amateur ramblings

Following the Supreme Court’s ruling overturning political speech restrictions on corporations and unions, a chorus of voices from the Democratic Party has attacked the decision. Notably, President Obama claimed in his State of the Union address that the ruling “will open the floodgates for special interests… to spend without limit in our elections.”

I think we are missing the point. The fact is that corporate, special, and powerful interests already have effective control of our political system. As Jon Stewart’s coverage of the State of the Union effectively shows, our public discourse is already in the shits. Fox offered only vapid criticisms, saying the President was not acting “presidential” — whatever the hell that means. MSNBC the most desperate praises; and CNN the most useless collection of raw data from Twitter. This is the discourse we desperately need to save, say the Democrats?

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What the CIA looks like to the rest of the world.

There is no doubt that the families of CIA operatives killed in Afghanistan have personal tragedies to attend to. However, is it a public tragedy? For it is no less the case that those hundreds and thousands of civilians–indeed even combatants–killed by Americans in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, and now all over the world, also have families who mourn and continue to mourn for them. (more…)

One need not agree with whatever happened at the Chancellor’s mansion to resist the administration’s attempt to co-opt independent student forces by soliciting their blanket condemnation of the incident.

Governor Schwarzenegger finally took notice of public education after the incident, calling individuals who were allegedly involved “terrorists.” Earlier today the Chancellor and his PR spokesperson Dan Mogulof echoed a similar approach, calling them “extremists.” Of course, we have no idea what actually happened yet, or if police provocateurs played any role, but it is clear that with this incident the administration and police hope to obtain a pretext to further suppress student organizing efforts. Students should not give it to them — even if they disagree with what their peers are accused of doing. (more…)

UC Berkeley administrators are still dodging responsibility for police brutality on Berkeley’s campus during the occupation of Wheeler Hall on November 20. Measures that have been announced are meant to distract the campus community from the crucial fact that the problem is not necessarily with policing policy, but rather with policing as a policy. (more…)

Artificial rivalries between offensively similar elite centers of privilege are noxious enough in their own right, but when they foster elitism and prejudice, they become dangerous.

In last Friday’s edition of YDN, Bijan Aboutorabi argues that, in withdrawing a t-shirt design calling the rival-but-mirror-image team “sissies,” a university committee tasked with facilitating this crass competition produced solid evidence of “the kind of conversations the doctrine of political correctness has left us.” Aboutorabi mistakenly applies a free speech analysis to evaluate the decision, claiming that “with the words ‘I am offended!,’ any member of a community [can] decide what is or is not acceptable to say,” and that such a condition is “inimical to our ideals of free expression.” Aboutorabi is wrong on all counts. (more…)

Following the occupation of Wheeler Hall on Friday November 20, former Student Action Senator Tara Raffi penned a regrettable op-ed decrying the protest and its participants. I know Raffi, who has always been kind and respectful towards me, but her demeanor cannot save her claims from criticism or scrutiny.

Unfortunately Raffi’s column appears to misapprehend crucial facts both about the strikes and the situation facing the university. For one, Raffi draws an offensive and elitist image of the protesters. Second, she imputes onto the strikers a simplicity and ignorance that is simply dishonest given all that has been discussed at campus teach-in’s and in various fora that allow for more elaboration than a protest placard or chant. Third, she takes for granted that University administrators are acting in students’ interests (as if students cannot decide for themselves their own interests) and lets them off the hook when they should actually be spending every conscious moment lobbying on behalf of students. (more…)

Please forward to UC faculty, grad students, and friends

Dear UC Faculty and Friends,

There are few words that can describe the horror of police violence against students on UC Berkeley’s campus Friday November 20. Chancellor Birgeneau’s dispatches to the campus community, most recently those today pre-empting a critical outrage to what transpired, are disgraceful and must be met with a forceful response by UC faculty and students. What started as aggressive and unjustified provocation by UCPD was soon supplemented by the vicious behavior of officers from Berkeley Police Department and the Alameda County Sheriff. As students peaceably assembled in support of those occupying Wheeler Hall, Chancellor Birgeneau ordered or approved the deployment of hundreds of police brandishing their batons to beat the spirit of ownership out of them.

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In a conversation on the law student mailing list, one student, understandably upset about the loss of a favorite mug, shared a warning with others about thefts in the library. To the dismay of other students, however, the cautionary message also expressed frustration to the effect of “I hope to accomplish two things with this email: first, to express how ghetto it is that someone would steal property out of another student’s carrel….”

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As the House of Representatives passed its delusional resolution condemning the Goldstone Report last week, Congressman Kucinich forcefully objected: “Almost as serious as committing war crimes is covering up war crimes, pretending that war crimes were never committed and did not exist. Because behind every such deception is the nullification of humanity, the destruction of human dignity, the annihilation of the human spirit, the triumph of Orwellian thinking….“

Today marks the one year anniversary of November 13 2008. On this evening one year ago, a group of three Palestinian students holding flags in silent protest were violently confronted by a group of three concert organizers for the right-wing anti-Arab organization, Tikvah Students for Israel. Unsurprisingly, the assailants quickly tried to discredit their victims by reporting the story backwards, claiming they were the victims. Conflicting narratives do not a dispute of fact make, however, and while many were inclined to put faith in one group or another, it takes nothing less than a deliberate suspension of reason to refuse to acknowledge the bruises that appeared the next morning. (more…)

For the most part, public and explicit expressions of extreme hate or animosity towards racialized groups of people are pretty easy to identify as wrong. Despite this, in certain spaces, the infamous ‘harmless racist joke’ persists because, as the defender says, it is not to be taken as a serious communication of ill-will.

Examples of these jokes can sound something like this (and I apologize for repeating them):

• “How was the Grand Canyon formed? A Jew dropped a penny down a manhole!”
• “How do you blind an Asian woman? Put a windshield in front of her!”
• “What’s the difference between a pizza and a Mexican? A pizza can feed four!”

Of course, the person delivering this joke loves to glamorize him/herself as a bold hero who is not afraid of “being offensive” and won’t let something silly like “political correctness” get in the way of his/her free speech. In this First Amendment martyr’s world, not only should it simply be legal to tell the racist joke, but it’s also a moral duty to do so. It’s only humor, after all. (more…)