Some thoughts on the response letter: Not to be a downer, but I think that the call for dialogue by the new acting U of S prez is a by-the-books power play, not any step toward meaningful consultation or accountability. To paraphrase words from anti-poverty organizer John Clarke that have always stuck with me, I am not opposed to negotiation per se, but you have to have strength and organizational capacity to bring to the table, otherwise youre not really negotiating. They know this, and they also know that they can disrupt a young grouping like OrganizeUS by effectively asking us, produce a list of demands (which may be contentious among ourselves). From what I understand, TransformUS basic methodological premise is the university administration assuming the sole authority to act. Thus, changing anything significant in the austerity process through meaningfully consulting students and faculty would be the end of TransformUS. They are willing to demote a few administrators in response to our activities to date, because this mitigates embarrassment, but at some point soon to arrive (or already arrived), they are going to stop having the ability to be embarrassed, keep their heads down, and start bulldozing. So it seems to me that by the bulldozing point, we have to have the collective capacity to hurt the BoG (or whoever else we have identified as a driving force behind TransformUS) and to make abandoning TransformUS less painful than proceeding with it. Im not bringing this up because I think people havent thought of any of this, or something. Even the acting prez, after all, says in nice language that he intends to follow through on needed reforms, but I think its something we need to be always aware of and think about how were responding. I am not saying refuse the invitation to meet (though that could be interesting if we chose not to). But I am saying, I think we should be collectively drawing up a flowchart and democratically deciding what our responses will be to various proposals.
Posted on: Sat, 07 Jun 2014 07:19:43 +0000