Mehserle may be Released on Bail Friday

CALIFORNIA – Johannes Mehserle, the BART police officer who shot and murdered Oscar Grant on New Year’s day, will be having a Bail hearing on Friday, December 3rd to request to be released while he appeals his involuntary manslaughter charge. While on December 2nd, the mass arraignments for the Oakland 152 begins and will continue onto December 3rd, and 6th. The Oakland 152 were mass arrested during the evening of November 5th after the sentencing finished.

Italian Students Occupy Cities

“You block our futures, we block your cities.”

ITALY – Today, around 400,000* students continued the fight against austerity measures, the Gelmini Reforms, pushed by the Berlusconi government. Throughout the day, students have blocked major arteries into cities. Highways were blocked in: Pisa; Milan; Genoa; Cosenza; and Bologna, where 5-7,000 blocked the highway. Demonstrators occupied railway stations and subsequently clashed with police in Rome; Turin; Cosenza; Padova; Pisa, around 10,000 strong; and Bologna. Demonstrators have set up roadblocks in several cities including, Milan and Palermo. Students in Naples have occupied the historic Castel dell’Ovo. Students also occupied the Political Science faculty at the University of Bologna.

Bologna highway takeover:

Students and Police clash in Bologna:

More News:

• UniRiot (in Italian)
• Indymedia Italy (in Italian)

*According to the Italian Students Union.

Sit-in at UPR Rector’s Office

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – Students at the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras campus held a sit-in today at the UPR Rector’s office to demand that she begin negotiations about the upcoming tuition increase. Earlier this year, students shut down nearly every campus of the 11 campus system for 2 months to prevent this tuition increase. The university intends to introduce the $800 fee increase in January. Next Wednesday, students will be holding an assembly to decide if they should go on strike again.

UK Universities Reoccupied

UNITED KINGDOM – Thousands of students took part in further demonstrations today against the austerity measures on education. During (and even before) last week’s national day of action on Wednesday, around two dozen universities were occupied and hundreds of thousands of other demonstrators took to the streets. Although many occupations have since been evicted, others have continued to hold down the occupations for the past six days. Today, more universities were occupied. Here is a partial list:

• University College of London – reoccupied
• Sheffield – reoccupied.
• Aberdeen University
• University of St. Andrews
• Strathclyde University – reoccupied.
• University of Nottingham

Cork Unemployed Occupy Anglo-Irish Bank

CORK, Ireland – On Tuesday a campaign against social welfare cuts and the attack on the unemployed by the Government got underway in Cork earlier today with an occupation by 100 people of Anglo-Irish Bank. Arising from a march opposing the looming cuts, the Social Welfare Defence Campaign arrived at Anglo-Irish and proceeded to occupy the front reception of the Bank.

The new campaign, Cork Social Welfare Defenders, assembled at the dole office in Cork and then marched down Patrick Street, Patrick’s Quay and onto the City Hall.

Here there was a brief rally and speakers attacked the proposed cuts in social welfare, earmarked for the budget next week. One speaker highlighted the increasingly difficult choices that that unemployed have to make as they struggle to meet their needs on meagre payments. These payments are to be cut further if the Government (following orders from the IMF’s) get their way.

Following the speeches, the march moved onto the Anglo-Irish Bank on Anglesea Street and about half the march entered the bank immediately and occupied the foyer. The peaceful protect soon attracted the attention of the Gardaí who arrived in large numbers from the Garda station just across the road. (via Workers Solidarity Movement)

The Gardaí however were challenged to explain their actions. One protester put it very clearly and simply, as follows:

Millions of euros of our money was robbed by Fingleton (the disgraced boss at Anglo) but what did you do about that? Fxxx all.’

Following discussions and negotiations the protesters agreed to leave the bank shortly after. A follow up meeting to organise the campaign has been arranged. Details later.

Next week, Dec 8th, Cork workers, the unemployed, students and pensioners are set to gather for a mass protest at Patrick’s Bridge. The ‘Smash The Budget’ protest has been called by the Independent Workers Union. Let people know about this protest and get the work out!

Students Occupy Leaning Tower of Pisa

ITALY – Around 20 students occupied the Leaning Tower of Pisa on the 25th, with the tower itself surrounded by more students blocking entrances to the tower.

“We’ll besiege every palace and we will not give the government a break until it resigns.” -demonstrator

Thousands of students through out Italy have been protesting austerity. Students in Rome stormed the Coliseum. Students at the University of Pavia have occupied the Humanities faculty. Students in Turin occupied the Mole Antonelliana, a landmark of the city. Students at the University of Naples, L’Orientale, occupied the historic Giusso palace, home the Social and Political Philosophy Department.

University of Pavia occupied

Students in Pisa also blocked an airport runway.

UK Universities Occupied

UNITED KINGDOM – Thousands of students are protesting today against fee hikes and cuts to education throughout the UK today. (Estimates at 130,000). These protests comes on the heel of a 50k strong march through London which ended in the smashing of the Tory party lobby, only two weeks ago. Although reports are still trickling in (see indymedia: UK, London, Bristol), perhaps the most notable events of the day include the multiple university occupations, police brutality, and the ongoing police tactic of “kettling“. As of this writing (around 9:30pm in London), reportedly thousands of people are still being kettled in London, including children. These demonstrators have been kettled now for over 8 hours in the winter cold. [Edit: it appears those kettled were released sometime around 10:30pm in London]

Abandoned police van in London.

Live news from the Guardian. A map of the actions here. See Anti-Cuts for some updates.

Approximately 24 universities have been occupied in the past few days, including:

• Cambridge University – Old Schools Commons occupied on the 25th – DefendEd.
• University of Sheffield – Sheffield Occupation. (Occupation ended Thursday, as security forced them out; they temporarily occupied the vice-chancellor’s office afterwords but were forced to leave when more police arrived. They’re preparing for the day of action next week.)
• Birmingham University – Twitter feed here. (Occupation ended during the evening of the 24th.)
• University of Warwick – Arts Center Lecture Theatre occupied – Warwick Against Cuts.
• University of Leeds – ~400 occupy Michael Sadler building; According to SocialistWorkerUK, ~700 occupying Rupert Beckett Lecture Theatre – OccupiedLeeds.
• Leeds Metropolitan University
• Oxford – Radcliffe Camera occupied -  Occupied Oxford. (Occupation ended on Thursday evening as police battered down the doors and evicted demonstrators).
• University College London – Bodleian Library occupied – UCLoccupation.
• University of East London
• Newcastle University – 60 occupy Fine Arts Building – Newcastle Uni occupation.
• Edinburgh University – Appleton Tower, Lecture Theatre 2 occupied – Edinburgh Uni Anti-Cuts.
• University of Strathclyde, Glasgow
• University of Dundee – Tower building occupied [source]
• London Southbank University – Language Centre occupied -  Save South Bank
• Roehampton University – Grove House occupied – Roe Uni Occupation.
• University of Essex – Lecture Block occupied
• Cardiff University – Shandon Lecture Theatre
• University of Bristol – Anson Rooms of Student Union Building occupied – [from indymedia].
• University of West England, Bristol – (Main building of Frenchay Campus, occupied as of 22.Nov) – [from indymedia] – UWE Camp for Ed.
• Manchester Metropolitan University – (50 students occupy Geoffrey Manton Building, Lecture Theatre 7. As of 22.Nov) – MMUoccupation.
• University of Manchester – Roscoe Building – RoscoeOccupation.
• Plymouth University – Roland Levinsky Building, Room 008 (occupied as of 23.Nov)
• School of Oriental and African Studies – Brunei Gallery (occupied as of 22.Nov) – SOASoccupation.
• Royal Holloway, University London – Sit-in of Picture Gallery Corridor of Founder’s building – RHACC.
• Also, Lib-Dem deputy leader, Simon Hughes had his office occupied by 30 students from the London School of Economics

UCPD Continue to Harrass Students

…This morning UCPD officers showed up to the home of ASUC External Affairs Vice President Ricardo Gomez and asked the building manager to put them in touch with him.  If you recall, Gomez was not only pepper sprayed and severely beaten last Wednesday — he was hit with such force in the face with a baton that he received a concussion — but was subsequently arrested and slapped with vague obstruction and resisting charges (along with a dozen others).  UCPD then proceeded to phone Gomez and told him they wanted to interrogate him about the Regents’ meeting. We are thrilled to hear that Gomez refused to talk to these pigs. (read more: ThoseWhoUseIt)

Statement from Occupied SOAS

PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE USE
Contact:
Bernard Goyder 07551319742
Elly Badcock 07581418837

Central London college occupied by students over education cuts.

Students at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), London, have today taken over the Brunei Gallery, a central college building, in protest at the Coalition government’s plans to impose £4.3bn cuts to higher education.
SOAS is predicted to face 100% cuts to its teaching budget as it specialises in languages and humanities subjects.
Following a mass meeting of the Students’ Union last week, which voted to support occupations at the college, protestors gathered on campus at Monday lunchtime.
The Brunei Gallery was taken over shortly after by cheering students.
The demands are as follows:

Occupation Statement

“At a huge Emergency General Meeting (EGM) last week, SOAS students voted in favour of occupation as part of our fight against Coalition government plans to cut higher education funding and raise tuition fees. Today, over sixty students have occupied the Brunei Suite at SOAS. This number is growing.

We stand in solidarity with other University occupations across the country and all those resisting the government’s draconian and unnecessary cuts. We encourage all students to participate in the National Day of Action against fees and cuts on 24th November. We call on the University administration to join us in our fight to defend education. In particular, we demand:

No victimisation of participants in this occupation and in previous and future student actions against fees and cuts.

That students who participate in the walk-out organised on the 24th of November are not marked as absent from lectures or tutorials on that day

Greater transparency in the School’s budget and in the School’s financial decisions.

That Paul Webley, SOAS Director, releases a statement openly condemning all cuts to higher education and any rise in tuition fees, and writes to the Government in the form of an open letter asking Vice-Chancellors across the country to unite against all threats to Higher Education.

That Paul Webley and SOAS management refuse to budget for the cuts and commit not to raise tuition fees.

We also request that all lecturers devote 15 minutes of lecture time to discuss the impact of the cuts in their classes throughout this week.

The occupation space is open to all students and staff and we encourage everyone to participate in occupation activities”

SOAS occupied

LONDON, England – The School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, has just occupied the Brunei Gallery in protest at rising education fees and swingeing cuts. The occupation was proposed and decided on at an emergency general meeting of the Student’s Union last week.

(via SOASoccupation2010)

The University and the Ruins of the Present

from WeAreTheCrisis:

Our $800 fee hike is the direct result of an unstable global financial system.

As of the Regent’s meeting vote on November 18th, UC tuition has gone up over $800. A year at UCLA, Berkeley, Santa Cruz, Davis and Irvine now costs over $11,000 when in 2000 it cost $3,429. That means if you make $10 an hour, you’ll have to work 80 more hours next year, or if you’re a Freshman, take out $2,400 more in debt before you graduate. The tremors of the economic crisis continues to spread, and our chances of getting a job we want with our degrees becomes more and more slim. This is our future…

How can we understand this tuition hike in the context of broader social conditions? We find ourselves in the midst of the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression. 2008 was a shock to the economy as a whole and will no doubt render the world we lived in before unrecognizable. Overproduction of and speculation on real estate, the creation of unsustainable financial tools to be invested in, rising mortgage, credit card and student loan debt — all of these created a crisis in which banks couldn’t lend, people couldn’t pay their bills and abandoned their homes, and states and governments ran out of money to spend. In order to cope with the massive problems caused by the financial crisis, governments around the world have responded in two major ways: austerity measures and debt financing.

Austerity: the Dialectic of Too Much and Not Enough

A certain narrative frames tuition hikes as the result of problems with the university budget and the lack of money coming in from the State of California. At one level, the problem is not a lack of money, but a question of how it is prioritized. Billions of dollars flow through the UC system. This money gets directed away from raises for workers and undergraduate education and goes to executive bonuses, new police stations and expensive graduate student housing. Let’s also not forget that the State of California spends more money on prisons than education. Public spending in general has expanded over the neoliberal period, funding such endeavors as bailouts for the largest banks and war in the Middle East. The logic that would posit the budget cuts and fee hikes as the necessary results of the economic crisis are therefore false. The University has, from this perspective “too much.”

Yet at another level, we can see a long term-trend towards a defunding of the public sector by governments and the implementation of austerity measures. These measures involve cutting funding to social services, such as hospitals and libraries, public transportation, and of course, education in order to compensate for a lack of money coming in from elsewhere. What this means is that in order to deal with the problems caused by bankers, speculators and stock brokers – those who brought on the financial crisis – governments place the burden on students, forcing them to pay more for their education. The university seen from this perspective, will continue to have “not enough.”

Debt and its False Master

The other pole of austerity is debt financing, meaning the use of bonds and loans in order to pay for an economic system in ruins. This occurs at a national level – the US government deficit has expanded exponentially since the Clinton years – and at the level of the individual seen in the expansion of consumer debt.

Because of this economic crisis, we have seen how governments, even with austerity measures in place, still can’t afford to fund the public sector fully. Therefore, they prop it up artificially by selling bonds (to countries such as China, Japan or Germany). In other words, the public sector continues to rely on an increasing amount of debt and growing national budget deficits.

Furthermore, the lack of public spending that comes with austerity measures displaces the financial costs of an education onto students, and this often means increased personal debt – student loans, credit cards. In turn, student loan and credit card debt become complex financial instruments that investors speculate on, recreating the very dynamics that created the 2008 collapse in the first place.

The University as a Ruin to Come

How does the university function within this economic collapse? A university degree used to promise a middle class wage for those who could get in and graduate. Tuition could be seen as an investment in a secure future. Whereas once the university specialized workers for a growing economy, in the era of postfordism and the eclipse of full-time salaried jobs, the promise of a university degree is breaking down. The university prepares us for jobs that have vanished. The university becomes more and more about labor discipline, the need to create a subjectivity which internalizes the demand to be hirable, the self-fashioning of human capital. We learn to become adaptable workers, capable of entering into the changing needs of the system, people who see social life through the lens of adding all our experiences to a CV.

Against the Wall

While these disciplining forces are at work, we have seen a different type of trend within the university: the emergence of vibrant student struggles all over the world. Since 2008, there have been waves of student occupations and blockades against austerity measures and other key student issues. This November we have seen occupations at British universities against the tripling of student fees and the closure of high schools across France in support of the general strike against pension reform.

One might say that once the economy “recovers,” all will return to normal – fees go back down, and austerity measures be reversed. But what if, as thinkers such as Gopal Balakrishnan, David Harvey and Robert Brenner have argued, we have reached the limits of capital? Debt, austerity and the fluctuations of the economy show us that the kind of growth we have known since the end of World War II in America is no longer sustainable. It is the private sector itself that is now propped up by consumer and government debt: a permanent bubble economy, an unsustainable economics. What if this is not one more crisis to add to the ash heap of time, but the burning away of the ashes themselves?

The Situation is Excellent

Students have historically catalyzed and supported broader movements: in May 68 in France, in Mexico City in 2000 and in Greece in 2008. Student struggles are indicative of larger social and economic dynamics, bound to them and capable of transforming them.

One path to take is retrenchment – to pull of the cap over one’s eyes so as to not see the monster, walk dejectedly across the ruins This is no option. There are no easy answers for how to resist; we have no idea what to do, but we will do it. Reworking our struggle will be our education, the ruins will be our friend. Because of this, we say: “there is great disorder under heaven; the situation is excellent.”

Community or Constituency?

from bicyclebarricade:

Events in UCD’s Mrak Hall Thursday evening unfolded according to a familiar pattern: fees tuition goes up, so students get angry and march on the admin building. A sit-in is staged, demands are made, administrators pretend to dialogue while mobilizing police. Speakers speak, drums drum, and catharsis is reached. Or not. In the end we either stay or we go.

What is the purpose of a sit-in? Is it to force the administration to negotiate? If so, it’s a poor tactic, in itself, because it rarely works. Last November, after the Mrak arrests, the administration was reluctant to send in police during the second building occupation because, well, arresting another 50 students would have made them look even worse. So they “negotiated.” We all remember Janet Gong’s list of empty promises. Negotiation with the administration is futile because it allows them to retain the appearance of reasonableness and because students have no way to force them to keep their word.

When a sit-in refuses to disband itself, the dynamic changes. A minor nuisance becomes a threat to authority and productivity. The riot cops must be called, with them come the media, and the UC receives another black eye. It no longer seems quite so reasonable to raise students’ tuition and then arrest, club, pepper spray and, quite possibly, shoot them into submission. Administrators are nothing if not aware of status and public relations. Still, demands are unlikely to be met–so why bother making them? Public opinion begins to shift, though, in the wake of stubborn student resistance. More scrutiny is brought to bear on administrator salaries, the regents’ dirty investments, the capital building projects, the bond ratings, and the worsening conditions under which we work, teach and learn.

While the tactical value of a sit-in is rather limited, there is much we can learn from the dynamics of these actions. We either stay or we go, but our choice depends on our level of commitment and solidarity. Commitment, to let the situation play itself out; solidarity, with the community of the event.

There is a sense of empowerment that comes with declaring one’s identity, with saying where one is from, as a response to institutionalized racism and the alienation of modern university life. To belong to a community is a basic human need, ignored only by the most damaged and reified libertarian consciousness. But a community based on identity formations always draws limits around itself, even as it ignores its internal discrepancies and fractures, leaving them unresolved. When appeals to this abstract notion of community are made, solidarity evaporates and the actually existing community of the sit-in acquires a half-life measurable in minutes. It happened in Mrak a year ago, when self-styled leaders repeatedly made attempts to divide protesters into “arrestables” and “non-arrestables.” It happened again Thursday in Mrak, when one student decided that “his community” would negotiate with the administration.

In these cases, the self-appointed “community leader” appears as what he always was, an individual committed to his own self-aggrandizement and to no position other than the one that guarantees that his voice will be heard at the rally, the sit-in, and the bargaining table. Traditional politics thus disguises itself within the real movement, which is slowly learning to mistrust such leaders and abstract community formations. What does it mean when someone stands up, claiming solidarity with a community of all those present, affirming his commitment to stay all night, until demands are met, only to declare that his community has decided to leave after the administration agrees to a mock negotiation at some future date? What of the others present? When they disagree, they are declared to be “outside the circle” or blamed for disrupting the (false) consensus. The leader thus simultaneously engineers his constituency and the failure of the concrete action in progress.

A community based on identity formations is only ever a constituency, whose political energies can be focused through the prism of the community activist, the labor leader or traditional politician, and be easily manipulated by the ruling class and its media or, in our context, by the administrators. We need a different vision of community as shared praxis, as absolute solidarity toward a concrete goal.

What are some goals worthy of a movement that has persisted now for well over a year despite police beatings, the injustice system, arbitrary student conduct proceedings, and its own internal contradictions?

We have only a few suggestions:

Cops off campus as a necessary condition for our own safety and ability to organize toward student and worker self-determination.

Tuition-free education for everyone.

Communism. We’re not afraid to say it. Are you?

Surveillance

(video from mobilize berkeley)

University of Sussex Occupation Ends

from DefendSussex:

This 5 day occupation of Fulton building has come to an end!
It was a statement to this coalition government that the events of Nov 10th were by no means isolated.We have used this time and space to organise, mobilise and prepare for the 24th of November. This national day of action will see resistance on an unprecedented scale.
We have galvanised other universities and educational establishments to take similar action, and we are grateful for the many messages of support that we have received.
We stand firm on our request that our universities’ management speak out against these government plans which have the potential to destroy education as we know it.
On leaving this occupation we will join the local newspapers picket lines, standing in solidarity with others suffering from cuts.
Watch this space…

Fight Back Today! Sproul Plaza at 10am

from ThoseWhoUseIt:

8 % fee hike. Fees are now “tuition.” New executive bonuses and covert raises passed at a closed door session. UCOP is backing an itchy-fingered pig. We all got beaten and pepper sprayed yesterday. CUE/IBT is still without a contract. Operational Excellence is still in full effect. Ethnic studies is on the chopping block once again. 12 % drop in Latin@ admissions and cuts to critical resources for students of color. UCPD is harassing students and workers, citing them for flyering and chalking benign slogans. We could go on forever. Are we going to take this sitting down?

Fuck no. [Today] we ride on these fools. Be at Sproul Plaza [today], Friday, November 19 at 10 am sharp. Don’t be late. Let’s get it!