Publish to Newswire
Add an EventFrom the Open-Publishing Calendar
From the Open-Publishing Newswire
Indybay Feature
Occupy the Crisis: The Emerging Student-Worker Direct Action Movement in California
OCCUPY THE CRISIS!: the emerging student-worker direct action movement in california
(a summary commissioned by the antioch rebel newspaper from a participant in the ucsc actions)
On Sept. 24, thousands of students, faculty, and staff walked out of University of California campuses across the state. The walk-outs and one-day strike were called by a wide coalition of UC unions and activist groups as a largely symbolic protest against the budget cuts, fee hikes and firings associated with the state budget crisis. At two campuses, however, in Santa Cruz and Berkeley, some people then walked back in and began to initiate occupations. Administrators and activists alike were stunned that the logic of symbolic protest had been abandoned for concrete, insurrectionary activity. Occupation, a tactic which is mostly unfamiliar in the U.S., is widely generalized in many social struggles throughout the world, and points towards new dimensions of struggle and autonomous organization that are likely to prove particularly vital as the economic crisis continues and deepens.
(a summary commissioned by the antioch rebel newspaper from a participant in the ucsc actions)
On Sept. 24, thousands of students, faculty, and staff walked out of University of California campuses across the state. The walk-outs and one-day strike were called by a wide coalition of UC unions and activist groups as a largely symbolic protest against the budget cuts, fee hikes and firings associated with the state budget crisis. At two campuses, however, in Santa Cruz and Berkeley, some people then walked back in and began to initiate occupations. Administrators and activists alike were stunned that the logic of symbolic protest had been abandoned for concrete, insurrectionary activity. Occupation, a tactic which is mostly unfamiliar in the U.S., is widely generalized in many social struggles throughout the world, and points towards new dimensions of struggle and autonomous organization that are likely to prove particularly vital as the economic crisis continues and deepens.
OCCUPY THE CRISIS!: the emerging student-worker direct action movement in california
(a summary commissioned by the antioch rebel newspaper from a participant in the ucsc actions)
On Sept. 24, thousands of students, faculty, and staff walked out of University of California campuses across the state. The walk-outs and one-day strike were called by a wide coalition of UC unions and activist groups as a largely symbolic protest against the budget cuts, fee hikes and firings associated with the state budget crisis. At two campuses, however, in Santa Cruz and Berkeley, some people then walked back in and began to initiate occupations. Administrators and activists alike were stunned that the logic of symbolic protest had been abandoned for concrete, insurrectionary activity. Occupation, a tactic which is mostly unfamiliar in the U.S., is widely generalized in many social struggles throughout the world, and points towards new dimensions of struggle and autonomous organization that are likely to prove particularly vital as the economic crisis continues and deepens.
WHAT IS AN OCCUPATION?
An occupation is a break in capitalist reality that occurs when people directly take control of a space, suspending its normal functions and animating it as a site of struggle and a weapon for autonomous power. Occupations are a common part of student struggles in France, where for example in 2006 a massive youth movement against the CPE (a new law that would allow employers to fire first-time workers who had been employed for up to 2 years without cause) occupied high schools and universities and blockaded transit routes. In 1999, the National Autonomous University of Mexico City was occupied for close to a year to prevent tuition from being charged. Both of these struggles were successful. In Greece and Chile, long and determined student struggles have turned campuses into cop-free zones, which has in turn led to their use as vital organizing spaces for social movement involving other groups like undocumented migrants and indigenous people.
Occupations have not been seen much in the U.S. since the 1970s until 2008 when workers at the Republic Windows and Doors Factory in Chicago occupied the building and won back pay from the bank that foreclosed the factory. In following months, university students in New York City staged several occupations in resistance to the corporatization of their schools. It was this activity which inspired the students in Santa Cruz and Berkeley.
WHAT IS THE CRISIS?
Students at UCs and CSUs are facing a 32% fee hike which their governing bodies will ratify on November 17. 50,000 students were turned away from community colleges this year, and as many will be turned away from CSUs starting next year. The hikes, cuts and firings affecting public education (among other services) throughout this state (among other places) are described as austerity measures in response to the global economic crisis. Like the recession, those in power who are making these decisions would like us to believe they are temporary.
But it seems some of us have learned a little too well. It turns out that global capital has been in decline for about 30 years, and has only been kept aloft by various financial bubbles - the S&L bubble in the 80s, the dot-com bubble in the 90s and more recently the housing market bubble which burst in 2008. This has led to the mass foreclosures throughout California as well as food riots throughout many of the poorer countries in the world.
We are going to school to avoid having to engage in menial labor for the rest of our lives, but this long collapse means the jobs simply won't be there. Most of us are working shit jobs already, sometimes alongside people with degrees. In the meantime, student loan volume has skyrocketed 800 percent since the early 80s. College is now just a place where we'll get ripped off one last time on our way to be dumped out of the system as debt-laden, unemployed nobodies. Out of a workforce of 20 million in California, 2 million are now unemployed and 1.5 million underemployed. Each year, it seems, capitalism needs fewer and fewer of us as workers (except for cops to keep the rest of us in line). We could well be heading into another Great Depression where we will have to band together to squat, loot and organize our own communities just to survive.
Crises are often times when reactionary forces take hold, capitalizing on people's anxiety and desires to get back to "the way things were". This will very likely not be possible this time. This is why activist approaches geared towards returning things to normal and negotiating with the state miss the point entirely. We have a chance, if we use it wisely, to steer this crisis away from the reactionary option and towards a decisive break with the nightmare reign of economic value which renders us nothing but its disposable appendages.
WHAT IS HAPPENING ON CALIFORNIA CAMPUSES?
The occupation of UC Berkeley on Sept 24 failed due to the intervention of reformist student activists, but the occupation of the Grad Student Commons at UCSC went off successfully. Seizing control of this building on the campus's central plaza, occupiers hung banners that urged "TAKE OVER CAMPUS, TAKE OVER THE CITY, END CAPITAL!" and read a statement entitled "Occupy California". This explained that the occupation was a tactic to directly open space for the development of student and worker power, not a ploy to bargain with administrators. The discourse of the activist is dead for us. We know there is no funding and these assholes couldn't help us even if they did see us as anything besides numbers.
Over the next 6 days, the space was used to host meetings about how to broaden and escalate the struggle, as well as to throw several raging dance parties in the plaza. There was also an attempt to raid the campus bookstore en masse which was thwarted by cops. Eventually the occupation was dissolved as the deadline of a threatened police action approached, so that the momentum could be kept up and transferred to new projects rather than everyone getting arrested for no reason. The GSC was a bold step forward in an experimental process. One thing we learned was that at this stage, authorities are very reluctant to create confrontations: they know they look bad enough already. A tremendous amount of enthusiasm was focalized through the space, but unfortunately, the occupiers of the GSC had not planned to be able to hold the building for so long and had to scramble to assemble plans to spread radical activity. We learned that people will come out of the woodwork if they are excited about what's going on, but also that the occupation has to grow and ramify or it's nothing.
In the weeks since then, a number of sit-ins and soft (not barricaded) occupations of space have occurred at UC Berkeley, CSU Fullerton, and CSU Fresno. Another building at UCSC, this time including the office of a dean who cut many programs and fired a bunch of people, was occupied briefly. Participants in the UCSC occupations traveled to several campuses in southern California recently and a UC-wide general assembly was held in Berkely. Many folks have been inspired by the actions taken in Santa Cruz and there is a lot of talking and planning going on right now.
Some of the main obstacles the emerging student movement is facing are how to connect with non-student workers on campus, with people at other kinds of schools and with society as a whole. Another big issue is how to avoid being recuperated and co-opted by administrators and activists. One of the sit-ins, at a library at UC Berkeley, was seized on by the administration as an excuse to privatize library hours while showing how they are really listening to the students. At the second UCSC occupation, a Marxist professor convinced many people to dismantle barricades and go home early. It's hoped by some that the insurrectionary approach will have the virture of deepening, not neutralizing the contradictions we are currently experiencing.
WHAT'S NEXT?
Unions and student groups have announced they are planning to shut down the UC Regents meeting at UCLA on November 18th to prevent the fee hike from being voted in. With the CSU Board of Trustees meeting in Long Beach on the same day, actions are being organized at public campuses around the state. While geared to this temporality, the calls to action are not being framed around any deluded hopes for a return to a normalcy that was never good enough to begin with, and is certainly not coming back anyway.
We are under no illusions that we are 'leading' a struggle, only that we are situated uniquely to confront the crisis as youth recognizing that we simply have no future in capitalism. We can only begin where we are. If we begin, it opens space for other people (like non-student staff) to also begin taking charge of their own lives. If we act in concert, we can collectively dissolve the academy along with the alienating and exploitative society that it serves.
As it states in the "Occupy California" communique, "This crisis is general and the revolt must be generalized... We call on the people of California to occupy and escalate." This means schools, workplaces, foreclosed homes, BART stations. This means we will break with capitalist time to inaugurate OUR time. We have begun.
http://occupyca.wordpress.com
http://wewanteverything.wordpress.com
http://likelostchildren.blogspot.com
http://myspace.com/925arrow
(a summary commissioned by the antioch rebel newspaper from a participant in the ucsc actions)
On Sept. 24, thousands of students, faculty, and staff walked out of University of California campuses across the state. The walk-outs and one-day strike were called by a wide coalition of UC unions and activist groups as a largely symbolic protest against the budget cuts, fee hikes and firings associated with the state budget crisis. At two campuses, however, in Santa Cruz and Berkeley, some people then walked back in and began to initiate occupations. Administrators and activists alike were stunned that the logic of symbolic protest had been abandoned for concrete, insurrectionary activity. Occupation, a tactic which is mostly unfamiliar in the U.S., is widely generalized in many social struggles throughout the world, and points towards new dimensions of struggle and autonomous organization that are likely to prove particularly vital as the economic crisis continues and deepens.
WHAT IS AN OCCUPATION?
An occupation is a break in capitalist reality that occurs when people directly take control of a space, suspending its normal functions and animating it as a site of struggle and a weapon for autonomous power. Occupations are a common part of student struggles in France, where for example in 2006 a massive youth movement against the CPE (a new law that would allow employers to fire first-time workers who had been employed for up to 2 years without cause) occupied high schools and universities and blockaded transit routes. In 1999, the National Autonomous University of Mexico City was occupied for close to a year to prevent tuition from being charged. Both of these struggles were successful. In Greece and Chile, long and determined student struggles have turned campuses into cop-free zones, which has in turn led to their use as vital organizing spaces for social movement involving other groups like undocumented migrants and indigenous people.
Occupations have not been seen much in the U.S. since the 1970s until 2008 when workers at the Republic Windows and Doors Factory in Chicago occupied the building and won back pay from the bank that foreclosed the factory. In following months, university students in New York City staged several occupations in resistance to the corporatization of their schools. It was this activity which inspired the students in Santa Cruz and Berkeley.
WHAT IS THE CRISIS?
Students at UCs and CSUs are facing a 32% fee hike which their governing bodies will ratify on November 17. 50,000 students were turned away from community colleges this year, and as many will be turned away from CSUs starting next year. The hikes, cuts and firings affecting public education (among other services) throughout this state (among other places) are described as austerity measures in response to the global economic crisis. Like the recession, those in power who are making these decisions would like us to believe they are temporary.
But it seems some of us have learned a little too well. It turns out that global capital has been in decline for about 30 years, and has only been kept aloft by various financial bubbles - the S&L bubble in the 80s, the dot-com bubble in the 90s and more recently the housing market bubble which burst in 2008. This has led to the mass foreclosures throughout California as well as food riots throughout many of the poorer countries in the world.
We are going to school to avoid having to engage in menial labor for the rest of our lives, but this long collapse means the jobs simply won't be there. Most of us are working shit jobs already, sometimes alongside people with degrees. In the meantime, student loan volume has skyrocketed 800 percent since the early 80s. College is now just a place where we'll get ripped off one last time on our way to be dumped out of the system as debt-laden, unemployed nobodies. Out of a workforce of 20 million in California, 2 million are now unemployed and 1.5 million underemployed. Each year, it seems, capitalism needs fewer and fewer of us as workers (except for cops to keep the rest of us in line). We could well be heading into another Great Depression where we will have to band together to squat, loot and organize our own communities just to survive.
Crises are often times when reactionary forces take hold, capitalizing on people's anxiety and desires to get back to "the way things were". This will very likely not be possible this time. This is why activist approaches geared towards returning things to normal and negotiating with the state miss the point entirely. We have a chance, if we use it wisely, to steer this crisis away from the reactionary option and towards a decisive break with the nightmare reign of economic value which renders us nothing but its disposable appendages.
WHAT IS HAPPENING ON CALIFORNIA CAMPUSES?
The occupation of UC Berkeley on Sept 24 failed due to the intervention of reformist student activists, but the occupation of the Grad Student Commons at UCSC went off successfully. Seizing control of this building on the campus's central plaza, occupiers hung banners that urged "TAKE OVER CAMPUS, TAKE OVER THE CITY, END CAPITAL!" and read a statement entitled "Occupy California". This explained that the occupation was a tactic to directly open space for the development of student and worker power, not a ploy to bargain with administrators. The discourse of the activist is dead for us. We know there is no funding and these assholes couldn't help us even if they did see us as anything besides numbers.
Over the next 6 days, the space was used to host meetings about how to broaden and escalate the struggle, as well as to throw several raging dance parties in the plaza. There was also an attempt to raid the campus bookstore en masse which was thwarted by cops. Eventually the occupation was dissolved as the deadline of a threatened police action approached, so that the momentum could be kept up and transferred to new projects rather than everyone getting arrested for no reason. The GSC was a bold step forward in an experimental process. One thing we learned was that at this stage, authorities are very reluctant to create confrontations: they know they look bad enough already. A tremendous amount of enthusiasm was focalized through the space, but unfortunately, the occupiers of the GSC had not planned to be able to hold the building for so long and had to scramble to assemble plans to spread radical activity. We learned that people will come out of the woodwork if they are excited about what's going on, but also that the occupation has to grow and ramify or it's nothing.
In the weeks since then, a number of sit-ins and soft (not barricaded) occupations of space have occurred at UC Berkeley, CSU Fullerton, and CSU Fresno. Another building at UCSC, this time including the office of a dean who cut many programs and fired a bunch of people, was occupied briefly. Participants in the UCSC occupations traveled to several campuses in southern California recently and a UC-wide general assembly was held in Berkely. Many folks have been inspired by the actions taken in Santa Cruz and there is a lot of talking and planning going on right now.
Some of the main obstacles the emerging student movement is facing are how to connect with non-student workers on campus, with people at other kinds of schools and with society as a whole. Another big issue is how to avoid being recuperated and co-opted by administrators and activists. One of the sit-ins, at a library at UC Berkeley, was seized on by the administration as an excuse to privatize library hours while showing how they are really listening to the students. At the second UCSC occupation, a Marxist professor convinced many people to dismantle barricades and go home early. It's hoped by some that the insurrectionary approach will have the virture of deepening, not neutralizing the contradictions we are currently experiencing.
WHAT'S NEXT?
Unions and student groups have announced they are planning to shut down the UC Regents meeting at UCLA on November 18th to prevent the fee hike from being voted in. With the CSU Board of Trustees meeting in Long Beach on the same day, actions are being organized at public campuses around the state. While geared to this temporality, the calls to action are not being framed around any deluded hopes for a return to a normalcy that was never good enough to begin with, and is certainly not coming back anyway.
We are under no illusions that we are 'leading' a struggle, only that we are situated uniquely to confront the crisis as youth recognizing that we simply have no future in capitalism. We can only begin where we are. If we begin, it opens space for other people (like non-student staff) to also begin taking charge of their own lives. If we act in concert, we can collectively dissolve the academy along with the alienating and exploitative society that it serves.
As it states in the "Occupy California" communique, "This crisis is general and the revolt must be generalized... We call on the people of California to occupy and escalate." This means schools, workplaces, foreclosed homes, BART stations. This means we will break with capitalist time to inaugurate OUR time. We have begun.
http://occupyca.wordpress.com
http://wewanteverything.wordpress.com
http://likelostchildren.blogspot.com
http://myspace.com/925arrow
Add Your Comments
Comments
(Hide Comments)
"One thing we learned was that at this stage, authorities are very reluctant to create confrontations: they know they look bad enough already."
I agree with this. You've correctly assessed the situation.
And that, I suspect, is why you're lying like rugs about Brian Glasscock. Were I to believe you, Brian was a poor innocent victim; brutally pepper sprayed with no advance warning. Not even a member of the action, per your claims . You also claim that the vandalizing wasn't done by you at Humanities, even though you occupied it and secluded it?
And when I look a bit deeper, what do I find?
-I find that Brian was advertising the action on his Facebook before the action occurred. So how is it that he's promoting it, attending it, but not at all involved with it?
-I find a video that clearly has the cops yelling "Stop, that's vandalism!", before they spray.
-I read Brian admitting he was throwing benches on the staircase to create a barricade. But he wasn't involved or doing any vandalizing?
And what don't I find?
- I don't find one example of the "numerous videos" you claimed exist that show the cops just going maverick and spraying innocent kids indiscrimenently.
I expect I'll wait a long time to see those.
No solidarity for me, thanks. Y'all are acting like the spoiled, entitled middle class poseurs you are. Embarrassing. Brian will grow up and take a nice cushy job in a few years. Meanwhile, the real oppressed will continue to be oppressed.
I agree with this. You've correctly assessed the situation.
And that, I suspect, is why you're lying like rugs about Brian Glasscock. Were I to believe you, Brian was a poor innocent victim; brutally pepper sprayed with no advance warning. Not even a member of the action, per your claims . You also claim that the vandalizing wasn't done by you at Humanities, even though you occupied it and secluded it?
And when I look a bit deeper, what do I find?
-I find that Brian was advertising the action on his Facebook before the action occurred. So how is it that he's promoting it, attending it, but not at all involved with it?
-I find a video that clearly has the cops yelling "Stop, that's vandalism!", before they spray.
-I read Brian admitting he was throwing benches on the staircase to create a barricade. But he wasn't involved or doing any vandalizing?
And what don't I find?
- I don't find one example of the "numerous videos" you claimed exist that show the cops just going maverick and spraying innocent kids indiscrimenently.
I expect I'll wait a long time to see those.
No solidarity for me, thanks. Y'all are acting like the spoiled, entitled middle class poseurs you are. Embarrassing. Brian will grow up and take a nice cushy job in a few years. Meanwhile, the real oppressed will continue to be oppressed.
i think that what the above comment has spouted is completely out of line.
i dont know who brian is, i wasnt there, but as anarchists, we do not care if what brian was doing was legal or illegal.
if he was in fact building barricades then that is to his or her credit.
as for the entitled middle class perspective, believe me ive talked enough shit on entitled, spoiled college kids to probably compile a small book.
what i can say about these recent occupations is that people are struggling where they are, which is good.
to imagine that the student populous can only be middle class is to be willfully ignorant. if you look at local community colleges such as Los Medanos College, Modesto Junior College and state schools as diverse as Cal State East Bay, your illusion of entitled middle class rich kids is quickly shattered.
If you do not bring the social war to the forefront of budget cuts, then where do you bring it?
I can understand much of the heat santa cruz gets, ive been known to call it anarchist disneyland, and sure kids living out in the woods pretending to be the lost boys is silly, but this is not the mass of people that were solely involved in the occupations or that have dissatisfaction with the college.
i dont know who brian is, i wasnt there, but as anarchists, we do not care if what brian was doing was legal or illegal.
if he was in fact building barricades then that is to his or her credit.
as for the entitled middle class perspective, believe me ive talked enough shit on entitled, spoiled college kids to probably compile a small book.
what i can say about these recent occupations is that people are struggling where they are, which is good.
to imagine that the student populous can only be middle class is to be willfully ignorant. if you look at local community colleges such as Los Medanos College, Modesto Junior College and state schools as diverse as Cal State East Bay, your illusion of entitled middle class rich kids is quickly shattered.
If you do not bring the social war to the forefront of budget cuts, then where do you bring it?
I can understand much of the heat santa cruz gets, ive been known to call it anarchist disneyland, and sure kids living out in the woods pretending to be the lost boys is silly, but this is not the mass of people that were solely involved in the occupations or that have dissatisfaction with the college.
Occupations and strikes get the goods like nothing else, we all know this. At the Oct 24th statewide conference in Berkeley, numerous voices proposed a general strike of all students and workers affected by the cuts, but the Trotskyist, party-building organizers/facilitators dishonestly glossed over this and pushed through a diluted "compromise" resolution that is nothing more than a date to do whatever one-day actions any individual campus or workplace wants to do. Organizers will be coming back to the campuses rallying people for everything from one day strikes to marches to bake sales, probably. I hope that the spirit of the Santa Cruz and Fresno and Fullerton and New School NYC and Paris and Athens and Vienna students carries forward!
you sound like a trotskyist yourself.
who is the "you" you are talking about? is it the person who wrote the article? is it the collective subject of everyone whos been in or around any of the occupation-events? is it anyone you have personally decreed to be "middle class" and "not really oppressed"?
shouldnt you be spouting this pro-police bullshit on the sentinel website or something? fuck the police, private property, and their apologists.
who is the "you" you are talking about? is it the person who wrote the article? is it the collective subject of everyone whos been in or around any of the occupation-events? is it anyone you have personally decreed to be "middle class" and "not really oppressed"?
shouldnt you be spouting this pro-police bullshit on the sentinel website or something? fuck the police, private property, and their apologists.
You say:
"i dont know who brian is, i wasnt there, but as anarchists, we do not care if what brian was doing was legal or illegal. if he was in fact building barricades then that is to his or her credit. "
I agree with you on that point. If he wants to be an anarchist, go for it. And be prepared to be treated in kind.
But staging an action, vandalizing, breaking the law, and then wimpering for your rights and insisting you were blindsided for doing nothing? Weak. Very Weak.
Brians upbringing is upper middle class whitebread, in upscale Walnut Creek. He was on campus about 3 weeks before getting all radical like this. It's a farce.
As for the "mass of people" you refer to? Don't be fooled by the videos that are glamorizing it. The truth is that it was a small group of anarchists and 450 bored frosh pumped up by a sound-system and nothing better to do on Friday night. Anyone who was there saw the reality of that.
But don't take my word for it. Check the campus paper and see how there is no support. Talk to the students who are hear. Reading about it from afar on IndyBay is giving a warped, and wishful, perspective.
"i dont know who brian is, i wasnt there, but as anarchists, we do not care if what brian was doing was legal or illegal. if he was in fact building barricades then that is to his or her credit. "
I agree with you on that point. If he wants to be an anarchist, go for it. And be prepared to be treated in kind.
But staging an action, vandalizing, breaking the law, and then wimpering for your rights and insisting you were blindsided for doing nothing? Weak. Very Weak.
Brians upbringing is upper middle class whitebread, in upscale Walnut Creek. He was on campus about 3 weeks before getting all radical like this. It's a farce.
As for the "mass of people" you refer to? Don't be fooled by the videos that are glamorizing it. The truth is that it was a small group of anarchists and 450 bored frosh pumped up by a sound-system and nothing better to do on Friday night. Anyone who was there saw the reality of that.
But don't take my word for it. Check the campus paper and see how there is no support. Talk to the students who are hear. Reading about it from afar on IndyBay is giving a warped, and wishful, perspective.
"As for the "mass of people" you refer to? Don't be fooled by the videos that are glamorizing it. The truth is that it was a small group of anarchists and 450 bored frosh pumped up by a sound-system and nothing better to do on Friday night. Anyone who was there saw the reality of that.
If that is true, isn't that more of a reason to support the occupation? While they were there, they created a fuss, got a lot of people interested in doing things, and got a really good critique out of capital and the role of universities within it. Class society is reproduced by all classes - including the middle. By trying to abolish their roles within that - middle class students are moving in the right direction.
Proletarians should make use of these occupations in the best way possible and for their own ends.
If that is true, isn't that more of a reason to support the occupation? While they were there, they created a fuss, got a lot of people interested in doing things, and got a really good critique out of capital and the role of universities within it. Class society is reproduced by all classes - including the middle. By trying to abolish their roles within that - middle class students are moving in the right direction.
Proletarians should make use of these occupations in the best way possible and for their own ends.
We are 100% volunteer and depend on your participation to sustain our efforts!
Donate
$25.00 donated
in the past month
Get Involved
If you'd like to help with maintaining or developing the website, contact us.
Publish
Publish your stories and upcoming events on Indybay.
Topics
More
Search Indybay's Archives
Advanced Search
►
▼
IMC Network