out into the private sphere. The regents vote to build more shit, the university sells bonds (backed by your tuition) to private investors to raise capital, transfers that capital to whatever company is contracted, and then pays back the bonds with state and/or tuition money. This is happening as we speak, as we struggle. The SF Chronicle has reported on the outrage that the regents voted to increase executive salaries during the same meetings in which they cut key programs and implemented furloughs. What they neglected to report was that at those same meetings they also approved new multi-million dollar construction projects funded by selling bonds. But putting a stop to expansion, of course, is not on the table, for no matter how tough things get, the university must remain profitable (if it weren’t, they would have a real crisis!). Schwarzenegger’s plan simply ensures this profitability and ensures investor confidence, while at the same time paving the way for increased profits in the prison industry.

A line from his State of the State address pretty well sums up how he sees us:

“The number of high technology companies that we have in California is related to how many brilliant scientists we have in our universities… which in turn relates to how many smart undergraduates we have… which is related to the number of high school students who graduate… and it goes down through the grades. That small child with the sticky hands starting the first day in kindergarten is the foundation of California’s economic power and leadership. We must invest in education.”

From the moment we enter the public sphere as snot-nosed little kindergartners, our masters see us as one thing, and one thing only: human capital.

Co-optation

Gould: “[Students and regents] have a lot of common ground.” That ground is exactly the terrain of co-optability.

One criterion to judge any struggle by is the extent to which it gets co-opted by those in power. Student regent Jesse Cheng explains the process like this: “What has happened with recent student actions has made student activism part of the equation. Regents are now saying, ‘We recognize your force, and want to be part of it.’” (emphasis added). Cheng thinks this indicates the movement’s strength, but in reality it shows its weakness.

Our revolutionary potential will be co-opted to the extent that its content is co-optable (i.e. symbolic actions, reformist demands…). It will remain unauthorized and potentially effective to the extent that its content is truly threatening. It may seem obvious (and tautological) that we will remain hostile to them as long as we take hostile action… But there is nothing else to it. Activists and revolutionaries use moralistic language to express their outrage when their movements are co-opted, whether by political parties, unions, or, in this case, by the management itself (that is, by those who are objectively opposed to us but whose power relies on the myth of their benevolence): “How could they steal our movement like that?!” “How could our comrades sell us out like that?!” Etc. The only thing that co-optation shows, however, is that our actions have failed to truly oppose the opposition. And all the more so if they ignore us — they will tend to choose whichever strategy works best for them. But when we take action that truly threatens them, they can neither ignore us nor co-opt us.

In the case of student struggles, this means strategic disruptive action. It means absolutely not respecting the authority of the administration nor the proceduralism they prescribe. The procedures that they claim must be followed if you really want to change things, are simply dams and dikes that channel oppositional potential into controlled, harmless forms. Beyond simply disrespecting the regents, chancellor, student government, etc., we must recognize them as adversaries, as would-be co-opters, and we must actively oppose them. And for our struggles to have any chance of precipitating real change, action must go beyond the university, taking on forms that counter their pathetic attempts at displacing the burden onto less organized, less powerful parts of society.

The Crisis

We are not interested in questions of responsibility, of who is to blame — at the university, state, national, or world level — for the current crisis. Technically, we have as much responsibility as anyone else, just by virtue of having desires. We should be proud. Just by living and breathing and having human needs, we threaten the system that idealizes mindless production and consumption.

Capitalism cannot solve the problem of our existence. What has transpired is neither poor management by benevolent policy-makers nor the unchecked greed of so many bad men. Rather, it is the inevitable manifestation of a fundamental insolvency. We are not interested in how to manage the crisis, nor do we care whose fault it is, nor can we accept any partial solutions. There is no solution without removing the contradiction at the heart of the crisis. From the point of view of those in power, resolving the contradiction would require learning how to dehumanize humans – to fully mechanize and atomize production and the producers themselves. From our perspective, overcoming the contradiction requires not only making education free, but overcoming capitalist relations as a whole. We cannot solve the crisis within the current system because we are the crisis of the current system.

Thus we should move from questions of should we fight? to how do we fight? We have seen that the most tempting routes — those that will attract the most media attention, win the widest public support, and feel the most inspiring — will end up working to the advantage of our enemies. We should remember some of Marx’s words on the subject of creating lasting change:

“Bourgeois revolutions . . . storm swiftly from success to success; their dramatic effects outdo each other; men and things seem set in sparkling brilliants; ecstasy is the everyday spirit; but they are short-lived; soon they have attained their zenith, and a long crapulent depression lays hold of society before it learns soberly to assimilate the results of its storm-and-stress period. On the other hand, proletarian revolutions . . . criticize themselves constantly, interrupt themselves continually in their own course, come back to the apparently accomplished in order to begin it afresh, deride with unmerciful thoroughness the inadequacies, weaknesses, and paltriness of their first attempts, seem to throw down their adversary only in order that he may draw new strength from the earth and rise again, more gigantic, before them, recoil ever and anon from the indefinite prodigiousness of their own aims, until a situation has been created which makes all turning back impossible…” (from The 18^th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte; emphasis added).

I am not trying to argue that we should model a movement around any supposedly proletarian or Marxist revolution in history, nor am I saying that we need to be more proletarian and less bourgeois. But what characterizes the great bourgeois revolutions for Marx is the co-optation of revolutionary desire, action, and organizational structure by those who want only to increase their own power and to create and protect the conditions of efficient exploitation. This strategy succeeds where the revolutionaries are unwilling to destroy the old world and the new world, to destroy even what they create. We do not need to build a large, hardened organizational apparatus that can push for gradual, slow, strategic change. Our action must be immediate, radical, and collectively organized. What does need to be changed is our desire for immediate, spectacular victory. Many of us are accustomed to working with activist organizations whose particular campaigns can indeed be won in the short term. We need to untrain ourselves from this tendency and set our sights on long-term liberation. The spectacular wins of the 60s were all well and good, but they were simply rolled back and chiseled away when the political and economic climate changed.

Marching to Sacramento with the regents and the student government will certainly be well-covered in the media. It will be celebrated as historic. And that’s all it will be, and that’s all it will do.

from a fall of protest…to a spring of resistance and refusal

from a fall of protest…

…to a spring of resistance

and refusal

a collection of written insurrections from vienna

Dance Party at UCSC

Santa Cruz, CA – Around 10:15pm, a dance party began in Porter college at UCSC.

10:50pm: Now about 60 people.  Party has moved onto the small stage in Porter Quad.

11:20pm: Party has moved into Kresge classroom 327. Occupation is on!

11:25pm: Numbers increased to 100+.

11:40pm: Party has moved back outside.  Chanting “March 4th!”

12:10am: Party has crossed a bridge, past Sciences, to Colleges 9 & 10.  Passed a bus, and at the next stop a dozen people on the bus joined the dance party!

12:35am: The party has moved into Humanities 2.

12:42am: Now 250+ people.

Summary:

UCSC is divided into ten colleges, all of them paired with another.

The dance party started small in the Porter quad, and after swelling to about 50-60 people, it moved through the college and into the next college, Kresge. There it made a stop inside an empty classroom for a while. The roving dance party made its way around Kresge college collecting more dancers and made its way to the other side of campus (going over a bridge, and up Science Hill). At college 9/10, more students joined, and for a while the party actually made its way through the first floor of a dormitory. They then descended down the street and into the Humanities area of campus, and entering the Humanities 2 building. After leaving the building, the party continued into Cowell college through a central building, and out into a courtyard where the party grew larger. Finally, the group made its way down the hill into the Quarry Plaza (where the Graduate Student Commons resides). The party raged on well after 2am, and then dispersed as quickly as it started.

Through out the evening, multiple buildings were temporarily seized and vacated with ease–leaving only a trail of fading music.

UCSD & UCLA sit-in/occupation

San Diego, CA – A string of racist incidents at UCSD has sparked students there to take over the UCSD chancellor’s office. Yesterday evening, a noose was found in a library on campus catalyzing students to take direct action. Students outraged held a rally this Friday morning, and now hundreds have taken over the office. The BSU has given the administration a 5pm deadline to make effective changes that address racism on campus.

update

2:00pm: In solidarity with the UCSD folks, students are sitting in at Murphy Hall at UCLA

at UCLA

2:30pm: At least 100 students occupying Murphy Hall, the UCLA administration building.  Students are currently meeting with the Chancellor about three demands:

1. Closure of UCSD until there is a full investigation of events surrounding Compton Cook Out and the noose left hanging for 3 days in Library.

2. Expulsion of offending students and dismantling of The Koala newspaper.

3. Diversity needs be met by March 4th.

3:10pm: We’re hearing rumors that a second noose has been found.

UCSD

4:00pm: Police deny that a second noose has been found, though rumors are still circulating that one was found hanging from a statue in Warren College.  Right now numbers at UCSD are decreased slightly, though many more are expected to come at 5pm, the deadline given to the Chancellor.

5:10pm: The UCSD sit-in has turned into a civil disobedience action.  Chancellor Fox apparently has not attempted to meet the demands of the students.  Some students have left the office to support outside, but estimates of 80-100 students inside are willing to be arrested.  So far no word of police action or likelihood of arrests.

5:20pm: Drum circle forming outside Chancellor’s office.  Police are threatening arrests.  Students: “We will stay until BSU demands are met.”

5:23pm: According to one source, as many as 300 people still inside the office. A live audio stream is available here.

5:35pm: Students meeting with Chancellor Fox return to the sit-in to discuss the letter they received from the admin, describing it as, “bullshit.” They plan to return on Monday with their response. The student(s) involved in the noose incident is being suspended, although a time frame hasn’t been established. The protesters are not satisfied with this weak response by the administration, considering this new document from the Chancellor to have no new concrete improvements over previous ones.

The Durant Riot: Initial Brief

Berkeley, CA – In Sproul Plaza of UC Berkeley, hundreds gathered for a dance party that began around 10pm on Thursday, February 25. At the peak of the party (around 12am) the 250 people dancing surrounded the loudspeakers as together they moved farther into campus. As we approached Durant Hall, a building currently being renovated, people began handing out communiques. We began to see a yellow light glow from inside the second story windows of the building, and then silhouettes of dozens of occupiers emerged. They rigged a few banners across the front of the building and descended to join the party.

The occupation continued for a little over an hour, as occupiers and outside support began barricading their surroundings. The building, Durant Hall had once been a haven for East Asian Language studies, but is now being remodeled into another administration building. The occupation had the intention to point out this gross contradiction in university spending as well as articulate the need to escalate for March 4th. The point made, the occupiers and the supporters joined together to move the dance party away from an assured arrest action as police numbers slowly increased, in order to reserve their energy for the coming week.

As the crowd reached Telegraph and Bancroft (one entrance to UCB), the disruption of business as usual continued, as a handful of masked individuals grabbed trash cans and newspaper dispensers and knocked them over. The dance party continued to move past Bancroft, down Telegraph as more people joined the march and joined the destruction of capital. Now the windows of fast food chains smashed, the party settled in the intersection of Durant and Telegraph. The Berkeley police soon arrived, wearing helmets, armor and brandishing batons. However, there were 12 police and between two to three hundred dancers. The crowd scattered for a moment, expecting imminent police arrests, but to their surprise, the massive force they represented stopped the police cold in their tracks, thus shattering their feeling of submission. Those that began to burn trash cans and those that continued to stay simply because they felt empowered to do so, showed the strength even a small crowd can have against the brutal forces they faced.

The crowd began to swell in the intersection. Some 500 people were present, a combination of observers and protesters. The dance party continued to rage on as more and more people took the intersection, by now at least three hundred. Then without a clear reason, the police began to descend on the people in the streets. Some ran to the sidewalks to observe from a distance, others stood their ground, refusing to move. The police pushed people with their batons, the protesters pushed back and some were caught in the middle. Then an officer grabbed a woman at random and smashed her head to the ground. The protesters pushing back against the police began to grab for the woman to rescue her from further abuse, while even the observers at this point were surrounding the police, aware of the brutality at hand. The crowd nearly encircled the police, shouting, “Fuck the police!” and “Police brutality!” The police began to remove themselves from the scene, and line up again between the protesters and the campus, some 30 feet away from the crowd.

The atmosphere had changed now, the police had directly assaulted a person and charged at a crowd, most of whom were only there dancing. The crowd started forming a line, dumpsters were set ablaze and in an instant a largely passive group became a group intensely aware of the police presence. They confronted them, standing together, approaching a line of police that had by now grown, yet still outnumbered greatly. Even the observers became more brazen as many of them joined the protesters to face the police line, with cameras and iphones ready to snap a shot of the next assault on the crowd.

What had started as a dance party and occupation quickly turned into a direct confrontation with the police, whom had been following the protesters through out the night. For the next few hours the crowd stood firm; the crowd and the police pushed back and forth. A police car approached the line of cops, stopped and waited; within a few moments the police randomly grabbed a protester, struck him and plowed him into the asphalt with three officers kneeling on top his back. Ten minutes later, another car pulled behind the line of cops, and this time the police grabbed a woman who was rightfully shouting at the police for bloodying her nose earlier. Throughout the course of these arrests, observers and press were pushed back by the police, the police stating that they had to move away. The crowd grew more enraged, as with each police abuse spurring retaliations from behind the line of protesters in the form of thrown empty bottles and empty plastic paint cans.

Eventually, as the crowd collectively realized the painfulness of each interaction with the police, they withdrew from the line and proceeded East down Durant, in the process leaving a trail of burning trash cans and dumpsters. By 3am, the BART police arrived and the marching crowd dissipated.

UCB Occupied!

Berkeley, CA – Durant Hall (next to Wheeler Hall) is occupied. Hundreds have stormed this building (that is being renovated).

updates:

12:10am: some UCPD (~5) present around the building, still trying to figure out what’s going on. They are spotlighting people near the entrance with flashlights, but a green chain-link fence obscures most of their view. People are dancing right outside.

1:30am: About 200 people inside.  Doors are wide open but barricades are set up to keep cops out.  There’s a few police on each side, a few hundred feet away from the building.  Durant is under construction, so random materials and fences are keeping police out for now.  Organizers have released a statement: Why Durant Hall?

1:45am: Students have emptied out of Durant, now going down Telegraph Ave smashing windows and turning over trash cans.

1:50am: Riot police have blocked students at intersection of Telegraph and Durant.  Source on the ground reported a trash can on fire.  Random people are joining the street party that is forming.

1:57am: A dumpster has now been set on fire.

2:15am: From on the ground: “Real battle with cops, rioters winnin”. 25 riot cops, 300 rioters.

2:25am: So far 1 arrest reported.  Students/rioters holding their ground against the cops.

2:35am: A 2nd arrest reported.  Students not backing down.

2:55am: Still going strong, still breaking shit, no new arrests.

3:00am: Riot dissolves. BART and Berkeley police cars patrol the streets.

CSU Fullerton banner drop

http://makebelievecommittee.wordpress.com

SFSU Banner Drop from Oscar Grant Memorial Hall

"No Class but Class War, March Forth"

This banner was dropped off of the Oscar Grant Memorial Hall (formerly known as the Business Building) last week at SFSU.

ucsc banner drop

a banner drop at UC Santa Cruz on February 25, 2010

Yesterday the Dumpsters. Tomorrow the world.

“UCI is NOT a state of anarchy!” – UCI Political Science Department Chair Mark Petracca, to Muslim students disrupting Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren’s talk 2 weeks ago.

Well, Mr. Petracca, we’ve tried it your way, it’s time for ours!

A curious thing happened yesterday at the University of California Irvine: for several hours, the campus descended into a state of anarchy.

Rally early on – a good start

At 9:30am, 14 students and 3 AFSCME 3299 representatives began a sit-in outside Chancellor Michael Drake’s office.  The police were caught completely flat-footed, and it was only because a police officer saw the crowd and rushed to the 5th floor to lock Drake’s door that the students didn’t get inside.  A list of demands was issued, and while there has already been much debate and discussion about the demands, we have no interest in dissecting the demands–the fact that these issues are even being talked about is sufficient.  Police seemed unprepared to deal with the sit-in; really, nothing like this has happened in years on our quiet Stepford-esque campus.  After nearly an hour, police finally made the move to arrest the protesters.

Dumpster being moved like it’s normal

What made this action more than a protest, and took it beyond the spectrum of most campus sit-ins, was the actions of solidarity by students outside.  To us, solidarity means attack, and attack we did.  Students were able to seize the moment, put their fears and disagreements aside, and quickly moved dumpsters, tables, and even doors to barricade the doors to Aldrich Hall.  One door was left open–if the police want to take our friends to jail, they’ll have to get past us!

We found each other in those moments of pushing and flipping dumpsters.  Black and white, teacher and student, none of those distinctions really mattered.  We were acting for our friends inside, and we were acting for ourselves and each other.  New faces appeared behind masks, and we all found strengths that we never knew we had.

Facilities closed

We later found out from our friends inside that as the actions outside unfolded, police shouted news over the police radio: after the first dumpster was placed, police rushed downstairs to assess the situation.  Soon, we had about 20 police plus our campus oligarchy (admin) barricaded inside.  It was only a matter of time before police broke the barricades–a dumpster left on its wheels, a table not secured well enough–not that that’s important.  A few minutes later: “They’ve taken to the streets!”  Students rolled dumpsters into the street passing Aldrich Hall, Pereira, a main artery on campus.  Two dumpsters flipped, workers and students jumping and dancing on top of them, and a crowd gathered around.  All myths about the agency of workers, AB540 students, students of color, women, queer students were shattered–anyone can throw down when they believe they can.  For several hours, we ran wild mere feet from police, who watched helplessly.

As our friends were being released, we left the street to rejoin them and cheer their return.  All were out by 2:45pm.  Their charges were minor–”failure to disperse.”  It is easy to speculate: would their charges have been worse?  would they have been taken to county had we not escalated outside?   Our arrest count for the year is 29–a year ago we barely had that many activists.  Many of us are still free without charges, ready to continue to escalate.

Blocking Pereira

March 4 is right around the corner.  Irvine awoke from its slumber yesterday.  We realize that we set the bar high, but we see this as a challenge: how will we top yesterday’s action?  If not dumpsters, will we push something else?  Just a few hours later, we all felt the pain of coming down from a high, and the only way to restore that euphoria is to get back in the action.  We will never look at dumpsters in the same way.  Yesterday we discovered that we had it in us, that the revolutionary spirit lives within us all, that it takes only a little provocation for that spirit to be released.  We have to come to terms with our own agency and learn to love it.  We also learned that spontaneity is liberation, and the more unpredictable, the more ready to explode we are, the further we can go and the more rewarding it will be.

We offer this account to students around the country and the world.  If we could do it, so can you.  As we pass through our 15 minutes of fame, we want to make it clear that there is nothing unique about our situation.  Two days ago, we never would have anticipated this.  We have struggled for some time to organize students; we just realized that that was the problem–they didn’t lack organization, they lacked confidence.  Go out and try new things.  Show students they can act.  Be creative.  Be realistic, attempt the impossible.  Sit in.  Lock down.  Lock in.  March 4 is just a few days away, but it only takes a few moments to turn a boring action into something beautiful.

Yesterday the dumpsters.
Tomorrow the world.

========

Subversities has additional info about the arrests inside.

reposted from occupyuci

UCI Sit-in turns into Lockdown

Irvine, CA – Beginning at 9:30am Feb. 24, around 20 students at UC Irvine are holding a sit-in at the UCI administration building, Aldrich Hall, regarding budget cuts.

updates

9:45am: Rally outside, 50 students and workers.  ”Si se puede!” “They say cutback, we say fight back!”

About 8-10 cops inside, some plainclothes.  One cop followed students inside and locked Chancellor’s door.

10:30am: Nothing new on the ground to report. List of demands available here:

We call for the democratic education intended in the founding of the UC system. This means an end to the racist, gendered, hetero-normative, and exploitative practices currently in place. To these ends, we have expropriated Aldrich Hall. As part of the University of California, this building belongs to the students and workers. This is not an occupation, nor is it unlawful assembly or trespassing. It is only the increasing privatization of our system that makes this action appear otherwise. This action is the result of frustration with conventional avenues of participation. The crisis is too extreme for gradualism and the ideals of public education are slipping away; direct confrontation is needed.

To UCI Admin:

1) We demand that UCI administration implement a comprehensive financial aid system by fall 2010 that apportions grant aid (excluding loans from the equation) and on-campus housing based on family wealth rather than income. Financial aid must be designed to counteract the economic effects of structural and systemic racism in our society.

2) We demand the immediate direct hiring of all outsourced ABM workers and fair pay for all campus workers.  Students and workers do not support discriminatory hiring practices that victimize immigrant, Latina/o working families.

3) We demand that Chancellor Drake publicly commit to seeking out private donations that will specifically fund financial aid to AB540 students or begin providing financial aid for AB540 students directly from his office’s discretionary funding. We want administration to publicly recognize that AB540 students do not share the same economic freedoms and securities as other populations.

4) We demand that UCI administration immediately disarm all police officers of Tasers.  This action is supported by the December 2009 ruling of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. The Taser has replaced the lash of the whip as a device in the service of state sanctioned anti-blackness, evidenced so blatantly at UCLA this past November, and UCI’s administration should lead in the banning of this device.

5) We demand that UCI immediately equip the campus with gender neutral bathrooms. Students and workers who do not fit the illusion of gender normativity suffer routine violence and intimidation. UC should not privilege heteronormativity over the interests of its LGBT community.

6) We demand the recall of the three groundskeepers that were laidoff in October 2009 and the reinstatement of the 5% time reduction of the entire campus of AFSCME 3299 service unit.

7) We demand that no disciplinary action (academic or legal) be taken against the 11 students arrested at Ambassador Oren’s event. UCI and the surrounding community’s repeated attacks against, and hyper-surveillance of, Muslim and Arab students aids in branding legitimate political criticisms against the apartheid state of Israel as ‘uncivil’ and fosters a segregated cultural, social, and intellectual climate for the university. Deploying rhetoric that equates anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism serves to annihilate rather than engage in dialogue.

8) We demand 100% funding from administration for a recruitment and retention center for underrepresented students. Recruiting and retaining students of color and low-income students should be a campus priority, but UCI has neglected to support these important efforts.

9) We demand that until state-funding has been restored to the UC system in full, that all budget cuts imposed in the fall be redistributed by imposing an equal percentage cut to each of UCI’s schools.

10) We demand that UCI administration immediately reinvest in the ethnic, queer, and women’s studies departments/programs. UCI should foster an environment that is supportive of students who are considered outside of the “mythical norms” of our society. As evidenced so blatantly at UCSD this past week, Black subjects are in an antagonistic position against the institution, this sentiment is reinforced by administration and creates a safe space for anti-blackness. UCI administration should lead in creating a campus that engages in academic, political, and social reeducation which challenges structural and individual racism, sexism, heterosexism, and homophobia.

11) We demand that Chancellor Drake publicly disclose all of UCI’s military and private security contracts. Furthermore, we demand that Chancellor Drake shut down the Center for Unconventional Security Affairs and discontinue all military and Homeland Security contracts that aid in both the mass murder of people around the world by U.S. imperialism (particularly in Afghanistan, Iraq, Gaza, and Pakistan) or the violent police repression of students and workers within the U.S. In solidarity with workers and students around the world, we demand an end to genocidal imperialist wars for profit and empire: U.S. imperialism out of Iraq and Afghanistan!

12) We demand that UCI not feed the prison-industrial complex. We demand that UCI end its contract with Motorola by fall 2010. Furthermore, we demand the removal of all Dell, IBM, and Texas Instrument products by fall 2010 as well.

To the UC Regents:

1. We demand amnesty for all previous and current participants in protest on UC campuses. The Regents must restore all penalized students to good academic standing, recall all fired workers, and issue a public statement demanding that any and all criminal charges be dropped.

2. We demand the UC Regents and the Office of the President terminate ALL military and private security contracts currently in place at UC campuses and research facilities. In solidarity with workers and students around the world, we demand an end to genocidal imperialist wars for profit and empire: U.S. imperialism out of Iraq and Afghanistan!

3.  We demand that the Regents revisit the November 2009 decision to increase student fees by 32% and address student and faculty objections to this decision.  We demand that this public discussion of the 32% fee increase include three agenda items:

(a) A period for public comment;

(b) A vote, in full view of the public, reconsidering the 32% fee increase;

(c) A vote, in full view of the public, to ban all outsourcing of  workers.

11:00am: Sources from on the ground report that the police are preparing to arrest the students.

11:25am: Sources say that people outside the building are barricading the doors to Aldrich Hall in an attempt to circumvent the police from arresting and moving the students sitting-in the building!

11:45am: Sources state that a, “giant cage is being built around Aldrich Hall.” and that, “things are heating up.” Photos to come! Police, administrators, and sit-in participants are barricaded inside Aldrich Hall.

12:05pm: “Battle of UC Irvine.” Around 20 police officers have come to take down the outside barricades. Students are just as quickly rebuilding them.

taken around 12:10pm, feb 24, 2010

12:26pm: Students are now barricading Pereira Drive.

12:40pm: Both human and physical barricades on the roads surrounding Aldrich Hall. The sit-in protesters are still inside Aldrich Hall.

1:00pm: Students still blockading Pereira.  Police have given a warning to clear.

1:35pm: The protesters involved in the sit-in are now being cited and released one by one. So far two students have been released!

1:40pm: Protesters charged with “failure to disperse.”

1:50pm: 4 Protesters have now been released. A crowd has formed outside the door chanting, “Holla back, I got your back!” Barricades now being removed.

2:20pm: All but 5 have been released, charged with “failure to disperse.”  Those still inside include 2 graduate students and three AFSCME 3299 staff.  Crowd of 50 waiting outside.

2:40pm: The sit-in has ended.

UCI has spoken!  This is just warm-up, we begin next week!

Reclaim UC

The kids at UC Berkeley have a new website up about the rolling university and future events. Check it out here.

MARCH 4th STRIKE! SHUT IT DOWN! TAKE THE STREETS!

Evergreen Occupation Ends

Olympia, WA – After 36 hours, the occupation of the housing community center at Evergreen State University ends.