Public i Contact

Upcoming Documentary Screening: The Invisible War: Sexual Trauma in the Military

Posted on 03/22/2012 by Public i

The Invisible War: Sexual Trauma in the Military
Presented by the Central Illinois Civillian-Soldier Alliance

Today, a female soldier in Iraq and Afghanistan is more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire. Sexual assault within the ranks is so frequent that one in three female service members are raped while in the military. These crimes are routinely covered up by the chain of command, with higher-ranking officers granted virtual impunity for assaulting junior service members. As part of National Sexual Assault Awareness Month, Central Illinois Iraq Veterans Against the War and Civillian-Soldier Alliance, in conjunction with the University of Illinois Women’s Resource Center will be screening The Invisible War, a documentary on the that examines the epidemic levels of sexual assault in the military which debuted this January at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. Focusing on the powerfully emotional stories of multiple rape victims, The Invisible War is a moving indictment of the systemic cover-up of military sex crimes, chronicling the women’s struggles to rebuild their lives and fight for justice. It also features hard-hitting interviews with high-ranking military officials and members of Congress that reveal the perfect storm of conditions that exist for rape in the military, its long-hidden history, and what can be done to bring about much-needed change. The screening will be followed by a discussion of what we can do to end sexual assault in the military and in our communities. The event is free and open to the public.

A sample of some of the testimony contained in the film:

THERESA VERDERBER-PHILLIPS: When you report something, you better be prepared for the repercussions.

CAPT. DEBRA DICKERSON: If a man gets accused of rape, it’s a setup, the woman is lying.

REBECCA CATAGNUS: I could choose to report it, but if I wasn’t—you know, if they found that what I saying wasn’t to be truthful, then that I would be reduced in rank.

ALLISON GILL: You could lose your rate, you could lose rank, you could lose your school, if you file a false report. So do you want to file a report?

CHRISTINA JONES: Even with the rape kit and everything, and the—my friend catching him raping me, they still don’t believe me.

TANDY FINK: I reported it two different times to my squad leader. And he told me that there is nothing he can do about it, because I didn’t have any proof.

ANDREA WERNER: They actually did charge me with adultery. I wasn’t married. He was.

TIA CHRISTOPHER: They took me before my lieutenant commander. He says, “You think this is funny?” And I say, “What do you mean?” He’s like, “Is this all a joke to you?” I was like, “What do you mean?” And he goes, “You’re the third girl to report rape this week. Are you guys like all in cahoots? You think this is a game?”

(Source: Democracy Now, January 30 2012. http://www.democracynow.org/2012/1/30/the_invisible_war_new_film_exposes)

Event Details in Brief:
The Invisible War | Film Screening
Thursday, April 12th at 7:30pm
Allen Hall’s Main Lounge (1005 W. Gregory Dr., MC-050, Urbana, IL 61801)
Featuring post-film talk-back
Free and open to the public. Refreshments will be provided.

For more information, contact Alex Cline at rev.a.r.cline@gmail.com

Founded in 2007, the Civilian Soldier Alliance is an organization of civilians working with veterans and active-duty service-members to build a GI resistance movement towards a just foreign policy.

The Invisible War: Sexual Trauma in the Military

Presented by the Central Illinois Civillian-Soldier Alliance

Today, a female soldier in Iraq and Afghanistan is more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire. Sexual assault within the ranks is so frequent that one in three female service members are raped while in the military. These crimes are routinely covered up by the chain of command, with higher-ranking officers granted virtual impunity for assaulting junior service members. As part of National Sexual Assault Awareness Month, Central Illinois Iraq Veterans Against the War and Civillian-Soldier Alliance, in conjunction with the University of Illinois Women’s Resource Center will be screening The Invisible War, a documentary on the that examines the epidemic levels of sexual assault in the military which debuted this January at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. Focusing on the powerfully emotional stories of multiple rape victims, The Invisible War is a moving indictment of the systemic cover-up of military sex crimes, chronicling the women’s struggles to rebuild their lives and fight for justice. It also features hard-hitting interviews with high-ranking military officials and members of Congress that reveal the perfect storm of conditions that exist for rape in the military, its long-hidden history, and what can be done to bring about much-needed change. The screening will be followed by a discussion of what we can do to end sexual assault in the military and in our communities. The event is free and open to the public.

A sample of some of the testimony contained in the film:

THERESA VERDERBER-PHILLIPS: When you report something, you better be prepared for the repercussions.

CAPT. DEBRA DICKERSON: If a man gets accused of rape, it’s a setup, the woman is lying.

REBECCA CATAGNUS: I could choose to report it, but if I wasn’t—you know, if they found that what I saying wasn’t to be truthful, then that I would be reduced in rank.

ALLISON GILL: You could lose your rate, you could lose rank, you could lose your school, if you file a false report. So do you want to file a report?

CHRISTINA JONES: Even with the rape kit and everything, and the—my friend catching him raping me, they still don’t believe me.

TANDY FINK: I reported it two different times to my squad leader. And he told me that there is nothing he can do about it, because I didn’t have any proof.

ANDREA WERNER: They actually did charge me with adultery. I wasn’t married. He was.

(Source: Democracy Now, January 30 2012. http://www.democracynow.org/2012/1/30/the_invisible_war_new_film_exposes)

Event Details in Brief:

The Invisible War | Film Screening

Thursday, April 12th at 7:30pm

Allen Hall’s Main Lounge (1005 W. Gregory Dr., MC-050, Urbana, IL 61801)

Featuring post-film talk-back

Free and open to the public. Refreshments will be provided.

For more information, contact Alex Cline at rev.a.r.cline@gmail.com

Founded in 2007, the Civilian Soldier Alliance is an organization of civilians working with veterans and active-duty service-members to build a GI resistance movement towards a just foreign policy.

Posted in Education | Comments Off

Preparing Youth for Democracy

Posted on 03/22/2012 by GaryStorm

Preparing Youth for Democracy (edited)

By Gary Storm

My wife, Jamie, and I were recently invited to participate in an international conference sponsored by “Initiatives of Change” (IOC) in Panchgani, India. The conference was called “Making Democracy Real–A Dialogue”, and it included many young adults from Egypt, Syria, South Sudan and other countries struggling to establish new democratic regimes. It also included many of us who are struggling to make old democratic regimes more real—or effective!

IOC is “an international network open to people of all cultures, nationalities, religions and beliefs who work towards change, locally and globally, by starting with change in their own lives” (see www.iofc.org). As a formal corporate entity, IOC has consultative status in the Social and Economic Council of the European Union and in the United Nations. This means that the deliberations and policy recommendations that come out of conferences and other programs it supports impact international decision making and action.

As an aside, I might mention that UIUC’s Rajmohan Gandhi, a Research Professor of History in the Center for South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies (CSAMES), and his wife, Usha, have played instrumental roles in IOC for many years and in establishing the Asian Plateau facility in Panchgani where the conference took place. They were also instrumental in organizing this year’s conference.

While Jamie served on a panel in which she described the goals and activities of the “Urbana-Champaign Peace Initiative” (UCPI) and discussed how civil society organizations must relate to governmental entities to be effective (sometimes as partners and other times as constructive critics), I was free to participate in a variety forums where I could contribute insights and recommendations derived from my education and experience as a “civic educator”.

One of these forums was an open microphone session called “Freedom Square” held on two consecutive afternoons over tea/coffee and pastries. Participants could either speak spontaneously or from a prepared text. Impressed with first session, I prepared comments for the next day which ended up being submitted to an on-line site available to conference participants.

Because I think these comments are as applicable today in this county as they are for countries struggling to establish new democracies, I have decided to submit them here for “Public i” readers. I hope they stimulate parents, teachers and other adults active with community organizations to involve youth in civic research, organization and action.

(Preparing Youth for Democracy—Comments for “Freedom Square”)

“For me, it is useful to think of democracy, very simply, as a process for making decisions in which all of those affected by a decision have an opportunity to participate in making it. When so defined, democracy is a process than can and should be applied in many spheres of social life: in the family, the school, the workplace, voluntary organizations and, yes, government at all levels, local through global.

As a civic educator, I have long felt the need for adults to consciously work to create opportunities for youth to participate, democratically, in decisions that affect their lives. I think that parents and teachers, for example, should be constantly looking for ways to include youth in such decisions at home and in school. In school, students should be given an opportunity to form clubs and organizations which they run themselves (by establishing mission and goal statements, leadership roles and positions, committee structures, and decision making rules and procedures). Students should also be encouraged to form their own newspapers or other communication outlets (e.g., blogs) and to use them to communicate carefully formulated positions on issues at school and beyond. They should also be encouraged to form Student Councils and to request (if not demand) a voice in school affairs, perhaps even formal representation on local school boards.

Looking beyond the family and school to the community, I think that adults participating on boards of voluntary organizations (e.g., non-profit organizations) should seriously consider creating positions for youth on their boards and/or working committees. Similarly, city government leaders should consider creating slots for adolescent youth on municipal committees or other bodies designed to provide input into city decision making. City leaders might even consider working with teachers to involve students in community research projects and invite students to develop proposed solutions to community problems as a part of their social studies classes. Students could then propose their solutions at City Council meetings and perhaps see some of their recommendations be put into action.

If adults worked to create (and to some degree supervise and advise) youth experiences in all of the above areas, young people would gain not just useful civic knowledge and skills, but an appreciation for the importance of democracy in their lives. With this foundation of experience, youth may begin demanding a democratic voice in other spheres of their lives as adults, in the workplace, for example, or in the market as consumers. Most importantly, they would begin demanding a more active democratic voice in government at all levels.

Here at the Asian Plateau we have been talking a lot about democracy in the context of governments. I think we could benefit by thinking about how democracy can and perhaps should play a larger role in these other spheres of social life, and how we can prepare youth to demand greater democracy in them.”

_________

(Gary is a retired Professor/Dean of Education and Human Services at the University of Illinois at Springfield who now lives in Urbana. He is active with the Urbana-Champaign Peace Initiative and was recently elected President of the Independent Media Center Board of Directors)

Posted in Politics, Youth | Comments Off

Pre-1968 Foundations of African American Recruitment at the U of I

Posted on 03/22/2012 by Belden Fields

(767 words)

Pre-1968 Foundations of African American Student Recruitment at the U of I (edited)

Joseph H. Smith

Joseph H. Smith served the U of I as an administrator and English professor from 1964 to 1994. He is a former Marine who did his undergraduate work at Howard University and his graduate work at Harvard.

“Between the idea and the reality…

Falls the shadow”

The history of the recruitment and support of African American students at UIUC can be viewed through the lens of the above quote from T.S. Eliot’s “Hollow Men.” In 1964, when aggressive recruitment efforts began, until the programmatic climax in 1968, only reflection will show quite a different picture from the one that persists today that it all began with the 500 Program in 1968.

The political nature of the 1968 events is so ingrained in the students and the administrators who entered the university at that same time that they celebrate it as the beginning of things: “Nothing happened before we came.” For such a wrong-headed impression to persist in a place of learning is a negation of the very concept and value of learning.

Joy Ann Williamson’s book, Black Power on Campus: the University of Illinois 1965-75, is a comprehensive treatment of the 1968 events, as well as an account of previous events leading up to 1968. The Black Power emphasis and the casual treatment of institutional goodwill, invites the historical distortion, even though she accurately states, “The University used knowledge gained from previous programs to cleave together a new program and, with the support of the Board of Trustees, SEOP [Special Educational Opportunity Program, also called the 500 Program] was born.” (p. 66.)

Given the above acknowledgment, one wonders how she could accept the administrator of the SEOP program crediting “Black students with precipitating institutional change that had not been entertained.” Strange! The record shows that at least as far back as

1963, University President David Dodds Henry, in his State of the University address, stated “…we must offset some of the disabilities arising from racial and social inequality by building psychological and special assistance ‘ramps’ for young people who need them.” He subsequently created the All-University Committee on Human Relations and Equal Opportunity. This committee early on requested that “an experienced professional person be added to the staff of the admissions office to work with counselors and staff of high schools.”

A search led to me. I was appointed as Assistant to the Dean of Admissions and Records and Assistant Professor of English. Neither the Admissions Office to which I was appointed, nor the Chicago School District, was ready for my recruitment of inner-city Black students. In time, the Superintendent of Chicago Schools became more accepting of my mission than did the Dean of Admissions and Records at the university. The Dean even forbade me to use the term “recruitment” in describing my mission. Despite his lack of enthusiasm, my visits to the inner-city schools brought results. They were productive because in making contact with the students, I came to understand the psychological and financial obstacles that prevented them to even think about coming to that forbidden world “downstate.”

Fortunately, the Human Relations and Equal Opportunity Committee that President Henry had appointed saw to it that the campus faculty became involved in our discussions about overcoming exclusion, and President Henry held a university-wide conference at Allerton Park to examine the problem and recommend solutions. As part of these deliberations, the LAS Summer Work-Study Program was proposed. This involved the application of financial, housing, and counseling resources in order to recruit inner-city students. Its value for handling the unforeseen problems encountered by the students was inestimable.

Against this background, the university felt ready for the recruitment and support of a large group of African American students. The Richard Spencer Report laid out an objective of enrolling approximately 200 “disadvantaged” students. This was to be the triumphal culmination of years of discussing and analyzing the problem of minority exclusion. Because we wanted to be sure that we left no preparatory stone unturned that might diminish the chances of the program succeeding, the decision was made to hold off it actual launch until 1969.

Alas, Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in 1968. Incendiary nonnegotiable demands gripped the campus. Black students demanded 1,000 new students. Negotiations settled for 500; hence the 500 Program of that year. The memory of the pre-1968 initiatves was lost. It has become a mere footnote in the prevalent historical narrative. My aim in writing this article is merely to salute those who struggled during the creeping, crawling formative years.

Posted in African Americans, Education, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | Comments Off

International Capitalism Writ Large in Our Community

Posted on 03/05/2012 by Jimmi Jay

By Jimmi Jay
Flex-N-Gate is a multi-national corporation that manufactures auto parts ranging from bumpers and hinges to pedal systems and instrument panels for major automakers including BMW, Ford, Nissan, and Toyota. In 2011, Flex-N-Gate reported $2.5 billion in annual revenue. A local and international success?The owner of the multi-national, Mr. Shahid Khan, is a long time, well-respected resident of Urbana-Champaign community. Unlike his current practices and policies, Mr. Kahn’s life story is deserving of admiration. He has lived what some would refer to as the “American Dream.” At the tender age of 16, Khan immigrated from Pakistan to the United States. Looking for “fame and fortune, hearing that the streets were paved with gold”, what he found was an unfortunate reality. He began his career washing dishes for $1.20 an hour. Khan enrolled in the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and obtained a degree in engineering. After graduation, with a small loan, he bought the Flex-N-Gate company and has overseen its operations and led it to its current prominence. Khan’s current net worth is estimated at $2.5 billion.These things sound like success right? Take a closer look.

Working conditions at Flex-N-Gate factories inspire outrage rather than homage–think modern day sweatshops. Members of our community who make their livings at Flex-N-Gate have filed complaints with the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the federal agency that is intended to protect against harmful working conditions. Flex-N-Gate workers have identified more than 30 violations of OSHA standards. A majority of these violations regard exposure to the carcinogenic chemical agent hexavalent chromium which is used on the factory’s bumper-plating lines. Hexavalent chromium is used to produce the glossy, plated look, but the chemical is also responsible for serious adverse health effects if proper precautions are not taken. According to OSHA, workplace exposure to hexavalent chromium is proven to cause lung cancer and irritation or damage to the nose, throat, eyes, and skin. As an aside, Erin Brokovich–in the movie as in reality, fought to enforce the rights of workers who had been exposed this same chemical used at Flex-N-Gate.

Management (led by the esteemed Khan) at Flex-N-Gate has not provided employees the basic safety equipment to mitigate the adverse health effects from exposure to hexavalent chromium. The instruction provided on safe handling of this chemical is close to non-existent and far from adequate. To reduce overhead, OSHA mandated safety equipment has been replaced with inexpensive, ineffective substitutes. In addition, while OSHA requires that employees who come in contact with the hexavlaent chromium be provided with proper cleaning facilities to rid their bodies and clothes of the chemical, management at Flex-N-Gate has failed to provide this – in effect, exposing the community and employee’s families to the carcinogenic chemical. The plant in Urbana is not even temperature regulated, workers endure excessive cold in winter and heat in summer. Many workers have reported fainting in the summer months.

The repugnancy of the situation does not end with the working conditions. In order to demand their rights as workers and human beings, workers have made numerous attempts at unionizing with the assistance of the UAW. Their efforts have been largely thwarted by management’s Draconian opposition. In a strategic move to prevent unionization, they have a regular practice of hiring a workforce that is divided along language lines. One third of the workforce are French-speaking Congolese workers, 1/3 are Spanish-speaking Latin-Americans, and the final 1/3 are English-speaking Caucasians and African-Americans from the United States. Apart from their inability to communicate with each other, all safety signs within the factory are in English only, no translations are provided. Furthermore, outspoken employees have been threatened with firing and have been given eviction notices (these evictions have been prevented due to significant protest efforts).

Meanwhile, Khan spreads his wealth around to those outside his factory walls. He recently bought the Jacksonville Jaguars for $760 million. Khan is also among the top five donors to the University of Illinois, including a $10 million dollar gift to pay for an annex to the Applied Health Sciences building. The fact that Khan can donate money for a health building, but cannot provide basic health conditions for his workers is unbelievable. A clearer definition of hypocrisy couldn’t exist in the dictionary. Mr. Kahn is the quintessential capitalist without scruple. He is emblematic of excessive wealth accumulation and a moral duplicity. Kahn must suffer from amnesia. His contempt for the plight of his workers is clear evidence that he has all but forgotten his humble beginnings. The University, as well as the great Champaign-Urbana community, venerates Kahn for his philanthropic efforts, but fails to regard the manner in which this entrepreneur acquired his fortune. Such invidious treatment by the management at Flex-N-Gate must elicit antipathy and an outcry from the community.

For more information on Flex-N-Gate please visit the website justiceatflexngate.org

Posted in Human Rights, Labor/Economics | Comments Off

Winning the Bread

Posted on 03/04/2012 by admin

By Nancy Dietrich

Dietrich works for the University of Illinois and lives in Urbana. This piece (which has been slightly modified) was originally published as a Guest Commentary in the Champaign-Urbana News-Gazette.

Awhile back, a male friend disclosed to me that he was making several thousand dollars more than the rest of his (female) colleagues, even though he had only been at the firm a couple of years. It was a financial job, and I knew at least one of his female colleagues had several years’ more experience in the company and had a college degree relevant to the job. What was this man’s degree in? Theater! Why was my friend making more than someone with better credentials and more experience?

Unfortunately, this scenario is quite common. On average, women must work over 3 months longer to make the same wages that men make. Equal Pay Day, the date when women’s wages catch up to men’s wages from the year before, is being observed on April 17^th. This date calls attention to the fact that, 49 years after the landmark passage of the Equal Pay Act of 1963, women still make considerably less money than men.

In the current economy, this is not just a “women’s issue.” More and more families depend on the wages of women. Nearly four in ten mothers are primary breadwinners in their households and nearly two-thirds are significant earners. Twenty-five percent of women are either single or heads of households with dependents. Women’s wages are critical to putting food on families’ tables and keeping roofs over their heads.

Wage discrepancies cannot be explained solely by women leaving the workforce to raise children. According to research by the American Association of University Women, just one year out of college women in the US working full time earn only 80% as much as their male colleagues. Ten years after graduation, women fall farther behind, earning only 69% as much as men earn. That translates to months of food bills, mortgage payments, rent, and utility bills lost to American families at a time when they’re struggling and the economy desperately needs their consumer spending.

While some of the wage disparity may be attributed to womens’ career choices, data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that women make less money in almost every occupation tracked. A recent article from the online magazine Good News entitled “Women Make Less Than Men at Every Education Level” also highlights these wage discrepancies: www.good.is/post/women-make-less-than-men-at-every-education-level. So even in traditionally female occupations, women still make less money than men. Research also shows that as women enter traditionally male occupations, overall wages in that sector go down. When men enter traditionally female occupations, wages go up. Preconceived notions of who should make more money still prevail and push wages up or down, depending on who is doing the job.

Stereotypes about negotiating salary also contribute to the wage gap. Research by Economist Linda Babcock showed that women who negotiated their salary before being offered the job were typically not given the offer. Men were not similarly affected. Additional research by Hannah Riley Bowles, associate professor at Harvard, revealed that when women asked their boss for a raise, it was typically looked at negatively. Double standards still exist regarding appropriate behavior by women and men in the workplace.

So what can we do about it? Here’s how to help April 17, Equal Pay Day, become a thing of the past:

1. The Paycheck Fairness Act passed in the House of Representatives in 2009, but recently failed in the Senate. When this bill is re-introduced, contact your Senator asking for their support.

2. Support salary transparency, including lifting the “gag rule” that exists in many companies (the gag rule means employees are not allowed to disclose their wages to other employees). Making all salaries public (as is the case in public institutions) would go even further to discourage wage discrimination.

3. Support unions. Unions bring wages up for both women and men, and more money to support families helps the economy. Teachers’ unions have been coming under fire in the last couple of years in several states, and over 75% of teachers are women.

4. Women–Negotiate your salary, starting from your first job. There are several resources on the web that can help you become more confident with negotiation strategies. As more women negotiate, it will become seen as part of the normal hiring process (as it currently is with men).

Congress passed the Equal Pay Act 49 years ago to ensure that women and men would earn the same pay for the same work. We still haven’t realized the promise of the law. It’s time to join together and take another step forward for women and the families that depend upon them. Our nation and our economy cannot afford to have women shortchanged any longer.

Posted in Human Rights, Labor/Economics, Women | Comments Off

Voices of Champaign-Urbana Occupy

Posted on 03/03/2012 by admin

Voices of Champaign-Urbana OccupyBy Rachel Storm

NOTE:

Voices of Champaign-Urbana Occupy is a print space devoted to documentation, editorials, and commentary from those living here in Champaign-Urbana who identify with the Occupy Wall Street movement. The opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not reflect those of Occupy Champaign-Urbana as a collective.Local Occupy Fuses Arts and Activism at ‘ARTS UNDERGROUND’
While small towns organizing within the Occupy Wall Street Movement don’t get the national attention the larger cities do, our local Champaign-Urbana Occupy is stirring things up in the community, from the street (“Occupy a Street Corner” weekly protests) to the radio waves (“Occupy the Air,” Saturdays form 12-1:30pm on 90.1 FM).

On Friday, February 24th, over 40 people gathered in the basement of the Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center for “ARTS UNDERGROUND: An Occupation of Radical Art-Making.” The event, organized by Occupy Champaign-Urbana with support from the School for Designing a Society, brought together musicians, artists, activists, and performers for a night of art-making devoted to Occupy. The idea behind the event was to create art and literature for dissemination in Champaign-Urbana and beyond—demonstrating that Occupy Champaign-Urbana is thriving, engaged in addressing local issues from labor and environmental injustices at Flex n’ Gate to construction of the local satellite jail, local foreclosures and evictions, and national campaigns to end corporate personhood. At ARTS UNDERGROUND, occupiers young and old gathered to create work that spoke to the issues in the hearts and minds of the 99%.

Participants created zines* (self-published books), posters, collages, prints, and performances—all designed in the spirit of Occupy. Two collaborative projects that grew out of the event were a collective zine titled “Why I Occupy” which will feature a page from each attendee, and an Occupy Sumi Ink drawing that invited all attendees to add to ink images until they formed a large ink mural (examples of both are displayed here).

The event, which was supported through donations of food from Pekara, Common Ground Food Co-Op, and the Red Herring Vegetarian Restaurant, and supplies from the I.D.E.A. store, showcased the power of the arts as activist practice. As one participant said, “there has never been an event like this in Champaign-Urbana.” Look forward to more ARTS UNDERGROUND from our local Occupy Wall Street movement.

Get involved in local Champaign-Urbana Occupy! We have a variety of weekly opportunities:
Mondays
7:30 to 9pm | Independent Media Center* | Outreach Committee Meetings
Enter through the Elm Street Basement entrance.Wednesdays
7:30 pm | Urbana Free Library | Anti-Eviction Committee MeetingsFridays
6pm-9pm | Champaign Public Library | Occupy Champaign-Urbana General Assembly MeetingsSaturdays

12pm-3pm | Occupy the Air, 90.1 FM, WEFT
2pm-4pm | Occupy a Street Corner (Different corner is designated each week.)

Upcoming Dates:
Mar. 31st, 2012 | Occupy Champaign-Urbana’s Grassroots Activist Training Summit
May 18 – 21st | G8/NATO
Mar. 15th-18th | Occupy the Midwest Convergence in St. Louis

Do you identify with the Occupy Wall Street movement? Would you like to Occupy readership with us? Submit an article to the Voices of Champaign-Urbana Occupy by e-mailing voicesofcuoccupy@gmail.com. To learn more, contact us online at www.occupycu.org or join us via our Facebook Fanpage “Occupy Champaign-Urbana.”

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off

Gendered Objects: A Conversation with Artist, Sarah Beth Woods

Posted on 03/03/2012 by admin

Gendered Objects: A Conversation with Artist, Sarah Beth WoodsInterview By Rachel Storm

March is National Women’s History Month and time to recognize the women who have shaped society, politics, arts, and culture throughout history. As we reflect on women’s experiences, contributions, and triumphs, let us consider too the critical role of feminist art in shaping and reshaping our understanding of women’s lives. Champaign Urbana has been host to a wealth of such art in recent weeks. The Krannert Art Museum presented the exhibit, Within and Beyond the Premises, by renowned feminist artist Carolee Schneeman. This same week, the Women’s Resources Center on campus screened Lynn Hershman Leeson’s documentary !War, Women Art Revolution– this documentary film project charts the growth of the feminist art movement, spanning over 30 years. We’ve seen feminists on screen and off discuss the importance of a feminist art movement, prompting us to ask,where is feminist art today?

I was given the opportunity to sit down with contemporary artist, Sarah Beth Woods, an MFA candidate in her final semester at the School of Art + Design here at UIUC. Woods’ work has also been on display these past weeks in a show called, Love for Sale: You Know You Need It, at the University of Michigan’s Work:Detroit exhibition space. She currently teaches a painting course for non-majors at UIUC.

Sarah Beth, you’ve often described yourself as a feminist and an artist and not always necessarily a “feminist artist.” What defines feminist art to you and how do you see yourself reflected in that definition?

Rachel, that’s a great question and one that will have many different answers depending on who you ask. I find it difficult to define “feminist art.” As Third Wave Feminists, the doors have been opened for us by our foremothers. We have so much content that we can explore. There is no longer defined or rigid ways of doing or thinking about things. The options are endless. My work utilizes domestic, everyday materials and processes like braiding that are historically feminine activities. I think back to the yarn wigs my mother used to construct for one of my many handmade Rainbow Bright or Strawberry Shortcake Halloween costumes. I was given permission at a very young age to play, braid and act through these objects. As a Third Wave Feminist, I embrace these gendered objects and re-appropriate the bright colors and materiality to suit my own needs.

Have you always worked with “gendered objects?” How do they shape the form or direction of your work?

My work has taken on many different forms since I arrived at UIUC. I came in painting and drawing but I’ve never been able to work comfortably with just one kind of material. I refer to myself as a material slut. I love stuff. I love collecting disparate materials and seeing what kinds of shapes and forms I can get out of them. Recently I’ve been obsessed with bath poufs. I was using a bath pouf in the shower and I realized it looked a lot like the plastic chains I had been using in sculptures. I immediately ran out and bought a few bags of them. In the studio I unravel the poufs and then braid them together. They form long tendrils that resemble hair extensions. Chris Rock’s documentary Good Hair inspired the integration of hair weaves into the braids, mostly because of the attraction/repulsion that people experience in relation to hair and femininity. The current sculptures have already cycled through many different lives. They started as installations in my studio and then evolved into head pieces worn in Either Once or Twice, a performance that took place last fall at the Armory Free Theatre at the University of Illinois.

I was able to see your performance art work with Nibia Pastrana Santiago in Either Once or Twice at the Armory Free Theater. Your piece was extremely striking. [NOTE: Wood’s piece in Either Once or Twice,involved her and Pastrana Santiago eating bananas and simulating masturbation on stage.] What has been your experience as a woman in a still extremely male-dominated art world? What advice would you impart to women artists?

I’ve really bonded with my female professors in a unique way. If it weren’t for their support I wouldn’t be making work that I truly enjoy. Overall, I’ve had the privilege of working with some really amazing male and female professors. On occasion a professor will casually make a sexist comment or downplay a feminine characteristic or process in relation to your work. I had one professor who used to tell me what words to use when I spoke about my work and how I should make my work. It was jarring and I internalized it a lot. I had to tell myself over and over that this was my work. When people do things like that I always try call attention to it. Quite often they don’t realize they’re doing it because its so ingrained in our culture.

Your work seems to make an important intervention in a number of ways–there’s a sex-positivity to the work and the reclamation of feminine objects calls attention to them in a way that questions their roles in shaping and reshaping our relationships to them. Where do you see your work going from here?

Usually I experiment with whatever kinds of things I can get my hands on including party decorations, duct tape, and polystyrene foam. Discovering the bath poufs was a breakthrough for me. They’ve been able to hold my attention long enough to fully explore their potential. They’re cheap enough that I can buy them in bulk, and the nylon is easy to manipulate. I’ve contacted the company that manufactures the bath poufs and they said they can produce them in any color on the Pantone color chart. I’m so excited! It will lead to some really interesting investigations in the future.

Sarah Beth Wood’s work can be viewed online at: www.sarahbethwoods.com

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off

Morning Meditation on Love

Posted on 03/03/2012 by admin

Morning Meditation on Love

Durell Callier
Bursting on the scene
Bright mornings and hope anew
Love, we welcome you.

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off

“Shut Down the Mills!”: Women, the Modern Strike, and Revolution

Posted on 03/03/2012 by Belden Fields

By Berenice Carroll

Women’s nonviolent direct action has a more extensive history and has been more influential in the history of political action for social change than is generally recognized. One of the most important contributions of women to the development of direct action as a method of social change was that of the women factory operatives who pioneered the industrial labor strike in the textile industry of New England nearly two hundred years ago.

Small-scale strikes of workers in trades and crafts have been recorded since at least medieval times, and women were participants. But the organized industrial strike as we know it developed in the first half of the 19^th century, when the women textile workers were its main protagonists. From the beginning women were active in demanding better wages and improved conditions. Women and men together were on strike in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, as early as 1824. The “first strike in which women participated alone was in Dover, New Hampshire” in 1828, when 400 women walked out to protest fines charged for lateness (Eleanor Flexner). The numbers and scope of strikes by women rose rapidly. In 1834, 600-700 women “turned out” (the term used then) at Lowell. In 1836 some 1200-1500 women turned out. In 1845, the women operatives in the Pittsburgh textile factories became known as “the Amazons” for conducting a month-long strike for the ten-hour day. Processions with banners came to characterize the “turn outs” of the women factory operatives.

In subsequent decades, women’s labor militancy through strikes expanded throughout the world. In the 1880’s, women were active in labor organizing and strikes in Mexico, and Carmen Huerta presided at the Second Congress of Workers in 1880. In 1888 the women match workers of London conducted a strike often cited as an early successful strike. In numerous strikes in the French tobacco industry between 1870 and 1900, “women workers played a dominant part” (Louise Tilly). In 1893 the first strike of women workers in Vienna won the textile workers the ten-hour day, a minimum wage, and other demands. In 1904, women textile workers of Crimmitschau, Germany, were on strike for over twenty-two weeks. In 1909-1910, 20,000 to 30,000 women in the shirt-waist industry went on strike in New York and Philadelphia, the largest strike of women workers and an event of major importance in the development of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU) in the U.S.

While women’s strike actions were generally nonviolent, they were not, as sometimes alleged, “timid.” !n 1878, for example, 300 women tobacco workers in St. Petersburg went on strike and won their demands after they returned to the factories to throw everything – tools and furniture – out the windows. And Kumari Jayawardena writes: “The most militant activists of the Ceylon Labour Union which led the strikes in Sri Lanka in the 1920s were women factory workers in Colombo; they used to dress in red, were the most vociferous of the strikers and picketers, and formed a bodyguard for male trade union leaders during demonstrations.”

Black and white women workers participated in the crucial labor struggles of the 1930s in the U.S. Black women often experienced discrimination from White women workers as well as from employers and male workers. But sometimes Black and White women joined forces. In 1933, for example, 900 Black women in the pecan industry in St. Louis went on strike, and gained the cooperation of the White women workers. Paula Giddings writes: “The owner of the factories tried to divide the women, offering Whites an increase in wages if they returned to work. The answer was returned by 1,500 women of both races marching on City Hall, and the proprietor gave in.”

Women workers have continued to use the strike in many parts of the world in struggles to change the conditions of their lives, as for example: women metalworkers in Brazil in 1980, women textile workers in Poland in 1981, women bakery workers in India in 1984, and Asian women textile workers in Birmingham, England, in 1982. In October 1984, tens of thousands of women in Iceland went on a 24-hour strike to protest discrimination against women.

The larger significance of women’s direct action in labor struggles, as in other movements for social change, has also been greater than usually acknowledged. Even when recognized that women were participants in early strikes, it has seldom been acknowledged that as the primary workforce in the textile industry, which was the model for the development of the factory system in general, women were the main pioneers of the early history of labor struggles in factory industry. When women factory workers began to “turn out” in numbers in the 1820s, 1830s, and 1840s, they were taking the lead in shaping the language, tactics, and symbolism of the strike as one of the major forms of action for social change.

Preoccupation by scholars with the numerical underrepresentation of women in most unions, union-led strikes, and political parties in the twentieth century has obscured the true dimensions of women’s collective action, which often arises out of female community networks that are outside of these organizations but may constitute the essential foundations of support for them. Often they go beyond the narrower demands of labor unions to include a wide range of economic, social, and political issues.

In fact, women’s labor militancy has been felt in many parts of the world, sometimes with powerful political consequences. Early in the twentieth century, strikes by women workers in countries as widely separated by geography and culture as Spain and Japan expanded into mass strikes and political crises. Temma Kaplan has analyzed the events in 1913 in Barcelona, when women led the demand to strike and were the majority of the 20,000 workers who went out on strike at the end of July. Their continued initiative, leadership and demonstrations led to a general strike, beginning on August 10 and lasting into September, extending the labor struggle into the entire life of the community. In Japan a few years later, “the 1918 Rice Riots were triggered off when women port workers refused to load rice and were joined by other workers; this led to a long struggle and a political crisis” (Jayawardena).

In the same period, it was a strike by women textile workers that initiated the revolutionary events which brought down the Czarist government in Russia in 1917. While the Bolsheviks and other political organizations were opposing strikes or other militant actions as premature, women workers in several textile factories decided to go on strike on February 23, 1917, International Women’s Day. When the women workers, “in spite of all directives,” went on strike and called for support, the Bolsheviks agreed “with reluctance,” according to Leon Trotsky. Other workers and revolutionary organizations also agreed to support a mass strike. In St. Petersburg, “a mass of women . . . flocked to the municipal duma demanding bread.” The next day, the strike spread; about half the industrial workers of the city were on strike. Demonstrations and encounters with police multiplied; soldiers fraternized with the demonstrators. The revolution of 1917 had begun. As Trotsky concluded: “Thus the fact is that the February revolution was begun from below, overcoming the resistance of its own revolutionary organizations, the initiative being taken of their own accord by the most oppressed and downtrodden part of the proletariat – the women textile workers.”

To understand the historical processes of change towards social justice, we must always search for the women.

*This article is drawn (with revisions) from: Berenice A. Carroll, “’Women Take Action!’: Women’s Direct Action and Social Change,” Women’s Studies International Forum, v. 12, no. 1, 1989, which includes citations and references for data and quotations above.

Berenice A. Carroll is Professor Emerita of Political Science and Women’s Studies at Purdue University, West Lafayette, and at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She was Director of the Women’s Studies Program at UIUC in 1983-1987 and Director of the Women’s Studies Program at Purdue University in 1990-2000. She served as President of the National Women’s Studies Association in 1999-2000.

Posted in Labor/Economics, Women | Comments Off

In the Wake of the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster, Feds Approve Construction of New Nuclear Power Plants

Posted on 03/03/2012 by Robert Nagel

Abandoned buildings, twisted debris, and silent streets depict what used to be a lively city in northern Japan. There are no cleanup efforts underway here because it is too dangerous – March 11, 2012 marks one year since a massive earthquake and ensuing tsunami triggered a devastating nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor complex. Multiple meltdowns and explosions spewed high-level radioactive waste into the environment, forcing more than 100,000 people to be evacuated and demonstrating once again that nuclear accidents result in displaced communities, contaminated food, health problems, and renewed skepticism over domestic energy policy.

Here in the U.S., nuclear power has been both criticized as a flawed endeavor and hailed as a carbon-free solution to meeting electrical demand. While the 1979 Three Mile Island nuclear meltdown in Pennsylvania paralyzed the nuclear industry for the next three decades, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), the federal agency in charge of nearly all things atomic, is moving forward with plans to build new nuclear reactors in the southeastern U.S.

In early February, the NRC approved a construction license for two Westinghouse AP1000 nuclear reactors, the first approval given in more than 30 years, stating that the AP1000 reactor design “includes passive safety features that would cool down the reactor after an accident without the need for human intervention.” With this announcement, the construction of the AP1000 reactors continued as planned –construction of the reactors actually began prior to the NRC’s complete approval. As you can imagine, the NRC’s decision was anxiously awaited and well received by the nuclear industry.

The unusual thing about the Westinghouse AP1000 reactor design, as David Biello mentions in his February 9^th article in Scientific American, is that the reactor employs a “novel design.” What he is referring to is a variety of passive cooling systems that are designed to continuously cool the reactor core in the event of a sustained power failure. The ironic thing about certain nuclear power plants, such as the ill-fated Fukushima Daiichi plant, is that although they produce electricity, they also require electricity to run their secondary safety systems. Thus, this “novel design” is essentially a 21^st Century upgrade to 20^th Century technology.

A quick phone call to the NRC Region II office, however, confirmed an underlying suspicion: no AP1000 nuclear plant has ever been built, which means that the “novel design” has never really been tested, which means that no one really knows for sure how the reactor and its complex systems will respond under real-world conditions.

Now, I am no civil engineer, but if I were, I would have the authority to write something similar to what civil engineering professor and prolific author Henry Petroski wrote in his 1995 book Design Paradigms.

“Indeed, the history of engineering is full of examples of dramatic failures that were once considered confident extrapolations of successful designs; it was the failures that ultimately revealed the latent flaws in design logic that were initially masked by large factors of safety and a design conservatism that became relaxed with time.”

But I am not a civil engineer, so I will not write anything like that. All I will say is this: believe it or not, while your eyes are moving across this grey and black page, men and machines are slowly piecing together the concrete and steel of four (two in Georgia and two in South Carolina) more-or-less experimental nuclear reactors, within one year of one of the world’s worst nuclear disasters.

The construction is justified by the fact that the new nuclear reactors are being built to replace aging facilities. Just as Baby Boomers retire in droves over the coming years, so too will the vast majority of the nation’s existing nuclear power plants. According to the NRC, more than 50 reactors will reach the end of their federally licensed operational lifetime between now and 2020. While one option for an elderly plant is permanent decommissioning, plant operators can apply for an extension of the operating license, which would allow the plant to operate for another fixed number of years. The NRC has readily extended operating licenses of nuclear power plants for another decade or so, which keeps the juice flowing and maximizes profit from the plant, but puts additional stress on an aged system. At some point, nuclear power plants must be permanently shut down, at an estimated cost of between $300 and 500 million dollars per reactor.

To complicate matters even further, the Obama administration has terminated plans to store spent nuclear fuel from our nation’s 104 nuclear reactors in Yucca Mountain, Nevada. For many years, this plan was strongly criticized by environmental groups as well as local governments, but remained the federal government’s best bet for finding a storage solution that would attempt to isolate the high-level radioactive waste for the next 10,000 years. After undergoing fission, nuclear fuel becomes extremely hazardous and must be isolated from the environment for virtually forever.

It turns out it is much easier to produce tremendous amounts of this waste than to find a suitable location for it. And with no long-term storage solution, the vast majority of the high-level nuclear waste continues to sit in large cooling pools at the reactor site, where water circulates to ensure the spent fuel rods do not overheat. This is temporary at best, and brings to light an unsettling realization – despite having nowhere to store the tens of thousands of tons of extremely radioactive nuclear waste, nuclear engineers and scientists are continuing to build new nuclear power plants, perhaps hoping (or not) that someone, someday, will find a place to store the waste.

What all these issues boil down to is this: we, as a nation, face two daunting questions when it comes to energy policy. How will we power our energy intensive society, the most energy consumptive society on earth, in the next 10, 20, 30 years? And what the heck are we going to do with all this radioactive waste?

In light of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, our current nuclear power plants should be decommissioned as soon as possible. The alternative would be to operate them longer, hoping that no earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, tornadoes or human error cripple their safety systems.

Our nation’s lack of permanent waste storage solutions reveals the shortsighted agenda of the nuclear industry as well as the long-term problem of nuclear waste disposal. Despite a 21^st Century upgrade to the design of nuclear reactors, this change remains a largely unproven technology that will undoubtedly result in unforeseen problems. Thus, it is essential that we resist the construction of new nuclear power plants and ensure that our aging plants are decommissioned safely, responsibly, and thoroughly. It is a ways away, but we could very well be on our way to exiting the Atomic Age.

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off

Coming Soon to a Police Department Near You: Unmanned Aerial Drones

Posted on 03/02/2012 by Alex Cline

Raven. Predator. Reaper. Over the last decade, we’ve heard the news reports about the Pentagon’s cutting-edge unmanned aerial platforms flying missions over Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Libya, Iran, and Somalia. Used for reconnaissance as well as search-and-destroy missions, the United States’ remote-controlled drones have become synonymous with American military power in the age of the War on Terror. Now, after years of use for surveillance and assassinations abroad, the drones are coming home.

Unarmed Customs and Border Protection variant of General Atomics' Predator B Drone - image credit: Flickr user james_gordon_los_angeles

United States Customs and Border Protection have been using an unarmed variant of General Atomics’ iconic Predator drone to watch the Mexican and Canadian borders since 2005. While the specific mission of the Border Patrol’s Predator fleet is to aid in the interdiction of narcotics and undocumented immigrants en route to the United States, they have also used the drones to aid local law enforcement within the US border.

In June 2011, Border Patrol dispatched one of its Predator drones from Grand Forks Air Force Base to aid the Nelson County, North Dakota Sheriff’s Department in pursuit a group of armed cattle rustlers roughly 75 miles south of the US-Canadian border. After the drone managed to pinpoint the location of the cattle thieves from an elevation of 2 miles, the first-ever publicly-known arrests aided by a Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) in American airspace were made. As of December 2011, CBP has 9 Predator drones in the field.

There are already a number of other UAVs actively being marketed toward American law enforcement agencies, many of which are constructed by the same defense contractors which make the drones flying over the Middle East and Africa.

AeroVironment Inc. manufactures the Raven, an unarmed lightweight drone used for battlefield reconnaissance by American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. In October, the company unveiled the Qube, a small quad-rotor UAV geared toward public safety and law enforcement agencies. According to their press release, the 5.5 lb. Qube can fit in the trunk of a police cruiser, is capable of vertical landing and takeoff, and comes equipped with thermal and color imaging systems. The Qube is controlled with a specialized tablet device and can reach altitudes of up to 500 feet.

Visual surveillance is just the tip of the iceberg for UAVs: a two-man team consisting of an ex-Air Force hacker and an RC plane hobbyist developed a small unmanned plane dubbed the WASP, capable of cracking Wi-Fi and GSM networks and retrieving data from them mid-flight. Using an open-source Linux platform and constructed from commercially available parts, the WASP exploits well-documented security vulnerabilities in wireless internet and cellular networks. The proof-of-concept was demonstrated at the Black Hat and DEFCON security conferences in August.

Even more alarming are the specifications of Vanguard Defense’s ShadowHawk, an unmanned helicopter which has already seen military deployment in the Middle East and is currently being marketed toward domestic law enforcement. According to Vanguard’s webpage on the ShadowHawk, “U.S. Military and Law Enforcement consumers have less-lethal/lethal options including single or multiple shot 37 mm/40mm grenade launcher, [and/or] 12g shotgun.” It is hardly a stretch of the imagination to envision SWAT teams deploying weaponized drone platforms for riot control and other tactical purposes, justifying the $250,000 price tag to taxpayers as the cost of protecting officers from the line of fire. The Federal government is ready to help foot the bill: Vanguard Defense’s webpage links directly to a Department of Homeland Security website outlining how to apply for a grant to outfit your law enforcement agency with one or more UAVs.

The Sheriff’s Department of Montgomery County, Texas has already used a DHS grant to purchase a ShadowHawk, and the office of Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart has been actively pursuing a similar grant. It’s quite possible that one or more ShadowHawk drones may even be deployed in Chicago during the upcoming G8/NATO meetings.

Currently, in order for both public and private entities to fly an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) in American airspace, the Federal Aviation Administration requires that a Certificate of Authorization or Waiver (COA) be issued. Attempts by the Frontier Electronic Foundation to file a Freedom of Information Act request to see who has been issued these certificates have been stalled since April 2011. Last month, the EFF announced that they were filing a formal suit against the Department of Transportation to find out who, exactly, recieved COAs to fly drones in the United States. To see the EFF’s full complaint against the DOT, visit https://www.eff.org/press/releases/who-flying-unmanned-aircraft-us

On Feb. 14, 2012, H.R. 658, also known as The FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012, was signed into law by President Obama. The measure, largely backed by industry groups and law enforcement agencies, expands airspace for UAVs for both public and private actors. Starting this June, police and first responders will no longer need permission from the FAA to fly drones weighing less than 4.4 lbs. below elevations of 400 feet. Additionally, the law sets a plan to open up airspace to civilian drones as soon as September 2015 by expanding the FAA’s drone oversight capacity.

The expansion of high-tech drones with advanced imaging capabilities into American airspace raises a number of privacy questions, which are likely to remained unresolved. The law as it currently stands allows law enforcement agencies to monitor all outdoor areas within their jurisdiction, meaning that UAV-mounted cameras would not in any way violate the Fourth Amendment. It isn’t only a one-way street, however. Unmanned aerial vehicles also provide a powerful new method for activists and protesters to document abuses of power.

“Sousveillance” is a term coined by the Canadian academic Steve Mann which refers to a kind of inverse surveillance, or “watching from beneath.” The concept of sousveillance reflects the increasing technological capability of populations to document the activities of more powerful actors who govern them. In fact, many activists have already been using remote-controlled helicopters and planes for just such a purpose. Several months ago in Warsaw, Poland, an anti-fascist demonstrator deployed an RC helicopter to capture aerial video of purported police collusion with violent nationalist gangs during a Nov 11 riot and released the footage online.

Tim Pool with the Occucopter - image credit: Flickr user stanleyrogouski

In response to NYPD barricades preventing journalists from covering the Occupy Wall Street protests in New York this winter, citizen journalist Tim Pool modified a $300 Parrot A.R. drone (a small commercially-available quad-copter with a built-in camera which can be controlled from a smartphone) to broadcast video directly to the internet, which he dubbed the “Occucopter.” Pool and other OWS-affiliated hackers have started a world-wide collaboration to work on plans to make a cheaper version. For more on the project, see http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/OccuCopter.

The proliferation of drones remains troubling, especially considering the potential for armed drones to be employed by domestic law enforcement agencies. However, as activists, we should not lose sight of the ability to leverage these technologies toward holding power accountable for its actions, letting the whole world know that we are watching from above.

Alex Cline moved to Urbana in August 2011 after getting his B.A. in History at New College of Florida to join School for Designing a Society. He currently works at the IMC and is strongly interested in surveillance culture and federal policing methods.

Posted in Policing, Technology | Comments Off

Red Tails, A Historically Accurate Film?

Posted on 03/01/2012 by Sundiata Keita Cha-Jua

By Sundiata Cha-Jua

Dr. Sundiata Cha-Jua is a Associate Professor in the Department of African American Studies and History at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Previously published at: http://illinois.edu/lb/article/72/59144

America’s first unit of African-American fighter pilots, the highly decorated Tuskegee Airmen, is the subject of the movie “Red Tails,” which opened last weekend. Part of the unit got early training at a base in East Central Illinois. Why is the story of these World War II pilots so important? And what do we need to know that isn’t in the movie? Sundiata Cha-Jua (SOON-dee-ah-tah Chah-JOO-ah) is a professor of history and of African American Studies who teaches courses in African-American history and the civil rights movement. He was interviewed about the airmen and the movie by University of Illinois News Bureau social sciences editor Craig Chamberlain.

In the context of World War II and the role played by most black servicemen, why does the story of the Tuskegee Airmen stand out?

The experience of the Tuskegee Airmen both confirms and departs from the overall experience of African-American soldiers during World War II. They were subjected to the same type of apartheid or segregation and racial oppression as almost all black soldiers. Chanute Field in Rantoul, Ill., was the only base that was desegregated, and that was because the small number of blacks trained there made apartheid too expensive.

Tuskegee Airmen, like other blacks, were barred from officers clubs, as well as all-white establishments off base. Initially, they too spent much of their time driving trucks, cutting lawns, and wielding shovels, paintbrushes and mops, rather than in combat situations. They too were generally referred to as “boy” and were subject to the prevailing belief that as blacks they were incompetent and incapable of fighting.

Whites could become pilots right out of high school, but blacks had to have a college degree. Any pilot became an ace when he got five “kills,” or downed planes. But according to one of the few surviving Tuskegee Airmen, Quinton Smith, in a recent news story, when an African-American downed four planes he was transferred back stateside.

Their experiences departed from that of the regular African-American soldier in that as pilots they were engaged in the thrill of combat and excelled at it. The four fighter squadrons that composed the black 332nd Fighter Group – the 99th, 100th, 301st and the 302nd – shot down 112 enemy planes and destroyed 150 on the ground, as well as 600 railroad cars. They also sank one destroyer, along with 40 boats and barges. The Tuskegee Airmen won six Distinguished Unit Citations. In 1949, they won the Air Force’s first Top Gun competition, though their victory was not acknowledged until April 1995. They embodied the African-American aphorism that “you have to be twice as good to get half as far.”

You call the war years and after of the 1940s a “watershed” in African-American history, though the dramatic events of the civil rights movement would come later, in the ’50s and ’60s. What factors or events made the ’40s so important?

The 1940s were a watershed because it was a time of tremendous change and progress. Significant change occurred in the demography, socioeconomic role, and legal and political status of blacks, as they battered the first meaningful cracks in American apartheid during that decade. Most importantly, by 1950 the Second Great Migration, from the South to other parts of the country, had shifted African-Americans from a majority rural population to one in which 62 percent resided in urban areas. With urbanization came industrial jobs, better educational opportunities and access to better social services.

The March on Washington Movement led by A. Phillip Randolph, of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, forced President Franklin D. Roosevelt to issue two executive orders. The first, 8802, required companies with defense contracts to practice fair employment, and the second, 9346, created the Fair Employment Practices Committee to monitor hiring in 1941. These executive orders opened defense industry jobs to blacks.

African-Americans adopted the militant strategy reflected in the Pittsburgh Courier’s campaign for the “Double V,” for victory abroad and victory at home against anti-black racial oppression. Black union membership grew from 150,000 to 1.25 million. In 1944, the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Smith v. Allwright ruled the all-white primary unconstitutional, immediately increasing the African-American electorate by 450,000. Jackie Robinson desegregated Major League Baseball in 1945, and President Truman’s Executive Order 9981 desegregated the armed forces in 1948.

These advances laid the material and organizational base for the emergence of the modern civil rights movement of the 1950s and ’60s.

The movie is all about the exploits of the Tuskegee Airmen during the war. But what role did they play in the years after?

They represented a leadership group. Just as they often openly challenged segregation and racial oppression on the base and in the surrounding communities where they were stationed, they “returned fighting.” Ellsworth Dansby, a Tuskegee Airman from Decatur, Ill., is representative of that. When he returned home, along with other war veterans he organized African-Americans to pay their power bills in pennies until the Illinois Power Co. hired black female office workers.

“Red Tails” is a combat movie that puts an emphasis on action and heroism over history. Executive Producer George Lucas has said one goal was to make “an inspirational for teenage boys.” Do you think there’s value in that? And what would you most want audiences to know that wasn’t part of the movie?

It’s interesting that the film is titled “Red Tails.” Others called the Tuskegee Airmen that name after they painted the tails of their planes red. But they referred to themselves as “the Lonely Eagles” in reference to their isolation as a result of segregation and discrimination.

In many ways, the film neglects the backstory and racial issues embedded in it. The flight program at Tuskegee was the product of a 10-year battle with the military to train black pilots. The civilian struggle provides needed sociohistorical context but is not incorporated. Nevertheless, by portraying African-American men as heroes in contrast to much of their contemporary image in mainstream television and film, “Red Tails” has merit.

Posted in African Americans, Uncategorized, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | Comments Off

Performing the Vagina Monologues

Posted on 03/01/2012 by Marya Burke

Dawn Bangert, History Student at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Performing in the Vagina Monologues was an empowering experience that allowed me to connect with an amazing group of women on campus. Not only did I have the opportunity to sell Vagina lollipops on the quad, which was a fun way to start my day, I was also able to engage in conversations around female sexuality and help fight taboos. Female sexuality should not be a place of shame but instead a shared experience. To me theVagina Monologues are important because they tell peoples’ stories. These stories are all the more important because they are coming from people who are often silenced.

I loved being on stage and felt even better knowing that our work would contribute to efforts targeting ending violence against women locally and globally. Ninety percent of the funds we raised through sale of tickets, Candy Vaginas, and T-shirts is being given to the Center for Women in Transition here in Champaign. The remaining ten percent will be sent to the national VDAY organization, where funds are dispersed globally. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to be a part of the 2012 Vagina Monologue cast and cannot wait until next year.

Thanks!

(For an interesting connection, see Su Fen Song’s article “The Vagina Monologues in China” in the Public i archive, posted March 2007).

Posted in Women | Comments Off

Save Starved Rock! Stop the Sand Pit!

Posted on 02/15/2012 by Pricilla Wallis

Starved Rock State park is located along the historic south bank of the Illinois River. Starved Rock is known for its many canyons and hosts over two million tourists a year. It has 2360 acres of natural wildlife, rivers and caves. It was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1960.

Today Starved Rock is in danger of being subject to pollution from sand mining. Mississippi Sand LLC is planning to open a sand mining operation on 350 acres of farmland just east of Starved Rock. The mine will be right next to the Illinois, Ottawa and Kaskaskia canyons. Sand mining is becoming an environment issue as the need for it increases in today’s construction businesses. Sand blasting and dust are known to cause many different types of pollution, which affect local populations and wildlife. Sand mining is known to cause air, light, soil, and ground and surface water contamination. It can destroy the productivity of farmland, which hurts grazing animals, as well as producing noise that scares the wildlife. Sand mining also hurts the land by causing erosion and sinkholes.

Starved Rock’s sand is special because it is very hard and round, which works great for hydraulic fracturing or “fracking”. Fracking is when a company injects chemicals and sand into underground pockets in the earth’s crust to hold up the ground for oil and natural gas to escape for extraction. Flat sand does not work, it would just collapse; sand like that in Starved Rock can hold open the underground holes.

Starved Rock was formed between 14,000 and 17,000 years ago by a catastrophic flood. Archeologists have found at least 14 different cave shelters used by humans in many culture periods. Starved rock shelters catfish, white bass and walleye, and 150 different types of flowers flourish there. All of this history and wildlife could be damaged by the pollution caused by sand mining. Is this sand so important that we will let Mississippi Sand LLC come in and destroy the beauty and history of this State Park?

It is unlikely that the Illinois Department of Natural Resources would approve the permit that LaSalle County Zoning Board recommended on December 15 and the LaSalle County Board granted on January 12. The LESA (Land Evaluation and Site Assessment) that the board reviewed was incomplete, and a calculation error was later discovered. The recalculated LESA score showed that by state law the pollution would be too great to the neighboring farms. The LESA showed the pollution at 209, and in the state of Illinois it can’t be above 200.

A written petition has been started by the Illinois Sierra Club. They have already gathered over 600 signatures for “Save Starved Rock—Stop the Sand Pits.” For more information, go to illinois.sierraclub.org.

Posted in Environment, Politics, Uncategorized | Comments Off

Learning the Lessons of Depleted Uranium

Posted on 02/15/2012 by Belden Fields

By Conrad Wetzel

One of the most significant wastes obtained from producing fuel for nuclear reactors and atomic bombs is depleted uranium. An isotope which can be fissioned is uranium U-235, the material used in civil and nuclear military industry. Because this isotope is found in very low proportions in nature, the uranium ore has to be enriched, i.e., its proportion of the U-235 isotope has to be industrially increased. This process produces a large amount of radioactive depleted uranium (DU) waste , thus named because it is mainly formed by the other non-fissionable uranium isotope, U-238 and a minimum proportion of U-235.

On Tuesday, December 15, 2011, I assisted Roger Golden in visiting several sites in Champaign-Urbana, to talk about his participation in a protest at the Aerojet Ordnance plant in Jonesborough, Tennessee. Aerojet is a producer of depleted uranium weapons. Roger, a native of Virginia and member of the Church of the Brethren, has been making a road trip through the Midwest, meeting with churches, school, and community groups to relate his story. Roger had participated in a Christian Peacemaker Team (CPT) delegation in Jonesborough, TN. CPT has been involved since 2003 with the Aerojet Ordnance plant in Jonesborough. Aerojet is a producer of depleted uranium weapons. CPT is currently being assisted in its Aerojet Action by Appalachian Peace Education Center, a 30 year old peace group. Roger’s visit to our community included the taping of a half hour interview at Urbana Public Television (UPTV.)

To protect its own tanks, the American military industry has been using depleted uranium (DU) since 1977 to coat conventional weaponry (artillery, tanks and aircraft), as a needed counterbalance in aircraft and Tomahawk missiles, and as a component for navigation instruments. Depleted uranium has characteristics making it highly attractive for military technology: firstly, it is extremely dense and heavy (3 cubic centimeters weighs almost 19 grams), such that projectiles with a depleted uranium head can penetrate the armored steel of military vehicles and buildings; secondly, it is a spontaneous pyrophoric material, i.e., it inflames when reaching its target generating such heat that it explodes.  Because of questions about potential long-term health effects, the use of DU in munitions is controversial. Since uranium is a toxic metal, normal functioning of the kidney, brain, liver, heart, and numerous other systems can be affected by uranium exposure. It is weakly radioactive and remains so because of its long physical half-life (4.468 billion years for uranium-238, 700 million years for uranium-235). The biological half-life (the average time it takes for the human body to eliminate half the amount in the body) for uranium is about 15 days. Aerosol or spallation frangible powder produced during impact and combustion of depleted uranium munitions can potentially contaminate wide areas around the impact sites. This can lead to inhalation by human beings.

A high number of children are being born with birth defects in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, where U.S. forces used DU-coated weapons during a fierce battle in 2004. Children in Fallujah are being born with limb, head, heart and nervous system defects. There is even a claim that a baby was born with three heads. The number of heart defects among newborn babies is said to be 13 times higher than the rate in Europe. The city, forty miles west of Baghdad, was the scene of some of the fiercest fighting of the Iraq war in late 2004. U.S. Marines led Operation Phantom Fury to recapture it from insurgents. British troops were involved in manning checkpoints on the outskirts of the city as the Americans went in. The U.S. has admitted that it also used white phosphorus in the attack, but only as an illumination device For millions of years, our planet earth has provided a marvelous home for the many life forms that have evolved, including our own. The intricate balance of such factors as oxygen, light, warmth, and nutrients has enabled the development of our civilizations, of our human families, our communities, our richly varied societies, our future generations. The earth deserves our enlightened care and maintenance in contrast to the many ways in which we so shortsightedly and carelessly exploit these irreplaceable resources. All this is greatly compounded by the extent to which DU and other toxic weapons is a byproduct of preparation for war. The need is urgent for us to learn and apply the ways of peace, justice, diplomacy, and reconciliation, rather than continuing our present mutually destructive course of the violence and destruction of war. Oh, that we might learn the ways of peace.

Sources of information for this article include:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pg2NHfoC2pc&feature=related   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depleted_uranium 

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=2269 

http://www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/a/432.html 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1255312/Birth-defects-Fallujah-rise-U-S-operation.html#ixzz1kKGooos9 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1255312/Birth-defects-Fallujah-rise-U-S-operation.html#ixzz1kKFU3bdb

Posted in Human Rights, International, Politics | Comments Off

Interview with ‘The Snowman’

Posted on 02/15/2012 by Neil Parthun

I recently had an opportunity to interview veteran mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter, Jeff ‘The Snowman’ Monson over email. Monson attended the University of Illinois and was part of the wrestling team. While some see just another athlete, he is also a man who has a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in psychology and is an outspoken advocate for a more just world. Prior to his MMA career, Monson was a mental health professional in crisis evaluation and a child/family counselor. When I asked him about this period of his life, he stated: “I greatly enjoyed my time as a mental health professional. I worked with kids, families and the severely mentally ill during a seven-year span. I think it is an overlooked need in society in helping those with mental illness.” He wrote further about his experience with how mental health and social services were treated by saying that the one issue he had “…working in mental health is the money allocated to our agencies kept getting cut year after year.” Monson also put the blame where it belonged – “The problem is the financial system – capitalism. It is a viral system where greed and exploitation are seen as positive traits. The first systems to fail are those that do not contribute wealth, i.e. education, health care, social service programs, etc.”

Monson also spoke about how he began thinking more liberally while in college “after taking some community psychology courses”, but it was some of his early experiences as a mixed martial artist that really influenced some of his radical politics. ‘The Snowman’ told me that it was “traveling to different parts of the world and seeing the destructive forces of capitalistic globalization [that] really got me involved in learning more about anarchism.”

Monson has participated in numerous activist campaigns, opposed the US war in Iraq, and was also present at the 2008 Republican National Convention protests. When I asked him if his imposing size and tattooed body influences how police treat him, he responded: “I know that my presence gets the attention of the police and security. Honestly, this is the only time I really think about my size or appearance and I do want them to take notice. I think it is important to speak with intelligence and demonstrate calmness during these protests as it adds validity to the actual action of protesting.” He also spoke about the Occupy movement and said that he has “great hope that they can continue to grow until people realize that they are the ones with power and something truly great happens such as shutting down the NYSE (New York Stock Exchange) or a general strike.”

When I mentioned the criticism that professional athletes were not workers, Monson offered the following: “It is a job, no doubt. If it were easy, then a lot more people would be professional athletes. However, that being said, I do love my job and I feel blessed to have a job that I enjoy. I don’t think many people do the work that really makes them happy.” In another interview with MMAFighting.com, Monson took the idea even further: “I’m like everybody else. I live in a capitalist system, so that’s what I have to do. … I may not like it or agree it, but that’s our society. I’m trying to change it, but I’m not a hypocrite either. I know that I have to earn money to pay bills. I just happen to have a job that I enjoy, and I do feel blessed. If I could make any job for myself, this would be one of them…At the same time, these people paying me to fight, they’re making a hell of a lot more off the fighters than they’re paying them. They’re doing it to make a profit. In essence, they’re stealing from me. It’s like someone working in a shoe factory making shoes, that person doesn’t get paid what those shoes are worth. They get paid a fraction of it. They get paid the minimum they can get paid and stay living and employed and keep them from quitting. They’re wage slaves, just like I’m a wage slave.”

Monson concluded his interview with me by saying – “No matter what our profession, title, income, etc., we are all united together as human beings. We have the capacity to do wonderful things whether inventing a new technology or running 100 meters in less than 10 seconds. We should never settle for the status quo because ‘its not a good system, but it’s the best we have’ mentality. That apathetic, lazy approach is the worst of us. We owe it to ourselves as a society and our human distinction to strive to make life as good as it can be for even the lease of us.”

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off

Book Reading: “the alphabet blows through the open window” by Danielle Chynoweth

Posted on 02/15/2012 by Public i

Poetry Performance and Book Release for
“when the bed shakes and the walls breathe and
the alphabet blows through the open window”
Poetry by Danielle Chynoweth written between 1994 and 2011

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Saturday, March 17th 7-9pm
at the Channing-Murray Foundation

1209 W. Oregon St., Urbana, IL 61801

Books are $8 at the event. You can order a copy for $10 ($8 + $2 shipping) by contacting Danielle at chyn@ucimc.org or sending a check to Danielle Chynoweth 412 W. Illinois St., Urbana, IL 61801.

Selections from “the alphabet blows through the open window”:

“Can a soul be made by wanting it?
This is, perhaps, how all things, and beings, are made.
I will seek at every moment to make a world new and exciting for all of us.”

“Let’s feed each other our laughter.
Let’s touch in ways that require us to make our own grammar of sensation.
And let’s care for this nameless, soft animal of our affection.”

“A soul must cling to each body until the hand of god dips like a ladle
into this primordial soup and lifts it away.
Who will speak out against military abortion?”

Posted in Arts, Women | Comments Off

Our Government Has Been Hijacked! The Occupy movement is here to take it back.

Posted on 02/15/2012 by Emmanuel Goldstein

Emmanuel Goldstein

The Problem: Our political system is broken because corporations are allowed to use their wealth to buy political influence.

Most Americans believe that everyone should have the same amount of say in government, regardless of how much money they have. But that is not the current state of things in the United States.

Corporations spend millions of dollars every year on political campaigns. Why do they do that? What’s their bottom line? What do they stand to gain?

If your answer is “political influence,” then ask yourself, can YOU afford to spend millions of dollars on campaign contributions? If not, then corporations are buying more political influence than you can and are stealing your right to be represented in government.

What does that have to do with the Occupy movement? On September 27, 2011, the people of Occupy Wall Street worked together to write a Declaration of the Occupation. This is the preamble:

As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.

This is the founding document of the Occupy movement. It says that our democracy cannot function because corporations are allowed to use their economic power to buy political influence and control our government. THAT is the key complaint of the Occupy movement. All of the other complaints coming out of the Occupy movement are CAUSED by that key problem. The other complaints are like branches, but the trunk of the tree is corporate influence on elections. Think about that. If we want to fix the myriad of problems, we could snip at each individual branch, or we could go for the trunk and solve all the problems at once. We need to go for the trunk. We need to take away corporations’ ability to hijack our government through campaign contributions.

A few points to consider:

· Our political system is dysfunctional because corporations are able to use their wealth to fund political campaigns and hire lobbyists.

· This undue influence that corporations have on our government makes everyone else’s influence less.

· We the people do not govern ourselves; instead, we are governed by corporations and the extremely wealthy who run them.

· Our government is not a government of, for, and by the people, but of, for, and by the extremely wealthy.

· We are not opposed to capitalism; we are opposed to the unregulated capitalism that crashed our economy.

· We do not seek a redistribution of wealth, but a redistribution of political power, so that every individual has the same amount of power, and no individuals can buy additional power.

· We do not seek to unbalance the distribution of political power, but to balance it.

· The richest 1% of people have way more than 1% of the power in this country. This is not fair. The richest 1% should have only 1% of the influence on our government. The other 99% of influence should belong to the other 99% of the population.

· Corporations are in power now, and they are not going to give up that power willingly.

Who runs our government? Let’s take a look at how bad the situation really is. Here are the statistics on major campaign donors for the 2008 election. Notice that it is not just Republicans who are being bought off by big corporations. It is both parties.

Campaign donations by big banks:

	Total	Democrats	Republicans	% to Dems	% to Reps	Individuals	PACs
JPMorgan Chase	$6,067,469	$3,678,060	$2,384,359	61%	39%	$4,866,065	$1,201,404
Goldman Sachs	$6,025,681	$4,489,893	$1,525,448	75%	25%	$5,275,681	$750,000
Citigroup	$5,021,528	$3,170,732	$1,845,796	63%	37%	$4,198,428	$823,100
Bank of America	$2,994,038	$1,689,181	$1,300,986	56%	44%	$1,580,967	$1,413,071

Campaign donations by weapons manufacturers:

	Total	Democrats	Republicans	% to Dems	% to Reps	Individuals	PACs
Lockheed Martin	$2,862,784	$1,402,456	$1,458,761	49%	51%	$1,058,840	$1,803,944
Boeing	$2,354,933	$1,350,365	$1,000,320	57%	43%	$754,683	$1,600,250
Northrop Grumman	$2,064,071	$1,106,274	$955,247	54%	46%	$761,821	$1,302,250
Raytheon	$1,926,922	$1,000,706	$923,216	52%	48%	$336,222	$1,590,700
General Dynamics	$1,789,669	$1,026,037	$761,882	57%	43%	$542,369	$1,247,300

Campaign donations by health insurance companies and drug manufacturers:

	Total	Democrats	Republicans	% to Dems	% to Reps	Individuals	PACs
Blue Cross Blue Shield	$2,865,175	$1,508,508	$1,355,167	53%	47%	$1,107,246	$1,757,929
AFLAC	$1,950,430	$903,600	$1,046,830	46%	54%	$148,430	$1,802,000
Pfizer	$1,986,869	$1,017,515	$967,854	51%	49%	$511,964	$1,474,905
GlaxoSmithKline	$1,196,450	$486,654	$708,796	41%	59%	$255,530	$940,920
Brisol-Myers-Squibb	$403,400	$168,504	$234,896	42%	58%	$205,900	$197,500

Campaign donations by big media companies:

	Total	Democrats	Republicans	% to Dems	% to Reps	Individuals	PACs
Time Warner	$2,806,525	$2,250,954	$553,501	80%	20%	$2,094,975	$711,550
Walt Disney	$1,461,232	$1,110,524	$350,508	76%	24%	$1,036,232	$425,000
News Corp	$1,617,072	$1,218,182	$397,890	75%	25%	$1,284,222	$332,850

Corporations choose our government: If there were a politician who would do something that these big corporations did not like, like try to regulate them, that politician could never get the campaign funding to compete with the politicians who do what the corporations want. So when you vote, you are voting for people who have been preselected by the big corporations. Our elections are a farce. By the time we vote, the decisions have already been made by the major corporations. We never have any say. It’s no wonder people are tuned out of politics.

What can we do about it? Corporations are in control now, and they will not give up that control without a fight. The political system is broken, so we cannot use that system to fix the system. We must work outside the system. We must build our numbers and demand that all big money be eliminated from all elections of all politicians of all parties. We must build our numbers to the point that our demand will be met. We must build our numbers by raising awareness of this problem.

Set our differences aside and unite: The key to solving this problem is for us to temporarily set aside our political differences and unite to take control of our country back from the corporations. This is a nonpartisan issue that appeals to a broad base across the political spectrum. Most of us agree that we the people should run our government, so we should focus on that point of agreement for now, unite on it, and use our combined power to take our country back. Later we can get back to our political squabbles, but for now we should unite.

Posted in Politics, Politics | Comments Off

Crisis for U of I President Hogan

Posted on 02/15/2012 by anonymous

U of I President Michael Hogan had little reason to enjoy his winter vacation. Not even his $600,000 plus salary could buy him a break. Sometime around mid-semester, Hogan probably thought he was on a roll. His Enrollment Management Plan (EMP) for the university seemed to be on cruise control. He’d been able to create a new Vice President for Health Affairs and had padded the ranks of his administrative cronies with little vocal opposition from faculty or students. Then suddenly, the bolts on the good ship Hogan started coming loose. The first and most public disaster was the email indiscretion of Lisa Troyer, his long-time sidekick and top administrative aide. Troyer, who landed a $200,000 salary when she followed Hogan from UConn to UIUC, got wind of a faculty senate debate over the President’s plan to centralize enrolments and admissions. She apparently then masqueraded as an “anonymous” professor not at the stage of her career where she could afford to be public. In a message sent from a rogue Yahoo account, this “anonymous ” professor urged faculty members to agree to disagree and not raise opposition to the plan. The problem was that the anonymous professor forgot who she was “talking” to. Her messages aroused the suspicions of a faculty member from Computer Science, Professor Roy Campbell. The Computer Science prof traced the messages back to Troyer’s laptop. She resigned almost immediately. An investigative team appointed by Hogan came in soon thereafter and verified the source of the emails but said there was no evidence Hogan had any knowledge of his aide’s alleged dealings. For the moment, Hogan seemed to be wearing the Teflon jacket.

But before the U of I President could breathe a sigh of relief an onslaught of opposition to his grand plan bubbled to the surface. First came a letter signed by 123 faculty, mainly esteemed professors occupying prestigious chairs, which blasted Hogan for centralizing power and undermining the individual authority of the U of I system’s three campuses.

Before the dust settled on that missive, another percolated up from the Executive of the College of Education with even stronger condemnation of the President’s efforts to centralize enrolment processes. The College of Education document also lambasted Hogan’s desire to “re-brand” the university as one homogeneous entity emphasizing that “this rebranding ignores the statutes and the history of this institution, and undermines the distinctive role of this campus as the original, flagship campus.” Then came letters of opposition from Executive Committee of the School of Liberal Arts and Sciences (LAS), the Graduate School of Library and Information Services (GSLIS), and the School of Labor and Employment Relations (LER) .

In the midst of this, the Campus Faculty Association (CFA), an organization which has advocated for faculty for more than two decades, upped the ante by calling for an end to the EMP. CFA President Harriet Murav declared in a media release:

“The revelation that President Hogan’s chief-of-staff was using anonymous emails to pressure the Faculty Senates Conference, the highest elected faculty body in the University, is deeply troubling. We should halt the process of reviewing the enrollment management plan and take it back for a full discussion in all three campus Senates. This has not been a transparent process of deliberation and reason about an important change in how we admit students. Rather, it has been a rush job from the President’s office. It should stop now.”

In a lengthy response to the EMP, “Image Over Substance” the CFA also questioned Hogan’s commitment to underrepresented students and faculty, criticizing UIUC’s miniscule levels of enrolments of under-represented students (only 7% of undergraduates are African-American) and lamenting the loss of numerous talented faculty of color.

Despite this opposition, the Board of Trustees was widely expected to approve Hogan’s plan at their meeting on January 19. However, they didn’t publicly discuss the document. Then a few days later, Hogan issued a public apology for the anonymous email episode, proclaiming his sincere “regret” for the incident and “the personal hardship it has caused to our senators and others.” In a somewhat ominous apology he assured the campus community that he accepted “full responsibility” for this and “for any other such incident that occurs.” He also promised to back off on his efforts to re-brand the three campuses as one entity, though made no indication that he was retreating on the enrolment issue.

While Hogan appears to be sinking into deeper and deeper trouble, there are bigger issues on the table than his personal pride or even length of tenure. Even prior to the release of the EMP, the trajectory of the U of I posed serious challenges for students and faculty alike. For students, ever increasing fees have pluning students deeper into debt and forcing them to take longer to complete their degress.

On the faculty side, while enrolments have increased by more than 5,000 since 2000, tenured faculty have declined in numbers. The University has become increasingly austere in its hiring policies, relying more and more on part-time faculty who often work on a per course basis without any benefits. Moreover, faculty’s pensions are under attack with a pending state legislature bill threatening to increase employee contributions by nearly 50%. The increment is largely a response to the state’s failure to fulfill commitments amounting to $85 billions to the pension fund over the last three decades,

While scandals and letters of protest may cause a few sleepless nights for those in the higher echelons of the administration, these are storms the likes of Hogan can probably weather. Some faculty argue that a more fundamental change in the power dynamics in the university is required. The CFA, for example, believes the only way to halt the University’s trend toward cutting costs at the expense of quality of education is to win collective bargaining rights.

In 2011 faculty at the Chicago UI campus won a drive for a union and they are awaiting the decision in a court case to verify the legality of their victory. It remains to be seen if such a process will be repeated on the other campuses and if a union will have the necessary clout to make the university administration accountable and force them to advance accessible public education rather than continue functioning like a business with the President playing the role of a hatchet man CEO.

Posted in Education, Labor/Economics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | Comments Off

The End of a War for Whom?

Posted on 02/15/2012 by Sarah Lazare

On the day I heard that President Obama had officially declared the Iraq war over, I was at the Danville Veterans’ Administration hospital (VA) with my partner S, an Iraq War veteran. S is six months into a disability application, a request for benefits and compensation for disabilities sustained during military service, which will likely take another year to process.

We found ourselves navigating through a maze of yellowed walkways and drab interiors, shuttled from admissions offices to mental health clinics. While we were not the only ones moving through that system, we were perhaps moving faster than the others. Many veterans of previous wars—the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, World War II—lined the route, being pushed in wheelchairs, walking on canes, some perhaps visiting for the day with their families, some completely alone. S was one of the only young people I saw in this wing of the VA, and based on the way people looked at us, they clearly knew that he was a “hero” of the war that President Obama had just declared “completed.”

It took S five years to work up the guts to apply for disability status after getting home, and now I understand why. Anyone who has ever spent time in the military knows that there is a stigma against saying you are hurt, especially if those wounds are not visible. And then to go back to the institution that hurt you, with no record of the injuries you have sustained, to ask for help, to say you are not OK, runs the risk of adding insult to injury.

But being there with S, I realized there is another dimension to VA visits enough to keep you away for a lifetime: the proof that war is a lifetime for those who survive, that it traps you in its drab hallways, in its medical appointments and slow-moving applications and appeals, in its memory and worldview, in its wounds. Long after the war is declared over and the country stops paying attention to their suffering, veterans still walk those hallways, go to those appointments, and take those pills.

President’s speech

Even though Obama ran on the anti-war ticket, he ended up declaring the war a success. All day, I turned over in my head the President’s speech from that morning: “We knew this day would come. We’ve known it for some time. But still there is something profound about the end of a war that has lasted so long. It’s harder to end a war than begin one. Everything that American troops have done in Iraq—all the fighting, all the dying, the bleeding and the building and the training and the partnering, all of it has landed to this moment of success.”

I wondered what it would have sounded like for Obama to speak those words at the Danville VA. Would “the end” sound as profound to “the dying and the bleeding” within these walls?

When VA mental health care professionals evaluate veterans for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), they ask them to identify traumatizing incidents, the moments that ruptured their internal wellness. For some people it is an explosion, a rape, a body blown to bits. For others, simply being over there is enough to transform their perception that the world is a decent place or can ever be a decent place.

I was invited to join S in his mental health evaluation to corroborate his story. When he shared his traumatizing moments, my eyes began to burn, something inside me began to shake and scream. I’ve seen the haunting, detachment, and fear alongside the tenderness, love, and hope that’s in him. I’ve wrestled with the events that have dug deep holes of anxiety and despair in him, holes that you can lose yourself in.

There is nothing profound about the end of this war. It is pain and wreckage. It is symptoms on a PTSD checklist. It is trauma that goes unrecognized, here and in Iraqi communities. It is loss that is mourned, and loss that there is no one left to mourn. It is another night that S can’t sleep, just like every other night, tossing and turning. It is something that can never be undone.

The movement won

This is not meant to be a hopeless article. The “end” of the Iraq War is significant. It means troops will be leaving, and thus some lives will be spared trauma and loss. We all know that this is a direct result of the anti-war movement—its impact on public opinion made the war no longer politically viable. And in that sense, we have won.

Throughout this war, I have learned that traumatized communities have profound strength when they collectively organize; that soldiers and veterans have been organizing the whole time to bring their brothers and sisters home; and that Iraqis have been not only struggling to survive but also courageously organizing against occupation.

As a member of the Civilian Soldier Alliance and an ally to Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW), I know firsthand that transformation is possible, collective healing is real and has happened throughout these wars, and those who are organizing will not stop or ever give up. I have worked with courageous veterans and service members in IVAW’s Operation Recovery, a campaign that takes on the rampant problems of military rape and sexual assault, PTSD, Traumatic Brain Injury, and other injuries that plague military service members by organizing around their right to heal and exit traumatic situations. I have seen the strength and courage of World War II, Vietnam, and Gulf War veterans organizing demonstrations, marching in the streets, and helping each other survive. And I have also seen the day-to-day brave acts of S and the kindness that radiates from him.

But the “end” of the Iraq war does not signal an end to US foreign policy based on brute self-interest, geopolitical control, and military empire. There was no apology, no talk of reparations, and no stated intention to shift direction. The “security” contractors and private companies will not leave anytime soon, and many soldiers will simply be transferred to “the good war” in Afghanistan or sent to one of 800 US bases around the world.

War and occupation in Afghanistan continue, as well as military campaigns against Pakistan, Yemen, and other countries the US public is not informed about, and the possibility of a war against Iran grows. The US continues funding and arming Israel’s apartheid policies towards Palestinians, as well as supporting dictators and monarchs in the Middle East and North Africa, helping put down any popular protests that challenge US strategic interests.

This is not to mention that at this moment of Occupy uprisings domestically, with Occupy Wall Street pushing the parameters of what we thought was possible, the US government is expanding its abilities to employ militarism against its own people with the latest “anti-terror” bill and shooting protesters with the same tear gas canisters it exports to Israel.

My generation

I saw my generation sent off to war. I watched as they were marched onto the tarmac and disappeared into airplanes. I watched the bombs explode in shock and awe attacks, followed the counter-insurgency, and then the surges. I marched with veterans when they returned home, wounded and determined that the only way to heal was to stop these wars. I watched people in the US mobilize against the wars, and I watched people give up, stop caring. I watched the wars become normal, invisible.

And now I am terrified that I will see my generation disappeared into VA clinics, onto the streets (veterans today comprise a quarter of all homeless people), or lost to suicide.

I can’t imagine what it is like for the people in Iraq who have lived under war and occupation for almost nine years and who will now live under the hand of security contractors, such as Blackwater, and US-installed politicians for years to come. Many estimate that the Iraq war has killed over one million Iraqis and displaced over 10 million, with countless others traumatized, wounded, and disabled. Iraqis are now left with a society torn, traumatized, and impoverished by over nine years of war. Bombs ripped through Baghdad last week, killing five and wounding 39, just as the Obama Administration was ringing the bells of “victory.”

To call this success, to call this profound, is a dishonor to my generation’s loss. It is justification for events that have no justification. It is ideological footing for future wars, future trauma, future loss.

The day the Iraq War “ended,” the VA was the same as ever. People shuffled to appointments, waited in waiting rooms, and filled out more paperwork. The wounds, both physical and mental, did not heal, the homeless were not housed, and the dead were not resuscitated.

S was evaluated for disability eligibility. This evaluation will be added to a pile of papers which will eventually be mailed and added to another pile, and then more waiting and more appointments.

When we got into the car to drive home, the radio blared the news that the Iraq war is “over” and played a clip of Obama’s “success” speech to Ft. Bragg soldiers. I quickly reached over to turn off the radio, and I gripped my partner’s hand as we drove away in silence, the VA disappearing behind us…until the next appointment.

First published in Left Turn on January 2, 2012.

Posted in International, Politics, Veterans | Comments Off

Upcoming Documentary Screening: The Invisible War: Sexual Trauma in the Military

Preparing Youth for Democracy

Pre-1968 Foundations of African American Recruitment at the U of I

International Capitalism Writ Large in Our Community

Winning the Bread

Voices of Champaign-Urbana Occupy

Gendered Objects: A Conversation with Artist, Sarah Beth Woods

Morning Meditation on Love

“Shut Down the Mills!”: Women, the Modern Strike, and Revolution

In the Wake of the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster, Feds Approve Construction of New Nuclear Power Plants

Coming Soon to a Police Department Near You: Unmanned Aerial Drones

Red Tails, A Historically Accurate Film?

By Sundiata Cha-Jua

Dr. Sundiata Cha-Jua is a Associate Professor in the Department of African American Studies and History at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Previously published at: http://illinois.edu/lb/article/72/59144

In the context of World War II and the role played by most black servicemen, why does the story of the Tuskegee Airmen stand out?

You call the war years and after of the 1940s a “watershed” in African-American history, though the dramatic events of the civil rights movement would come later, in the ’50s and ’60s. What factors or events made the ’40s so important?

The movie is all about the exploits of the Tuskegee Airmen during the war. But what role did they play in the years after?

Performing the Vagina Monologues

Save Starved Rock! Stop the Sand Pit!

Learning the Lessons of Depleted Uranium

Interview with ‘The Snowman’

Book Reading: “the alphabet blows through the open window” by Danielle Chynoweth

Our Government Has Been Hijacked! The Occupy movement is here to take it back.

Crisis for U of I President Hogan

The End of a War for Whom?

Get Connected

Search Public i

Get Connected

Archives