NYU Solidarity Statement with Cooper Union Occupation

December 5, 2012

Dear Occupied Cooper Union,

We were inspired to hear of your occupation and see the red fabric unfurled from your windows, so near our own.  We have visited, hung around, and we will continue to do so and offer whatever we have that you might need. The past 48 hours have energized us, have challenged us to seek the places we could revivify our struggle on our campus, have helped us to remember fully and to refocus our attentions. But even as we are prompted to look back and recognize the many student struggles that feed your occupation, we equally recognize the absolute urgency of today. We hope this occupation will be infectious. We need it to be so. December 2012 is a tipping point for Cooper Union, but Cooper Union today must be a watershed for our student movement. We are grateful and excited.

In the president’s meeting today, some in the crowd shouted that to expect free tuition is incomprehensible. This position – that education without tuition is ludicrous – is often bolstered by comparing no- or low-fee institutions like yours to those like our own, whose undergraduate fees amounts to a sum more or less equal to the median yearly income of NYC households. Somehow, our situation, in which the entire yearly earnings of a family would be spent on one students’ tuition, in a city in which income and work are so thoroughly striated by gender, race, and legal status – this is somehow more plausible.

What logic makes something that was possible in June seem unthinkable in December? Cooper Union was free, just as CUNY was in 1970 (following an occupation by Black and Puerto Rican students demanding open admissions). Why not now? Administrators claim spikes in tuition are a natural offshoot of the crisis, as if it wasn’t the administrations’ plans that made the university vulnerable to the vicissitudes of capitalist crisis in the first place. Jamshed Bharucha rehearses an argument typical of adminstrators’ euphemistic austerity boosting: Cooper Union’s funding structure was “shortsighted.” Cooper Union is a relic in an age of student debt, that mechanism that perpetually defers the crisis by deflecting it onto working class futures. We do not let pass without notice the deep irony of calling free education shortsighted while the average trade of financial equity brokers lasts a matter of microseconds.

As we roam through the rubble of financialization’s impact on higher education, it is clear that pressuring administrations to find new investors for endowments is not a solution. Should, then, we press for a reclamation of the welfare state, and recenter public education in the production and stabilization of a fully-employed working class? Let us be clear: there is no going back. Industrialists like Peter Cooper founded free schools in capitalist societies, and we live this contradiction coming to a head. So, we turn away from administrators, from capitalist benefactors, from the talking heads and the haters. We turn to your occupation, recognizing it as the only kind of place in which we can think through and construct the education, and society, we want.

Yours,

Some feminist faculty and students at NYU

New School Students Stand in Solidarity with Cooper Union Occupiers!

We, students of the New School, stand in solidarity with Cooper Union students who are currently occupying the 4th and 8th floors of the Foundation Building to protest threatened tuition implementation. At the New School, we are by now very familiar with tuition increases to fund enormous new development, a lack of financial transparency, and the barring of student participation in decision making. As the 60 5th Avenue building continues to rise we are sinking into more private and federal debt.

We support Cooper Union’s Save our School’s demands:

1. Cooper Union maintains its commitment to free education

2. Cooper Union immediately implements increased financial transparency

3. That President Bharucha step down.

Standing in front of the CU occupation, we are reminded that nothing will change unless we continue to fight together and show solidarity across schools and universities. We see this struggle in the context of the privatization of education and the crisis of capitalism.

President Bharucha told CU students today that CU has reached a limit for free education. How is it that an institution like Cooper Union, which survived for 159 years (through other crisis) suddenly faces an insurmountable crisis that challenges its core principles of education ‘as free as water and air’? In our struggles as student and workers, we resist the idea that shouldering their debt is the solution.

The way the administration chooses to deal with this crisis has been to push this burden onto students, workers, and faculty. How is it that while the students around the world (Canada, Mexico, Chile, Puerto Rico, Italy, Greece and many others) continue to fight for free, accessible education, we in the United States are expected to accept a fate of limited exclusive education and ever increasing debt?

We support Cooper Union students who have taken necessary measures to make their voices heard. When the administrators prevent access to information, when the board members decide the future of students behind closed doors, it becomes clear that we as students have no choice but to occupy behind barricaded doors..  Students and workers should not depend on leaked documents about the financial future of their schools.  It is absolutely necessary, in all schools, that we directly participate in the discussion of budgets and projects through action.

SOLIDARITY WITH COOPER UNION//  WE WILL NOT PAY FOR YOUR CRISIS//

ALL POWER TO THE OCCUPATIONS!

Statement of protesters at Cairo’s Tahrir Square to the Egyptian people

PLEASE CIRCULATE WIDELY

English follows Arabic

بيان للشعب من معتصمين بالتحرير – الرجاء النشر والتوزيع

بيان للشعب

أول القصيد: وعود الرئيس وأحداث الأربعاء 2 فبراير

نحن محتجون منذ 25 يناير الماضي، ومعتصمون في ميدان التحرير، ندين  بشدة الاعتداء الغاشم الذي نفذته مرتزقة الحزب الوطني علينا في مقر اعتصامنا يوم الأربعاء  2 فبراير تحت غطاء المظاهرة المؤيدة للرئيس لمبارك ويستمر العدوان يوم الخميس 3 فبراير. ونأسف لدخول البعض من شباب مصر مع البلطجية والمجرمين ممن اعتاد الوطني تأجيرهم في الانتخابات، وساقوهم علينا بعد أن أشاعوا اكاذيب عديدة يروجها النظام وإعلامه بخصوصنا وبخصوص اهدافنا المنادية بتغيير للنظام السياسي يكفل لنا ولجموع المواطنين الحرية وكرامة العيش والعدالة الاجتماعية، والتي هي ايضا من اهداف هذا الشباب، ولذلك نريد توضيح الاتي:

أولا، نحن مجموعة من شباب مصر مسلمين ومسيحيين، أغلبيتنا الكاسحة لا تنتمي لأحزاب سياسية ولا لها نشاط سياسي من قبل. حركتنا ضمت شيوخا وأطفالا، فلاحين وعمال ومهنيين، طلبة وموظفين على المعاش. حركتنا لا يمكن تصنيفها على أنها مدفوعة أو محركة من قلة بحكم الملايين الذين استجابوا لشعاراتها باسقاط النظام، وانضموا اليها يوم الثلاثاء الماضي في القاهرة والمحافظات، في حدث لم يشهد حالة عنف واحدة أو اعتداء على الممتلكات أو تحرش من أحد بأحد.

ثانيا، حركتنا متهمة بأنها ممولة من الخارج، وتمدها الولايات المتحدة، وأنها قامت بتحريض من حماس، وبأنها تحت قيادة وبتنظيم رئيس الجمعية الوطنية للتغيير محمد البرادعي، وأخيرا وليس آخرا، بأنها موجهة من قبل الاخوان المسلمين. وتعدد الاتهامات بهذا الشكل في حد ذاته يثبت زيفها. المحتجون كلهم مصريون أهدافهم أهدافا وطنية واضحة ومحددة. المحتجون ليس لديهم لا سلاح ولا معدات أجنبية كما يدعي المحرضين. واستجابة الناس الواسعة لها تكشف أنها هي ذاتها أهداف جموع المصريين عموما، وليس أي فصيل أو كيان داخلي وخارجي.

ثالثا، يلقي النظام وإعلامه المأجور زورا وبهتانا بالمسئولية عن التوتر وعدم الاستقرار الذي شهدته شوارع مصر في الأيام الماضية، وبالتالي عما يسببه ذلك من أضرار لمصالحنا ومصالح أمتنا ولأمننا جميعا، على الشباب المتظاهر. فليس المتظاهرون سلميا هم الذين أخرجوا المجرمين من السجون ليخلقوا حالة السلب والنهب في شوارع المحروسة. ليس المتظاهرون هم الذين فرضوا حظر تجول يبدأ من الثالثة وأوقفوا العمل في البنوك والمخابز ومحطات الوقود. وحين نظم المتظاهرون مظاهرتهم المليونية خرجت في أحلى حلة وأفضل تنظيم، وانتهت سلميا. المتظاهرون ليسوا هم من قتلوا 300 شخص بعضهم بالرصاص الحي، وجرحوا أكثر من ألفي شخص في الأيام الماضية.

رابعا، خرج الرئيس مبارك علينا مساء الثلاثاء ليعلن عدم ترشحه في الانتخابات الرئاسية المقبلة وتعديله لمادتين في الدستور، وخوض حوار مع المعارضة. وقد هاجمنا الاعلام الرسمي عندما رفضنا “تنازلاته” وقررنا المضي في حركتنا. إن مطلب التنحي الفوري لمبارك ليس مسألة شخصية. لكننا نستند في ذلك على أسباب واضحة من بينها:

الوعد بعدم الترشح ليس جديدا. فقد وعد مبارك عندما جاء رئيسا في 1981 بعدم الترشح لأكثر من فترتين، ليستمر بعدها لأكثر من 30 عاما. كما أن الخطاب لم يضع أي ضمانات لعدم ترشح ابنه جمال، الذي يظل حتى هذه اللحظة عضوا في الحزب الحاكم، ويستطيع ترشيح نفسه في انتخابات لن تتم تحت اشراف قضائي، إذ تجاهل الخطاب الاشارة الى تعديل المادة 88 في الدستور. كما اعتبر الخطاب حركتنا مؤامرة من قوى تعمل ضد مصالح الوطن، وكأن الاستجابة لمطالب الجماهير عار وعيب. وأما فيما يتعلق بالحوار مع المعارضة فكم من حوارات ادعى النظام انه سيقوم بها خلال السنوات الماضية وانتهت بمضي دولة مبارك في طريق المصالح الضيقة لمن يسيطرون عليها.

وجاءت أحداث الأربعاء لتثبت صحة موقفنا. فبينما كان خطاب الرئيس يوعد، كانت قيادات نظامه ترتب مع البلطجية والمسجلين خطر من المأجورين مؤامرة الاعتداء الوحشي في التحرير بالسنج والمطاوي وقنابل المولوتوف، يصاحبهم أعضاء الحزب الوطني بإطلاق الأعيرة النارية بالبنادق الآلية على المتظاهرين العزل المحاصرين في الميدان، الذي أدى إلى مقتل سبعة على الأقل وإصابة المئات، منهم بإصابات بالغة، وذلك لإنهاء حركتنا الشعبية الوطنية والتمهيد لبقاء الحال على ماهو عليه.

حركتنا مصرية – حركتنا مشروعة – حركتنا مستمرة

شباب معتصم بالتحرير

A Statement from the protesters at Cairo’s Tahrir square

to the Egyptian people

The President’s promises and the bloody events of Wednesday February 2

We the protesters who are currently on sit-in at Tahrir (liberation) square in Cairo since January 25, 2011 strongly condemn the brutal attack carried out by the governing National Democratic Party’s (NDP) mercenaries at our location on Wednesday February 2, under the guise of “rally” in support of President Mubarak. This attack continues on Thursday February 3. We regret that some young people have joined these thugs and criminals, whom the NDP is accustomed to hire during elections, to march them off after spreading several falsehoods circulated by the regime media about us and our goals. These goals that aim at changing the political system to a one that guarantees freedom, dignity and social justice to all citizens are also the goals of the youth. Therefore we want to clarify the following.

Firstly, we are a group of Muslim and Christian Egyptians; the overwhelming majority of us does not belong to political parties and have no previous political activism. Our movement involves elderly and children, peasants, workers, professionals, students and pensioners. Our movement cannot be classified as “paid for” or “directed by” a limited few because it attracted millions who responded to its emblem of removing the regime. People joined us last Tuesday in Cairo and other governorates in a scene that witnessed no one case of violence, property assault or harassment to anyone.

Secondly, our movement is accused of being funded from abroad, supported by the United States, as being instigated by Hamas, as under the leadership of the president of the National Assembly for change (Mohamed El-Baradie) and last but not least, as directed by the Muslim Brotherhood. Many accusations like these prove to be false. Protesters are all Egyptians who have clear and specific national objectives. Protesters have no weapons or foreign equipment as claimed by instigators. The broad positive response by the people to our movement’s goals reveals that these are the goals of the Egyptian masses in general, not any internal or external faction or entity.

Thirdly, the regime and its paid media falsely blame us, demonstrators, for the tension and instability in the streets of Egypt in recent days and therefore for damaging our nation’s interests and security. Our answer to them is: It is not the peaceful protesters who released the criminal offenders from prison to the unguarded streets to practice looting and plundering. It is not the peaceful protesters who have imposed a curfew starting at 3 o’clock PM. It is not the peaceful protesters who have stopped the work in banks, bakeries and gas stations. When protesters organized its one-million demonstration it came up in the most magnificent and organized form and ended peacefully. It is not the protestors who killed 300 people some with live ammunition, and wounding more than 2,000 people in the last few days.

Fourthly, President Mubarak came out on Tuesday to announce that he will not be nominated in the upcoming presidential election and that he will modify two articles in the Constitution, and engage in dialogue with the opposition. However the State media has attacked us when we refused his “concession” and decided to go on with our movement. Our demand that Mubark steps down immediately is not a personal matter, but we have clear reasons for it which include:

* His promise of not to run again is not new. He has promised when he came to power in 1981 that he will not run for more than two periods but he continued for more than 30 years.
* His speech did not put any collateral for not nominating his son “Gamal”, who remains until the moment a member of the ruling party, and can stand for election that will not be under judicial supervision since he ignored any referring to the amendment of article 88 of the Constitution.
* He also considered our movement a “plot directed by a force” that works against the interests of the nation as if responding to the demands of the public is a “shame” or “humiliation”.
* As regards to his promise of conducting a dialogue with the opposition, we know how many times over the past years the regime claimed this and ended up with enforcing the narrow interests of the Mubarak State and the few people who control it.

And the events of Wednesday proved our stand is vindicated. While the President was giving his promises, the leaders of his regime were organizing (along with paid thugs and wanted criminals equipped with swords, knives and Molotov bombs) a brutal attack plot against us in Tahrir square. Those thugs and criminals were accompanied by the NDP members who fired machine guns on unarmed protesters who were trapped on the square ground, killing at least 7 and wounding hundreds of us critically. This was done in order to end our peaceful national popular movement and preserve the status quo.

Our movement is Egyptian – Our movement is legitimate- Our movement is continuing

The youth of Tahrir Square sit-in

February 3, 2011 at 11:30am

Reports from the Egyptian Uprising

http://www.occupiedlondon.org/cairo/

San Fransisco Anti-fa needs your help

Today the two anti-fa arrested for their participation in this year’s May Day demonstration were arraigned in a San Francisco court. During their arraignment, the astronomically large previously set bail of $200,000 was reduced but the State took this opportunity to also announce its plan to attach Hate Crime enhancements to their charges (bitter irony always seems to have juridical origins). The bourgeois media, the police, and the Nazis have once again shown they have no problems working together to criminalize those who struggle. At this point, the movement here in the states has been stretched thin due to the bulk of arrests that resulted from an unprecedented and exciting year of May Day actions and thus comrades in the Bay Area need everyone’s help to secure the release of the two imprisoned anti-fascists. Immediate solidarity and support is needed and should be demonstrated incessantly because it affirms and expands who we are, what we do, and if we struggle together, what we can become.

Please send money to the paypal for the arrested comrades:
paypal@freemfone.org

Solidarity is the weapon of the People!

more information: http://anarchistnews.org/?q=node/11240

Updates on Ocuparte

Three nights ago it seemed that the strike and occupation at the University of Puerto Rico was done for as an army of riot cops, swat teams, and helicopters surrounded the campus preparing for a raid. Due to incredible support and vigilance from the community no raid occurred, and not only does the strike and occupation continue but it has spread to at least 8 (of 11) other campuses. What was being reported as a violent student action (due to a report 19 “injured” security guards, of which I’ve found no evidence of online, and sounds like a typical administration fabrication we’re quite familiar with at the New School) has become a national situation, as more union actions and wildcat strikes continue to occur in solidarity.

In this Video police forcibly evict public school teachers occupying the collector’s office at the Treasury Department for the Retirement system. Another video shows professors and parents gathered at the gates of UPR watching and mocking police.

UC Rebel Radio from Berkeley has translated this letter from the striking students to the entire nation.

We hope the strike continues to proliferate, and the cops/administrators continue to look like fucking fools. Solidaridad desde New York City!

SFSU, Berkeley, UCSD: attacking repression to end stagnation

Today at UCSD a rally (and occupation?) is underway to save Professor Ricardo Dominguez, March 4th participant and pro-immigrant activist. Yesterday SFSU students responded to $744 fines for December occupiers of the business building by breaking into an administration meeting and refusing to leave the building. (Pictures from the action here and here). Monday also saw a protest at Berekely over various charges and suspensions against activists there.

The lack of action post-March 4 has lead to some speculation as to whether the unfolding autonomous student movements has already folded, either as a result of overly messianic rhetoric, or, conversely, liberal recuperation. The action of the last week is evidence of a different story, one of suppression from university administrations and police, and emerging resistance against it. These judicial procedures, criminal charges, crippling fines, and suspensions are in a way a test; they may either result in the death of these uprisings or more wood for the fire. We’re looking forward to latter.

Stay tuned to Occupy CA for updates on UCSD.

Victoria students turn quad into Urban Garden

Last week hundreds of students in Victoria, BC celebrated planting season by occupizing the quad of their school, ripping up the lawn and turning it into fertile soil. The aim of the project was to bring the community together produce food for their own resources. On Friday, the administration destroyed the 10 new garden plots, arresting one student who stood in the path of one of their bulldozers. Students have responded by storming the office of the administrator who ordered the destruction, and also vow to replant the gardens once again.

More information on their blog.

Another Video
A longer commentary on the action on Anarchist News

The Movement of a World without Movement

The purpose of this statement is to cut through the sensational rhetoric surrounding the events of March 4th and outline several underlying political disagreements so far obscured in this discourse. We do not mean to discount particular accusations of misconduct, which are being taken seriously and addressed elsewhere, but to point to points of tactical divergence which these (often dubious) accusations have been allowed to supplant. This letter is meant to counteract the shopworn stereotyping that has set the tone for so much of what has already been written concerning these events.  Let us then lay out the points we wish to discuss.

1. Representation/Leadership
Who speaks for the students of New York City? Who speaks for the “Black, Hispanic, and immigrant activists” championed by one respondent? What is the proper leadership of a student movement? Who may claim a public university as their political turf? We find these questions problematic. 
 
As autonomous students and workers, it is not our intent to be in charge of anyone.  And we expect this to work both ways.  Our organic association, which has arisen in response to this crisis, lacks central leadership, a homogenous identity, or a single set of goals. And this is its greatest merit. 
Those who seek to harness and channel our energies toward their partisan purposes insult us. Aspiring politicians, replicating bureaucratic forms, have ensnared many well-meaning and energetic activists in reformist ventures doomed from the start, and call this “the movement”. The resulting partisan organizations are primarily concerned with prolonging their own existence in the most tacit of ways. Anything to avoid direct action and remain in the so-called safe spaces of liberal democracy. 
Those who claim to speak for “the students”, “the workers”, “the people”, etc., have appointed themselves to this noble position which we do not recognize. As the ranks of the unaffiliated grow, we will help condemn the anachronism of the Revolutionary Party to the dustbin of history.

2. On Decorating the Wall of Your Cell 
Every weekend, around the world, billions of adherents gather into designated spaces to be told by their self-appointed leaders that despite all of their problems, someday everything will be OK.  All they need to do is listen and wait. For the next two or three days their soul-crushing existence under capitalism is made slightly more bearable. Why is it that those who claim to be unhappy with exactly this sort of proselytizing are so eager to impose it on the most active among the present “student left”? Students and workers spend enough time being told what to do. Do we really need more speeches? No. We need not be reminded of our problems. We are all too aware of them. We need to act. If not during a city-wide gathering, then when? 
 
Anyone who has ever spent time in a steel cage, guarded by officers of the bourgeois legal system (which, by the way, includes security guards and university administrators) may find it bizarre that some-on-the-left seek to relegate the desire of others within such rigid perimeters. The self-appointed protectors of the March 4th rally sought the quiescence of a partisan political rally. These so-called leaders tell us not to chase waterfalls, but rather to stick to the protest pens and sidewalks we’re used to. To do so is to decorate the wall of one’s cell, which we reject.
 
3. Security Culture No-Nos
We have the audacity to hope that those who have spent the days following March 4th calling attention via the internet to their perceived political “opponents” come to the understanding that in addition to this inexcusable security culture no-no, they are also calling attention to themselves. It is possible that this is what they want, but it is certainly against the spirit of a proper revolutionary movement (let alone a revolutionary anything else).  And those who are so quick to point to the history of COINTELPRO as a rhetorical tool should certainly be aware of how such information (names, pictures, etc.) has and will be used by agents of state repression to neutralize the energies and intentions of participatory movements. Our political disagreements may be here to stay, but this sort of endangerment of fellow activists must stop immediately.
Some envision a post-revolutionary society as one of management and policing.  This is a discussion for another day (albeit, one soon to come). However, when you assist the police in any way, as this circulation of names and photographs in public forums most certainly does, you are empowering capitalism’s hired thugs and endangering fellow dissidents, whether you intend to do so or not.  
 
***
We hope that these points of tactical divergence can gain a place in a discussion otherwise marred by finger-pointing and hackneyed stereotyping which does no good for anyone. As indicated by the language of the police, the CUNY administrators, and conservative spectators, the discussion so far has been exactly what these elements would hope for in their wildest dreams of “leftist” infighting and internecine doom. 
 
In solidarity with mostly everyone,
James (footman of the Chilterns) and Semyon Podsekalnikov

Sussex occupied AGAIN

From http://defendsussex.wordpress.com/:

THE ‘STOP THE CUTS’ DEMANDS FOR THE VCEG OF SUSSEX UNIVERSITY

We, the students of the Stop the Cuts campaign, have assembled in Arts A2, in response to the actions of the management, specifically the arbitrary suspension and exclusion of 6 students by the Vice Chancellor last week. These students were not violent, and the demonstration in no way merited the presence of riot police on campus. There has been a widespread response from both outside and inside the university condemning this action as disproportionate. These students are part of a wider campaign involving hundreds of students and workers, which continues to be against the compulsory redundancies of staff at Sussex, and to defend public services nationally.

In order to leave here today, our demands are:
1. The unconditional reinstatement of the six students who were suspended and excluded last week – the terms outlined in the statement on Sussex Direct today were not good enough.
2. No disciplinary action against anyone in the room.
3. No punishment of non-violent dissent, no criminalisation of any form of non-violent protest, demonstrations or occupations.

Signed,

The students of the Stop the Cuts campaign

beware those that would deliver you to a cheaper suicide

Another varmint statement posted on Take the City:

on march 4th the vanguard of submission (the I.S.O., maoist allies, & activist “organizers”) denounced the truly radical contingents that refused their policing. confronted w/ a loss of power, the specialists of protest took every measure to sabotage those autonomous subjects who refused reification as objects in their “movement.” the implications of possible native ‘uncontrollables’ being too much to bear, every student that called for concrete subversive action was branded an “outside agitator” or “agent provocateur.”

the comedy of all manner of guevara worshippers indicting anyone as an ‘outside agitator’ does not escape, but the implications of invoking this ever present counter-revolutionary watchword are sincere. in such an invocation a real division is made clear:

on the one side: those who represent spectacular conflict, who play the approved role of a “social conscience,” who side with the police when sedition belongs to desire, not party functionaries. this reformist bloc is committed to maintaining the reign of specialists, of even the school administration, for to question one hierarchy would counterfeit them all. their role is essential in the mystification of progress. “moralizing the marketplace,” wherein the world is delivered back into the hands of the same bosses who’ve decimated it, is the realm of this permitted resistance.

on the opposing side: those who would not separate revolution from daily life, those who refuse to be executed under the weight of “objective conditions,” but prefer to disrupt the continuity of the probable, the routine, the expected, & explore the possible, who recognize that there is no dialogue in hierarchy/no democracy under bosses, who extend their critique to every wing of the commodity life & refuse the lure of “causes,” who recognize that there is no ‘outside’ because of this totality, who realize poetry in the lyricism of action, who accept no revolution but the revolution of all creative life.

Solidarity from Brooklyn to the Bay

Reoccupied Solidarity Statement

SOLIDARITY TO ALL STRIKERS, RIOTERS, AND OCCUPIERS!

Year Round
Our desires are empty, our power is null. Our gestures of escape are pushed to the margins – drunken debates with coworkers, crumpled pamphlets, the violent fantasies of miserable morning commutes, graffiti in the bathroom stalls. Struggle is a daily reality. Rather than forcing our anger against our common enemies, we turn our struggles inwards. We let our self-doubt grow infectiously as we wallow in self-appointed passivity. We drink ourselves to death to survive this meaningless culture.

But our individual struggles are communal and our set is beginning to take notice. In times of crisis the working class has two options: accept cutbacks in order to keep capitalism running, or revolt against the bosses and politicians who we all know we don’t need. “The people united will never be defeated!” chants the left. We stare at the metal barricades in which they’ve trapped us, despising this chant in its inaccuracy. We are defeated at every turn. So we search the crowd for others as angry as us, and

today

we see it in the eyes of the youth. No words are said to confirm the energy that propels us towards the barricades.

“California is a vision of the future,”

says the old new left of the East Coast academia, far enough away to study it as if it is the past.

The walls are ours to tear down, the streets are ours to shatter. Its matter hold no authority. Bricks are no longer stamped with the name of the empire, and all roads lead to an infinite number of terrible paths. The enraged classes are growing in size and strength and desire for something new and terrifying beyond the barricades.

Let us teach others to fight. Let the eace-police feel their irrelevance. Let the police-police trip as they chase us down alleyways. Let  University Presidents from San Diego to Boston dump frenzied memos on each other. Let the student class and the working class ally and together abolish their social categories!

NEW CHANTS FOR MARCH 4:

Social War must be made! Students to the barricades!
Taking the streets is not enough! Occupy! Fuck shit up!
The university is dead! Kill the Student in your head!
Human strike is now in sight! It’s 2010! It’s time to fight!
Forever’s! Gonna! Start to-night!
Debtors of the world revolt!
FORM! CONTENT! FORM! CONTENT!
COAT! LINEN! SELF-ABOLITION!
Open up the Vortex! Let us all in!

Blackout at UC Berkeley

From http://occupyca.wordpress.com
Black Student Union blocks gate to Berkeley campus in outrage and solidarity with the UCSD BSU.

Banner Drop at University of New Orleans

from: http://news.infoshop.org/article.php?story=20100113201615185

Students are being forced to pay more for less.  Government bureaucrats have slashed the higher education budget for the second straight year.  And the cuts are only getting worse. Our tuition has ratcheted up 10% and the Post-Secondary Education Review Commission is discussing as much as a 30% increase next Fall. They have already cut classes and majors, jammed every class to bursting, layed off whole crews of UNO workers, and restricted access to labs and buildings. Dirt is piling up in the buildings and students are watching the classes they need to graduate evaporate.

The economic crisis has come home. This is a crisis created by policymakers in bed with Wall Street, not by the students, faculty, or workers at UNO, and WE WON’T PAY FOR THEIR CRISIS.

De-funding higher education is a sure way to keep Louisiana at the bottom of the heap and destroy any hope of a better future for our state.

This situation is untenable.

We urge faculty to discuss the budget cuts in their classes, the staff to organize strikes as the layoffs continue, and for students to take action against tuition increases and class cuts. Faculty, workers, students: stand together and halt the looting of public higher education in Louisiana!

20 of the 25 highest paid government employees in Louisiana are Louisiana university administrators.  LSU System President John Lombardi makes $600,000 a year. What Lombardi hopes for is our silence as he dismantles the university with one hand and stuffs his pocket with the other.  That is business as usual, for now, but it rests on our complacency in allowing it to function in this time of crisis.

We are the university, we can shut it down.
-A few fed up UNO students
neworleansstudents@gmail.com

Solidarity with ALL arrested in Berkeley!

While some following the UC unrest are are lamenting the attack against the Chancellor’s mansion, few have offered alternatives to hold him accountable for repeatedly ordering officers to assault and arrest his students. We, however, applaud all actions that students, individuals, mobs, friends, and just regular fucking people take against those that mobilize the violence of the state. The fury and vengeance of those outside the chancellor’s mansion was born through the actions of the police and chancellor themselves; they are now seeing their progeny.

Das Kapital study group, session eight, Fall ’09, NYC. Chapter Three, special theme.

Our group convenes this week and begins with a discussion and celebration of the latest events from comrades in the West and the possibility of further accelerations of struggle in our own vicinity. We respond to a series of questions posed by a Greek bourgeois newspaper concerning their year of insurrection and revolt. Our attention then turns to our weekly collective study. This week we prepare to continue reading chapter three.

We review, recite and observe with a particular emphasis: the capital process is masked by its constant transformations into concrete particular modes of existence; the commodity’s dual aspects are masked by their existence in the equivalent and relative forms as only a use-value for the reciever and only an exchange value for the transmitter; the labor and marginal theory of value of the political economist is a mask that freezes time as opposed to the historically dynamic abstract and socially necessary labor time at the root of the value of products; capital’s money-form as wages for the proletariat mask their role in the circulation of variable capital as drafts for means of subsistence as opposed to money as disposition for productive consumption, for the capitalist; convention, culture and juridical activity mask the productive-historical factors that are behind them leading to bizaare rituals and value systems; markets mask the myriad shifts in supply and demand for countless productive activities which we lose track of and therefore control over, passively deferring to the inexorable spiral of self-valorization; exchange masks the intentions and concrete conditions of production; etc.