In honor of May Day

[stef_tm]

I joined a union - the California Faculty Association to be exact.

I have been a temporary employee of San Jose State University for 14 years. Each term I must be rehired (the paperwork is irksome; they need a rehire form so three separate forms don't have to be processed every time I teach.)

I was happy to hear the unions were able to stop Occupy SF from shutting down the Golden Gate bridge. I think the Occupy movement has been great for media but less than useful for real progressive politics. My politics are traditional libertarian - social liberal, fiscal conservative - which means I am in total alignment with progressive groups who want to stop corporate bailouts. Let economic Darwinism prevail.

Zomblog had a scathing review of the Occupy the Farm - where Occupy activists have taken over a research farm tract owned by Berkeley. Here's a link to the article http://www.zombietime.com/zomblog/?p=1842

I can't imagine how the graduate students feel. Research (and ultimately graduation) delayed by six months to a year? The possibility of not getting program-sustaining grants. They are incredibly lucky a group of frustrated Ph.D. students didn't get a gun. I was in grad school for the Iowa Physics shootings of the early 1990s. Grad students, especially in competitive programs, are already on their last nerves.

What does this accomplish? The farm is now failing.

Comments

[whatwouldruthdo.livejournal.com]

That is so incredibly misguided. Sigh. It must be heart breaking to have your work and degree fucked in the blind of an eye. Do people not understand how much work they put in?!

[yaaresse.livejournal.com]

I had high hopes that Occupy would morph into something worthwhile, but the more I talked to the Occupiers here, the less hope I had. Their objective seemed to be disruption without comprehension or plan. They mouthed the slogans, but when asked to describe what the slogans meant to them, they couldn't say. Almost all of them were drifters, focused on a safe place to sleep for the night, how to score their next smoke, where they could find a shower and a free meal...and a little attention for causing a disturbance. I felt like I was talking to some devolved species of 1980s Dead Head groupies.

There may be a core group who have ideas and coherent plans, but they're not going to get anywhere with this "non-organizational" non-structure.

[6-bleen-7.livejournal.com]

I'd be interested to read an article about Occupy the Farm that wasn't so blatantly biased.

[stef-tm.livejournal.com]

Completely biased, but it's the pictures that I find most interesting. It's consistent with some of the Occupy camps I had seen in SF and Oakland.