Thursday, April 16, 2009
Support Free Speech @ CCSU!
(This was sent out to students earlier today)
In response to the e-mail disseminated to students by Gilbert Gigliotti-
The recorder is not a club in the same sense that PSA, LASO, and others are. Its funding structure is different and its political structure is far different than any I have seen in any student clubs. Also, the political climate is very different as well.
Ever since the time of Mark Rowan, we have seen the continuation of a certain clique of individuals at the head of the organization that have all differed very little from his original line. As a former writer for the paper, this is clear in their continued sexist and racist content along with their decision to use Free Speech when it benefits them.
The current editor in chief, Melissa Traynor, was involved in several editorial decisions over the years and was present on the staff throughout all these crises, and to this day has shown us that the only change that has happened is in how the paper spins the stories.
Mr. Gigliotti is weighing in on this to sway your decision in favor of the newspaper because of his connection to it through the Journalism department. This is certainly as criminal - ethically - if not more so than the behaviors of the editorial staff of the paper. Gigliotti is using his position to attempt to put students behind a paper that is wrought with serious problems that begin with its structure.
What he does not say is that there is not outside influence from administrative bodies to make the paper change. All the influence is coming from students such as myself and you who are using our student run governing structures to affect change in a paper that has continuously attacked members of the student body. This is being done in a number of ways that do not set precedence on any level that can affect the sovereignty of student clubs. Student clubs are funded and regulated through the Student Government Association (SGA) which by the way is going through some serious political changes - if not outright revolutions - in a interesting development out of the political environment at CCSU over the past few years. Student media is financed and run by the Media Board which is an entirely different body which has the right to criticize the actions of publications. This sets no precedence for the invasion of sovereignty of other groups.
On a completely other topic, if a student group was to carryout such egregious actions as the paper has executed over the past three years, students would have the right to openly and politically criticize these actions in a very similar form to which this current struggle is playing out. By opposing this independent, grassroots political action, Mr. Gigliotti is opposing your right to free expression. As students we make our campus, we make its environment through our actions. The first thing we should do is ignore the opinions of professors and instead talk to each other and have these serious political discussions.
Also as a former member of SGA, the regulatory body for student clubs, I know that among all people regardless of their political perspective, there is an understanding and indefinite respect for the sovereignty of student clubs. THE SGA HAS NO ROLE AND CONTINUES TO HAVE NO ROLE IN THE STRUGGLE AGAINST THE RECORDER. Students that are organizing for change are bringing their voices to the Media Board meeting to be heard on the issue - which is indeed the proper place to air and voice those concerns. This does not mean that petitions or other political actions are attempting to remove the sovereignty of clubs through campaigning against the recorder, in any way shape or form. THERE IS NO PRECEDENCE TO BE SET BECAUSE THE MEDIA BOARD (MADE OF THE MEDIA PUBLICATIONS) AND THE SGA (RESPONSIBLE FOR REGULATING STUDENT CLUBS) ARE TWO COMPLETELY DIFFERENT AND UNRELATED ENTITIES. The media Board even has an official complaint process that is part of its normal business. This is not a threat to sovereignty as some would like to present it as.
As students, we must talk to each other and develop our own political action that is independent of the influences and personal goals of the faculty. We make our struggles, we guide our struggles, we run SGA, we run the Media Board, and we can make our campus what we want it to be, what we think it should be.
As a result of my experiences writing for the Recorder, I became the head editor of the Devil's Advocate, a grassroots alternative student newspaper funded by the Progressive Student Alliance which accepts articles without censorship and continues its publications based on content and runs a regular blog. The Devil's Advocate also creates a space where serious criticisms and analyses can be brought to the table without the threat of removal or expulsion by an editorial board. Devil's Advocate is the central source for all criticism of the current media regime at the Recorder and the current political regime at central. You can read the blog online located here (we have print issues, but the school wont let us put them on stands! But of course, CCSU supports Free Speech - oh wait, they don't): http://ccsudevilsadvocate.blogspot.com/
Wesley C. Strong
860 916 2761
-----Original Message-----
From: Gigliotti, Gilbert (English) [mailto:Gigliotti@mail.ccsu.edu]
Sent: Wed 4/15/2009 10:00 PM
To: Students (ListServ)
Subject: Free Speech AND Student Sovereignty
Let's, for a moment, all pretend that this latest Recorder "crisis" is about one student's freedom of speech.
(This, of course, is far from the case, since Ms. Blaszko can in fact write for the Recorder anytime she wants; she just cannot serve as editor because she refuses to follow duly ratified policies that follow well promulgated professional and educational standards, but let's pretend for a moment anyway).
From the perspective of student clubs, students at CCSU should be very wary of the pressures being exerted from external forces (and, yes, that's the faculty who have signed the petition, spoken out publicly for Ms. Blaszko's reinstatement, etc).
The real danger to free speech is not Ms. Blaszko's losing an editorship, but all the clubs' losing the sovereignty of their decisions.
Would the PSA, WFCS, LASO, PRIDE, or the Sociology, History, or Art clubs, really want folks from outside that club (be they SA/LD, the President, the Provost, the faculty moderators, the University Senate, powerful alumni, or even other students) to have the power to overturn a duly executed decision by its membership?
If they wouldn't want that (and, golly, I hope they don't), students had better hope the Recorder doesn't cave to the pressure of the specious arguments that have been mounted against it.
If they don't care about their sovereignty, then the precedent for external influence will exist, and then student speech will be in real danger.
In the end, therefore, please remember that the Recorder, like all other student clubs, has a constitution that has been written and ratified by its members, and then vetted by the experienced staff of Student Affairs.
(Yes, folks, along with faculty experts in, say, JOURNALISM, on this campus, there are, in fact, professionals in the areas of student activities who research and write about such topics, attend conferences, and keep up on current case law.)
Perhaps those of us who can't say that about ourselves should just keep out of this.
Good night, and god bless!
(I was going to go "Good night, and good luck," but that was way too Edward R. Murrow-y, so I went Red Skelton-y instead)!
Gil
Gilbert L. Gigliotti
Professor and Chair
Department of English, Central Connecticut State University
1615 Stanley Street
New Britain, CT 06050
860/832-2759
860/832-2784 (FAX)
gigliotti@ccsu.edu
http://connecticuthalfwit.blogspot.com/
You are currently subscribed to students as: strong_wec@students.ccsu.edu.
To unsubscribe, send a blank email to leave-724531-61449.78ffaaadd841e4c71322637cb77c5693@listserv.ccsu.edu
In response to the e-mail disseminated to students by Gilbert Gigliotti-
The recorder is not a club in the same sense that PSA, LASO, and others are. Its funding structure is different and its political structure is far different than any I have seen in any student clubs. Also, the political climate is very different as well.
Ever since the time of Mark Rowan, we have seen the continuation of a certain clique of individuals at the head of the organization that have all differed very little from his original line. As a former writer for the paper, this is clear in their continued sexist and racist content along with their decision to use Free Speech when it benefits them.
The current editor in chief, Melissa Traynor, was involved in several editorial decisions over the years and was present on the staff throughout all these crises, and to this day has shown us that the only change that has happened is in how the paper spins the stories.
Mr. Gigliotti is weighing in on this to sway your decision in favor of the newspaper because of his connection to it through the Journalism department. This is certainly as criminal - ethically - if not more so than the behaviors of the editorial staff of the paper. Gigliotti is using his position to attempt to put students behind a paper that is wrought with serious problems that begin with its structure.
What he does not say is that there is not outside influence from administrative bodies to make the paper change. All the influence is coming from students such as myself and you who are using our student run governing structures to affect change in a paper that has continuously attacked members of the student body. This is being done in a number of ways that do not set precedence on any level that can affect the sovereignty of student clubs. Student clubs are funded and regulated through the Student Government Association (SGA) which by the way is going through some serious political changes - if not outright revolutions - in a interesting development out of the political environment at CCSU over the past few years. Student media is financed and run by the Media Board which is an entirely different body which has the right to criticize the actions of publications. This sets no precedence for the invasion of sovereignty of other groups.
On a completely other topic, if a student group was to carryout such egregious actions as the paper has executed over the past three years, students would have the right to openly and politically criticize these actions in a very similar form to which this current struggle is playing out. By opposing this independent, grassroots political action, Mr. Gigliotti is opposing your right to free expression. As students we make our campus, we make its environment through our actions. The first thing we should do is ignore the opinions of professors and instead talk to each other and have these serious political discussions.
Also as a former member of SGA, the regulatory body for student clubs, I know that among all people regardless of their political perspective, there is an understanding and indefinite respect for the sovereignty of student clubs. THE SGA HAS NO ROLE AND CONTINUES TO HAVE NO ROLE IN THE STRUGGLE AGAINST THE RECORDER. Students that are organizing for change are bringing their voices to the Media Board meeting to be heard on the issue - which is indeed the proper place to air and voice those concerns. This does not mean that petitions or other political actions are attempting to remove the sovereignty of clubs through campaigning against the recorder, in any way shape or form. THERE IS NO PRECEDENCE TO BE SET BECAUSE THE MEDIA BOARD (MADE OF THE MEDIA PUBLICATIONS) AND THE SGA (RESPONSIBLE FOR REGULATING STUDENT CLUBS) ARE TWO COMPLETELY DIFFERENT AND UNRELATED ENTITIES. The media Board even has an official complaint process that is part of its normal business. This is not a threat to sovereignty as some would like to present it as.
As students, we must talk to each other and develop our own political action that is independent of the influences and personal goals of the faculty. We make our struggles, we guide our struggles, we run SGA, we run the Media Board, and we can make our campus what we want it to be, what we think it should be.
As a result of my experiences writing for the Recorder, I became the head editor of the Devil's Advocate, a grassroots alternative student newspaper funded by the Progressive Student Alliance which accepts articles without censorship and continues its publications based on content and runs a regular blog. The Devil's Advocate also creates a space where serious criticisms and analyses can be brought to the table without the threat of removal or expulsion by an editorial board. Devil's Advocate is the central source for all criticism of the current media regime at the Recorder and the current political regime at central. You can read the blog online located here (we have print issues, but the school wont let us put them on stands! But of course, CCSU supports Free Speech - oh wait, they don't): http://ccsudevilsadvocate.blogspot.com/
Wesley C. Strong
860 916 2761
-----Original Message-----
From: Gigliotti, Gilbert (English) [mailto:Gigliotti@mail.ccsu.edu]
Sent: Wed 4/15/2009 10:00 PM
To: Students (ListServ)
Subject: Free Speech AND Student Sovereignty
Let's, for a moment, all pretend that this latest Recorder "crisis" is about one student's freedom of speech.
(This, of course, is far from the case, since Ms. Blaszko can in fact write for the Recorder anytime she wants; she just cannot serve as editor because she refuses to follow duly ratified policies that follow well promulgated professional and educational standards, but let's pretend for a moment anyway).
From the perspective of student clubs, students at CCSU should be very wary of the pressures being exerted from external forces (and, yes, that's the faculty who have signed the petition, spoken out publicly for Ms. Blaszko's reinstatement, etc).
The real danger to free speech is not Ms. Blaszko's losing an editorship, but all the clubs' losing the sovereignty of their decisions.
Would the PSA, WFCS, LASO, PRIDE, or the Sociology, History, or Art clubs, really want folks from outside that club (be they SA/LD, the President, the Provost, the faculty moderators, the University Senate, powerful alumni, or even other students) to have the power to overturn a duly executed decision by its membership?
If they wouldn't want that (and, golly, I hope they don't), students had better hope the Recorder doesn't cave to the pressure of the specious arguments that have been mounted against it.
If they don't care about their sovereignty, then the precedent for external influence will exist, and then student speech will be in real danger.
In the end, therefore, please remember that the Recorder, like all other student clubs, has a constitution that has been written and ratified by its members, and then vetted by the experienced staff of Student Affairs.
(Yes, folks, along with faculty experts in, say, JOURNALISM, on this campus, there are, in fact, professionals in the areas of student activities who research and write about such topics, attend conferences, and keep up on current case law.)
Perhaps those of us who can't say that about ourselves should just keep out of this.
Good night, and god bless!
(I was going to go "Good night, and good luck," but that was way too Edward R. Murrow-y, so I went Red Skelton-y instead)!
Gil
Gilbert L. Gigliotti
Professor and Chair
Department of English, Central Connecticut State University
1615 Stanley Street
New Britain, CT 06050
860/832-2759
860/832-2784 (FAX)
gigliotti@ccsu.edu
http://connecticuthalfwit.blogspot.com/
You are currently subscribed to students as: strong_wec@students.ccsu.edu.
To unsubscribe, send a blank email to leave-724531-61449.78ffaaadd841e4c71322637cb77c5693@listserv.ccsu.edu
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Yesterday was John McCain’s 72nd birthday. If elected, he’d be the oldest president ever inaugurated. And after months of slamming Barack Obama for “inexperience,” here’s who John McCain has chosen to be one heartbeat away from the presidency: a right-wing religious conservative with no foreign policy experience, who until recently was mayor of a town of 9,000 people.
Who is Sarah Palin? Here’s some basic background:
She was elected Alaska’s governor a little over a year and a half ago.
Her previous office was mayor of Wasilla, a small town outside Anchorage.
She has no foreign policy experience.
Palin is strongly anti-choice, opposing abortion even in the case of rape or incest.
She supported right-wing extremist Pat Buchanan for president in 2000.
Palin thinks creationism should be taught in public schools.4
She’s doesn’t think humans are the cause of climate change.
She’s solidly in line with John McCain’s “Big Oil first” energy policy. She’s pushed hard for more oil drilling and says renewables won’t be ready for years. She also sued the Bush administration for listing polar bears as an endangered species—she was worried it would interfere with more oil drilling in Alaska.
How closely did John McCain vet this choice? He met Sarah Palin once at a meeting. They spoke a second time, last Sunday, when he called her about being vice-president. Then he offered her the position.
This is information the American people need to see. Please take a moment to forward this email to your friends and family.
Sunday, May 4, 2008
CD Review: OBomb - fear of a black president
by Pablo Jose Cortes
It is an interesting experience as a music critic and a politically conscious individual to see these two disparate interests of mine converge in the context of the campaign trail. Bill Clinton running for reelection invented the image for himself of the rock-and-roll president, appearing as a musical guest on the Arseneo Hall Show to thrill the voting public to his skills on the saxophone. Clinton was not the first President to try and tap into music as a way to boost support for himself and his image. Richard Nixon got support for his presidency from no less a figure than the king of rock-and-roll himself, Elvis Presley. On December 21, 1970 Elvis met President Nixon at the White House for a visit. The photograph of the two men shaking hands has become according to several sources, the single most requested reproduction sought from the National Archives in Washington, beating out both the Bill of Rights and the Constitution of the United States. While some media analysts try to characterize Barack Obama as the “Black John F. Kennedy,” clearly he is taking cues from the campaign of Clinton and the presidency of Nixon with the release of his first album. Answering criticism about whether he is “Black enough” to be the “black president” as some pundits have questioned, Obama’s first hip-hop album, (under the stage name O-Bomb), can be seen as a follow up to his powerful speech addressing race in America. Produced by the legendary record producer “Uncle” Sam Smith, (who produced John Ashcroft’s hit single “Let the Eagle Soar”), O-Bomb’s album, “Fear of a Black President” breaks down barriers, reaches across the aisle, and shows just who Barack Obama is and why he should be the next president. From the first track of the album, “Straight Outta da Ivy League,” O-Bomb establishes his hip-hop credentials and puts all haters to shame. The album has excellent beats reminiscent of classic groups like Public Enemy, and more recent artists, but it is the intelligent lyrics that make this album truly off the map. Speaking in a language that anyone can relate to, O-Bomb addresses the dissatisfaction that Americans are feeling today with the track “State of the Union,” criticizing the current administration for dragging the country into war, and pushing us into an economic recession. The track “Stand for Change,” is the song that will be best remembered, posing a solution to the problems plaguing the nation described in “State of the Union”, and encouraging Americans everywhere to get behind the Obama campaign. “Fear of a Black President” is more than just “Change We Can Believe In,” it is sweet beats that I will be bumping when I watch Obama being sworn in as President of the United States.
The Ten Dirtiest Secrets of CCSU
By Wesley Strong
Throughout my tenure here at CCSU, I have seen a great many things. Some have been pleasing and exciting, while others have made me question being a student here. It is with that in mind that I present to you the 10 dirtiest secrets that CCSU doesn’t want you to know. I have been at CCSU for five years as a student leader, activist, senator, and outspoken proponent of ideals that provide freedom, justice, equality, and knowledge to the campus and the world. As someone who adamantly believes in Freedom of Speech, as I feel that foolish people and racist should be called out for the imbeciles that they are, I feel like stretching my legs and going for a quick jog down “Truthiness” (© 2007 Steven Colbert) Lane. CCSU is by far one of the most corrupt, backwards, and horribly totalitarian educational facilities I have ever seen, as you will clearly understand. Ready…Drum Roll Please…..
10. The CCSU President has a liquor cabinet in his office. That’s right ladies and gentlemen. Pres. Jack Miller, President of a Dry Campus where you can be tossed out of college for having liquor in your dorm room, has alcohol in his office. I wish we could have alcohol in my office. The even worse thing about it is that when the Women’s Center needs money for a speaker, they have to beg while Miller freely spend money on other activities – which I will go into later. Women as the major victims of male alcoholism have to beg for money for women’s programming while your president breaks a rule that all of the students are supposed to follow. So the next time that the RAs come to your room looking for beer, send them to President Miller’s office, I’m sure they’ll find a jackpot.
9. Your classroom may have asbestos! That’s right, if you are like me and take classes in DiLoreto, Willard, Barnard, or Davidson, your classroom might have asbestos in it. But of course it was more important to build the fountain in the middle of campus several years ago instead of fixing that problem. If the campus tours ever went through DiLoreto, then no one would come to Central. Keep in mind that President Miller has made it his calling to spend $21 million ($21,000,000) on improvements to the athletics fields while you are taking classes in asbestos. Priorities?
8. It has been brought to the attention of the Devil’s Advocate staff that at least twice the administration under President Miller has hired people to fill positions that were not selected by the search committee. Not to say that this is against their power to do so, but in these two specific occasions we found instances of suspicious behavior. One was in the hiring of Business School Dean Siamack Shojai. Shojai, as some may already know was recently involved with some racist comments on a Persian language TV station directed at a speaker that was brought here this semester – I will explain that later. Also, there was a replacement hired a position in Institutional Advancement who was below the qualifications of several candidates presented to the administration by the search committee. Also, it is crucial to mention that when the faculty questioned President Miller he retorted saying that they couldn’t do anything about it because, “I wasn’t voted in, and I can’t be voted out.” Well, news flash Jack, you were and you can.
7. In response to the several incidents that occurred under Mark Rowan’s rule of the infamous “Recorder”, the administration tried to put together several groups. First was the Journalistic Integrity Task Force, which was a farce and certainly provided to integrity whatsoever. Second was a project idea put together by Dr. Margaret Toston. Dr. Toston’s Idea was to put together a group of students to work on “diversity programming”. I was offered a spot on this committee only to find out that it was a farce as well. The aptly named Project Diversity might as well have been named Project Disaster or Project Administration take-credit-for-student-work-while-controlling-it-to-make-sure-it-doesn’t-do-anything-at-all. This is how the administration controlled it. Selected to head the project was the head of campus ministry Mr. John Campbell who was only a part time faculty member. Mr. Campbell had the idea of holding an event at the beginning of each semester where all the students can gather and meet with faculty, administration, and each other outside while having a barbeque or other social event. It was his idea specifically that we would prevent people from asking tough questions or criticizing the administration on anything and he said that we would remove students who “caused problems”. If that isn’t a blatant violation of the Freedom of Speech, I don’t know what is, but it obviously isn’t the first time that has happened. The problems that exist here at CCSU cannot be solved by simply bringing everyone together and having a giant group hug. Mr. Campbell wanted to avoid being upfront, public and in people’s faces about the problems that aren’t just a problem here at CCSU, but in the country, and the world. We held a speak out against racism in the fall semester of 2007 and neither Dr. Toston or Mr. Campbell showed up. We were only graced by the presence of President Miller for the first 5 minutes – of which all was him talking.
6. One secret that may ruffle some feathers is the willingness for CCSU’s Student Government Association to be hypocritical. The SGA – which I am a part of – is more than willing to pay for food on our retreats and sometimes even at our meetings, while we actively discourage other clubs from doing so. This winter we went on a retreat that cost over $5000.00, which is larger than most club budgets. Keep in mind that this money comes from your pockets and we easily could have got away with spend 10% of that for a retreat to address the same issues.
5. One short secret that I find interesting is the fact that SGA is guaranteed no real power. The SGA, the body through which students have representation and a chance of getting their voice heard, is empowered by the University President Jack Miller, who maintains absolute authority on what the SGA does. President Miller has the right to veto any singular action done by the senate to which the senate can do nothing about. While most modern forms of government have “checks and balances”, however useless as they may be, they still exist. In the current setup, any action done by the SGA can be overturned by the President and the SGA cannot do anything about. High Five for Democracy.
4. Though this secret is not so much a secret as it has been reported on before, it has never been mentioned in this way. Going back to Dean Siamack Shojai, Dean Shojai attended a lecture given by world renowned scholar, author, and Professor Trita Parsi. Parsi had written a book called Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Iran, Israel, and the United States. Shojai, who seems to be an adamant supporter of the rule of the Shah in Iran, spoke out after the talk saying that it was “not an academic talk” and that we were being “propagandized by the Iranian Government”. Shojai of course had not read the book published by Yale University Press, one of the premiere academic publishers. The Shah of Iran for those that don’t know was a Dictator who was supported by the United States and used military violence to suppress his opposition, which is not much different than recently executed leader Saddam Hussein. Shojai continued his assault on Mr. Parsi by speaking on an Iranian radio station the next day, supporting the Shah and calling Parsi a “half-breed” and using other racial slurs. This was confirmed by three professional translators who are regularly used by the government for translation, as well as by Rhada Karmi the premiere academic in Persian Farsi – the language the radio show was in. The administration paid for their own translation, which as can be expected depicted Shojai as giving “harsh criticisms”, but not using racial slurs. Well apparently our government has a lot of records that were not translated correctly, because the costly translations attained by Norton Mezvinsky apparently weren’t more reliable than the administration’s. But its okay because Mezvinsky was “biased” while the administration had no interest in preventing itself from looking racist – which it is.
3. This secret is especially disturbing. As a member of SGA and a student activist I find it to be beyond consequential as it certainly speaks to the world we grow up in. SGA regularly gives out money to student organizations. This one session was particularly disturbing as the SGA fought for four weeks over giving one club no money while we did not fight about another club that received no funding. The SGA fought for four weeks to help the Ice Hockey Club to attain funding , a club dominated by white males from well off families. In the meantime, there were only a few people who said anything about the fact that SGA gave no money to the Latin American Student Organization (LASO). We fought for four weeks to give funding to a club that got the funding from somewhere else anyways. Not only did the Ice Hockey Club have more strikes against it, but they had been told of these several times and still had not addressed them. The club has private banking accounts to hold fundraised monies, something that is against CCSU policy and a rule that all other clubs abide by. Aside from the fact that the club is selective and doesn’t allow people on the team who want to learn how to play the sport, but can’t make the cut to learn in another way, the club has also repetitively booked buses, hotels, and made other expenditures outside of normal regulations and has continued to do so after being told not to. The only offense by LASO was that they overdrew on their account last year. If this isn’t structural racism, I don’t know what is.
2. To brighten up the last point, when the Ice Hockey Club went to the office of President Jack Miller and asked for money, they were given it while when President Miller was asked for money by members of LASO, they were denied. Miller had also previously given money to the Equestrian Club, which isn’t necessarily of consequence aside from showing that Ice Hockey wasn’t a special case.
1. The dirtiest secret about CCSU may surprise you or it may not. If you transferred to Central it certainly won’t. It has been brought to my attention that CCSU purposely denies credits being transferred from other universities as a means of making more profit. I have been told that CCSU deliberately denies as many credits as they can from transferring so that they can maximize their profit. This information given to me by a CCSU transfer student who was told by the person in charge of transferring credits that they were given the directive to limit transferred credits so that the individual would have to pay more to Central in order to graduate. As a school that many go to in order to graduate after spending much more money at other schools, Central immediately puts the transfer student in a position that will allow the institution the ability to suck every last penny out of the menial amount of money you may have for college. Central’s Motto certainly doesn’t hold true here.
Start with a Dream, Finish with an education on Racism, Cover-ups, Extortion, and blatant disregard for Human Life (© CCSU 2008). Now I wish you all farewell as this is my last semester in this racist, sexist, asbestos ridden, school that steals from the working class while giving us nothing in return except a measly piece of paper and an empty wallet. To the administration; the above listed reasons are why student turnover at CCSU is so high.
I hope this can shed some light on CCSU for some folks who see some of these same things occurring on campus.
Contact the Devil’s Advocate at devilsadvocateccsu@gmail.com
Visit the blog at http://ccsudevilsadvocate.blogspot.com/ and post your comments.
Throughout my tenure here at CCSU, I have seen a great many things. Some have been pleasing and exciting, while others have made me question being a student here. It is with that in mind that I present to you the 10 dirtiest secrets that CCSU doesn’t want you to know. I have been at CCSU for five years as a student leader, activist, senator, and outspoken proponent of ideals that provide freedom, justice, equality, and knowledge to the campus and the world. As someone who adamantly believes in Freedom of Speech, as I feel that foolish people and racist should be called out for the imbeciles that they are, I feel like stretching my legs and going for a quick jog down “Truthiness” (© 2007 Steven Colbert) Lane. CCSU is by far one of the most corrupt, backwards, and horribly totalitarian educational facilities I have ever seen, as you will clearly understand. Ready…Drum Roll Please…..
10. The CCSU President has a liquor cabinet in his office. That’s right ladies and gentlemen. Pres. Jack Miller, President of a Dry Campus where you can be tossed out of college for having liquor in your dorm room, has alcohol in his office. I wish we could have alcohol in my office. The even worse thing about it is that when the Women’s Center needs money for a speaker, they have to beg while Miller freely spend money on other activities – which I will go into later. Women as the major victims of male alcoholism have to beg for money for women’s programming while your president breaks a rule that all of the students are supposed to follow. So the next time that the RAs come to your room looking for beer, send them to President Miller’s office, I’m sure they’ll find a jackpot.
9. Your classroom may have asbestos! That’s right, if you are like me and take classes in DiLoreto, Willard, Barnard, or Davidson, your classroom might have asbestos in it. But of course it was more important to build the fountain in the middle of campus several years ago instead of fixing that problem. If the campus tours ever went through DiLoreto, then no one would come to Central. Keep in mind that President Miller has made it his calling to spend $21 million ($21,000,000) on improvements to the athletics fields while you are taking classes in asbestos. Priorities?
8. It has been brought to the attention of the Devil’s Advocate staff that at least twice the administration under President Miller has hired people to fill positions that were not selected by the search committee. Not to say that this is against their power to do so, but in these two specific occasions we found instances of suspicious behavior. One was in the hiring of Business School Dean Siamack Shojai. Shojai, as some may already know was recently involved with some racist comments on a Persian language TV station directed at a speaker that was brought here this semester – I will explain that later. Also, there was a replacement hired a position in Institutional Advancement who was below the qualifications of several candidates presented to the administration by the search committee. Also, it is crucial to mention that when the faculty questioned President Miller he retorted saying that they couldn’t do anything about it because, “I wasn’t voted in, and I can’t be voted out.” Well, news flash Jack, you were and you can.
7. In response to the several incidents that occurred under Mark Rowan’s rule of the infamous “Recorder”, the administration tried to put together several groups. First was the Journalistic Integrity Task Force, which was a farce and certainly provided to integrity whatsoever. Second was a project idea put together by Dr. Margaret Toston. Dr. Toston’s Idea was to put together a group of students to work on “diversity programming”. I was offered a spot on this committee only to find out that it was a farce as well. The aptly named Project Diversity might as well have been named Project Disaster or Project Administration take-credit-for-student-work-while-controlling-it-to-make-sure-it-doesn’t-do-anything-at-all. This is how the administration controlled it. Selected to head the project was the head of campus ministry Mr. John Campbell who was only a part time faculty member. Mr. Campbell had the idea of holding an event at the beginning of each semester where all the students can gather and meet with faculty, administration, and each other outside while having a barbeque or other social event. It was his idea specifically that we would prevent people from asking tough questions or criticizing the administration on anything and he said that we would remove students who “caused problems”. If that isn’t a blatant violation of the Freedom of Speech, I don’t know what is, but it obviously isn’t the first time that has happened. The problems that exist here at CCSU cannot be solved by simply bringing everyone together and having a giant group hug. Mr. Campbell wanted to avoid being upfront, public and in people’s faces about the problems that aren’t just a problem here at CCSU, but in the country, and the world. We held a speak out against racism in the fall semester of 2007 and neither Dr. Toston or Mr. Campbell showed up. We were only graced by the presence of President Miller for the first 5 minutes – of which all was him talking.
6. One secret that may ruffle some feathers is the willingness for CCSU’s Student Government Association to be hypocritical. The SGA – which I am a part of – is more than willing to pay for food on our retreats and sometimes even at our meetings, while we actively discourage other clubs from doing so. This winter we went on a retreat that cost over $5000.00, which is larger than most club budgets. Keep in mind that this money comes from your pockets and we easily could have got away with spend 10% of that for a retreat to address the same issues.
5. One short secret that I find interesting is the fact that SGA is guaranteed no real power. The SGA, the body through which students have representation and a chance of getting their voice heard, is empowered by the University President Jack Miller, who maintains absolute authority on what the SGA does. President Miller has the right to veto any singular action done by the senate to which the senate can do nothing about. While most modern forms of government have “checks and balances”, however useless as they may be, they still exist. In the current setup, any action done by the SGA can be overturned by the President and the SGA cannot do anything about. High Five for Democracy.
4. Though this secret is not so much a secret as it has been reported on before, it has never been mentioned in this way. Going back to Dean Siamack Shojai, Dean Shojai attended a lecture given by world renowned scholar, author, and Professor Trita Parsi. Parsi had written a book called Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Iran, Israel, and the United States. Shojai, who seems to be an adamant supporter of the rule of the Shah in Iran, spoke out after the talk saying that it was “not an academic talk” and that we were being “propagandized by the Iranian Government”. Shojai of course had not read the book published by Yale University Press, one of the premiere academic publishers. The Shah of Iran for those that don’t know was a Dictator who was supported by the United States and used military violence to suppress his opposition, which is not much different than recently executed leader Saddam Hussein. Shojai continued his assault on Mr. Parsi by speaking on an Iranian radio station the next day, supporting the Shah and calling Parsi a “half-breed” and using other racial slurs. This was confirmed by three professional translators who are regularly used by the government for translation, as well as by Rhada Karmi the premiere academic in Persian Farsi – the language the radio show was in. The administration paid for their own translation, which as can be expected depicted Shojai as giving “harsh criticisms”, but not using racial slurs. Well apparently our government has a lot of records that were not translated correctly, because the costly translations attained by Norton Mezvinsky apparently weren’t more reliable than the administration’s. But its okay because Mezvinsky was “biased” while the administration had no interest in preventing itself from looking racist – which it is.
3. This secret is especially disturbing. As a member of SGA and a student activist I find it to be beyond consequential as it certainly speaks to the world we grow up in. SGA regularly gives out money to student organizations. This one session was particularly disturbing as the SGA fought for four weeks over giving one club no money while we did not fight about another club that received no funding. The SGA fought for four weeks to help the Ice Hockey Club to attain funding , a club dominated by white males from well off families. In the meantime, there were only a few people who said anything about the fact that SGA gave no money to the Latin American Student Organization (LASO). We fought for four weeks to give funding to a club that got the funding from somewhere else anyways. Not only did the Ice Hockey Club have more strikes against it, but they had been told of these several times and still had not addressed them. The club has private banking accounts to hold fundraised monies, something that is against CCSU policy and a rule that all other clubs abide by. Aside from the fact that the club is selective and doesn’t allow people on the team who want to learn how to play the sport, but can’t make the cut to learn in another way, the club has also repetitively booked buses, hotels, and made other expenditures outside of normal regulations and has continued to do so after being told not to. The only offense by LASO was that they overdrew on their account last year. If this isn’t structural racism, I don’t know what is.
2. To brighten up the last point, when the Ice Hockey Club went to the office of President Jack Miller and asked for money, they were given it while when President Miller was asked for money by members of LASO, they were denied. Miller had also previously given money to the Equestrian Club, which isn’t necessarily of consequence aside from showing that Ice Hockey wasn’t a special case.
1. The dirtiest secret about CCSU may surprise you or it may not. If you transferred to Central it certainly won’t. It has been brought to my attention that CCSU purposely denies credits being transferred from other universities as a means of making more profit. I have been told that CCSU deliberately denies as many credits as they can from transferring so that they can maximize their profit. This information given to me by a CCSU transfer student who was told by the person in charge of transferring credits that they were given the directive to limit transferred credits so that the individual would have to pay more to Central in order to graduate. As a school that many go to in order to graduate after spending much more money at other schools, Central immediately puts the transfer student in a position that will allow the institution the ability to suck every last penny out of the menial amount of money you may have for college. Central’s Motto certainly doesn’t hold true here.
Start with a Dream, Finish with an education on Racism, Cover-ups, Extortion, and blatant disregard for Human Life (© CCSU 2008). Now I wish you all farewell as this is my last semester in this racist, sexist, asbestos ridden, school that steals from the working class while giving us nothing in return except a measly piece of paper and an empty wallet. To the administration; the above listed reasons are why student turnover at CCSU is so high.
I hope this can shed some light on CCSU for some folks who see some of these same things occurring on campus.
Contact the Devil’s Advocate at devilsadvocateccsu@gmail.com
Visit the blog at http://ccsudevilsadvocate.blogspot.com/ and post your comments.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Funk The War: Student Dance Party Against Empire
By Lucy P.
3/19/08 Washington DC: Five Year Anniversary of Iraq Invasion
There were Iraq Veterans Against the War members with a megaphone who, after coming from a veterans march, hopped a fence to the fifty ft. ledge of the National Archives building to rant and read grievances to a crowd of cheering veterans unsuspecting school children and their chaperones waiting to get in. There was a circle blockade with bikes and a die-in in front of an army recruiting station. There was a “march of the dead” protest, with white masks, black robes and names of war victims, ending in an intersection blockade of melodramatic postures, in which all participants got arrested. And in the morning, a march to the IRS building led to a defiance by tax resisters, who broke through a police blockade to the IRS doors, only to get grabbed by homeland security and thrown in the paddy wagon.
But my proposed highlight of the “5 Years Too Many” antiwar event on March 19th in Washington DC, and what I feel was one of the best demonstrations of the new anti-war movement and one of the best times I’ve had in a while, was an afternoon student lead street dance party that took over the streets of downtown DC for about four hours.
Funk the War, as I believe, originated out of a sort of spontaneous moment during the October Rebellion in 2007. It was agreed by about a hundred or so of the protesters that a marching dance party and a game of capture the flag in the streets would be an exciting and meaningful event to conclude the evening. We ended up only doing the dance party up and down Adam’s Morgan in the middle of a busy night club scene, it was too fun to stop, and the cops were now swarming and following us. I’m guessing the fun and friendliness of that night sparked the Funk the War thing, and it’s achievement on March 19th sealed the deal. It was lead by the new Students from a Democratic Society, and joined by Baltimore Algebra Project, Campus Anti-War Network, and other student activist groups.
Coming from the metro, I ran across McPherson square and up the block to catch up with the party line of 500 or so students as it departed. I was so winded, with the heavy backpack my arrested partner left me and all, but I immediately started dancing anyway. There was a speaker and some other equipment hooked up to an iPod on a little red wagon being pushed around by a person in a polar bear suit dancing profusely. We were ecstatic and free, dancing to hip-hop, punk and all forms of pop in between, dancing with and “without” rhythm. Students of different races and cultures, grooving and shouting in a harmony most had never experienced before.
We danced down with banners and signs into the business district with its office buildings, stopping traffic, startling drivers and bus passengers waiting at intersections, flabbergasting and perhaps scaring poor drivers stuck in the midst of us` as we boogied around their cars. I remind you, this was an UNPERMITTED, unlawful assembly, therefore completely unexpected by the DC civilians just going about their daily routine. The point was to disrupt “business as usual”, interrupt the daily life, stop the routine, remind people of the world outside, of other possibilities, and, most importantly, that there IS a resistance, a creative and active and youthful resistance to war and injustice. This resistance is not content to be herded like sheep in safe but limited permitted marches sectioned off from the rest of the populace, to be unseen and unheard outside the left, except for a short and underestimated blurb in corporate media. This resistance wants to be a nuisance, loud and colorful and unabashed. We won’t let people go on to the office or their high class consumption as if nothing else mattered, as if thousands of people weren’t dying and suffering in our name and our inaction. We are putting ourselves in your face, thus in danger, yet remaining unafraid of your threats and your police forces. We knew when we were breaking the law and we were willing to face the consequences; and we were willing to hold firm when the cops pushed us around.
They did push us around, but there was still only so much they could do, thanks to copious lawsuits, you can have unpermitted marches most places in DC, and they shy from doing mass arrests. When we danced to the first major intersection, we stayed, jumping and wriggling all around, chanting and singing, writing messages and peace signs with chalk, placing anti-war stickers everywhere, with no doubt frustrated drivers halted for blocks. And then the cops began to push and yell, moving in on bikes to scatter us, knocking over our red wagon. We propped it back up and simply kept on dancing down another street, then stopping at the next intersection until rammed again. This pattern continued for a couple hours, and included a stop at the armed forces recruiting station and a war profiteer’s office above a Starbucks. Both of those received big happy blobs of red paint thrown on their windows, paint which also found it’s way onto cops and cop cars, and decorated on the sidewalk and students’ faces.
When we danced back near McPherson Sq. the police got nasty and, as much as we snarled at them and tried to refuse, shoved us back onto the grass. But Evil Empire, a Rage Against the Machine cover band, was suddenly on a small stage in the park and playing the police brutality hit “Killing in the Name”. The kids went mad, danced and shouted and moshed along passionately. Then, with renewed gusto we got back into the streets again, as the rain started to pour.
With our numbers still the same, we ended up at another intersection. Folks jumped playfully in the puddles as the throng waivered up and down, vague as to exactly what was happening. Abruptly out of nowhere, students swept into the crowd with a load of about a dozen elementary school desks painted bright yellow and black with “Students for a Democratic Society” and “Money for Jobs and Education”, etc. In a blaze they enclosed a circle in the center of us, a student in between each desk, kneeling, wrists padlocked to holes inside. Others dashed around securing locks, spacing the desks, and spreading out to take up as much space as possible. Groups lined up at the cross walks to block police, and two rows of us sat, arms linked together, around the desks, myself included, to create as impenetrable a bastion as we could.
We took up all of the broad intersection and more, as the law enforcement regrouped. A nice middle aged, gray-bearded man who I rode down with a the huge van delighted me when he linked
my right arm, the only one I know of his age to join in the blockade. At first I knelt, reluctant to sit down on the wet pavement, but as the rain continued to come down on me without a raincoat on, I figured I should just get drenched. Eventually though, after I was sneezing and fearing sickness, I put on my poncho. But before that, who cared? No one cared about the rain. It was hot and sweaty in that crowd, it was the sky falling on the district for us and we were celebrating. The gathering danced and laughed wildly around the circle in swirls and congo lines, photographers and unexplained video cameras in rain gear swooped by, lord knows whose behind the lens. A kindly boy came and brought mysterious donated sandwiches, I ate one until it got too soggy. The music was still going loud on that red wagon, and I heard everyone “Stop the war, yes we can! Disco music’s back again!”
I felt as if no one was even the least afraid then, rather there was indisputable joy and mutiny. After twenty minutes or so, a friend came around with the news that the cops had given up, and indeed they had been told by a higher-up not to bother and not to arrest, just re-direct traffic. We won! I guess. Unfortunately nobody from the outside the crowd could see the what was happening on the inside with the desks and all. No major news media I’ve seen got the scoop either, although I didn’t search everywhere. But we all knew they wouldn’t get it, tomorrow’s news pretty much covered more the early morning events and then went home. There was some coverage of the dance party, mostly from the nearby media, but we all know how the media works. Are you at all surprised that it was vague, narrow-minded briefings that started out with “there was not as many as past protests, therefore the antiwar movement is fading”!
I’m not going to go any further with that topic, but needless to say anyone witness to the student takeover was probably not initially thinking the movement was fading (especially since they usually never see protests anyway since they happen by the capitol and away from the public). For anyone participating in the protest, the feeling was one of rejuvenation and inspiration. What we lacked in numbers we made up for in passionate force and creativity, and it was 95% students and youth, not older ex-hippy bourgeoisie, green party politicians, or indoctrinated intellectuals. Yeah it’s not going to stop the war, but it was the beginning of something more, and a damn fun protest way better than most of us had ever been to. We stayed locked down in the rain for about an hour until we decided, on our own terms not the police’s, to end a successful lockdown and continue the dance party down the streets for about another hour. Back to the recruiting station, with a few old ladies and young men counter protesting, then the fuzz again got violent and pushed us back on the grass of McPherson Sq. It was just in time to disband for another protest at the capitol, but it’s always sad to end such wonderful things. We went home that day, though, with a new hope and fresh enthusiasm for our own respective organizations and the streets we hope to soon take over just the same. Now groups all over the country are repeating the idea with their own “Funk the War”, like in Providence, RI. and New York City. It would be an amazing feat to pull off one here in CT, I’ve been throwing around the idea with my friends. If we spread the word and get enough excited people, it could be possible, though still risky. I can’t help but hope that if this sort of thing really catches on, growing and combining into even more creative direct action, connecting more youths to each other and to other pressing injustices, that it will be the beginning of a truly great movement. Because, even for people not that into politics or being anti-war, we all love a good dance party.
3/19/08 Washington DC: Five Year Anniversary of Iraq Invasion
There were Iraq Veterans Against the War members with a megaphone who, after coming from a veterans march, hopped a fence to the fifty ft. ledge of the National Archives building to rant and read grievances to a crowd of cheering veterans unsuspecting school children and their chaperones waiting to get in. There was a circle blockade with bikes and a die-in in front of an army recruiting station. There was a “march of the dead” protest, with white masks, black robes and names of war victims, ending in an intersection blockade of melodramatic postures, in which all participants got arrested. And in the morning, a march to the IRS building led to a defiance by tax resisters, who broke through a police blockade to the IRS doors, only to get grabbed by homeland security and thrown in the paddy wagon.
But my proposed highlight of the “5 Years Too Many” antiwar event on March 19th in Washington DC, and what I feel was one of the best demonstrations of the new anti-war movement and one of the best times I’ve had in a while, was an afternoon student lead street dance party that took over the streets of downtown DC for about four hours.
Funk the War, as I believe, originated out of a sort of spontaneous moment during the October Rebellion in 2007. It was agreed by about a hundred or so of the protesters that a marching dance party and a game of capture the flag in the streets would be an exciting and meaningful event to conclude the evening. We ended up only doing the dance party up and down Adam’s Morgan in the middle of a busy night club scene, it was too fun to stop, and the cops were now swarming and following us. I’m guessing the fun and friendliness of that night sparked the Funk the War thing, and it’s achievement on March 19th sealed the deal. It was lead by the new Students from a Democratic Society, and joined by Baltimore Algebra Project, Campus Anti-War Network, and other student activist groups.
Coming from the metro, I ran across McPherson square and up the block to catch up with the party line of 500 or so students as it departed. I was so winded, with the heavy backpack my arrested partner left me and all, but I immediately started dancing anyway. There was a speaker and some other equipment hooked up to an iPod on a little red wagon being pushed around by a person in a polar bear suit dancing profusely. We were ecstatic and free, dancing to hip-hop, punk and all forms of pop in between, dancing with and “without” rhythm. Students of different races and cultures, grooving and shouting in a harmony most had never experienced before.
We danced down with banners and signs into the business district with its office buildings, stopping traffic, startling drivers and bus passengers waiting at intersections, flabbergasting and perhaps scaring poor drivers stuck in the midst of us` as we boogied around their cars. I remind you, this was an UNPERMITTED, unlawful assembly, therefore completely unexpected by the DC civilians just going about their daily routine. The point was to disrupt “business as usual”, interrupt the daily life, stop the routine, remind people of the world outside, of other possibilities, and, most importantly, that there IS a resistance, a creative and active and youthful resistance to war and injustice. This resistance is not content to be herded like sheep in safe but limited permitted marches sectioned off from the rest of the populace, to be unseen and unheard outside the left, except for a short and underestimated blurb in corporate media. This resistance wants to be a nuisance, loud and colorful and unabashed. We won’t let people go on to the office or their high class consumption as if nothing else mattered, as if thousands of people weren’t dying and suffering in our name and our inaction. We are putting ourselves in your face, thus in danger, yet remaining unafraid of your threats and your police forces. We knew when we were breaking the law and we were willing to face the consequences; and we were willing to hold firm when the cops pushed us around.
They did push us around, but there was still only so much they could do, thanks to copious lawsuits, you can have unpermitted marches most places in DC, and they shy from doing mass arrests. When we danced to the first major intersection, we stayed, jumping and wriggling all around, chanting and singing, writing messages and peace signs with chalk, placing anti-war stickers everywhere, with no doubt frustrated drivers halted for blocks. And then the cops began to push and yell, moving in on bikes to scatter us, knocking over our red wagon. We propped it back up and simply kept on dancing down another street, then stopping at the next intersection until rammed again. This pattern continued for a couple hours, and included a stop at the armed forces recruiting station and a war profiteer’s office above a Starbucks. Both of those received big happy blobs of red paint thrown on their windows, paint which also found it’s way onto cops and cop cars, and decorated on the sidewalk and students’ faces.
When we danced back near McPherson Sq. the police got nasty and, as much as we snarled at them and tried to refuse, shoved us back onto the grass. But Evil Empire, a Rage Against the Machine cover band, was suddenly on a small stage in the park and playing the police brutality hit “Killing in the Name”. The kids went mad, danced and shouted and moshed along passionately. Then, with renewed gusto we got back into the streets again, as the rain started to pour.
With our numbers still the same, we ended up at another intersection. Folks jumped playfully in the puddles as the throng waivered up and down, vague as to exactly what was happening. Abruptly out of nowhere, students swept into the crowd with a load of about a dozen elementary school desks painted bright yellow and black with “Students for a Democratic Society” and “Money for Jobs and Education”, etc. In a blaze they enclosed a circle in the center of us, a student in between each desk, kneeling, wrists padlocked to holes inside. Others dashed around securing locks, spacing the desks, and spreading out to take up as much space as possible. Groups lined up at the cross walks to block police, and two rows of us sat, arms linked together, around the desks, myself included, to create as impenetrable a bastion as we could.
We took up all of the broad intersection and more, as the law enforcement regrouped. A nice middle aged, gray-bearded man who I rode down with a the huge van delighted me when he linked
my right arm, the only one I know of his age to join in the blockade. At first I knelt, reluctant to sit down on the wet pavement, but as the rain continued to come down on me without a raincoat on, I figured I should just get drenched. Eventually though, after I was sneezing and fearing sickness, I put on my poncho. But before that, who cared? No one cared about the rain. It was hot and sweaty in that crowd, it was the sky falling on the district for us and we were celebrating. The gathering danced and laughed wildly around the circle in swirls and congo lines, photographers and unexplained video cameras in rain gear swooped by, lord knows whose behind the lens. A kindly boy came and brought mysterious donated sandwiches, I ate one until it got too soggy. The music was still going loud on that red wagon, and I heard everyone “Stop the war, yes we can! Disco music’s back again!”
I felt as if no one was even the least afraid then, rather there was indisputable joy and mutiny. After twenty minutes or so, a friend came around with the news that the cops had given up, and indeed they had been told by a higher-up not to bother and not to arrest, just re-direct traffic. We won! I guess. Unfortunately nobody from the outside the crowd could see the what was happening on the inside with the desks and all. No major news media I’ve seen got the scoop either, although I didn’t search everywhere. But we all knew they wouldn’t get it, tomorrow’s news pretty much covered more the early morning events and then went home. There was some coverage of the dance party, mostly from the nearby media, but we all know how the media works. Are you at all surprised that it was vague, narrow-minded briefings that started out with “there was not as many as past protests, therefore the antiwar movement is fading”!
I’m not going to go any further with that topic, but needless to say anyone witness to the student takeover was probably not initially thinking the movement was fading (especially since they usually never see protests anyway since they happen by the capitol and away from the public). For anyone participating in the protest, the feeling was one of rejuvenation and inspiration. What we lacked in numbers we made up for in passionate force and creativity, and it was 95% students and youth, not older ex-hippy bourgeoisie, green party politicians, or indoctrinated intellectuals. Yeah it’s not going to stop the war, but it was the beginning of something more, and a damn fun protest way better than most of us had ever been to. We stayed locked down in the rain for about an hour until we decided, on our own terms not the police’s, to end a successful lockdown and continue the dance party down the streets for about another hour. Back to the recruiting station, with a few old ladies and young men counter protesting, then the fuzz again got violent and pushed us back on the grass of McPherson Sq. It was just in time to disband for another protest at the capitol, but it’s always sad to end such wonderful things. We went home that day, though, with a new hope and fresh enthusiasm for our own respective organizations and the streets we hope to soon take over just the same. Now groups all over the country are repeating the idea with their own “Funk the War”, like in Providence, RI. and New York City. It would be an amazing feat to pull off one here in CT, I’ve been throwing around the idea with my friends. If we spread the word and get enough excited people, it could be possible, though still risky. I can’t help but hope that if this sort of thing really catches on, growing and combining into even more creative direct action, connecting more youths to each other and to other pressing injustices, that it will be the beginning of a truly great movement. Because, even for people not that into politics or being anti-war, we all love a good dance party.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Screwed Over
By Nicholas Menapace
It’s a sad time for America now, the economy is poor and everyone is suffering. The unemployment rate is at 5.1% and likely to go up; people are losing their homes and gas prices are soaring at over $100 a barrel. The average American is suffering economically and companies have told their employees that they will stop all employee raises. You might be thinking, “Oh well, those companies are struggling to and they just can’t afford it”, but if that is so, why is American Airlines, who supposedly needs to cut wages and increase flight costs, paying their CEO not just his normal over a half a million-dollar salary, but also $6.6 million in a 2007 bonus. In fact American Airlines gave $250 million in stock bonuses to its executives and managers at the same time as it said it needed to halt pay raises for its employees. This is not unique to the American corporate world; the average CEO makes over 500 times what its average employee makes. In contrast, in places like Japan a CEO makes about seventeen times what an employee makes.
Why do Americans defend this system, all it has done is kept these CEO’s and corporate executives rich and actually keeps making them richer even when their companies fail. Our system has been rather quickly destroying the middle class, yet we sit here and let these Robber Barons screw Americans over by simply moving their jobs oversees and then promptly screwing over the workers in those countries by paying them almost nothing. On top of that many of these companies essentially do not have to pay taxes and many times the government actually gives direct money to these companies such as in 2001 when George W. Bush gave $15 billion dollars of tax payer money to the airline industry. Since the 1980’s its been free game on screwing over the worker since the great Ronald Reagan gave the go ahead for companies bust unions, ignore labor laws, and at the same time bring in government aid. Why is this okay with the American public that the top 1% of Americans own 60% of the wealth yet most Americans would tell you we don’t have a class system. Are we really indoctrinated enough that we don’t see ourselves being screwed over?
It’s a sad time for America now, the economy is poor and everyone is suffering. The unemployment rate is at 5.1% and likely to go up; people are losing their homes and gas prices are soaring at over $100 a barrel. The average American is suffering economically and companies have told their employees that they will stop all employee raises. You might be thinking, “Oh well, those companies are struggling to and they just can’t afford it”, but if that is so, why is American Airlines, who supposedly needs to cut wages and increase flight costs, paying their CEO not just his normal over a half a million-dollar salary, but also $6.6 million in a 2007 bonus. In fact American Airlines gave $250 million in stock bonuses to its executives and managers at the same time as it said it needed to halt pay raises for its employees. This is not unique to the American corporate world; the average CEO makes over 500 times what its average employee makes. In contrast, in places like Japan a CEO makes about seventeen times what an employee makes.
Why do Americans defend this system, all it has done is kept these CEO’s and corporate executives rich and actually keeps making them richer even when their companies fail. Our system has been rather quickly destroying the middle class, yet we sit here and let these Robber Barons screw Americans over by simply moving their jobs oversees and then promptly screwing over the workers in those countries by paying them almost nothing. On top of that many of these companies essentially do not have to pay taxes and many times the government actually gives direct money to these companies such as in 2001 when George W. Bush gave $15 billion dollars of tax payer money to the airline industry. Since the 1980’s its been free game on screwing over the worker since the great Ronald Reagan gave the go ahead for companies bust unions, ignore labor laws, and at the same time bring in government aid. Why is this okay with the American public that the top 1% of Americans own 60% of the wealth yet most Americans would tell you we don’t have a class system. Are we really indoctrinated enough that we don’t see ourselves being screwed over?
Working People Get No Meaningful Vote in 2008 Presidential Election
By Michael Hoffman
All three major candidates for the presidency have claimed to be the candidate of the common man, the hard working Americans who are struggling to get by. They say that they are “one of us” and that they will be the agent of “change.” But no matter which one of the three wins the White House in November, no real change will be forthcoming. Why not? Because in today’s political world both major parties are ruled by corporate interests and these three candidates are no different.
Let’s start with Hillary Clinton. She’s been posing as a friend of the common man and had been endorsed by many unions. But it is hard to see how she would help the workers when one looks at her history. From 1986 through 1992, while Bill Clinton was governor of Arkansas, Hillary was on the board of none other than Wal-Mart. While Senator Clinton was a member of the board, Wal-Mart went about its business of wiping out small town businesses and profiting off the sweat and blood of sweatshop workers. Also, according to abc News, Hillary stayed silent while Wal-Mart board members went on their anti-union rampages, although she did push for environmentally friendly policies and better treatment for female workers. The Clintons were also friends with Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton, the man who personally told loaders at an Arkansas distribution center that he would fire them all and shut the center down if the voted to join a union. And let’s not forget that it was Bill Clinton who signed NAFTA into law, leading to the disappearance of American jobs.
On the Republican side, John McCain has presented himself as a maverick, as someone who does not bow down to special-interest groups. However, according to the Washington watchdog group Center for Public Integrity, between 1997 and 2006, McCain has taken $2.6 million from Political Action Committees (PACs). McCain has taken money from such corporate donors as Verizon and AT+T, the company that has been helping the NSA spy on American citizens.
Corporate donors have even tainted the candidacy of Barack Obama, a man so charming and full of hope that even I like him. Unfortunately, he too has been bit by the corporate bug. According to the Chicago Tribune, about three-fourths of Obama’s campaign cash has come from corporate donors. Also, he has received money from Exelon Corporation, the country’s largest nuclear plant operator. One of Obama’s largest donors is Exelon chairman John W. Rowe, who is also one of the board of the neo-con American Enterprise Institute.
The only way to escape this corporate trap is by voting for a third party. You could do what I have done in the past and vote for the Green Party, a party that actually cares about the future of America and its citizens. Some of its core values are grassroots democracy, social justice and environmental responsibility. If you like the latter two of these but would rather see capitalism done away with all together, you could vote for either the Socialist Party USA or the Socialist Workers Party. Or, if you love civil liberties and also the free market you could vote for the Libertarian Party, which competes with the Green Party for dominance as the biggest third party in the country. If you would like to abolish the income tax and also see the constitution become based on the Bible (a fundamentalist reading of the Bible), you could vote for the Constitution Party, although in Connecticut this party is known as the Concerned Citizens Party. Finally if you really hate alcohol, you could vote for the Prohibition Party, which wants to make alcohol illegal. Believe it or not, this party has been around since 1869 and has run a presidential candidate in every election cycle since 1872.
So, the good news is you have options. The bad news is that if you do vote for a third candidate, there is virtually no chance that they can become president. The Commission on Presidential Debates makes sure that only Republicans and Democrats can take part in debates (unless it’s a pro-corporate billionaire like Ross Perot). Also, since the corporations and special-interest groups give their money to the two major parties, who keep them rich, third parties get no money and no attention from the corporate media. Therefore, voting for a third party is rendered virtually meaningless, while voting for one of the corporate parties will not help either. The only way we can give our votes meaning is by getting rid of the two party system and by voting for third party candidates for town and state offices and for Congress which actually have an outside chance of winning. Getting third party candidates into Congress is a good way to get the ball rolling on ending the two party system and bringing real democracy to the United States.
All three major candidates for the presidency have claimed to be the candidate of the common man, the hard working Americans who are struggling to get by. They say that they are “one of us” and that they will be the agent of “change.” But no matter which one of the three wins the White House in November, no real change will be forthcoming. Why not? Because in today’s political world both major parties are ruled by corporate interests and these three candidates are no different.
Let’s start with Hillary Clinton. She’s been posing as a friend of the common man and had been endorsed by many unions. But it is hard to see how she would help the workers when one looks at her history. From 1986 through 1992, while Bill Clinton was governor of Arkansas, Hillary was on the board of none other than Wal-Mart. While Senator Clinton was a member of the board, Wal-Mart went about its business of wiping out small town businesses and profiting off the sweat and blood of sweatshop workers. Also, according to abc News, Hillary stayed silent while Wal-Mart board members went on their anti-union rampages, although she did push for environmentally friendly policies and better treatment for female workers. The Clintons were also friends with Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton, the man who personally told loaders at an Arkansas distribution center that he would fire them all and shut the center down if the voted to join a union. And let’s not forget that it was Bill Clinton who signed NAFTA into law, leading to the disappearance of American jobs.
On the Republican side, John McCain has presented himself as a maverick, as someone who does not bow down to special-interest groups. However, according to the Washington watchdog group Center for Public Integrity, between 1997 and 2006, McCain has taken $2.6 million from Political Action Committees (PACs). McCain has taken money from such corporate donors as Verizon and AT+T, the company that has been helping the NSA spy on American citizens.
Corporate donors have even tainted the candidacy of Barack Obama, a man so charming and full of hope that even I like him. Unfortunately, he too has been bit by the corporate bug. According to the Chicago Tribune, about three-fourths of Obama’s campaign cash has come from corporate donors. Also, he has received money from Exelon Corporation, the country’s largest nuclear plant operator. One of Obama’s largest donors is Exelon chairman John W. Rowe, who is also one of the board of the neo-con American Enterprise Institute.
The only way to escape this corporate trap is by voting for a third party. You could do what I have done in the past and vote for the Green Party, a party that actually cares about the future of America and its citizens. Some of its core values are grassroots democracy, social justice and environmental responsibility. If you like the latter two of these but would rather see capitalism done away with all together, you could vote for either the Socialist Party USA or the Socialist Workers Party. Or, if you love civil liberties and also the free market you could vote for the Libertarian Party, which competes with the Green Party for dominance as the biggest third party in the country. If you would like to abolish the income tax and also see the constitution become based on the Bible (a fundamentalist reading of the Bible), you could vote for the Constitution Party, although in Connecticut this party is known as the Concerned Citizens Party. Finally if you really hate alcohol, you could vote for the Prohibition Party, which wants to make alcohol illegal. Believe it or not, this party has been around since 1869 and has run a presidential candidate in every election cycle since 1872.
So, the good news is you have options. The bad news is that if you do vote for a third candidate, there is virtually no chance that they can become president. The Commission on Presidential Debates makes sure that only Republicans and Democrats can take part in debates (unless it’s a pro-corporate billionaire like Ross Perot). Also, since the corporations and special-interest groups give their money to the two major parties, who keep them rich, third parties get no money and no attention from the corporate media. Therefore, voting for a third party is rendered virtually meaningless, while voting for one of the corporate parties will not help either. The only way we can give our votes meaning is by getting rid of the two party system and by voting for third party candidates for town and state offices and for Congress which actually have an outside chance of winning. Getting third party candidates into Congress is a good way to get the ball rolling on ending the two party system and bringing real democracy to the United States.
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Why You Should Be as Pissed Off as I Am: The assault on feminism in the United States
By Kari Sledzik
This recent fall, I took a stab at journalism for my first time. I enrolled in a journalism course, and I also attempted to write for the infamous Recorder. The Recorder attempt was, for lack of a better term, a complete disaster. In the matter of only a few weeks, it became abundantly clear that the Recorder would only support free speech for the people who sat at the cool kids’ table, and my articles were consistently subjected to censorship or outright rejection.
The journalism course was a little less frustrating. I mean, my articles were read, critiqued, and ultimately respected. Fine. I stopped writing for the Recorder basically as soon as I became recognized as a staff writer, but I couldn’t quit the journalism course without having to go back and re-take it anyway. I was never really experienced in journalism, so I did end up learning a thing or two.
One assignment was particularly poignant to me. The assignment was simple – think of a question, and write a short article incorporating about five people’s responses to said question. My question was rather straightforward – “what is a feminist?”
I’d be lying if I said that the assessments of women in the United States I subsequently received were really surprising. One woman said that feminism is totally outdated, and that no woman – even Hillary Clinton herself – still considers herself a feminist. Being that I was just the reporter and recording the response, I deemed it inappropriate to tell her she was sitting across from a feminist, who was dating a feminist, who knew many feminists, and, well, you get the point. Although I did get some educated and what I would consider to be accurate portrayals of feminists in my interviews, an overarching concept of feminists as lesbians and man-haters, and exclusively women for that mater, was definitely there. And it pissed me off.
Maybe it’s not fair to be pissed off at the people I was talking to. When you live in a society that attacks women consistently through institutional, interpersonal, religious, and countless other ways, how can we expect them to react any differently? Our government, media, schools, private companies, and essentially all elements of our society are slighted against women. All of these institutions teach us, from birth, that men are fundamentally more perfect than women, and therefore have to make all of the decisions that affect our lives.
When women pose a threat, it becomes the men’s job to remind us how the world works. This is when they get the promotion you were more qualified for, give you a good slap in the face when you argue, close your neighborhood sexual health clinic, or flat out rape you. And it’s when this becomes your fault. You talked back, you dressed too provocatively, you’re a bitch. Is it any surprise that women have this perception and shy away from feminism? Is it any surprise that these institutions paint feminism this way? They have a lot at stake, and they could lose it all if the playing field were actually even remotely equal.
Immediately, people point to Roe v. Wade, the Equal Rights Amendment, and female suffrage, which suggest that we have made significant leaps and bounds towards equality. Never mind that Roe v. Wade is in the most precarious situation that it has ever been in. Never mind that it took congress over 50 years to approve the three sentences known as the Equal Rights Amendment, but it never in fact passed state ratification, even after Congress passed a two-year extension on its ratification. Never mind that female suffrage took until the 1920s, only about 150 years after white males of privilege allowed themselves to exclusively control the fledgling government.
The well-known wing of the feminist movement made demands for white, bourgeois women. You know, Gloria Steinem would get up and wax poetic about how oppressed middle class women were. Don’t get me wrong. All women’s rights are equally important. But were most women really thinking of being able to get out of the house instead of baking cookies and reading magazines, or were more concerned that their hours at their only low-paying job were cut to 30 per week and she would consequently be denied maternity leave for the baby expected to arrive in less than a month? More importantly, did you hear about any of the feminists in the movement that were concerned about the latter? Well, they were there, standing somewhere in the shadow of middle class feminism. It’s no accident that a movement to empower second-class citizens created more of them.
So here are the lessons that Gloria Steinem chose not to teach you. Embedded in our institutions, within those endless layers of bureaucracy, are several absurd reasons that women cannot succeed. They get diseases once a month. If they get pregnant, you have to pay them to be out for a few months to take care of herself and the baby. They’re too weak and sensitive – having leadership and decision-making positions would be damaging for them and the institution. If she gets the job, the man who is more powerful and competent would not. If she reports that he raped her, it would be so damaging to his career and livelihood, which is much more important than her physical and mental health. So men have to stick together and make sure that society is organized so they can keep their power. It’s not a conspiracy, folks. It’s reality. All institutions benefit from sexual discrimination. It drives down wages for everyone, male and female alike.
Have we determined that men were right all along? We’re too quick to say “well, it’s not as bad as it was.” Wake up. It is that bad. It is that unequal. Call the police next time you encounter a domestic dispute. Time how long it takes them to get there, and take note of what they actually do. Hell, report it at CCSU. You will be politely escorted to each facet of judicial bureaucracy, and maybe if they like you the report will reflect what you said or even be filed at all. And when hell freezes over, they’ll investigate it properly.
Aren’t these pretty serious issues? Aren’t they current? How does any of this indicate equal and fair opportunities for women? The truth is that feminism is in serious trouble. Women haven’t moved forward and continue to face discrimination, harassment, and a consistent lack of support from their government. It’s not just a Central thing or a Wal-Mart thing or an office thing. If anything, Central is a microcosm of some of these serious issues that nobody in society seems ready to deal with. That’s why I’m pissed off, and why you should be too.
This recent fall, I took a stab at journalism for my first time. I enrolled in a journalism course, and I also attempted to write for the infamous Recorder. The Recorder attempt was, for lack of a better term, a complete disaster. In the matter of only a few weeks, it became abundantly clear that the Recorder would only support free speech for the people who sat at the cool kids’ table, and my articles were consistently subjected to censorship or outright rejection.
The journalism course was a little less frustrating. I mean, my articles were read, critiqued, and ultimately respected. Fine. I stopped writing for the Recorder basically as soon as I became recognized as a staff writer, but I couldn’t quit the journalism course without having to go back and re-take it anyway. I was never really experienced in journalism, so I did end up learning a thing or two.
One assignment was particularly poignant to me. The assignment was simple – think of a question, and write a short article incorporating about five people’s responses to said question. My question was rather straightforward – “what is a feminist?”
I’d be lying if I said that the assessments of women in the United States I subsequently received were really surprising. One woman said that feminism is totally outdated, and that no woman – even Hillary Clinton herself – still considers herself a feminist. Being that I was just the reporter and recording the response, I deemed it inappropriate to tell her she was sitting across from a feminist, who was dating a feminist, who knew many feminists, and, well, you get the point. Although I did get some educated and what I would consider to be accurate portrayals of feminists in my interviews, an overarching concept of feminists as lesbians and man-haters, and exclusively women for that mater, was definitely there. And it pissed me off.
Maybe it’s not fair to be pissed off at the people I was talking to. When you live in a society that attacks women consistently through institutional, interpersonal, religious, and countless other ways, how can we expect them to react any differently? Our government, media, schools, private companies, and essentially all elements of our society are slighted against women. All of these institutions teach us, from birth, that men are fundamentally more perfect than women, and therefore have to make all of the decisions that affect our lives.
When women pose a threat, it becomes the men’s job to remind us how the world works. This is when they get the promotion you were more qualified for, give you a good slap in the face when you argue, close your neighborhood sexual health clinic, or flat out rape you. And it’s when this becomes your fault. You talked back, you dressed too provocatively, you’re a bitch. Is it any surprise that women have this perception and shy away from feminism? Is it any surprise that these institutions paint feminism this way? They have a lot at stake, and they could lose it all if the playing field were actually even remotely equal.
Immediately, people point to Roe v. Wade, the Equal Rights Amendment, and female suffrage, which suggest that we have made significant leaps and bounds towards equality. Never mind that Roe v. Wade is in the most precarious situation that it has ever been in. Never mind that it took congress over 50 years to approve the three sentences known as the Equal Rights Amendment, but it never in fact passed state ratification, even after Congress passed a two-year extension on its ratification. Never mind that female suffrage took until the 1920s, only about 150 years after white males of privilege allowed themselves to exclusively control the fledgling government.
The well-known wing of the feminist movement made demands for white, bourgeois women. You know, Gloria Steinem would get up and wax poetic about how oppressed middle class women were. Don’t get me wrong. All women’s rights are equally important. But were most women really thinking of being able to get out of the house instead of baking cookies and reading magazines, or were more concerned that their hours at their only low-paying job were cut to 30 per week and she would consequently be denied maternity leave for the baby expected to arrive in less than a month? More importantly, did you hear about any of the feminists in the movement that were concerned about the latter? Well, they were there, standing somewhere in the shadow of middle class feminism. It’s no accident that a movement to empower second-class citizens created more of them.
So here are the lessons that Gloria Steinem chose not to teach you. Embedded in our institutions, within those endless layers of bureaucracy, are several absurd reasons that women cannot succeed. They get diseases once a month. If they get pregnant, you have to pay them to be out for a few months to take care of herself and the baby. They’re too weak and sensitive – having leadership and decision-making positions would be damaging for them and the institution. If she gets the job, the man who is more powerful and competent would not. If she reports that he raped her, it would be so damaging to his career and livelihood, which is much more important than her physical and mental health. So men have to stick together and make sure that society is organized so they can keep their power. It’s not a conspiracy, folks. It’s reality. All institutions benefit from sexual discrimination. It drives down wages for everyone, male and female alike.
Have we determined that men were right all along? We’re too quick to say “well, it’s not as bad as it was.” Wake up. It is that bad. It is that unequal. Call the police next time you encounter a domestic dispute. Time how long it takes them to get there, and take note of what they actually do. Hell, report it at CCSU. You will be politely escorted to each facet of judicial bureaucracy, and maybe if they like you the report will reflect what you said or even be filed at all. And when hell freezes over, they’ll investigate it properly.
Aren’t these pretty serious issues? Aren’t they current? How does any of this indicate equal and fair opportunities for women? The truth is that feminism is in serious trouble. Women haven’t moved forward and continue to face discrimination, harassment, and a consistent lack of support from their government. It’s not just a Central thing or a Wal-Mart thing or an office thing. If anything, Central is a microcosm of some of these serious issues that nobody in society seems ready to deal with. That’s why I’m pissed off, and why you should be too.
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
UnitedStates vs. us: Terrorism and the Definition of Evil
By Wesley Strong
On Tuesday March 4th, Professor Yonah Alexander and Spanish Ambassador Javier Ruperez visited CCSU as part of the Middle East Lecture Series run by CCSU History Professor Norton Mezvinsky. Yonah Alexander is the director of Terrorism Studies at the Potomac University and is a world renowned expert on terrorism. Javier Ruperez is considered to be one of the best experts on terrorism as a former head of the UN Anti-Terrorism Unit. Presenting viewpoints that were “middle of the road”, Alexander and Ruperez demonstrated their expertise in the field by agreeing with and supporting the UN definition of terrorism. Both speakers stated openly that it was not important to consider the root causes argument, an argument that there are specific reasons for an individual’s participation in “terrorist groups”.
The positions of both speakers are the official positions of the UN and most of he westernized world in regards to terrorism in all of its forms. In a PowerPoint presentation that looked like it belonged on a conspiracist webpage, Dr. Alexander speedily attempted to demonstrate why the audience should believe his point of view while conveniently skipping over the more text-intensive slides. The speakers were challenged on the root causes argument, though they waivered little as they retreated into the UN position which disregards the root causes argument entirely without providing an reasoning to do so. The speakers were addressed in regards to State Terrorism to which they adamantly responded saying that there is no such thing as State Terrorism. The Speakers stated that since governments are governed by international law that they are accountable for their actions. This means that when the US bombs civilian housing as we have many times, it is an act of war while if anyone else commits those acts they are terrorists. State actors cannot be terrorists by this definition, even if they commit the same acts as those they classify as terrorist.
Based from the fact that there is no universal definition of who a terrorist is, as it is more defined as a level of power rather than by actual acts, the argument can be made that terrorism in and of itself is simply another threat to western or capitalist hegemony that in order to be conquered must be labeled as terrorism. In the United States the definition of terrorism has certain consequences. We are bombarded by images of the “Arab terrorist", much like we have been bombarded by images of the “black rapist” for years. This has a multiplying effect of diluting the perception of reality in which we perceive Arabs as terrorists. This has lead to many court cases over that fact where Imams were detained and not allowed to fly in the United States as they were considered threats. This was because Imams are required to wear a traditional garb and stick out as a “stereotypical Arab or terrorist”. The question of course is who the real evil is. As the US continues a foreign policy that includes an utter disregard for Sudan, while further occupying Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as unrelenting support for Israel - a state that has one of the worst human rights records, there is little question over who is the victim and who is the perpetrator. The classification of terrorist only became a popular classification after the fall of the Soviet Union, when using the classification of communist or socialist would no longer be applicable. In fact, the US government has recently passed a bill in the House of Representatives that equates violence from political organizations with violence from radical religious organizations – HR1955/S1959. The house version of the bill, HR1955, passed with an overwhelming bipartisan majority of 404 in favor, 6 against, with 22 missing. The bill defines Homegrown Terrorism as any group that attempts to use force or violence to change the minds of America. Force is defined as intellectual power or vigor, or a logical argument as well as the use of influential action to forward social goals.
This is the beginning of a slippery slope back into McCarthyism and the Racism of the Jim Crow years. As our state continues to support Racist actions and depicts the Arab world as terrorists and people out to kill Americans – much like their depiction of communists under the USSR – there is little recognition from the people to that end of the similarities between the classifications of groups of people to be considered not “American”. In order to maintain its hegemonic and ideological rule in the world, the United States needs to continue to create evil. The nations of the Middle East have not been killing themselves for centuries and in fact were one of the most advanced civilizations prior to the involvement of the West in their affairs. This is not to say that they were perfect, but there certainly were no suicide bombings, Improvised Explosive Devises (IEDs), or any other commonality of violence at the time. You could even make the point that terrorism is a violent response to oppression brought on by the west in the form of occupation, genocide, and racism. When poor people have no means through which their voice can be heard and listened to, what else can they do but resist? This does not mean that the ends justify the means, but we certainly need to be clear about why terrorism exists.
So the next time that you see a news report of terrorists bombing a bar, remember that the US has continually bombed schools, orphanages, hospitals, mosques, union offices that they said they weren’t going to touch, and media headquarters of non-US media companies that criticize the US and Western hegemony. Remember that the resistance against Apartheid in South Africa was called a terrorist resistance because they bombed several bars that had a high population of state and military employees. Remember that the Sons of Liberty committed what in modern times would be called terrorist acts by tarring and feathering tax collectors, not to mention the Boston Tea Party. The question is what terrorism is and what resistance is. The US and the West strive to continually blur the line so that groups that are trying to build a better world are equated with Al-Qaida. Talk about slippery slopes.
a Video about HR1955
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wJsovPRTEM
HR1955 GovTrack General link - It was not working when this article was poster
www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h110-1955
HR1955 GovTrack Full Bill Text link
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h110-1955
On Tuesday March 4th, Professor Yonah Alexander and Spanish Ambassador Javier Ruperez visited CCSU as part of the Middle East Lecture Series run by CCSU History Professor Norton Mezvinsky. Yonah Alexander is the director of Terrorism Studies at the Potomac University and is a world renowned expert on terrorism. Javier Ruperez is considered to be one of the best experts on terrorism as a former head of the UN Anti-Terrorism Unit. Presenting viewpoints that were “middle of the road”, Alexander and Ruperez demonstrated their expertise in the field by agreeing with and supporting the UN definition of terrorism. Both speakers stated openly that it was not important to consider the root causes argument, an argument that there are specific reasons for an individual’s participation in “terrorist groups”.
The positions of both speakers are the official positions of the UN and most of he westernized world in regards to terrorism in all of its forms. In a PowerPoint presentation that looked like it belonged on a conspiracist webpage, Dr. Alexander speedily attempted to demonstrate why the audience should believe his point of view while conveniently skipping over the more text-intensive slides. The speakers were challenged on the root causes argument, though they waivered little as they retreated into the UN position which disregards the root causes argument entirely without providing an reasoning to do so. The speakers were addressed in regards to State Terrorism to which they adamantly responded saying that there is no such thing as State Terrorism. The Speakers stated that since governments are governed by international law that they are accountable for their actions. This means that when the US bombs civilian housing as we have many times, it is an act of war while if anyone else commits those acts they are terrorists. State actors cannot be terrorists by this definition, even if they commit the same acts as those they classify as terrorist.
Based from the fact that there is no universal definition of who a terrorist is, as it is more defined as a level of power rather than by actual acts, the argument can be made that terrorism in and of itself is simply another threat to western or capitalist hegemony that in order to be conquered must be labeled as terrorism. In the United States the definition of terrorism has certain consequences. We are bombarded by images of the “Arab terrorist", much like we have been bombarded by images of the “black rapist” for years. This has a multiplying effect of diluting the perception of reality in which we perceive Arabs as terrorists. This has lead to many court cases over that fact where Imams were detained and not allowed to fly in the United States as they were considered threats. This was because Imams are required to wear a traditional garb and stick out as a “stereotypical Arab or terrorist”. The question of course is who the real evil is. As the US continues a foreign policy that includes an utter disregard for Sudan, while further occupying Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as unrelenting support for Israel - a state that has one of the worst human rights records, there is little question over who is the victim and who is the perpetrator. The classification of terrorist only became a popular classification after the fall of the Soviet Union, when using the classification of communist or socialist would no longer be applicable. In fact, the US government has recently passed a bill in the House of Representatives that equates violence from political organizations with violence from radical religious organizations – HR1955/S1959. The house version of the bill, HR1955, passed with an overwhelming bipartisan majority of 404 in favor, 6 against, with 22 missing. The bill defines Homegrown Terrorism as any group that attempts to use force or violence to change the minds of America. Force is defined as intellectual power or vigor, or a logical argument as well as the use of influential action to forward social goals.
This is the beginning of a slippery slope back into McCarthyism and the Racism of the Jim Crow years. As our state continues to support Racist actions and depicts the Arab world as terrorists and people out to kill Americans – much like their depiction of communists under the USSR – there is little recognition from the people to that end of the similarities between the classifications of groups of people to be considered not “American”. In order to maintain its hegemonic and ideological rule in the world, the United States needs to continue to create evil. The nations of the Middle East have not been killing themselves for centuries and in fact were one of the most advanced civilizations prior to the involvement of the West in their affairs. This is not to say that they were perfect, but there certainly were no suicide bombings, Improvised Explosive Devises (IEDs), or any other commonality of violence at the time. You could even make the point that terrorism is a violent response to oppression brought on by the west in the form of occupation, genocide, and racism. When poor people have no means through which their voice can be heard and listened to, what else can they do but resist? This does not mean that the ends justify the means, but we certainly need to be clear about why terrorism exists.
So the next time that you see a news report of terrorists bombing a bar, remember that the US has continually bombed schools, orphanages, hospitals, mosques, union offices that they said they weren’t going to touch, and media headquarters of non-US media companies that criticize the US and Western hegemony. Remember that the resistance against Apartheid in South Africa was called a terrorist resistance because they bombed several bars that had a high population of state and military employees. Remember that the Sons of Liberty committed what in modern times would be called terrorist acts by tarring and feathering tax collectors, not to mention the Boston Tea Party. The question is what terrorism is and what resistance is. The US and the West strive to continually blur the line so that groups that are trying to build a better world are equated with Al-Qaida. Talk about slippery slopes.
a Video about HR1955
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wJsovPRTEM
HR1955 GovTrack General link - It was not working when this article was poster
www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h110-1955
HR1955 GovTrack Full Bill Text link
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h110-1955
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