It’s worth thinking about how imperialist wars start; how they can end up; how opposition develops externally and domestically. Sometimes waging wars make the aggressor less stable. Sometimes they lose legitimacy. A lot depends on what the opposition does. Nick Turse got an opinion into The New York Times last Friday, In Vietnam, Callous Use of Power Led to Years of Civilian Misery: “While to Henry Kissinger and many others, the war’s lessons lay primarily in the painful realization of the limits to American power, the pain endured by millions of survivors in Vietnam who lost family, the pain of millions who were wounded, of millions who were killed, of millions driven from their homes into slums and camps reeking of squalor, seem to me to be so much greater.” How many more immoral, unjust, illegitimate wars in our name before we stop the crimes of our government?
What are the lessons we can take from these movements that apply to today? With regards to Shays’ Rebellion, we can look at two things: • The protesters had a clear, coherent message and stuck with it • They escalated the situation over time. With regards to a clear message, the best thing student debt activists can do today is to get on the same page with one another so that there is one, coherent message that gets repeated again and again. This will help serve as a guiding point for the goal that is to be achieved. This means activists can up the ante and bring more attention to their cause by doing things like blocking roads and disrupting the status quo in a variety of peaceful, nonviolent ways.
Among the protesters rallying this week were students at more than 200 college campuses across the country. In New York, undergrads, high schoolers, grad students, adjunct professors and campus workers from around the city gathered at Columbia University to discuss their experiences in low-wage industries and the need for better wages and working conditions. Some drew connections between economic justice and movements including Black Lives Matter, environmental justice and improving resources for sexual violence survivors. A few participants held a long banner with a black prohibition sign covering Ronald McDonald’s image. Below the drawing, the banner read, “FIGHT FOR $15.” Above it, “STUDENTS ARE NOT LOVIN IT.” For many students, raising the minimum wage is more than an abstract political issue. Some students work low-wage jobs to help pay tuition or cover their living expenses; others might do so after graduation, when they will have an average of almost $30,000 in student loan debt.
Students are occupying buildings at three London universities in what they claim is a nationwide protest against an “increasingly neoliberal, undemocratic and restrictive education system”. On the evening of 26 March, protests were taking place at the University of the Arts London, the London School of Economics and King’s College London in the wake of similar occupations in continental Europe, including one at the University of Amsterdam. Free education, more transparency in university decision-making and the introduction of the living wage are among the various demands of students involved in the London protests.
In Italy, thousands of students took to the streets Thursday in Milan, the second most populous city in the country, to protest against education reforms. “This is another attack on public schools. Let us return to the streets to demand our rights. Greece is an example to follow in the fight against austerity, “said a protester. The clashes erupted when students approached the building of Lombardy, the main seat of government. As the cops cut over the protesters, they began throwing eggs, stones, smoke bombs and bottles with paint. Also, similar demonstrations took place in cities like Turin, Pisa and Rome (capital). “We are against an idea of education they are proposing, and we have an alternative. We have many alternatives and are a factory of ideas, “said a student from Rome. Riot police also arrested several students, but have not yet been revealed information on the number of wounded, according to local sources. This is another attack on public schools. Let us return to the streets to demand our rights. Greece is an example to follow in the fight against austerity “. “This is another attack on public schools. Let us return to the streets to demand our rights. Greece is an example to follow in the fight against austerity, “said a protester. The clashes erupted when students approached the building of Lombardy, the main seat of government. As the cops cut over the protesters, they began throwing eggs, stones, smoke bombs and bottles with paint. Also, similar demonstrations took place in cities like Turin, Pisa and Rome (capital).
Two days after the Philadelphia School Reform Commission unilaterally canceled its teachers’ contract and announced it would impose changes, hundreds of high school students went on “strike” Wednesday to support their teachers. Dozens of students from Science Leadership Academy in Center City and as many as 175 from the High School for Creative and Performing Arts in South Philadelphia boycotted classes. They held peaceful, upbeat demonstrations outside the two magnet schools. Twenty-five students from the Franklin Learning Center in Spring Garden demonstrated outside district headquarters at 440 N. Broad St. “There’s a lot of talk about teachers going on strike,” said Cy Wolfe, a theater major at CAPA who helped organize what he called the “Philadelphia Student Strike.” Co-organizer Leo Levy, 16, a junior at Science Leadership, said the event was held “to show student solidarity with the plight of the teachers and to show how invested in a proper education the student body really is.” On Monday, the SRC voted to cast aside the expired Philadelphia Federation of Teachers contract and require teachers to begin contributing to the cost of their health insurance premiums on Dec. 15.
This past August, when protests in response to the police killing of Michael Brown did not abate after the first few days, instead attracting forces such as the New Black Panthers and the Revolutionary Communist Party, first the right-wing blogosphere, then other media, started reporting on “outside agitators.” What was remarkable – leaving aside what one thinks of the particular actors being “outed” – was the way such media seemed focused on and effectively worked to undermine, a certain kind of protest. Such press behavior in Missouri along with such things as revelations of spying on Muslim-American leaders, the making an example of Occupy activist Cecily McMillan, and other such repressive phenomenon, point to the omnipresence in 2014 of ubiquitous police-state measures in play. Sometimes covert, sometimes just the normal operation of things, they are an expression of a repressive terrain that has become effectively a way of life for anyone seen to be standing on the wrong side of the dominant authority.
Previous dress code battles have focused on issues such as the length of boys’ hair or sagging trousers. The current round centres on girls revealing skin or wearing figure-hugging attire such as leggings or yoga pants. Schools have expressed concern such attire could “distract” other pupils and responded by sending students home or obliging them to wear oversized, baggy “shame suits”. Since such punishment predominantly affects girls some commentatorsthink it could violate Title IX, the federal law that ensures non-discrimination in educational environments. There were laws against indecent exposure but some schools went further by decreeing what was and was not good taste, said Robson. “Just because someone wears something that we consider bad taste doesn’t mean the state should mandate.”
he University of Chicago is now a school divided as an online feud erupts over the issue of sexual assaults on campus. “Everyone’s worried about the safety of the victims, and now it seems they have to worry about the privacy of everyone accused,” said Sophie Holtzmann, a University of Chicago student. Over the weekend, the names of six individuals accused of sex crimes against women, both current and former students, were posted on Tumblr. The post also classified the danger of their alleged assaults as code red and code orange. Students say copies of the list were also seen in women’s bathrooms around campus. More than hundreds of students, alumni and community members participated in a peace march Wednesday night in the Hyde Park neighborhood. University of Chicago alumna and rape survivor Christina Pillsbury also attended the march. The U.S. Department of Education opened an investigation of the university’s handling of several sexual assault cases in February.
Hundreds of students throughout suburban Denver protested a conservative school policy proposal by walking out of classrooms Tuesday. Following a policy trend that’s gaining traction nationwide, the Jefferson County School Board in Colorado plan would restrict history education to subject matter that “promote[s] citizenship, patriotism, essentials and benefits of the free-market system, respect for authority and respect for individual rights.” According to the curricula proposal, students would only be taught lessons depicting American heritage in a positive light, and effectively ban any material that could lead to dissent. Under the proposed policy, a review committee would regularly read instructional text and course syllabi to ensure that educational materials do not stray from subject matter that complies with the policy. But students involved in the walkout contend that censored coursework actually contradicts American history and ideals. Many of them brought signs about the patriotic nature of protest, and waved American flags as they walked.
As I’m posting this, south-siders, CTU members and community activists from around the city are sitting-in outside the mayor’s office demanding that Dyett High School not be closed. If Rahm and Byrd-Bennett carry out their plan to close Dyett and turn it over to private operators, they will leave Bronzeville, Oakland and Kenwood without a neighborhood public high school. Community activist Bob George writes from the sit-in: For three years now Dyett students have been without the courses, staffing and funding afforded “normal” High School. They are being phased out. Turned about. Taunted and tempted to attend alternative schools. Abandon your neighborhood school. Close the doors. Shut the windows.
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