[-empyre-] Fwd: Minor Simulations, Major Disturbances

[micha cardenas]

2010/4/14 Green Jo-Anne <jo at turbulence.org>

> I don’t mean to detract from the debate about the role that
> universities play in supporting research that subverts the status
> quo. I just think that this “event” should be considered within this
> larger context, additionally, one in which millions of people have
> lost their jobs and their homes and are looking for someone to
> punish. California is bankrupt. The UC system has seen its budget
> slashed; students have seen tuition increases and been forced to drop
> out; faculty and staff have been laid off. Today, Arizona passed THE
> most anti-immigrant legislation in the nation. TBT's funding source
> is being investigated within a climate of economic scarcity and an
> angry segment of the population resisting a "government takeover " of
> health care. [TBT, after all, has been around since 2007, so why is
> it suddenly the focus of so much attention?]
>


I absolutely agree with Jo here, that we should see these events in the
larger national context. If California is seen (as some people say) as the
most radical place in the country, then it would make sense that its a major
target of the right wing. If the UC system is possibly the largest
experiment in a public university system in the country, possibly the world,
then it makes sense for it to come under the sights of the right wing
backlash. What better way to shake the radicals out of california than to
defund the UC system, where so many radical queer thinkers and political
actors make their living? It seems clear to me that this is very much in
line with Agamben's notion of state of exception, using the rhetoric of
economic crisis to push through any changes that are desired by those in
power, including paying billions to their friends at the top of major
financial companies, ending public education to continue rolling the
neoliberal agenda along, defunding arts programs. Some have said that the
recent financial crisis was the end of neoliberalism, but it seems more like
a resurgence of it to me.


-- 
micha cárdenas / azdel slade

Lecturer, Visual Arts Department, University of California, San Diego
Artist/Researcher, UCSD Medical Education
Calit2 Researcher, http://bang.calit2.net

blog: http://transreal.org
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