In the spring of 1998, a handful of women’s studies students decided to start a feminist publication for distribution on campus and in the Champaign-Urbana community. Pandora’s Rag was a feminist zine (self-published, small circulation publication) that aimed to generate conversations about feminism, gender, and justice. They met weekly at the Women’s Studies House and produced a zine full of articles, rants, poetry, critiques, and editorials that ignited conversations about sex, liberation, and gender. Pandora’s Rag offered roughly 2 editions each semester for about 5 years, before the last edition came hot off the press.

This spring, students in the National Organization for Women UIUC-Chapter noticed the yellowed pages of the old Pandora’s Rag editions resting on the Women’s Resources Center library shelves and concocted the idea of reviving the zine. A few weeks later, they hosted an event at the Illini Union Bookstore’s Author’s Corner where excerpts from a myriad of editions were read by current U of I students and a call for submissions was launched for a Pandora’s Rag Revival Edition to be distributed this May.

Two members of Pandora’s Rag, Ross Wantland and Janelle Skaloud, tell the story of what it was like to be “on the Rag:”

Why did you join Pandora’s Rag?

Ross:  I had heard about Pandora’s Rag (P-Rag) from a few of my Women’s Studies classes/classmates, but I wasn’t really involved in any on-campus organizations. I ran into someone passing out flyers and came to an informational session. I have some vague recollection I was the only guy there, and I was really mindful/worried. I asked one of the leaders if it was okay if I was involved – I didn’t want to seem like I was pushing myself into a space I didn’t belong. I didn’t know what I was getting into, but it became a way to say some of the stuff that was on my mind: about rape, about male privilege, about all that crap. Plus, it was community. I had my classes, and I had volunteering at the rape crisis center. But this was community in a different way.

Janelle:  I had labeled myself a feminist since I was in high school.  In my experience, it was fairly obvious that women were treated as inferior to men in a variety of ways.  IMO, people who didn’t see that either thought it was right, or wanted to pretend it wasn’t that way. At the U of I, I was drawn to what was then called the Women’s Studies program. It was there that I heard of a student who wanted to start a feminist magazine. I immediately thought — I want to do that. I want to give voice to women’s experiences.  For me, feminism is about many things, but primarily it is about supporting and empowering women.

What did you see as the mission of Pandora’s Rag?

Ross:  I think for me, it showed me that there were some particular things to articulate out about how feminism was part of our everyday lives. I think it is how I would describe the call to write/author that it inspired in me.

Janelle:  We were really were trying to figure out what it all meant.  And we did that by talking about our experiences, our ideas, our outrage, our goals, and about feminist theories. I think that by doing that, you move the conversation forward, and that’s how you make change.

Ross: When I look back on it, our articles were about love, sex, pop culture, politics, more sex, more pop culture, and trying to figure out where the hell we fit.

Janelle:  A lot about sex! Women need/ed to particularly be empowered about that.

Ross:  Yeah, you’re right. And I think (about sex) we were articulating a counter narrative to Maxim and Cosmo. Remember our motto, “good girls read Cosmo, bad girls read Pandora’s Rag!”

Janelle:  Yeah, it wasn’t perfect, but it never needed to be. It was, above, all, a learning and growing experience—for us and for our readers. There was no one else doing anything like it, on a campus as big as the U of I. And now more than ever, when I feel like the “feminist” label is even more maligned in pop culture, I just can’t imagine there isn’t still a lot to say, and people who want to hear it, and people who need to hear it.

Ross: College was one of the places where we were figuring this stuff out. Perhaps that’s why we were so adamant, because it was our unfolding reality.

What did Pandora’s Rag bring to the U of I campus?

Ross:  P-Rag articulated a counter to some of the mainstream ideas about how men and women (and men and men, and women and women) should relate to each other. And it also voiced a political articulation calling out the ways women were treated in society and locally on campus. Basically, we shook shit up.

Janelle:  We told it as we saw it. I think people needed to hear what we had to say.  Some people loved it, some people hated it. It made people think, for sure.

Ross:   I think we also saw our role as people who would piss others off—happily sometimes. We were provocative, spouting off about clitoral orgasms and equal pay.

Janelle:  Oh my, yeah. You can’t play it safe. You have to grab people’s attention. Listen, feminism gets such a bad rap, people are afraid to embrace the label. But there are a ton of feminists out there, they just don’t know it yet. It’s our job to show them.

Tell me about your favorite memory from Pandora’s Rag.

Ross: I have so many fond memories of working with the wonderful people of Pandora’s Rag. One of my favorite things we did was the “Men Who Bake” Sale fundraiser (which was maybe slightly false advertising, but it was challenging stereotypes). At the bake sale, we would have people draw “identities,” such as Black female, Latino male, white man, and would ask them to pay a percent on the dollar for what that group makes compared to white men. We had so many angry dads on school visit days, and it was so much fun doing that subversive education!

Janelle:  Honestly, I have to be a little general and say it was the feeling of community.  I was so frustrated before I found P-Rag—like I was the only one who felt that there was some serious injustice going on in the world. I drew strength from joining voices to write about it, and draw about it, and laugh about it. There is strength in numbers, and it’s hard to have a movement of one.

Ross and Janelle were both original members of Pandora’s Rag in the late 1990s. Ross is a father, partner, and social justice educator living in Champaign. Janelle is an attorney and mother living in Chicago.

Bethel AME in Champaign where FirstFollowers is located.

Governor Bruce Rauner has pledged to reduce the state prison population by 25% over the course of the next ten years. At present there are over 400 people in Champaign County on state parole. If Rauner makes good on his promise (or even half good), we can count on several hundred more people fresh from prison in our community. While freeing people from the Department of Corrections would be a great step forward, such a move would prompt another important set of challenges: how do people find their way back into the community after being away for so many years? To make matters worse, people with felony convictions face many unique obstacles. Many are banned from access to SNAP (food stamps for life). In Champaign, certain categories of people returning from prison are not allowed to live in public housing, even if their family resides there. Although Illinois has officially banned the box (that question on job applications that asks about criminal background) many employers still balk at the prospect of hiring anyone with a criminal record, especially if they have committed what is considered a violent crime.

FirstFollowers, a new reentry program in Champaign County, aims to address some of these issues. The project grew out of years of discussions within the county board and in the community about the need for more reentry programs. Two key initiatives sparked the foundation of FirstFollowers. First, the local group, Citizens with Conviction, mobilized people with felony convictions to testify before the City of Urbana’s Human Relations Commission to get the box taken off all employment applications in the city. In late 2013, dozens of people came forward to speak out about their experience of being turned away by employers simply because they checked the “yes” box on an employment application, indicating they had a felony conviction. Moving testimony by the formerly incarcerated, their family members as well as employers demonstrated how answering “yes” often meant the application was discarded. The testimony by these individuals convinced the city powers to pass a special ban the box measure in Urbana which is even stronger than the state measure. No employer, private or public, is allowed to ask about a person’s criminal background until a concrete job offer is on the table. Violation of this can lead to a fine against the employer.

Second, FirstFollowers was the product of lengthy deliberations within the county board’s Community Justice Task Force. In 2013 the Community Justice Task Force, which included Carol Ammons, the newly elected local state representative, recommended the formation of a reentry program based on the principle of peer mentoring. According to the Task Force report.

First Followers aims to follow the peer mentoring model, using formerly incarcerated people as the organizers of the program as well as the providing the direct support to clients. The principle of peer mentoring means that those who have been through the process of doing time in prison and subsequently turning their lives around post-incarceration, are the ideal people to mentor those who are just beginning their transition back to the community.

Marlon Mitchell, who grew up in Champaign, has been the driving force behind First Followers. In a recent interview with Seon Williams on his WEFT radio program, “Unity in the Community,” Mitchell explained his motivation, “I come from the community. It’s affected me, my family directly.” He described how in 2012 he started attending county board meetings where the discussion was focusing on building a $20 million jail. Mitchell went home and spent time analyzing the county jail website, looking at the population that was incarcerated. He found that more than 50% of the people were Black. “I started to educate myself as to why these things are happening.” From then on, Mitchell began to meet with a range of people in the community to punt the idea of a reentry program.

The program launched in February of this year with a well-attended gathering at Bethel AME Church in Champaign where First Followers in based. Another FirstFollowers volunteer, Tamika Davis, also spoke to the crowd at the launch. She talked about how after spending eight and a half years in federal prison she came home determined to re-connect to her family and avoid the situations that would land her back behind bars. Davis now works at the University of Illinois and views FirstFollowers as an opportunity to help other young women get their life “back on track.”

At present FirstFollowers offers drop-in sessions on Tuesday and Friday from 1 to 5 p.m. They are open to all people returning from prison, as well as the family members and loved ones of those touched by incarceration. Their current activities focus largely on assisting people with searching for employment, getting proper identification and re-connecting with their families. In the future, they also intend to mobilize people impacted by incarceration to advocate for their own rights to be treated as fully-fledged citizens, as people who have paid their debt to society and deserve equal opportunity in the worlds of employment, education and all other spheres.

Those who wish to avail themselves of the services of FirstFollowers or who would like to help the organization can email firstfollowerscu@gmail.com or drop by Bethel AME Tuesday or Friday afternoons from 1 to 5 p.m. Bethel AME is located at 401 E. Park St. (corner 4^th) in Champaign.

Center for Advanced Study Professor of Media & Cinema Studies Jay Rosenstein is the award-winning filmmaker of In Whose Honor? (1997), The Amasong Chorus: Singing Out (2004), and The Lord is Not on Trial Here Today (2010)

I have solved the college tuition problem, and it was easy.

Ok, not exactly. I haven’t solved it for every college. But I have solved it for the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). And all the other public Big Ten schools as well.

The problem, of course, is that the cost of college tuition has skyrocketed. Students, and their families, are getting buried deeper and deeper in debt trying to pay for college. Public universities, once havens of affordable, quality college education, have been hit the hardest. Almost every state in America has cut, and/or is cutting funding for higher education. It is a problem that has fast become a national crisis.

But I have solved it.

President Obama has an idea for a solution. He wants to give everyone two years of college, tuition free. It’s a great solution, except for one small problem: he has no idea how to pay for it. Right now, it’s a pipe dream.

But my solution doesn’t have that problem. I know exactly how to pay for it. In fact, not only do I know how to pay for it, it will cost nothing.

My solution does not require even one additional taxpayer dollar. It doesn’t require state legislators to reallocate any of their funds, or raise taxes, or have to find any additional revenue. Not one additional state or federal dollar is necessary.

And there’s more.

The University will not have to make one single cut. Not even one employee will have to lose his or her job, not one program, major, or class will have to be eliminated. No furloughs. Not one salary will have to be lowered. Everything at the university will be exactly as it is today.

Not. One. Single. Cut. And tuition will be lower.

How much lower?

Here at UIUC, using the current admission and tuition numbers, 11.5 percent lower base tuition and fees for all in-state juniors. Or, 11.5 percent lower base tuition for all in-state seniors. Not bad, huh?

There are, of course, other ways the savings could be divided up; this is just one way.

Ok, I admit it’s not a perfect solution. An 11.5% tuition cut certainly isn’t as good as a 25% tuition cut. And a one-year discount isn’t as good as a four-year discount. So it’s not perfect. But on the other hand, it doesn’t cost a thing.

And, as promised, it’s easy. As easy as four letters, mostly.

E S P N.

That’s right, the sports television network.

ESPN can become both “The Worldwide Leader in Sports” and “The Worldwide Leader in Tuition Relief.”

Here’s how:

The Big Ten conference’s current football and basketball TV contract with ESPN expires at the end of the 2016-17 basketball season. And according to the Chicago Tribune, “One thing is certain: the Big Ten should be in line for a windfall.”

You read that correctly: a windfall.

Since the conference’s current contract with ESPN is a ten-year, $1 billion deal (that’s “b” as in billion), and the Tribune expects the next contract to be a “windfall” (its word), an additional $1 billion – an increase to $2 billion — is certainly not out of the question.

And the best news is, teams don’t have to make the playoffs to get the payoff. They don’t even have to win any games. They don’t have to do anything. The schools are just going to get the money.

Dividing that increase among the fourteen schools in the Big Ten (that’s not a typo; don’t ask), the new TV contract should mean at least an additional $7.2 million per year, per school.

That’s on top of the nearly $27 million the schools received from the Big Ten conference in 2013-14. Plus an extra $3 million that is expected for the 2014-15 fiscal year.

That’s an extra $10 million per year, minimum, free and clear, no strings attached, coming to UIUC. That money could easily be used to provide long-overdue tuition relief for Illinois families.

But what about the athletic department, you might ask?

Well, without any of this new money, the athletic department already has enough to pay the three highest public employee salaries in the entire state: the head football and basketball coaches, at $1.8 million per year each; and the athletic director, $568,000 per year, before his bonuses. Plus, six of the nine highest paid employees at UIUC are in the athletic department (in order: the head football coach, men’s head basketball coach, athletic director, football offensive coordinator, football defensive coordinator, and women’s head basketball coach).

Clearly, they’re already doing pretty well.

Not only that, the athletic department also collects a mandatory fee every semester from every student. So tuition-paying parents have already been paying for athletics.

Isn’t it time to give those parents a break?

But no one is going to touch any of that income. The athletic department will continue to keep all the revenue they have now. No cuts.

That’s a win-win no matter how you look at it.

Like I said, this is not a pipe dream. It’s real, and it can be done. You can find all the details of this plan at www.loweruofituition.org.

So here it is, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to do something that’s never been done in the lifetime of UIUC: lower tuition.

Eleven and a half percent lower tuition for all in-state juniors or seniors.

No cost.

No cuts.

Everybody wins.

I told you it was easy.

Welcome to Illinois: where the Republicans are extremists, and the Democrats are DINOs (Democrats In Name Only).

In the current state budget that runs until June, Governor Bruce Rauner faced a $1.6 billion hole– a hole that would not exist had the 3.75 percent state income tax remained at five percent, which the media conveniently forgets. But instead of raising revenue to balance the budget, Rauner-the-Reamer has cut, cut, and cut a lot more.

Rauner’s fiscal conservatism does not extend, however, to the salaries he rewards those near and dear to him. His take-no-prisoners business practices were clear before his election. In one case, he allegedly told former business associate Christine Kirk, “If you go legal on us, we’ll hurt you and your family.” Rauner also allegedly threatened her through a third party: “I will bury her. I will make her radioactive. She will never get another job anywhere, ever. I will bankrupt her with legal fees.” For this and other stories, journalist Dave McKinney left the Chicago Sun-Times after a 19-year career. After his 2014 election, Rauner threatened his Senate Republican colleagues, allegedly telling them to vote in favor of all 10 issues on his agenda, “not five, not seven,” and anybody who did not was going to have a “fucking problem” with him.

Governor Rauner’s “shock and awe”

Current stopgap budget cuts – to which the DINOs in Springfield acquiesced – are only the shape of things to come if Rauner has his way on next year’s budget. He has already made his “shock and awe” strategy explicit. Investigative journalist Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine (2007) lays it out presciently. Her quintessential case is the “shock and awe” perpetrated on Iraq beginning with George Bush’s 2003 war of aggression. First, the “shock and awe” bombing campaign. Second, wiping the slate of the state clean: disbanding the Iraqi army, firing Saddam’s Baathist bureaucracy. Third, the Provisional Authority encouraging in its place unfettered, regulation-free, crony capitalism to run rampant. Besides Iraq, Klein shows how this neoliberalism-with-a-vengeance shock doctrine has been put into effect all the way from Chile 1973, through to South Africa 1994, on to New Orleans post-Katrina 2005 — and we could add Scott Walker’s Wisconsin 2011.

“Crisis creates opportunity for change”

This is what the Reamer is doing right this minute in Illinois. By refusing to generate revenue through taxes, his cuts are manufacturing a crisis, making already bad problems much, much worse. “The opportunity to bring big structural change is right now, as part of the 2016 budget,” is the snake-oil Rauner is peddling. “Now is the opportunity to drive change along with the budget.” And the clincher: “Because crisis creates opportunity for change.” He drove his message home to a belief-suspending Chicago Tribune editorial board: “Crisis creates opportunity. Crisis creates leverage to change … and we’ve got to use that leverage of the crisis to force structural change.”

His piling-on, worsened crisis will be resolved once so-called “structural reforms” are made. It is clear what those structural reforms are: herding state workers into 401(k) pensions, enacting right-to-work-for-less, ban “fair share” union dues payments to give a “free ride” to non-union workers, cutting workers’ compensation costs for job-related injuries, continuing a regressive instead of a progressive state income tax, refusing to raise the minimum wage in real terms, and slashing social services. Regarding social services funding, Rauner has said, “I just had to put the brakes on.”

It is important to point out that many of Rauner’s cuts cost more in the longer-term than ephemeral savings in the short-term. His supporters argue cuts are required to restore state fiscal health. Yet study after study has shown that cutting such programs as Medicaid drives people to seek higher-priced health care, for example, in hospital emergency rooms. Same with the UIUC budget. Every dollar in funding generates high returns on the state’s investment, the University argues.

Such rational calculations do not faze our reality-challenged, powered-by-ideology governor, who hired Donna Arduin as his CFO, a supply-sider who applies Arthur Laffer’s Reagan-era “voodoo economics” that have been thoroughly debunked over the last 30 years. Let me spell out the argument: The only problem with so-called “job creators” is that they do not create jobs. When consumers have living-wage jobs, they buy goods; when they buy goods, the economy grows; when economic demand grows, employers hire workers, that is, “create jobs.” Through tax and social policy – sometimes going into debt (“deficit spending”) to stimulate demand — government jumpstarts the economy; only then do debt- and risk-adverse “job creators” react by increasing production by hiring workers. Empirically-proven Keynesian economics (1930s) trumps demonstrably false, wishful thinking, “trickle-down” neoliberal nostrums (1980s on).

Which is worse: Rauner’s shock and awe strategy? Or the fact that it has not been recognized, and criticized for what it is by DINOs, and the media? And related to this: why did people and the press let Rauner get away with his “squeaky clean” claims during the gubernatorial campaign given his documented business practices and philosophy? Why do people and the press let him get away with post-election “bringing ethics to government” and “reforming government” claims that are in fact class warfare and crony capitalism, nepotism and conflict of interest at their worst? It is not far off the mark to say, as one commenter does, that

Rauner is the same person who clouted his own daughter into one of the highest rated public schools in the state (with unionized teachers no less), wants to subject the rest of the state to a failed private charter school model.

Rauner is continuing his attempts to run Illinois government like he ran his private equity company: benefit himself and burn everyone else. His loose command of facts and radical disempowerment agenda is an attempt to put more power in the hands of rich people, like himself, who already have far too much.

Rauner, the same person who made $60 million in 2013, wants to drive down the wages and retirement security of women and African Americans and wants to keep low-income workers poor for an extended period of time.

Rauner, the same person who owns nine homes, refuses to address the real elephant in the room: Illinois’ insufficient and regressive revenue generation policies. Rauner’s approach is not to strengthen government at his “make or break time” but instead to break it and strip it for parts to be sold off to his rich corporate cronies.

Rather than reaching across the partisan aisle, Rauner is throwing Molotov cocktails. Responding to such a partisan, scorched-earth approach, News-Gazette editorial writer Jim Dey dishonestly urges “statesmanship” on both Democrats and Republicans. Surely, this is the first time dismantling the state has been called “statesmanship.”

UIUC budget cuts are “an opportunity for us to do other things as a state”

Downstate Republicans are keeling over after having drunk Rauner-the-Reamer’s Kool-Aid. Chapin Rose (R-Mahomet) is pleased that “This [budget cut to UIUC] is an opportunity for us to do other things as a state.” Dale Righter (R-Mattoon), whose district includes Eastern Illinois University, says “he would support many of Rauner’s budget proposals, including the reductions in higher education support.”

They may think again after they recover from their ideologically-induced hangover from drinking too much Tea Party brew. Among the Reamer’s proposals are cuts up to 20 percent to local governments. The majority-Democratic Champaign County Board has already passed a resolution opposing Rauner’s budget ideas 15-5, a resolution that split the nine Republicans present down the middle: five voting against, and four voting with the Democrats and against Rauner.

In Champaign, newly-elected mayor Deborah Frank Feinen was backed by the Champaign Chamber of Commerce, which pushes for downsizing government and tax breaks for the wealthy. As with some other conservatives and Republicans, Feinen describes herself as a “fiscal conservative” and “social moderate.” Yet these two positions are intrinsically contradictory. Think about it: social moderates believe in certain public sector programs which the private sector does not provide, because there is no profit to be made. When money is tight and budgets are cut, however, fiscal conservatism trumps funding social programs. Regarding Rauner’s proposed cuts to Champaign, “It’d be all well and good if the city’s share [for social programs] was completely restored,” Feinen says, “but without everybody in the community also being healthy budget-wise, that’s a problem.” Social problems are nice, but just not affordable, say Raunerite Republicans. So, just how will Mayor Feinen vote: the Republican party line, or her civic responsibility to the city?

Wise: “No, I haven’t” talked to Rauner about “devastating” cuts

UIUC Chancellor Phyllis Wise is in the same position. Rauner has proposed cutting next year’s higher education budget 31.5 percent, which means slashing UI $208 million, and reducing UIUC anywhere between $86 and $114 million. These cuts would take the UI system back to 1950s funding levels in inflation-adjusted dollars.

A presumptive Republican – Wise keynoted a Republican Congressman Rodney Davis event at the iHotel in Champaign last summer during his electoral campaign, and was a member of Rauner’s transition team — she appeared at an April 13 Senate Appropriations committee hearing on campus in her other role as Chancellor. Asked if she had talked to Rauner about his “devastating” cuts, she said “she had not had a personal conversation with the governor about the proposed cuts.”

Governor Bruce Rauner and Chancellor Phyllis Wise pass food boxes, Urbana, April 11, 2015.  One Facebook post commented, “That’s so fucked up he just cut funding for feeding the needy.”

Too bad she had not taken the opportunity to do so at a Rauner presentation January 29 at the iHotel – well before he announced his budget cuts in February when it might have made a difference. Too bad she did not take the opportunity two days before the Senate hearing when both volunteered at a food drive.  One hour volunteering at Wise’s salary ($549,069 plus $290,000 as Nike board member) cost her $403.40, while Rauner’s five minute stint at his 2012 earnings rate of $25,672/hour comes out to $2139.

Noblesse oblige trickle-down, like supply-side economics, is so much cheaper than actually providing government programs that feed people. “It is consistent with the neoliberal agenda that as governor, Rauner will continue to privatize and monetize the public sphere while attacking unions,” writes local activist David Green. “It is also predictable that Phyllis Wise will gladly lend assistance in this endeavor: In neoliberal parlance, ‘There is no alternative.’”

What is most serious about our worsening political polarization is that people are talking past one another. When critics argue against budget cuts — especially to social services — without raising revenue, Rauner acolytes respond that cuts are bad, but what are you going to do? For all too many, incessant, insistent attacks on government have convinced them that government is ipso facto bad, further delegitimizing it.

Increasingly, the one percent respond to the incontrovertible, continuing-to-pile-up evidence of income and wealth inequality – the worst in nearly a century – by blaming the 99 percent victims, and denigrating so-called “dependent” individuals receiving “government handouts” as if they are 3/5 citizens. Insidious competing narratives harden into fixed character traits pitting “passive” aid recipients refusing to accept “personal responsibility” against “active” corporate bosses who have known how to take advantage and get rich quick.

Welcome to Illinois, turn your clocks back 100 years

What passes for Rauner’s “financial acumen” actually amounts to cut now, pay more later, enrich me and my friends all the time. The real question is what are the DINOs going to do, how are they going to respond to Rauner — or, more precisely, how is power broker Michael Madigan? The Reamer’s “Turnaround Illinois” slogan amounts to “turn Illinois back.” Welcome to Illinois, turn your clocks back 100 years.

April 24, 2015

David Prochaska formerly taught colonialism and visual culture in the UI History Department

“It’s all fucked up!” -, the webcam light of Brandon’s computer burns green, signaling that he is being filmed. But Brandon was neither video-chatting with anybody nor was he recording himself – he was actually just in the process of doing his bathroom business. “Fuck it, who needs to watch my cock peeing?” Brandon’s Kapersky anti-virus software pops up and signals that a virus from his brand-new $100-Seagate hard drive is forcing the webcam to record. Brandon is faced with an issue that the majority of people on this planet using a computer is or will be. Since the NSA has found out how to hide spying software deep within hard drives made by Western Digital, Seagate, Toshiba and other top manufacturers, the agency literally has the means to spy on anybody. Brandon, in his case, was lucky that his webcam light was burning, the virus usually works, films and reports in silence without being realized.

Microsoft Wired LifeCam VX-3000

It is 2015 – and yet it feels like Nineteen Eighty-Four – within the digital era, technology is omnipresent, surrounding all of us. Carrie Snow joked “Technology… is a queer thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other.” What if it stabs you in the back, but you just start feeling it when it shoots outta’ your belly? Yet, most of us are not feeling we are being stabbed. 15 billion devices connect and report to the internet and if we are looking mysterious for the NSA artificial intelligence algorithms, they place us on a list of potential terrorists. This may hit anybody. Snowden explained: “Even if we’re not doing anything wrong, we are being watched and recorded.”

Tennessee, September ’11 – the ACLU sends a letter “Know Your Rights: Religion in Public Schools” to several public schools, Mike Browning of the Tennessee Fusion Center assesses a potential terrorist threat and puts the communication on the map of “terrorism events and other suspicious activity” for the simple reason: The ACLU cautions schools about religious freedom. As a result of failure in preventing the terror attacks of 9/11, the Department of Homeland Security invested $1.4 billion to build a vast network of Fusion Centers around the country, which were originally constructed to prevent terrorist attacks but whose responsibility has gradually morphed to combating criminals and eventually, to fighting any kind of opponents to our government that has been the ACLU 3 years ago but could be any of us tomorrow!

Every telephone call we take, every website we search, every Facebook message we send is recorded by the National Security Agency which allegedly, uses the information to fight terrorism. But what if this information gets into the wrong hands? What if suddenly, our boss watches the Skype video conversation, where in a moment of sexual enthusiasm, we stripped for our boyfriend or girlfriend, husband or wife? – Or it’d just be NSA Director Rogers’ breakfast show?

“Watch Out: NSA Might Be Peeking In Your Computer“ Caricature about NSA Surveillance of Social Promo

“Partnership for Protection” – InfraGard, a secretive organization with more than 23,0000 members of private industry is silently collaborating with FBI and DHS and supports the NSA in its ambitions to collect any data on Earth and make it accessible to our government. In exchange for secret warnings of terrorist threats, InfraGard members secretly gather information and have allowance to shoot to kill in the event of martial law –
“If we are forced to kill someone to protect our infrastructure, there are no repercussions – this gives me goose bumps. It chills me to the bone.” one business owner of InfraGard tells us.
– “In case something happens, everybody is ready,” says Norm Arendt, the head of the Wisconsin chapter of InfraGard.

Something – but not a murder – happened on October 1, ’13: Illija Trojanow was denied entry to the United States on his mission to speak at the Goethe Institute about “Surveillance and the Naked New World”. He responded that“it is more than ironic if an author who raises his voice against the dangers of surveillance and the secret state, will be denied entry into the ‘land of the brave and the free.” The co-author of his book “Attack on freedom” Juli Zeh declared that “This is a farce. Pure paranoia. People who stand up for civil rights are treated as enemies of the state.”

Enemies of the state are also Phil Zimmermann and Ladar Levison among many others whose businesses providing encrypted e-mail services had to close after heavy US governmental pressure. “If privacy becomes unlawful, then only outlaws maintain privacy.” – found Silent circle founder Phil Zimmermann. Lavabit’s owner Ladar Levison declared that he had preferred to shut down his 10-year-old company, rather than to violate the rights of his e-mail 400,000 users. He recommended against trusting private data to any company with physical ties to the US.

What if we just led an innocent life without any record of wrongdoing – but – because of the people that we talk to, the websites that we visit, the NSA artificial intelligence spying tools randomly assess us to be a terrorist. Suddenly, our neighbor begins to throw sneaking looks on us, a tinted-window car parks in front of our house – we feel the spying all around! Welcome to the United States Police State!

“Why can’t we collect all the signals all the time?” former NSA Director Keith Alexander’s often quoted question reveals what is still to come. Spying on everything, everywhere, always. Edward Snowden commented: “If they want to get you in time, they will.” While a secret court approval is currently still required to collect metadata on American citizens, PRISM permits collecting data of any foreigner without limits. One of the foreigners is – as was disclosed when ‘Truth came to the Merkel effect’ – German Chancellor Angela Merkel whose cellphone had to be recorded to defend the US from terrorists. She went a little angry and commented “You don’t spy on friends!” Snowden was left pinned down in the dirt – no asylum – no nothing from Germany. On the contrary, the spying on Germany and foreign citizens continues and gets closer to “collecting all the signals all the time”.

Senator R. Paul condemns spying as “an outrageous abuse of power and a violation of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution.” The Senate, however, failed to advance legislation on bipartisan surveillance reform last November. – It is being spied itself by the CIA as was revealed last July. And most recently, it turned out that the responsible CIA employees will not face disciplinary charges since according to an agency accountability board, they “acted reasonable in investigating a potential security breach.”

NSA note on toilet surveillance cameras in Black Rock Desert, Nevada

Snowden pointed out: “I do not want to live in a world where everything I do and say is recorded. That is not something I am willing to support or live under.” In contrast, Brandon sees the naked new world as the new Nude American Way of Life “If the NSA can see us naked, why not leave clothes off right way?” – Wouldn’t that be a happy ending of the fairytale?

Johnny Orwell

UIUC Chancellor Phyllis Wise has soiled herself, and the university’s reputation, by how she and her administration have handled the hiring and summary dismissal of Prof. Steven Salaita.

Up until at least the evening of July 22, 2014 Chancellor Wise supported hiring Salaita. During or immediately after the July 24 Board of Trustees (BOT) executive session, she reversed her position.

Contrasted to the months-long faculty and staff deliberations resulting in Salaita’s hire, it took Wise, in collusion with others, a scant 48 hours to reverse her position between July 22-24, 2014. Now Wise, the administration, and the Board of Trustees (BOT) all want the controversy they manufactured to just go away.

It is not going to go away.

Academic Senate Dissected

Consider the February 9, 2015 UIUC Academic Senate meeting. The Senate, consisting of some 200 faculty and 50 students, passed resolutions regarding Salaita and Wise’s proposed UIUC/Carle medical school. Most Senate confabs are mostly boring. But this one was extremely revealing, laying bare the political machinations. The Senate showed itself to be as polarized as campus: between administration and faculty, and among faculty.

Wise’s medical school proposal constitutes the flipside of the Salaita affair. For the administration, talking about a medical school conveniently changes the conversation. It also further divides the campus between haves and have-nots. The de facto buying off of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) departments with the promise of medical school-related goodies continues the already existing practice of playing off liberal arts departments south of Green against science and engineering north of Green. Wise talks inclusivity – “we are one big touchy-feely campus” — but she walks the walk of exclusivity – “I and my friends against you and yours.”

Wise 1, UI System-Wide Medical School & Hospital 0

The Senate’s discussion of Wise’s proposal boiled down to “we want a medical school, because we want a medical school.” A parade of speakers delivered short presentations short on substance. Wise’s proposal mentions UI Chicago’s (UIC) competing plan only to immediately dismiss it. Critics criticize consultants Tripp Umbach, hired by UIUC, for their tendentious business plan, “making up imaginary numbers,” and proposing a “hopelessly unrealistic” timeline. It makes you want to ask for your money back.

Absent was substantive consideration of the UIC-run UI medical school and hospital in Chicago both by Wise and the Senate. Absent entirely was UIC’s alternative proposal, “Better Together,” which argues that it would be a “win-win” for both campuses. To Wise’s contention that “retrofitting” a biomedical engineering medical curriculum on an already existing medical school will not work, UIC responds that a new Urbana medical school would make for costly and inefficient “redundancies.” UIC proposes to harness UIUC’s engineering, genomic, and computational strengths in a cooperative, system-wide Illinois Translational Bioengineering Institute.

A key issue concerns inclusivity versus exclusivity. This is related to Urbana’s dead-set dismissiveness of all things Chicago – because it is Chicago. True: since the 1972 establishment of the UIC medical school, UIC-UIUC relations have consisted of equal parts competition, backbiting, rivalry, behind-the-scenes maneuvering, distrust, and animosity. Discussions held between the spring of 2012 and January, 2014 were broken off unilaterally by UIUC, without informing UIC. Yet, the UIC COM-CU (College of Medicine at Champaign-Urbana) has done an excellent job for more than 40 years – everyone agrees its crown jewel is the outstanding Medical Scholars program – all the while starved of resources.

True: UIUC’s strengths in engineering, biotechnology, and computational science merit more prominence, either UIUC going it alone, or in concert with UIC. True: the UIC hospital has been a “money pit,” a “black hole.” It is also the largest medical school in the country. It serves the largest proportion anywhere of low income folks, largely through Medicaid. Its financial woes are partly due to its patient mix, partly to mismanagement. Can it be turned around and make more money? Unquestionably. There are success stories worthy of emulation, Truman Medical Center in Kansas City for one. Again, it is about inclusivity versus exclusivity. As the flagship state university, do we not want to provide medical care for everyone? Or do we want for-profit-driven Carle piggybacking on Wise’s go-it-alone, developer-friendly, neoliberal plan? It is easy to see that the no-brainer solution is UIC’s “Better Together” cost-efficient, resources-pooling alternative. And even easier to see that, historically and structurally, such an outcome is virtually impossible – especially with our eyes-on-the-money “leaders” today.

The outcome of the Senate discussion, despite tepid opposition, was a foregone conclusion. When the resolution passed easily, grinning ear to ear was Wise.

Salaita & Faculty Governance 1, Wise 0

The next agenda item urged the Senate to implement the campus Committee on Academic Freedom and Tenure’s (CAFT) recommendations. If implemented, these would likely result in Salaita’s reinstatement. Constituting a “test” of the Senate’s commitment to shared faculty governance, resolution co-author Prof. Bruce Levine challenged the Senate “to put our money where our mouth is.”

Here is the background. December 19, 2014: CAFT issued a 140-page report that concluded that “Salaita’s academic freedom had been infringed upon,” and that “there had been serious violations of shared governance.” It recommended “that statements… asserting civility as a standard of conduct be withdrawn,” and that his “candidacy be remanded to the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (LAS) for reconsideration by a body of qualified academic experts.” January 4, 2015: Professor Michael Leroy attacked the CAFT report in the local News-Gazette. January 6: five self-anointed, past and current Senate Executive Committee (SEC) members, dubbed the “gang of five,” issued a so-called “response” also attacking CAFT, and de facto supporting the administration. Consisting of a tissue of tendentious arguments, it urged the primary body of faculty governance to give up on faculty governance. Why? Because the campus was “hopelessly polarized,” and a “LAS committee would arrive at a foregone conclusion,” presumably that of reinstating Salaita. Although the gang of five statement lacked any parliamentary standing, both the pro-administration News-Gazette and Wise refer to it as if it was a report – because it is anti-Salaita.

CAFT Chair David O’Brien addresses Academic Senate, February 9, 2015

Key is that while the Senate mouths allegiance to faculty governance, the SEC, and some Senators, in practice wage a behind-closed-doors guerilla war against it. How can this be? Because the SEC is made up of de facto foremen, the administration’s “trusties.” Theoretically upholders of faculty governance, the SEC and its fellow-traveling Senators have ceded that mantle in practice to Senators often affiliated with the Campus Faculty Association.

All these differences boiled to the surface February 9. Against top-down Senate, and especially SEC, rule by arcane parliamentary maneuvers meant to deflect, stall, and run out the meeting clock, grassroots faculty Senators pushed back from the bottom up. SEC member Prof. Kim Graber argued, for example, that the Senate should not consider the issue, since the matter was in court and, therefore, “moot.” Senator and CAFT member Prof. Mark Steinberg dismissed the idea that an LAS faculty committee is incapable, “as has been implied here,” of arriving at a professional, dispassionate decision with “due care, and diligence, and honesty, and integrity,” and stated the “need to respect foundational principles” of shared governance. To dilatory parliamentary moves could be heard cries of “undemocratic!” Other Senators were clearly upset by references made to letters and documents that only some had seen: Law and Center for Advanced Study Prof. Matt Finkin’s January 8 smackdown of Leroy’s piece; Finkin’s January 23 response to the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) Committee A’s draft report on the Salaita case; UIUC legal counsel Scott Rice’s response to the AAUP; and Finkin’s February 5 response to Rice’s tendentious arguments.

Beating Up on Faculty Governance

As time literally ran out, the resolution to implement the CAFT recommendations was passed, and the Senate passed the test of faculty governance. But the SEC and its Senate supporters flunked. Wise looked stricken. But she exacted her revenge, in her February 26 massmail, by refusing to follow both the non-binding CAFT report and the Senate resolution. Prof. Mary Mallory said, “shared governance has taken a beating,” and so it has. But Wise had already demonstrated that it is a sham when she panicked July 22-24, 2014 in her 48-hour, rush-to-Salaita-judgment, cutting faculty out of the governance loop.

March 7, 2015

David Prochaska formerly taught colonialism and visual culture in the UI History Department

India Watcher earned a Ph.D. at UIUC

In a major upset, the two-year old Aam Aadmi Party (AAP, Common Man’s Party) won the elections to Delhi’s state legislature on February 10, 2015, winning 67 seats out of 70.

AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal held a series of dialogues with Delhi constituents during the run-up to the February, 2015 elections.

For weeks before, the national media obsessed over whether the rightwing Hindu revivalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP, Indian People’s Party), of Prime Minister Narendra Modi would continue its run of three straight state election wins after winning the 2014 national election that brought Modi to power. Or, could the AAP leader, Arvind Kejriwal, snatch political victory from the mighty BJP electoral machine that was clearly outspending its opponents in an electoral blitzkrieg? Modi himself addressed several rallies where he never failed to disparage Kejriwal. The results took everybody, even the most ardent AAP supporters, by surprise. Both AAP and BJP had been predicting a majority for their party, but nobody imagined that it would be a vote tsunami for the political underdog.

To understand the reasons for AAP’s victory, and its significance, it is necessary to look at how the AAP was formed. The AAP was set up by activists who participated in the India Against Corruption (IAC) campaign started by Anna Hazare, a social activist from the western state of Maharashtra. The IAC campaign began in 2011 in the backdrop of the Arab Spring, and numerous high-profile scandals in the ruling Congress government. The campaign had a clear goal: pass a Jan Lokpal Bill (Citizen’s Ombudsman Bill) in Parliament to set up an independent and empowered Jan Lokpal (Citizen’s Ombudsman) at the national level to investigate corruption in the government. The fight between civil society and the government continued for two years and a watered-down version of the bill was finally passed in 2013.

Already by mid-2012, the anti-corruption movement had started to fizzle out. In November 2012, Kejriwal and a few others formally split from the movement and formed the Aam Aadmi Party, while Anna Hazare continued down the road of protests and social activism. The founders of the AAP said they wanted to change the way politics was done in the country, using the Gandhian principle of swaraj, self-rule, to encourage “self-governance, community building and decentralization.”

In its first race, AAP came in second in December 2013 in Delhi winning 28 out of 70 seats . The BJP was the single largest party, but did not win a majority and declined to form a minority government. After seeking a referendum from the people of Delhi, the AAP formed a minority government with “not-unconditional” support from the Congress. But Kejriwal resigned after just 49 days when both the BJP and Congress blocked a Delhi ombudsman bill citing procedural lapses.

The AAP’s initials are Hindi for the polite form of “you,” so combined with the simple broom, the logo here may be read as “your party sweeps away corruption”

The AAP ran in the May 2014 national elections, but fared extremely poorly. Of the 434 candidates fielded across India, only four won in the Punjab while all seven parliamentary seats in Delhi were lost. AAP had to face the reality of a disappointed electorate that was angry at not having been consulted before the resignation. The voters felt let down by a party that had been championing participatory democracy.

Though the Indian polity was set up as a democracy, in practical everyday terms, it largely functioned as a feudal system. Politicians and bureaucrats conducted themselves like feudal lords who doled out or withheld the largesse that was really the taxpayer’s money.

The centrist Congress party has occasionally eschewed its sense of entitlement and supported pro-people’s policies: Right to Information, Right to Work, Recognition of Forest Rights, Right to Education, Right to Food, and Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement. But problems in implementation, plus continued corruption, pushed the tide against Congress.

After ten years in the opposition, the Modi-led BJP won a majority in the 2014 national elections. Modi had risen up the ranks of the Hindu fundamentalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS, National Volunteer Organization). But in Delhi last month, the BJP was humiliated with a miserable three seats, and the Congress failed to win any.

In retrospect, the AAP did a lot of things right. Kejriwal apologized profusely to the people of Delhi for his resignation, which voters appreciated since honesty and humility were unknown among Indian politicians. Forty thousand volunteers worked the grassroots, going door-to-door, and organizing public meetings with Kejriwal. Kejriwal himself focused on basic issues — water, electricity and women’s safety — that resonated with the people. By stalling on the election date, the BJP inadvertently gave AAP time to get its act together.

Waving brooms, AAP supporters celebrate victory in Delhi elections, February, 2015

As a senior BJP member blogged, “the failure of the BJP consists of not being able to split the non-BJP votes. ” Between December 2013 and February 2015, the BJP lost just one percent of its one-third vote share, but the opposition vote united behind the AAP, which went from 30 percent to over 54 percent .

The BJP’s election campaign was largely negative. Modi and other BJP leaders targeted Kejriwal, mocking him repeatedly as a “deserter” and “left-wing radical.” Meanwhile, the still-new national BJP government was not exactly covering itself in honor. Day after day, the press reported a new, reactionary plan or statement by the Hindu right-wing radicals who claimed to turn India into a Hindu country. They issued threats against conversions from Hinduism to Islam or to Christianity . They made claims about Muslim men deliberately making Hindu women fall in love with them for the ulterior motive of converting them to Islam (termed “love jihad”). They exhorted Hindu women to have four children apiece. They attacked movies such as Aamir Khan’s PK that showed religious leaders with mass followings as conmen. In Delhi, which was under central rule before the elections, the situation escalated beyond religious threats with a Hindu-Muslim communal riot, and five attacks on Christian churches.

Meanwhile, Modi remained silent about the growing religious intolerance . Instead, the central government systematically packed governmental and semi-autonomous bodies with right wing sympathizers. Modi and his right-hand man, Amit Shah, tightly controlled electoral strategy and machinery . Voices of dissent were gradually being suppressed, especially those of some writers and artists . The disconnect with the common citizen was completed when national news showed Modi wearing a million-rupee (about USD 16,000) suit embroidered with his name in gold when meeting President Obama for tea during his January, 2015 visit.

Prime Minister Modi wore a million-rupee suit to tea with President Obama with his name embroidered in gold all over it

Arguably, Indians are not against change, but the vast majority is wary of precipitous, violent change — either reactionary or revolutionary. They prefer a peaceful route to change, respecting the Constitution and established institutions (note to the revolutionary), while also respecting the beliefs and aspirations of all groups and interests (note to the reactionary). Experience with self-styled “feudal” lords and their misuse of power means any display of high-handedness is distrusted. Hence, the acute contrast between Modi, who spoke of all he alone would do for them, and Kejriwal, who talked about involving the citizenry in running Delhi.

During the India Against Corruption movement, the pro-people perspectives of social activists resulted in citizens beginning to feel it was their right to actually hold their representatives accountable for their actions, behavior, and financial excesses. Even so, the idea of questioning the system was still new. Kejriwal’s confrontational style first as candidate, then as short-lived Delhi chief minister, both elated and alarmed the public. He even questioned the corruption of several high-profile politicians and businessmen, including the son-in-law of Congress President Sonia Gandhi. In his second attempt, Kejriwal toned down the rhetoric and focused more on specific initiatives. He was able to make the emotional connect and the people began to engage in more give-and-take with him.

Only after the crushing Delhi defeat did Modi first speak out against religious intolerance, saying that he stood by the Constitution . Hopefully, he understands the essentially middle-of- the-road nature of Indian society and culture. Yes, a hardcore 30 percent will continue to support the BJP regardless. But perhaps 70 percent of the populace prefers a different kind of politics. A politics that focuses on harmony among communities. A government that focuses on doing things in the people’s interest, not just the party’s interest. A respect for democratic rights – India is, after all, the world’s largest democracy — including accommodating difference and dissent. The nation’s feudal core continues to slowly but definitely change to a more democratic one.

The success of any party also depends on how democratic it is. This has been the bane of almost all Indian parties. Congress paid the price for excessive slavishness to one family (the Gandhis). The BJP paid the price of top duo’s high-handed, arbitrary conduct in the run-up to the Delhi elections. And the intermittent rumblings within the AAP against one-person rule must be resolved democratically if it is to maintain diverse, creative strategies.

Sarah Lazare is a staff writer for Common Dreams and an independent journalist whose work has been featured in The Nation, Al Jazeera, TomDispatch, Yes! Magazine, and more. She is also an anti-militarist organizer interested in building people-powered global movements for justice and dignity. This article appeared in Common Dreams.

Tens of thousands of people marched in the pouring rain through Tunisia’s capital on March 24 to kick off the 14th World Social Forum—a global gathering of civil society movements—and bring the message of peace and solidarity to the site of last week’s deadly attack on the National Bardo Museum.

“The march is really inspiring, and despite the rain, the energy is very high,” Mai-Stella Khantouche, member of the California-based Causa Justa/Just Cause, told Common Dreams over the phone from the demonstration as it proceeded to the museum. “There are so many different organizations and people here coming together to show solidarity,” added Khantouche, who is attending the Forum as a delegate with the Grassroots Global Justice Alliance.

Tens of thousands marched through Tunis on March 24 to open the 14th World Social Forum. Photo courtesy of Jaron Browne/Grassroots Global Justice Alliance

Under the slogan, “Together to pursue the revolution of rights and dignity,” over 4,000 organizations from 120 countries are attending the international gathering, which takes place from March 24 to 28. Groups range a wide breadth of nations and causes, from the global peasant movement La Via Campesina to the Tunisian Association of Democratic Women to the international feminist action movement World March of Women.

Organizations from across the region are also well represented, including numerous groups from Iraq, which held its first Social Forum in September 2013.

Climate justice and global feminism are key themes this year—including a track organized by Tunisian feminists to address the social and economic conditions driving gender inequality on a global level. Participants will hold workshops, discussions, cultural events, and public actions on topics from the global anti-austerity fight to war and militarism to the Black Lives Matter movement.

The gathering follows in the tradition of the first World Social Forum, held in Brazil in 2001 as an alternative to the annual meeting of the global elite at the World Economic Forum. Taking inspiration from the Latin American tradition of encuentro, the Forum is championed as “plural, diversified, non-confessional, non-governmental and non-party” meeting of international social movements to counter the global forces of neoliberalism, austerity, and climate crisis.

This year marks the second time the WSF has been held in Tunis, with the last international gathering in 2013 bringing tens of thousands to the seat of the Arab Spring. Members of the WSF International Council said they chose to hold the gathering in the Tunisian capital again, in part, to “consolidate the dynamics of changes born thanks to the Tunisian revolution and to the democratic movements in the region.”

Organizers say the recent attacks in Tunisia bring new urgency to this goal.

“The social movement in Tunisia and the region counts on the global support of democratic forces to oppose violence and terrorism,” said the WSF Local Organizing Committee in Tunis last week. “More than ever, the massive participation [in the Forum] will be the appropriate answer from all the peace and democratic forces towards a better, more fair and free world made of pacific co-existence.”

Maggie Martin of the U.S.-based organization Iraq Veterans Against the War said that participating in Tuesday’s march gave her a “lot of hope,” especially to see “plenty of women leading the way.”

Vivian Yi Huang, campaign and organizing director of the Bay Area, California-based Asian Pacific Environmental Network, told Common Dreams, “In organizing immigrants we understand that so many of our struggles are interconnected. Today, it was so inspiring and beautiful to see social movements come together from around the world. Just as the injustices we fight have no borders, neither should our movement.”