UC Davis Guilty at All Levels in Student Pepper-Spraying Incident

According to a report released this week, the pepper spraying of student Occupy protesters at the University of California, Davis last November, should never have happened. Students had been protesting rising tuition, privatization, and declining student services.

According to the report, the use pepper spray on seated protesters was not justified nor authorized, the Bay Citizen reported. The spraying was carried out at close range, though it is not supposed to be used at a range of less than six feet. Furthermore, the pepper spray used by the police was a high potency variety that was not approved for use on peaceful protestors. As a result, two students were hospitalized, while twelve others were treated and released by fire department personnel.

The task force, chaired by former California Supreme Court Justice Cruz Reynoso, held the university completely responsible for the atrocity, blaming campus police and the administration of UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi. Reynoso is an emeritus professor at the UC Davis law school. The task force was made up of 12 current and former UCD officials, professors, alumni and students.

The report also concluded that campus police leaders never confirmed their assertion that the protest involved outside agitators (not that this would have justified the brutality they used), nor did they consider alternative, less violent options, compromises or communication with the student activists.

Is U.S. Planning Military Force to Suppress Unions and OWS?

Image from Flickr, by World Can't Wait

As I reported on Modern School recently, the U.S. government has committed Coast Guard ships and helicopters to defending the interests of private capital in Washington State against striking ILWU members. The Coast Guard will supposedly be protecting empty ships as they arrive in the port of Longview, Washington to pick up grain from the EGT grain terminal. EGT, which owns the terminal, has been hiring scab labor to operate the terminal, in violation of prior agreements with the ILWU. EGT has utilized the local police and private goons to intimidate ILWU members and their families, including several hundred arrests and violent assaults on peacefully demonstrating long shore workers and their families.

With Obama’s signing of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), any ILWU member accused of committing a “belligerent act” against the United States could be imprisoned indefinitely without charges or trial on the orders of the president. This means that any direct action aimed at interfering with boats arriving to pick up grain in Longview could be considered an act of aggression against the U.S. government now that those boats will be under the protection of the U.S. government.

According to Insurgent Notes, U.S. ports are already semi-militarized by “Homeland Security.” Longshoremen are required to show three electronic “smart card” IDs to enter their workplaces each day, and they are subject to background security checks.

Journalist Chris Hedges has sued the U.S. government to halt NDAA, saying it violates the constitution, as it allows the U.S. military to arrest anyone anywhere in the world and hold them indefinitely without charges. Public interest lawyer Carl Mayer told the Epoch Times that the law violates the 1^st and 5^th amendments. While lawmakers and the mainstream press continue to insist the law is meant to halt terrorist acts against the U.S., Hedges believes NDAA was designed specifically to be used against dissenters within the U.S., including anyone involved in movements deemed threatening to the “corporate state,” such as the OWS movement. (Click here to read Hedges “Why I’m Suing Obama.”)

The date of arrival of the first Coast Guard-escorted ship to the Port of Longview is a closely guarded secret. However, according to Insurgent Notes, OWS activists in the San Francisco Bay Area, Portland and Seattle are organizing caravans to Longview when the date becomes known. Elsewhere in the United States, Occupy is planning demonstrations at Coast Guard offices and at the offices of the three corporations which jointly own EGT.

Pragmatism Beats Out Occupy and Bunga Bunga for Word of Year

Merriam-Webster is calling “pragmatic” the word of the year, saying there were more searches for this one word in 2011 than any other word, including “occupy,” according to the Daily Mail.

Congressional Super Committe (by DonkeyHotey)

 Searches for the term “pragmatic” spiked this past year when Congress voted to increase the debt ceiling and when its super committee tried to slash the deficit. This I found curious considering that the word “pragmatic” is far more useful, comprehensible and, one would think, more well-known than the words “deficit” or “debt ceiling.” But maybe Americans’ attention and curiosity glazed over once they got past the “pragmatism” that was being imposed on them by their rulers. Perhaps that was all they needed to know, that those who truly understand these things were simply creating a logical solution to incomprehensible problems, and that was good enough!

That “pragmatic” beat out “occupy” will surely be a disappointment to the 99%, who are certain that they truly are the 99% and that their favorite tactic, ”occupying” should therefore have received 99% of the votes, while “pragmatic,” which is clearly what the 1% want the 99% to be, should have only received 1% of the votes. This paradox may best be explained by the 99%’s confidence that they all know what they’re talking about already when they say they are “occupying” this and that. Therefore, the 99% don’t need to look up the word “occupy.” In contrast, as members of the 99% who are subject to the “pragmatism” being imposed by the 1%, they felt inclined to do a little homework and make sure that this “pragmatism” business really was in their best interests.

(Image from Flickr, Boris.rasin)

 While the 99% are all certain that everyone understands the term “Occupy,” and are now using the term for most anything they want to change—Wall Street, Wal-Mart, Department of Education, internet, Republican minds, couches, Sesame Street—they seem to forget that their own government—which is to say, the 1%—has been “occupying” Iraq and Afghanistan for the past decade, not to mention Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, Guam, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and Samoa for much longer. So, if we add together the occupations being carried out in the name of the 99% and those being carried out by the 1%, it would seem that everyone is occupying or being occupied.

Apropos (which, alas, was not one of the contenders this year) to ending military and imperialist occupations, two of my favorite pieces of political graffiti from the 1980s were: “U.S. out of America,” and the variant “U.S. out of my reproductive organs.” There were, of course, some nationalistic feminists in those days, one of whom spray-painted the following on a San Francisco wall: “Free Tampons, Not Kuwait.” Inspired by these retro-slogans, I would like to suggest some new slogans for the 2010s like: “Free Time, Not Markets!” or “In A Classless Society We Are All the 50%!”

This double use of the term “occupy” to mean something good that “the people” do to resist the “bad governments” that “occupy” other nations for “bad reasons,” reminds me of the term “collaborate,” which is supposedly a good thing that good teachers do to help their students, even though it is also a terrible thing that the Vichy government did to help the Nazis. Both “occupation” and “collaboration” can lead to repression, brutality and death for innocent people. In fact, the terms are quite connected in that occupiers rely on collaborators to help them achieve their goals. The Palestinian Authority has acted as a collaborator with the Israeli government in the suppression of the Palestinian people. The mainstream trade unions have acted as collaborators with the capitalists to ensure that working people stay on the job and accept compromises and take-backs that keep profits high and salaries low. Scabs collaborate with bosses to undermine strikes. Spies and informants collaborate with the police and military to undermine activist groups like OWS.

Teacher “collaboration” is a funny thing. The notion of a bunch of professionals sitting down together to brainstorm solutions to educational problems, develop innovative curriculum, and discuss the issues and needs of shared students certainly makes a lot of sense and seems worthwhile. However, the term “collaboration” in the context of education is a fraught, poorly defined and often abused term. It is commonly used to mean “embrace what I say and what I’m doing and graciously assist in it, whether or not you agree.” Teachers who ask too many questions, who point out logical inconsistencies or who critique reforms and policies are often accused of being “bad collaborators.” Teacher evaluations generally include how well they “collaborate,” a subjective observation that can be used to punish teachers who aren’t cheerleaders for the reform du jour.

Charlie Sheen Has Tigers Blood (image from Flickr, by Ssoosay)

 Speaking of collaboration, what could be a greater collaboration than that between Hollywood and the public? Hollywood provides billions of dollars’ worth of mindless garbage for our consumption and we not only consume it hungrily, but stalk their stars’ every move, no matter how pitiful. Take “Tiger’s Blood,” another top contender for word of the year—a term I had no idea was now in the popular vernacular. I had to look this one up, being the out-of-touch OG (old guy) that I am and was delighted to discover that it came from a Tweet by Charlie Sheen. Tiger’s Blood, it seems, is what runs through his veins, somehow making him impervious to addiction (and likely contributing to both his inflated ego and his stupidity). The fact that this word went viral and was even considered for word of the year is testament to how desperate the American people are for a distraction to their miseries. Wetting oneself over royal weddings and scandals is pathetic enough, but following every ridiculous tweet by drunken Hollywood bottom feeders like Charlie Sheen??? Come on, people, get a life!

Speaking of getting a life, I would like to humbly (or humblebragly) request that those esteemed billionaires who seem to know so much about how to do my job, kindly eat feces and die. Yes, “humblebrag” was another top contender. According to Urban Dictionary, it means to subtly let other people know how fantastic you are by doing it in a self-deprecating manner, or self-promotion of the most despicable and loathsome sort, generally delivered via social media. An example of a “humblebrag” would be if I posted the following to my blog or Twitter feed: ”As everybody knows, teachers all come from the bottom one-third of their graduating classes. So the 4.0 GPA I earned was nothing compared with the 12.0 GPA’s earned by the overachievers at my university.”

Would Anyone Care To Bunga Bunga? (Berlusconi caricature by DonkeyHotey, flickr)

 My vote for the word of the year, however, has to go to an antiquated, but very evocative term that made a recent comeback. “Bunga bunga” dates back to 1910 or earlier, according to Wikipedia. However, it grew in popularity last year when Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi used it to refer to his infamous orgies. Wikipedia says that “bunga bunga” may mean an underwater orgy, an African-style ritual performed by naked women for male spectators, with pole dancing and competitive stripteases by women dressed as nurses and cops. My guess is the term is a variation on bung or bunghole, as in having one’s head in the bung or “Whoops, Silvio’s stuck his tongue in the bung again.” Or, as Gargantua recited to Grangousier at the tender young age of five (In Rabelais’ political satire): 

Thy Bung

Hath Flung

Some Dung

                --On us

Occupy Everything And Then?

Huck/Konopacki Labor Cartoons

Several major unions have given their support to the Occupy Wall Street movement, as have numerous activist and community-based organizations. Satellite actions are springing up across the country and in Canada and Australia. Clearly, ordinary citizens around the world are fed up with corporate greed, the growing wealth gap, corruption, and most of all, their own declining living standards. Inspired by the demonstrations and occupations of public squares in the Middle East and North Africa, the Wall Street “occupiers” have been making courageous sacrifices of time, comfort and personal safety, as many have been arrested, pepper sprayed and beaten by the police.

So what do they want?

This is not entirely clear. Participants come from a wide range of organizations and perspectives, including anarchists, liberals, 911 conspiracy theorists, environmental groups, labor organizations and advocates for the poor and homeless. However, a common theme heard throughout the nearly 3-week long action has been that Wall Street must pay. This might be a generic or symbolic demand that all the rich pay more in taxes, or it could be a demand that the government levy fees on certain stock market transactions. It might mean higher corporate taxes or a tax on millionaires.

Regardless of the specifics, few if any are calling for an end to Wall Street, banking, speculation, wage slavery or capitalism. Rather, most seem perfectly content with the existing socioeconomic system and share the classic liberal perspective that it just needs to be reformed. From a liberal perspective, increased taxes on the wealthy and their corporations could certainly help fund social programs like education, Medicare, assistance for the poor and for single parents. However, even this is a pretty weak demand.

Huck/Konopacki Labor Cartoons

If people are going to risk jail time and physical injury at the hands of the police, they ought to ask for a lot more than increased tax revenue that might or might not trickle back down to them in the form of government charity. Why not also demand a guaranteed minimum income of $60,000 per year and universal health care for all? This would increase life expectancy and decrease chronic and infectious disease, and it would benefit everyone, regardless of their employment status, while the guaranteed lower middle class income would virtually eliminate hunger, homelessness, material insecurity and privation.

While they’re at it, why not demand an end to the petroleum, coal and nuclear industries, and a reinvestment into energy sources and technologies that are safer and healthier for people and the environment. They could also demand an end to all U.S. military and counterinsurgency operations everywhere and subsidies for repressive regimes like Israel, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Columbia. This would save trillions of tax dollars for domestic needs, while doing far more to curtail the threat of terrorism than continuing the bombings, assassinations and destruction, as it would satisfy many of the grievances that drive people to join terrorist organizations. In fact, the policies of the last ten years have increased the spread of terrorism by pissing people off and making them mistrust and hate the U.S. even more.

These liberal demands are perfectly in keeping with the perspective that our current economic and political systems are by and large good, but just in need of some minor tweaks. In fact, they leave the existing economic and political system intact and virtually unchanged. They allow the ruling elite to continue to rule, and the bosses to continue controlling economic relations, and the wealthy to remain considerably richer than the rest of us.

However, even these modest demands or the demand that Wall Street “pay” cannot be won by simply “occupying” Wall Street. (Massive work stoppages might possibly exert the kind of pressure necessary, but only if workers were able to resist the intense state violence that would be unleashed upon them).

More significantly, these modest liberal demands cannot end the continual cycles of boom and bust, foreclosures, bankruptcies, unemployment, workplace injury and death. These are all hallmarks of capitalism and necessarily result from the capitalist system. We can mitigate some of the negative effects of capitalism slightly for some people through increased social spending, but there will continue to be a small class of individuals who own all of the machinery of production and the overwhelming share of the wealth. They will continue to maintain a monopoly on political power and overwhelming control over our lives at work and in the streets. They will continue to exploit legal loopholes and break the law when they think they can get away with it, or when the cost of the penalties is lower than the profits to be earned. They will continue to pay us far less than the value of the goods and services we produce and pocket the difference as profits. They will continue to mechanize the workplace, speed up production, downsize staffs, and export jobs whenever this helps their bottom line. And we will continue to accept whatever conditions they establish just to ensure that we have a stable income to feed our children.

It is interesting that so many unions are suddenly jumping aboard the “Occupy Wall Street” movement. They had the opportunity to take a stand against corporate greed and criminality when the economic crisis first began. Instead, they accepted the bosses’ claims that it was a “natural disaster” and that “we all must tighten our belts.” Consequently, instead of going on the offensive and demanding higher wages, shorter hours, bigger pensions and better health care, they started from the very weak bargaining position that the best they could possibly get was an already weak status quo and maybe save a few jobs. As a result, they put all their energy into making compromises with the bosses that resulted in cuts to pay, benefits and working conditions, albeit the cuts were often smaller than the bosses had hoped for.

The unions have suddenly awoken to realize the train was about to leave without them. The Wall Street protesters have sparked the imaginations of millions of angry and struggling Americans in a way that the unions have not done for generations (and winning considerable positive press at a time when the unions are being vilified). Thus, they are throwing their weight behind the “occupiers” in hopes that they will become a new vanguard that will rouse and inspire the working class, even if they lack a coherent platform or a strategy for winning their demands (see the comments of Stuart Applebaum, president of the RWDSU, in the Indypendent).

Perhaps one reason for the affinity between unions and the “occupiers” is that neither group seems interested in organizing. The unions have relinquished this traditional and effective strategy in favor of lobbying and campaign contributions, as if they thought they could beat Wall Street and corporations at their own game. Perhaps they thought it was more expedient. After all, $100,000 buys a lot of quick political favors (supposedly), while going out and listening to the grievances of the rabble (er, union members) is a slow, tedious process.

The Wall Street “occupiers,” on the other hand, have confused facebook and twitter announcements with true organizing, assuming that if a few people showed up, others would join in. Of course more people did show up, but without any coherence and logic to their message. The organizers of the protest picked a convenient, easy to hate target that allows participants to feel righteous indignation, much like the attentat or “propaganda by the deed” did for anarchists in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. Like the political assassinations and bombings of those early days of capitalism, many feel exuberant and thrilled by the occupation, as if convinced it will lead to a positive change in their economic situation.

A problem with vanguardist actions like the attentat and the Wall Street occupation is that they expect millions to join in, without providing any well-articulated or rational critique of the thing they are fighting, as if the action itself explained everything. This is unlikely to happen, as most anarchists eventually recognized, causing the attentat to fall from favor. The assassination of McKinley (or the attempts on Frick and Roosevelt had they been successful) could not have ended wage slavery or even have convinced sufficient numbers of workers that wage slavery was worth ending.

However, let’s assume that millions of people do join the Occupy Wall Street movement and succeed in “making Wall Street pay.” In the end, they will all go home to their same lousy jobs, mass-produced plastic toys, chronic disease and rising sea levels, while the Wall Street bankers and other millionaires continue to live in luxury and security.