[-empyre-] Demand Nothing, Occupy Everything? California is burning ....

[Christiane Robbins]

Hi Marco, Micha, everyone


The irony implicit in your statement re: this situation begs for  
further explication + analysis:

> It is only in this country that three decades of brainwashing have
> led to the obliteration of historic memory (the cancellation of May1st
> being the most notable example), and to the perception that going on
strike is somehow out of fashion.


And ... to add to the circulating narratives and links -

I found it curious that the Chronicle for HE published this -

http://chronicle.com/blogPost/California-Is-Burning/8915/?sid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en


Chris

On Nov 19, 2009, at 8:34 AM, Marco Deseriis wrote:

> Hi Micha,
>
> yes, thank you for sharing those precious links.
>
>> At UCSD, very few students, faculty and staff that I've talked to  
>> knew
>> about or support the strike do. Myself and a handful of other  
>> faculty,
>> staff and students are striking, but is the very idea of a strike not
>> viral but more based in monolothic constituencies and factory models
>> of labor?
> No, I just think that after 3-4 decades of resting on dreams of  
> unabated
> growth Americans (and Californians in particular) need to be re- 
> educated
> and reawakened as to what it means to lose one's job, as to what it
> means to fight for it, and what it means to risk of losing your job  
> for
> defending it. So thank you for taking on this rather humongous  
> task ;-)
>
> To me it is not a matter of virality but of culture. People in Latin
> America, Asia, Europe and all over the world keep going on strike for
> defending their jobs, demanding higher wages, security on the  
> workplace,
> etc. It is only in this country that three decades of brainwashing  
> have
> led to the obliteration of historic memory (the cancellation of May1st
> being the most notable example), and to the perception that going on
> strike is somehow out of fashion.
>
> In actual fact, there exists a growing global movement to defend  
> public
> education, and to build an entirely different model of knowledge
> sharing. You are probably familiar with this site:
>
> http://www.edu-factory.org
>
> which reports the news of 15 arrests at UCLA:
>
> http://www.edu-factory.org/edu15/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=240:students-arrested-at-ucla&catid=34:struggles&Itemid=53
>
> and whose picture eloquently show the response of public authorities  
> to
> this growing mobilization.
>
>> Perhaps the spreading occupations are more viral? I wonder
>> about this as I start going on strike tomorrow and join actions at
>> UCSD...
>>
>>
> Well, it is not up to me to say that strikes and occupations are just
> two sides of the same coin.
>
>
>
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C h r i s t i a n e   R o b b i n s


- J E T Z T Z E I T   S T U D I O S -

... the space between zero and one  ...
Walter Benjamin


LOS ANGELES    I    SAN FRANCISCO


" The present age prefers the sign to the thing signified, the copy to  
the original, fancy to reality,
the appearance to the essence
for in these days
  illusion only is sacred, truth profane."
Ludwig Feuerbach, 1804-1872




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