NYPD Fail
Last night, Tuesday March 10th at 11pm, NYPD swarmed and barricaded the entrance to NYU's Kimmel Center on Washington Square, which, last month, was the scene of the mass protest against NYU Administration's refusal to make transparent their profits and expenditures. Apparently NYU got a tip that there would be another protest or some sort of "hooligan-ry." They sent in 50 police officers and 30 police cars as a precaution. :cough:Gestapo:cough:
But SURPRISE! No one was there. Seriously though, there was no protest/hooligan-ry. lolerskates. We ought to do that every night!
Washington Square News has up to the minute coverage of Take Back NYU.
SUNY Call-Out for the March 25th Statewide Actions Against Paterson's Budget
Governor Paterson's criminal budget is scheduled for proposal on April 1st (God, I hope it's one big April Fool's Day joke). Whilst taking away essential funding from essential health care and housing programs, Paterson also plans on raising SUNY and CUNY tuition and using the money generated to backfill the NY state deficit caused by Wall Street. Please check in to find out the DL on when and where protests will be happening this month, and they WILL be happening this month.
That said, SUNY students are mobilizing. They've created a wiki that shall serve as a forum for social justice movements.
Here's a greeting from the wiki and a SUNY call to action:
Hello all!
Welcome to the SUNY Social Justice Network. Thank you all for making the first SUNY Social Justice Conference in November the success that it was. First off, we'd like to apologize for being out of touch for so long! The conference was to be a starting point from which we would continue to build upon the collective momentum achieved over those three days, and the events of the past months have demonstrated how incredibly important that remains.
Since the conference, The New School, Hampshire College, the University of Rochester, and NYU have all staged student occupations of campus space, demanding accountability and transparency from their institutions and waging powerful divestment campaigns. Students in New York are refusing to be silent, and we are finding more power and more voice each day in the face of compliant administrations and complicit government actors. These uprisings in New York come alongside international grassroots movements, from the riots in Greece and throughout EuropeUniversity of Edinburgh students who have occupied campus space in solidarity with Palestine, the first Zapatista festival of dignified rage in Mexico, the people who have taken to the streets worldwide to protest the horrors in Gaza, and so many others. And although global capitalism has long been a crisis for most of the world, its inherently unsustainable
nature is becoming clearer each day to those who are realizing they have the power to fight it.
This network can serve as a way to bring together the huge amount of energy, power, and inspiration present in New York right now. We believe that this can be achieved through the new format of sunysocialjustice.org, a wiki page that we claim as an autonomous internet space where we can share and coordinate our projects, events, news, ideas, actions, inspirations, thoughts, words, media, resources, etc! Although of course not limited to SUNY or CUNY students, "public" higher education in New York is clearly under attack and needs to be confronted through a coalition of these state schools. On the wiki site, CUNY and SUNY students can find their college or university and update their pages with current projects, news, calls to action, etc.
The Binghamton University link on the wiki site may give folks an idea of what sorts of possible content to include. This wiki site is open to everyone, and anyone can update it at any time (please see the how-to section at the bottom of the page if you are unfamiliar with the site). If your school is not listed, please still post news, updates, etc. regarding the student struggle! There is an "allies" section on the site, and anyone can add any categories they see fit. CUNY students: we SUNY students want to engage in dialogue about your social forum and current strategies! Students who have organized successful occupations or aspire to keep this movement alive: please share your stories and inspiration! In the same vein of the student occupations, this is OUR space to collectively create another educational model.
Although we hope that people will be inspired to utilize the wiki page, information can also be spread using the SUNY Social Justice Network Google Group. Please add your e-mail to the group, at http://groups.google.com/group/suny-social-justice-network.
Let's keep each other updated on our movement! Through these mediums, it is our hope that students throughout the state will be able to communicate and coordinate more effectively to build real social change.
MARCH 25th: Student Strike Against the Budget & Tuition Hikes!
On March 25th, a week before Paterson’s budget will be finalized, the SUNY Social Justice Network is calling for a STATEWIDE STUDENT STRIKE against Governor Paterson’s budget plan, which puts an unfair burden on students and working people to close the state deficit. Governor Paterson’s plan reflects a cycle of appropriating wealth from those who can least afford it to pay for the mistakes of Wall Street. Why should we cut education and health-care to send more wealth up the chain? Paterson’s budget will only be defeated by sustained grassroots action, in which SUNY and CUNY students must play a vital role. Coordinated statewide actions will send a clear message to those in power that the solution should not come at the expense of public education, health-care and vital social services. On March 25th, ditch your desks, skip class and organize actions on your campus!
On March 25th, we need to turn out in numbers on our campuses to demand:
-- Full funding for health care
-- Affordable public education
-- A Fair Share Tax where the richest New Yorkers pay an appropriate tax rate
-- No tuition increases for SUNY & CUNY
To get involved with the coordination of this statewide day of action, join the google group at http://groups.google.com/group/suny-social-justice-network and check back often at www.sunysocialjustice.org
In solidarity,
The SUNY Social Justice Network at Binghamton University
More information on the tuition hikes:
While SUNY students are being asked to pay more for their education, Governor Paterson is proposing massive budget cuts to education and health care in order to decrease the state deficit. Rather than increasing the tax rates of the 3.2% of the wealthiest New Yorkers (who currently pay the same rate as everyone else), SUNY tuition has been increased by $620 (in-state) and $2,260 (out of state) for the 2009-2010 academic year. Tuition is set to continue increasing each year until 2013, when the plan will be re-evaluated. Under the Fair Share Tax Reform Act which has been introduced in the New York State Senate (fairsharereform.com), slight increases in tax rates for the very rich (those making $250,000+/year) could "generate 6 billion dollars of revenue for the state". Tax the rich, not our education!
For more, visit www.fightthecuts.org
against police repression and neoliberalism, the -Emily
WHAT IS BROOKLYN COLLEGE DOING TO ADDRESS THE ECONOMIC AND ECOLOGICALCRISES?
A conversation on
WORKER COOPS,
GREEN JOBS, and
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT,
WITH PROFESSORS SARU JAYARAMAN (POLSCI) AND MICHAEL MENSER (PHILOSOPHY)
March 10th, 2009
12:15-2pm
Room 4145 BOYLAN HALL
Sponsored by Students for Global Justice and the Philosophy Society
Saru Jayaraman is a graduate of Yale Law School and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. In 1992 she founded Women and Youth Supporting Each Other (W.Y.S.E.), a national women of color leadership organization. At the Workplace Project, she created The Alliance for Justice, to organize Latina/o custodial, factory, and restaurant workers for workplace justice. Most recently, with displaced workers the World Trade Center, she founded the Restaurant Opportunities Center of New York (ROC-NY), which has organized restaurant workers to win campaigns against high-profile exploitative restaurants, launch a cooperative restaurant, COLORS, and initiate the country’s first national restaurant workers’ association. As a Professor of Political Science at Brooklyn College, Ms. Jayaraman published The New Urban Immigrant Workforce in 2005.
Dr. Michael Menser is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Brooklyn College and is a member of the Executive Board of Environmental Studies at BC, the Center for the Study of Place, Culture, and Politics at the CUNY Grad Center, and the US Solidarity Economy Network. His research is on participatory democracy and environmentalism and has been active in the World Social Forum movements. He received his Ph.D. from the CUNY Graduate Center in 2002. More at: http://depthome.brooklyn.cuny.edu/philo/Menser.htm
Fair Share Tax Reform Act NOW!
The Professional Staff Congress (PSC), the union that represents the faculty and staff of CUNY, has put together this great ditty where you can automatically contact your very own representatives and ask them to pass the Fair Share Tax Reform Act of 2009 that would undo the regressive (and fucked up) tax reforms that have taken place since the mid-90's.
From the PSC's Website:
Send a letter to your State Senator and Assembly member today, urging them to support the Fair Share Tax Reform Act of 2009 (S 2021; A 5912). This tax reform legislation would raise $6 billion in revenue for New York State by increasing the marginal tax rate on adjusted family income over $250,000.Fair Share Tax Reform has broad backing from labor and community organizations -- and the general public, as demonstrated by numerous opinion polls. The PSC has taken a leading role in proposing revenue solutions to the current budget deficit. Responding to this budget deficit by cutting services like public higher education makes no sense. Investing in CUNY, and public higher education, is the best way to reinvigorate our economy and rebuild our future.
Another Friendly Reminder for Why Voting Machines MUST GO
California Sec. of State Barbara Bowen has released a 13-page report from an investigation into accusations that the private voting systems company Diebold manipulated digital outcomes for voting tallie. Deibold changed its name from Premier GEMS after the first round of accusation a few years back. Their stupidity makes me dizzy. Anyhow, the accusations are true. What a shocker!
The report is a pdf.
This issue is of insurmountable importance to us. If voting is one of the only ways we can express our right to representation and be enfranchised citizens of this country, and these expensive privately-created voting machines, which are beyond non-transparent, just discard our votes like used-up tissues, how in hell's name are we going to claim our fair share of power? For shizz, like 72314784 techniciens from Princeton have already proved that these hunks of trash can be hacked, and hacked them on TELEVISION!
We need to convert each one of those voting machines into a Prius. Or just destroy them. Where I vote we don't use them electronic voting thieves. Beside the downright voting thievery from the two Bush terms that ultimately stole much much more from us than some pieces of paper, these voting machines cost a fortune.
Please, send us to college instead.
EFFING EVENTS and Info!
Yes, I know. The blog has been terribly slow this last week. Hope our small troupe of followers haven't disintegrated into other (less cool) Blog scenes. Truth is:
1) Going to change servers soon.
2) Have been doing a lot of organizing at CUNY
That said, here is what's up:
This Thursday, March 5th there will be a rally and march to City Hall which is in protest of the proposed CUNY budget cuts and tuition increases and in favor of the fair share tax reform. Rally begins at 3pm at Borough of Manhattan Community College, 199 Chambers Street. March to City Hall begins at 4pm. Have class? Don't go. Have work? Call in sick. For more info on bureaucracy behind CUNY and why this is important, visit the excellent blog, CUNY Disorientation Guide. For more info on the Fair Share Tax reform and why this is important, click here.
If you straight up want me to feed you reasons for why you should go, here are some facts:
1) David Paterson and Michael Bloomberg have agreed to CUNY Chancellor Goldstein's proposed CUNY tuition increases of $600 with the pretext that it will fill the budget which NY State wants to cut in order to save mullah.
2) This is horseshit because they only want to spend 20% on CUNY ($22 million) and use 80% ($88 million) to backfill the NY state deficit caused by wall street. In other words, they want to take more from poor students, mostly minorities and disadvantaged students, many of whom work jobs to stay in school, and relegate little (i.e. no) responsibility to all of the very wealthy individuals who enjoy this city.
3) The fatcat administrators at CUNY have no problem cutting CUNY's budget by $51 million, which includes financial aid as well as NYC-based, merit-based scholarships, while taking (i.e. stealing) $7 million is administrative salary increases in the last few years. their arrogance is appaling.
4) Contrary to what Bloomberg, Patterson, and Goldstein want us to believe, this isn't an individualized instance of tuition increases necessitated by the economic crises. The latter two have actively been privatizing CUNY, slashing their budgets and raising their tuition for many years. We've had enough.
5) Implementing the Fair Share Tax Reform would undo the tax cuts to NY's wealthy, implemented since the mid-1990's, and would very easily backfill the deficit.
Coming? Good. Facebook has en events page.
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