April 5th, Fight the Suspensions at Cal

Noon* Rally – Sproul Plaza, UC Berkeley

On November 20, 2009, one day after the UC Regents increased student fees by 32 percent, approximately 40 students engaged in an act of nonviolent civil disobedience to protest fee increases and to call upon the University to rehire recently laid off custodial workers. On that day, thousands of UC Berkeley students, professors and workers, as well as members of the community at large, came out to support the student activists, to amplify our act of protest, and to try and protect us against police violence or an unduly punitive administration response.

Just as those of us inside Wheeler Hall needed your support on November 20, we need your support today. In recent weeks, some of us have received letters from the Office of Student Conduct (OSC), suggesting that we accept a six-month suspension rather than enter into a formal student conduct hearing, at which we could face even more severe disciplinary measures. (See excerpts from the OSC letter below.)

We are serious students invested in our education and are distressed about the prospect of being barred from our academic work for six months.

We are concerned about the chilling effect this punishment could have on nonviolent campus organizers working to ensure that the UCs remain public and widely accessible.

We believe that the OSC, led by Dean of Students Jonathan Poullard, has overstepped in proposing such a severe penalty for an act of nonviolent civil protest.

If you share with us some of these points of view, please join us at 10AM on Monday, April 5, for a peaceful rally in front of Sproul Hall. Together we can show Dean Poullard that the community is watching and will not tolerate the extended suspension of students who are struggling to ensure that the UCs stay true to their public mission.

*************

Excerpts from OSC letter to student activists:

[The Office of Student Conduct] proposes the following sanctions and conditions in resolution of your case:

Suspension

Your student status at UC Berkeley and with all UC Berkeley affiliated programs, including “UC Extension”, will be terminated from May 17, 2010 to December 17, 2010, with reinstatement thereafter certain (provided that you have complied with all conditions imposed as part of the suspension and provided that you are otherwise qualified for reinstatement). Please note that violations of the conditions of Suspension or of University policies or campus regulations during the period of Suspension may be cause for further disiciplinary action, normally in the form of Dismissal. During the period of Suspension, a notation of this disciplinary suspension will appear on your academic transcript. Upon completion of the Suspension, the notation of the disciplinary suspension will be lifted from your academic transcript.

….

Please be advised that you are free to either enter into this Agreement with the University based on the sanctions proposed above, or have the matter fully adjudicated at a hearing.

….

In the event that the matter proceeds to such a hearing, please be advised that the University shall not be limited to asking for the sanction(s) and/or condition(s) proposed in this agreement.

RSVP on facebook.

*[note: time was changed as Zak and Marika's court hearing is at 9am that same day.]

March on Bologna

VIENNA, Austria – Some 10,000 students descended on the anniversary party for the Bologna Process on March 11. Unfortunately, riot police stopped them from effectively blocking all the delegates from entering the party, however the party itself was delayed 90 minutes. Students held a counter summit the next day. Check out this reportback from emancipating education.

Florida: Cop shoots African student in face; students storm Trustees meeting

Adu-Brempong is hospitalized in critical condition, having lost his tongue and jaw. Incredibly, the police action took less than 30 seconds. Having suffered a case of childhood polio, Adu-Brempong was unable to walk without a cane. To add to the outrage, the University of Florida police charged him with a felony for ‘resisting arrest with violence.’

Gainesville Area Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) led the campus action. Beginning with a rally and speakers at Turlington Plaza, the mass of protesters marched through campus to the Board of Trustees in the Emerson Hall Alumni Building. The Board of Trustees governs the entire university. Since the building was closed to the public, the protesters pulled the doors open, pushed past security and took over the building.

Rest of story here

Philippines: Students protest 2,000% fee hike

The students, nearly a thousand of them, threw armchairs, tables and papers down to the ground floor and set these on fire. Many of them hanged streamers from the state university’s main building denouncing the proposal.

In a statement, PUP student regent Donna Pascual said the proposal means an increase from P12 to P200 per unit of tuition. “(The tuition increase) is expected to affect all incoming freshmen in the university,” she said, estimating the affected students at about 50,000.

PUP is a state university where most of its students come from the poor. “PUP is supposed to be the most accessible university with its P12 tuition fee. What would happen now to our poor students and high school graduates? They have nowhere to go to,” said Chaser Soriano, student council president.

Read more

Victory in Sussex

Cheres amis,

Finest from Anglo-Normandy, where we really hit the nail on the head in the last week. We invite you to spread the word of our little victory, and word of our little sadnesses at what’s lost for the moment, and of our pride and hope for the future too.

There’ll be some good writing coming up soon, I think.

Comunique below.
—

Victory – a leaving statement
After eight days of occupation, management have conceded to our demands. We have seen a mass movement spring up around the occupation – staff, students and faculty have come out in strength this last week to fiercely oppose the summary suspensions of six students, and the continued threat to Sussex.

Yesterday an 850-strong Emergency general meeting proved that we, the students, have no confidence in the VCEG. We, the students, have spoken. The occupation became far more than a symbolic opposition; it was a positive and exciting space in its own right – which has embodied our vision of what Sussex can, what Sussex should be, and of what we want from our education.

The strike today, the Senate meeting yesterday; these ratify our position – we the sussex community are united against management and their ‘proposals for change’. This result proves that a sustained movement; built with a diversity of tactics, skills and perspectives, can achieve concrete results.

We will not stop here.

This has been the first of a series of victories to come at Sussex – the first of a series of victories nationally, internationally. We have left A2 in perfect condition, and are now going out to join the UCU strike rally. Next term will see more action, more fighting cuts; management on the run.

We leave for the holidays in a position of strength. There is much work yet to do.

Till next term,
Stop the Cuts

March 4 Oakland Arrestees – Please Contact the NLG

The National Lawyers Guild SFBA is coordinating legal support following the March 4 arrests in Oakland. NLG lawyers will be appearing at the hearing dates in early April for anyone who wishes to have legal help from the NLG.

For further details,

See : http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2010/03/18/18641836.php

Racial Tension @ CSUMB

guerrillathink.wordpress.com

statement from BSU & other community members in solidarity on Thursday, 3/18:

Dear CSUMB Community Member,

Wednesday morning the words “f**k black people” were found chalked on sidewalk outside the Otter Express. This follows an incident the night before where an African American student was called the N-word by a student she did not know who later claimed to be “joking.” The hateful words of Wednesday morning underscore that racial insensitivity is never a joke. Racism must never be taken lightly. By Thursday night, members from all racial communities came together in solidarity with the African American community that was the target of this particular racist incident to decide how to address this as a united community.

Please join our CSUMB community tomorrow outside the OE where we will come together in silent communion, black and white, male and female, gay and straight dressed in black to represent the death of all forms of discrimination. The words that were meant to hurt and divide us will instead bring us together tomorrow as we demonstrate our commitment to the Vision of CSUMB which values each and every member of our community whatever their race, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, religion or personal identity.

We come together to send a strong message tomorrow that racism, sexism, homophobia and religious bigotry and all other forms of discrimination will not be tolerated on our campus. Anytime any member of our campus community is targeted in this way, it is absolutely necessary that all CSUMB communities come together in condemnation of discrimination and support for those discriminated against.

– BSU & CSUMB Community Members

Event pictures @ guerrillathink.wordpress.com

Toma (Occupation) — Universidad de El Salvador

«Se va a revisar el sistema de seguridad de los custodios, que es deficiente. Se van a seguir procesos disciplinarios, porque no podemos permitir la anarquía»
-Rector de la Universidad de El Salvador

“We will review the security system of the custodians, which is deficient. [We]will continue pursuing disciplinary proceedings, for we can not allow anarchy.”
-University Administrator, University of El Salvador

After having successfully occupied the only public university in El Salvador, la Universidad de El Salvador, masked students some of whom were still in high school shut down the operations of the campus. This was a result of the fact that 12,500 students will not be admitted to the University of the 23,000 students that applied. Approximately 235 students engaged in the occupation which has come to an end this week and are facing disciplinary actions. (see video on Univision)

Read More:

No translations are available yet (try automatic translators online). For more accurate translations please write to Colectivo La Ventana: ventana.info [at] gmail [dot] com

See Also:

Bloque Popular Juvenil

DiarioCoLatino

Class Struggle in Claremont

from some friends in the south of california – claremontsolidarity:

Partnership! Well, labor and capital may be partners in theory, but they are enemies in fact. – JOHN L. LEWIS; President, United Mine Workers of America; 1936

If you contract out, union-bust, or otherwise make it impossible for workers and students to have an organized voice, you don’t shut them up, you just get collective bargaining by riot. – ELAINE BERNARD; Director, Harvard Law School Labor & Worklife Program; 2002

Pomona College is the site of active class struggle. The food service workers of Pomona College are now in open conflict with the corporate administration of Pomona College over their attempts to organize an independent union. They fight for dignity, justice and respect. Their employer, Pomona College, seeks only the ability to continue its exploitative practices. The College rejects even their basic demand for an agreement against intimidation. We, as Claremont Solidarity, stand with the workers, and against the interests of capital and the corporate university.

Another update on Greece

“THERE’S ONLY ONE THING LEFT TO SETTLE: OUR ACCOUNTS WITH CAPITAL AND ITS STATE’’A REPORT ON RECENT STRUGGLES IN GREECE

In periods of crisis, such as the current period of overaccumulation crisis, capitalists use the politics of “public debt” in order to devise new ways to intensify exploitation. In contrast with capitalist upturns when the private debt is increased, downturns are characterized by the increase of the “public debt”. Private investment in state bonds ensures profits which are extracted from the direct and indirect taxation of the workers, aiming towards interest repayments, and leading, ultimately, to the reinforcement of the banking sector capital. Therefore, the “public debt”, contrary to what is usually said, provides help to private capital and, in this respect, should be counted in its profits.

Moreover, in the last 20 years, the “public debt” tripled in 20 out of 27 countries of EU because of massive expenditures for bailing out the financial sector. This is money that was not given through loans to (non-banking) private capital for productive investments. Furthermore, public borrowing was done and continues to be done on terms that exceed by far the average profit rate, making investments in state bonds far more profitable than investments for the creation of production units, and, all the more so, since this kind of investment is exempted from the risks of class struggle in the sites of production.

Democracy No Escape

from reoccupied:

*This is a communique that was circulated in Athens and Thessaloniki during the 3/11 demos

Democracy

There’s no escape.

The big pricks are out.

They’ll fuck everything in sight.

Watch your back.

Harold Pinter (He already said it on February 2003)

In the historical point we are now in, the contradiction of capital is increasingly becoming clear worldwide. Proletarians around the world are in turmoil while their own reproduction becomes more and more difficult. As it is already difficult for the proletarians to continue their lives, it is capital itself as a relation of exploitation which is in a reproduction crisis. The current struggles of the proletarians are the expression of the current form of this relation of exploitation.

During the last year in China where the economy still grows very quickly, all kinds of contradictions are rising. Clashes of workers with the police is common for a number of reasons: because of demands for increasing the very low wages (on which steep economic growth is based), because of preventing land enclosures in villages, because of attributing compensation to dismissed workers, against the inadequacy of the health system resulting in high mortality rate of children. In USA where a historical low record of workers’ demanding struggles has appeared, thousands of homeless and unemployed people occupy vacant houses which have been seized by banks and students occupy universities in California and New York writing on their banners: We have decided not to die, demanding this way what was until recently taken for granted, that is, just their ability to continue being students. The reproduction of their own life (of course from a much worse position imposed by the hierarchy of capitalist states) proletarians in South Africa and Algeria demand as well as they clash with police because they still do not have water or electricity and are forced to live in slums; in India as well, because the price of bread suddenly rises and they starve to death. Last year in Spain workers in shipyards which are shut down burn police cars; in South Korea dismissed workers as well occupy factories and clash with police for two and a half months; in Bangladesh, dismissed workers again, clash with police and burn factories. In France and Belgium, dismissed workers kidnap their bosses, placing explosives in the factories and threatening to blow them up if not compensated for their dismissal. In India and China they kill their boss during the conflicts because of thousands of upcoming dismissals. In this historical phase proletarian struggles are objectively struggles for the assertion of the reproduction of life itself.
At the same time, the restructuring of labour relations is accelerated and precariousness is the predominant situation for everyone now. Precariousness is manifested in the worst conditions: 43 suicides of employees in France Telecom within two years but also 1,000,000 unemployed in USA desperately waiting to see whether Obama will once again extend the unemployment benefit which expires in April or they will be left with nothing. Unemployment numbers in most countries surge hitting records higher than in any other historical period.

Downtown LA on March 4th

A great account of what happened in downtown LA: the desire/need for self-organized struggle

Pushed by the violence of our desires

What follows is a letter from (as it is signed below) some queer women of color, regarding the fiasco at Hunter College in NYC on March 4th. We print it here, not because we wish to bring the debate concerning what happened at Hunter home to California (we weren’t there). Rather, because this letter gets at some of the deepest, structural contradictions within the discourse of identity politics today. If the past weeks have shown anything, they have shown that in this country, there is no way to avoid an explicit (anti-)politics of race and gender in the US — and for very good reason. Race and gender cleave us into pieces, both to the benefit of capital and the detriment of movements. How do we adapt to this situation? Certainly, we start by listening to what women and people of color have to say about it…

Over the past few days, dozens of communiqués, letters, and statements have been circulating regarding issues of race, gender, and disrespect on M4. We have no intentions of addressing or disputing particular accusations or narratives regarding M4 in this statement; these things will inevitably be argued about elsewhere. Here, we attempt to discuss the language and politics that have been used in framing these issues.

As queer women of color, we feel as if we are trapped in the middle of all of this talk about identities. We have had, for some time, our own frustrations with and critiques of a number of white men with whom we have worked. At the same time, we are uncomfortable with the way in which the identities of “people of color” and “women” are being used to critique and condemn the events of M4, because we – as queer women of color – don’t agree with how these critiques and condemnations are being framed. In fact, we’re not just uncomfortable; we’re actually really angry about the way a small group of people, purporting to speak for the entire population of CUNY, has hijacked this rhetoric of talking about privilege and identity and deployed it in a fashion entirely too simplistic, generalized, and essentialist. Issues of privilege and identity are incredibly important to us and we wholeheartedly agree that they should be talked about. But as it stands now, identities like “person of color” and “woman” are being invoked in order to mask reactionary politics, and furthermore, are being employed in ways that contribute to the erasure of our identities as active participants in militant struggle.

From Anti-Capital Projects: Reflections on the I-980/I-880 Takeover

Like any number of urban freeways, the I-980 and I-880 are lines of containment. They mark out the zones and boundaries of economic apartheid, making West Oakland into an island of poverty, a police zone, boxed in on all sides. A freeway, in this sense, is merely one of the most visible forms of the lines of force that cut up our cities and, in turn, our lives, that butcher them according to the logics of race and class, money and property. How can we see these arteries as anything less than instruments for the formation of a controlled population, instruments in the successive waves of urban centralization, white flight, gentrification? They are checkpoints and blockages – massive pours of concrete, of labor, erected to determine who gets to go where and how. And they have no meaning beyond the insinuation of the automobile into every facet of our lives, the automobile which is hallmark of US economic power in the 20^th century, token of class mobility, passageway to pseudo-freedom, emitter of poison gases, turning our lives into a cut-and-paste of frantic alienation and isolation, responsible for more deaths than the M-16. Who could love a freeway?

Those of us who chose to take our march onto the I-980 have been accused of turning our backs on the tactic that made the student movement so powerful and inspiring, the tactic which inscribed our actions in a lucid, anticapitalist language – occupation. Don’t worry. We haven’t abandoned anything, only expanded our repertoire. The last six months have been a process of experimentation, one in which it becomes difficult to distinguish the failures from the successes, since the two fold into each other, since each action, regardless of the outcome, is a process of learning, of adaptation, part of a living conversation, one in which there is as much disagreement as there is agreement. On a day dedicated to the convergence of political actors from multiple spaces across the Bay Area it would have made little sense to barricade ourselves inside a building on this or that campus. If there were a suitably central, common and defensible target, perhaps we would have occupied that. Perhaps we will next time. We still look forward to the emancipation of foreclosed homes and apartment buildings, shuttered workplaces, to the permanent occupation of university buildings. None of that is behind us. We are not yet powerful enough for these things. We are still trying to build a force capable of taking and holding a space, and then another, and another.

Read the rest at Anti-Capital Projects.

Second General Strike rocks Greece

As our frequent readers probably know, Greece was racked by riots in December, 2008, after a 15-year-old boy was murdered by the police. These riots followed on a series of occupations, which tore through the education sector in 2006-7, spreading from universities to high schools. At the end of 2008, a major question was: would the insurrection spread from the students, youth, and the immigrants — that is, those systematically excluded or marginalized in the production process — to the unionized workforce of regular and semi-regular employees? For an analysis at the time, see The Glass Floor by Theorie Communiste, as well as other writings by TPTG and Blaumachen (available from libcom.org).

For a while, it seemed that the rioters would receive nothing more than repression for their troubles. A socialist government took power in the aftermath of the riots, wasting no time in cracking down on the  milieu. At the extreme, government forces continually violated the sanctity of the Exarchia district in Athens (Exarchia had been declared a police-free zone after students played a key role in bringing down a US-backed dictatorship in the mid-1970s). Greece was racked by bombing campaigns, both from the extreme left of the “Nuclei of Fire” and from the extreme right of Greek fascists, who attacked social centers and other movement strongholds.

Now the situation seems to be changing. Over the past year, as a result of the ongoing world economic crisis, Greece has been plunged into chaos. Like many other small, European republics (Spain, Ireland, Iceland, Portugal, etc), its government is heavily in debt after the bursting of continent-wide bubbles. Greece is seeking relief from the EU (led by Germany). The struggle is on to determine who will be left holding the empty bag. The outcome of this struggle, in Greece as elsewhere, will have huge implications for the dying financial order of our dying world-capitalist economy.

Germany is putting major conditions on the disbursement of aid to Greece: the crisis will have to be borne by the class “formerly known as working”. The socialist government of Greece is therefore pushing through a major austerity program — to ensure stability and, of course, to atone for the “guilt” of widespread “overspending”.

As the crisis comes to a head, the regular and semi-regular workers — who had been missing from 2008 riots — are coming out in force. This is happening despite, rather than because of, the leaders of the Greek public- and private-sector unions. On March 4th, public and private workers came out for a first mass (or general) strike. But the differences between this moment and the moment of December 2008 are considerable. When will workers move beyond demands on a dying system? And what role will be played by the non-regular forces of students, youth and immigrants, who made up the main contingent of the rioters? The second general strike in a month took place today, March 11th, with hundreds of thousands of participants. See the description below, from libcom.org.

All to frequently, we have been written off as an attempt to “copy” the situation in Greece. Without making any easy analogies, what do we have to learn, here in California, from the unfolding sequence in Greece? We, too, are being asked to hold the empty bag, as corporate CEOs and their government cronies laugh all the way to the (newly “restored”) bank. But we are far behind Greece in our mobilizations. At the very least, we should be humbled by the number of people participating in their direct action movements. We should also note the time-frame: from occupations in 2006 to riots in 2008 to strikes in 2010. Only the most optimistic think that this sequence will leap towards “revolution” or “insurrection” soon, but it remains a distinct possibility. What do you think?

More articles (and a better historical overview) available from libcom.org section on Greece.

Battle Ground Athens: second general strike leads to pitched battles

Submitted by taxikipali on Mar 11 2010 15:34

More than 150,000 people took to the streets of Athens against the austerity measures in a mass protest marches that have led to extended battles in the greek capital.

On Thursday March 11 all Greece came to a 24h standstill as a result of the second general strike to be called within less than a month (not the third as reported by foreign media, as the first strike in February only concerned the public sector). As a result of the strike called by GSEE (private sector union umbrella) and ADEDY (public sector union umbrella) as well as PAME (the Communist Party union umbrella) no buses, trams, metros, trolley buses or suburban trains exited their stations, while due to air-traffic control workers’ strike no flights are being realised within or in and out of the country.