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Awakening to The Limits of the Obama Presidency

Posted on 05/20/2011 by Antonia Darder

There are folks who seem to keep hoping that Obama has a “progressive” side which we will all soon see emerge—reminiscent of the transformation of Clark Kent to Superman in the phone booth. Yet, I can’t help wondering if all that progressivism was merely projected upon the handsome Black man with the charming discourse style because folks were all feeling so desperate; we were are still seeking a political savior or messiah in Obama.

Well the last four years should have caused us to become much more sober and astute about what we can expect from the President of the U.S, in these times. Perhaps, it’s a moment for us to contend with the fact that there are multiple levels of political action and social struggle at work in this nation; and that each of us must decide where our strengths and skills are needed and where we can do the most good. The only in-the-flesh savior we should be looking for is “we the people.”

From such a vantage point, we can then move to discern collectively what it is that we absolutely need to demand collectively from Washington. In the process, this also asks us to consider where do we each want to put our individual efforts. For me, issues close to my heart are universal health care, public education, and the amelioration of poverty. For others, it may be issues related to labor and the local or national economy. For others it might be immigration, the arts, women’s issues, or gay marriage.

Now, those who have been around the political block enough times already know that these issues are all interconnected—everywhere we are forced to contend with the interlocking forces of oppression that dehumanize and lead to policies and practices that both perpetuate and reproduce inequalities and social exclusion.

That said, it seems that one of the ways in which we must proceed is to create a greater public commitment to coalitional and collaborative relationships across communities and across the nation—a sort of multiple peoples’ congresses, if you will, that can communicate with one another on key issues and concerns, outside of the limited and ego driven arena of electoral politics.

Moreover, it seems that once we accept the limits of the presidency in its capacity to enact change that improves the quality of our lives, we can become more effective in putting people pressure on the presidency with respect to local, state, national, and international concerns. Historically, it seems that most major changes of policy at the federal level, in the interest of the many, were made as a consequence of the enormous pressure put on the Washington by folks on the ground.

This said, with more and more people out of work, we should be working together to develop community cooperatives so unemployed people can put their “on hold” talents to work in ways that might make a difference in their own lives and the lives of our communities, while being both fed and housed. This requires us to shift our paradigm, from an individual sense of material responsibility to a collective sense of material responsibility for the greater good. If the rich are able to enact an economic socialism (aka, corporate mergers and public bailouts and subsidies) to maximize individual profits for the few, why can’t those of us who are committed to social justice and genuine equality enact a different form of economic socialism in the interest of the many?

To do this would also require that those of us who do hold well-paying jobs be willing to channel a greater percentage of our resources to community organizations and political advocacy groups that are working together for an emancipatory agenda, steadfastly focused on building relationships, concrete strategies, and viable solutions for social change, at every level of society, so that we might begin to restore our lives, our communities, our country, and our world.

If we were to take this kind of an approach, we might become clearer about what we need now, in order to further a genuinely democratic citizenship. Through greater collective and organized interaction, we could better assess not whether Obama will become the progressive president we longed for, but rather how can we pressure whoever is in office (or campaigning for office) at the local, state, and federal level to be fully responsive to the needs of people, rather than responsive to the political pressure and private interests of those who continue to hold illegitimate wealth and power over our lives.

What I’m saying is that no U.S. president is going to come from on high and wave his/her magic wand and change our material and social conditions. Only the will and movement of the people can finally make a dent in transforming the illegitimate power of the wealthy elite. Of course, this means that we must be willing to not be bought off, for a few crumbs, but to redirect our frustration, rage, love, hope, and political will to enliven a political vision, soulfully anchored in integrity, humility, compassion, honesty, dignity, and a renewed sense of human solidarity.

Posted in Labor/Economics, National, Politics | Comments Off

Chicago Commemorates 125th Anniversary of Haymarket Affair

Posted on 05/19/2011 by Brian Dolinar

In early May 1886, Chicago workers demonstrated for an eight-hour workday. One demonstration on May 3, 1886, in solidarity with workers who had been locked outside of the McCormick Reaper Plant while strikebreakers worked inside, led to police opening fire and killing some workers.

To protest those McCormick killings, two thousand workers came to Haymarket Square in the West Loop (Randolph and Des Plaines) to an event which Chicago Mayor Carter Harrison permitted and even attended. As the rally came to an end, Mayor Harrison ordered the police to disperse, yet some 180 police entered the square and began attacking attendees.

At that point, someone threw a bomb at the police. The explosion resulted in a number of deaths; wild gunfire by police killed workers and as many as six police officers. But the bomb galvanized a campaign against organized labor and political radicals. Eight labor organizers were charged with conspiracy and found guilty, even though only one of the eight even attended the rally that night.

A massive international cause célèbre rallied on behalf of the Haymarket Eight. Four of the eight were hanged in 1887, a fifth died in prison, and the remaining three were pardoned by Illinois Governor John Peter Altgeld in a move considered to be Altgeld’s swansong in politics.

125 years after that fateful night, the consequences of Haymarket still reverberate. May Day has been celebrated internationally (except in the United States) as a workers’ holiday, generations of radicals drew inspiration of Haymarket for their own activism (the logo for Chicago Indymedia recalls this history), and the eight-hour workday was ultimately won. But efforts to improve the lot of poor and workers face constant assault and threats of rollback; the struggles fought in 1886 echo those fought in 2011. But the struggle continues, as it always does.

The city of Chicago did place a memorial to Haymarket which was unveiled on a nondescript Tuesday in September 2004 to comparatively little fanfare. But Chicago citizens and activists have organized memorials and commemorations of the quasquicentennial (125th anniversary) of Haymarket, including a full-scale historical re-enactment at Haymarket Square.

On May Day 2011, a march took place from Union Park to Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood, long a bastion of immigrant communities, particularly today Chicago’s huge Mexican community. The march of more than 1,500 people was organized and led by people from Pilsen, including many young people who are fighting for the rights of their immigrant families and neighbors―just as the original movement that the Haymarket activists helped create 125 years ago struggled for the rights of immigrant workers and their communities. The call of the day? The people are the movement―and the movement wants justice, dignity, economic and social equity, and the freedom to live unmolested by state, economic or social oppression. La lucha continua! There was also a gathering earlier in the day at Forest View cemetery, burial place of the Haymarket martyrs and site of the Haymarket memorial.

Posted in Labor/Economics | Comments Off

Graduate Employees Lobby Illinois Legislators to Protect Workers’ Rights

Posted on 05/19/2011 by Natalie Uhl

The fight for workers’ rights in the U.S. has always been political, but this spring, as state legislators and governors proposed bills to limit or eliminate collective bargaining rights and devastate public services, including schools, the battle for labor took main stage. Union busting efforts in Wisconsin, Indiana, and Ohio have threatened public sector workers’ rights for hundreds of thousands of people. The Graduate Employees’ Organization (GEO, AFT/IFT Local 6300) has been engaged in the labor movement and social justice initiatives in Champaign-Urbana for years, but recently recognized the inherent importance of action through the political process and formed a Lobbying and Legislative Committee.

Labor unions are well-known for lobbying, but usually this aspect is handled by large parent unions employing professional lobbyists. However, in the case of the GEO, higher education unions make up a small percentage of AFT/IFT membership, and graduate locals make up an even smaller portion, so it is easy for our specific interests to fall out of focus. GEO’s Lobbying and Legislative Committee is a group of rank and file graduate employees doing research, meeting with legislators and lobbying specifically for the rights of students and workers at the University of Illinois. They have been instrumental as a voice for higher education employees and students in Springfield—a voice that has been a vital component in protecting graduate employees’ rights this year. Active member of the Legislative Committee, Andy Bruno, a graduate student in the history department believes these efforts are more important now than ever, “With mounting pressures to transform education from a public good to a private privilege, it is more important than ever that the GEO engage in the legislative process. We can make our voices heard!”

Last summer, the University of Illinois violated the GEO contract when they reduced tuition waivers for some graduate employees in the College of Fine and Applied Arts (FAA). Less than a year after going on strike to attain language to protect tuition waivers, incoming students in certain programs had their tuition waivers reduced to “base rate,” which only covers in-state tuition, even though the majority of graduate students matriculating here are from other states. Many FAA graduate students provide the necessary, skilled labor required to run the Krannert Center for the Performance Arts, a world-renowned performance space on campus that attracts hundreds of productions each year. During the Spring 2010 semester, 75% of FAA students made less than $800 a month for their work; the difference between base-rate and full tuition—what these students would be responsible for paying—is $13,266.

Longstanding practice in these departments had been to cover full tuition since many graduate students come to UIUC from out-of-state. Unlike many other universities, gaining in-state residency for tuition purposes at UIUC requires students to live and work in the state (employment cannot be through the university) for at least one year before beginning their education. Departments made scholarships available to cover most of the almost $8,000 difference, but unlike a full tuition waiver, the scholarships are not guaranteed to continue and out of pocket expenses for these students still increased by $1,000-$2000 per year.

Because the GEO saw this as a clear contract violation, there was legal recourse, but the grievance process can be lengthy and cannot provide immediate financial relief to students. Currently, the grievance process is ongoing; GEO and the University are set for arbitration for this case next month. In addition to the arduous legal process, GEO members took direct action on campus all year to increase public awareness of this issue and pressure the administration to rescind the tuition waiver changes. FAA tuitions waivers were the focus of a flash mob at Krannert’s opening night, numerous rallies, organizing sessions and town hall meetings.

Now, through the work of the Lobbying and Legislative Committee, GEO has a third approach. These members communicate regularly with our local representatives in Springfield, are exploring options to relax residency requirements (thus eliminating the differential between a “base rate” and “full” tuition waiver), and have even testified to the State Board of Higher Education to include more graduate employees in the bargaining unit. The Committee is also pondering solutions to the recent revelation that Graduate Assistants and Pre-professional Graduate Assistants owe a large tax liability (upwards of 30%) for their tuition waivers. The GEO and University reached an agreement to provide emergency loans for students affected in the Spring 2011 semester, but the only permanent solution will have to be a change in tax law—surely a tough fight, but one that GEO members and the Lobbying and Legislative Committee are willing to fight for workers on this campus.

Posted in Education | Comments Off

Portrait of Ethel Rosenberg by Jason Patterson

Posted on 05/19/2011 by Brian Dolinar

This is a portrait of Ethel Rosenberg by local artist Jason Paterson taken from the original mug shot after her arrest on August 11, 1950. Ethel and her husband Julius Rosenberg, both members of the Communist Party, were sentenced for espionage and sent to the electric chair in 1953 at the height of the red scare. Their trial was riddled with errors and provoked international outrage from those such as Jean-Paul Satre, Albert Einstein, and Pablo Picasso.

Patterson says he became fascinated by the story of Ethel Rosenberg through the play Angels In America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes. “In the play Ethel Rosenberg is a ghost that haunts Roy Cohn, one of Joseph McCarthy’s right hand men, and was also on the prosecution team in the Rosenberg case.” About a year ago, he Googled Rosenberg’s name, found her mug shot, and “just really liked it.” After his curiosity was piqued, he began reading about the Rosenbergs and was convinced that this would be the first in a series about the case.

While Ethel probably knew her husband was passing information to the Soviets, her brother David Greenglass later recanted his testimony during the trial claiming that she had also participated. He had given into pressure to save his wife and children. Others have said that the information provided by Julius was of no use to the Soviet development of the atomic bomb. Their son Robert Meeropol, who was six years old at the time of his parents’ execution, has said that the Espionage Act used to convict his parents is unconstitutional. In 1990, he established the Rosenberg Fund for Children to benefit the children of political prisoners and youth activists.

This story is especially relevant today, Patterson says, “I think the Rosenberg case can help us think twice when we go after the people we see as enemies in this country. Hopefully this case and the entire Red Scare of the 1950s will help us keep our wits. It is important that we not forget the laws and rights we are fighting to protect.”

More of Jason Patterson’s art work can be seen at jasonpattersonart.com

Patterson says he became fascinated by the story of Ethel Rosenberg through the play Angels In America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes. “In the play Ethel Rosenberg is a ghost that haunts Roy Cohn, one of Joseph McCarthy’s right hand men, and was also on the prosecution team in the Rosenberg case.” About a year ago, he Googled Rosenberg’s name, found her mug shot, and “just really liked it.” After his curiosity was piqued, he began reading about the Rosenbergs and was convinced that this would be the first in a series about the case.

Posted in Arts | Comments Off

The 1970 Student Strike in Protest of Kent State Killings

Posted on 05/18/2011 by Eric Heim

Students face off with police in front of the Union

University of Illinois students and faculty went on strike 41 years ago this May in response to the killing of four students at Kent State by the Ohio National Guard. The killings at Kent State were seen by many at the time as an extension of the same violence that was being perpetrated against oppressed people at home and overseas in Southeast Asia. For this reason, a call to strike sparked by the incident in Ohio soon morphed into a protest against the greater societal ills of racism, militarism, and imperialism. Taken together, these events in the first weeks of May 1970 constitute one of the forgotten chapters of activism at the U of I.

When news of the events at Kent State reached the U of I campus, the situation evolved quickly. On the night of Monday May 4, the first proposed plan of action was put forward by the Undergraduate Student Association (UGSA). As reported in the Tuesday, May 5 edition of the Daily Illini, the UGSA planned to hold simultaneous rallies at different locations on campus Wednesday to protest the shootings at Kent State as well as U.S. military involvement in Southeast Asia. On Thursday, Senator Albert Gore was to give a talk on the subject of Cambodia. Only on Friday was picketing planned for University buildings.

In reality, events turned out quite differently as students met Tuesday night at the University Auditorium (now Foellinger Auditorium) and decided to go on strike the morning of Wednesday, May 6. Other organizations endorsed the strike including the Graduate Student Association (GSA), the American Association of University Professors and the Black Coalition. Taken together, these different groups had a diverse number of issues they organized around, ranging from withdrawal of American troops from Southeast Asia and the abolishment of ROTC to the hiring of more Black police officers in Urbana-Champaign. Following the meeting, a body of some 2,000 students marched through the campus to raise support for the strike. University and Campustown buildings had their windows broken during the march.

The next morning saw the beginning of pickets at buildings on campus. Picket lines and bail funds necessary for a successful strike were coordinated from a room on the second floor of the Illini Union. Money collected from student organizations and individuals totaled $4,000. According to Ed Pinto, the chairman of the UGSA, the goal of the strike was to shut the campus down completely. Accordingly, pickets were set up around the main academic buildings on campus, the Illini Union loading docks, the University Power Plant, and Central Receiving. Students from the Law School volunteered to act as monitors to ensure that police acted in a lawful manner. Unfortunately, the day’s events did not end peacefully as clashes with police led to many people being beaten and arrested, among them Philip Meranto and Michael Parenti, faculty members in the Institute of Government and Public Affairs and the Department of Political Science who were seen by many on campus as leading experts in the political affairs of the day.

The University Administration issued statements Wednesday informing students that they had “the right to non-disruptive protest,” but that a strike was out of the question. Chancellor Peltason wrote, “I mourn the deaths and senseless violence that are so much in evidence today. But neither this nor other problems that this society faces will be solved by disrupting our educational institutions.” Peltason and other University and Champaign-Urbana leaders became so concerned at the “generally tense atmosphere” on campus that on Wednesday afternoon they asked for assistance from the Illinois National Guard. A curfew was also imposed from 8 p.m. until 6 a.m. the next morning.

On Thursday May 7, picketing continued on campus but with the addition of the Illinois National Guard to maintain order. Beyond keeping the peace, the Guard and police were also used to break picket lines at the Illini Union in order to ensure that food trucks made their deliveries on time. Thursday saw the largest single event of the strike with 10,000 students attending a three hour peaceful evening rally on the Main Quad. Ed Pinto told the crowd that more than one third of all classes were cancelled on Thursday and claimed the strike was a success. The curfew was lifted because of the relative calm that had been restored to campus.

On Friday, May 8, a rally of 2,000 people took place on the Quad. According to the Daily Illini, most students either stayed away from classes or actively participated in the strike itself. The strike was most effective on the west side of the Main Quad with Gregory Hall, Lincoln Hall, and the English Building almost empty. Other parts of campus, such as the Engineering Quad, saw less successful numbers with about half of the students staying away from class.

By the end of the week, many of the strikers had turned to activities besides picketing and holding rallies. These included canvassing in the local community for peace candidates and to “inform local citizens of the reasons behind the strike.” According to students interviewed at the time, many, though not all people in Champaign-Urbana were receptive to what the students were doing, provided it was peaceful.

Saturday, May 9 saw the largest single arrest of the strike with over 100 people caught in a sweep on the Main Quad. According to the Daily Illini, many of those arrested had been singled out before hand by the police for arrest. They were held in Memorial Stadium before being released on bail. The mass arrest was an attempt by administrators to clamp down on the strike. In spite of this effort by the police, 6,000 students met on the Main Quad the next day and in the words of the Daily Illini, “declared themselves liberated from the University.” A University official also announced that the National Guard would be demobilized and state police would not intervene on campus again unless violence occurred. Students were also informed by the Dean of Students Hugh Satterlee that the University administration would not take punitive measures against the striking students.

Instead, a statement released by Chancellor Peltason acceded to the demand for “liberation classes” to be held in the following week. Taught by professors, these classes were held on the Quad or in classrooms and designed to “carry on discussions of the many problems which face our society.” This move was welcomed by most, if not all, students simply for the reason that the strike was winding down. The UGSA steering committee had ended the picketing of buildings on Tuesday, May 12, “because of lack of participation and to allow picketers to attend liberation classes.” Participation in the strike had dropped down to about 50 per cent. Mike Real, chairman of the GSA noted that it would be unwise to continue the strike any further because of the concessions given to the students by the administration.

By the end of the second week of actions on campus, the strike was over. The militancy of the actions taken by students and faculty on the issue of the war had an effect as the Nixon administration pulled out of Cambodia shortly after a national strike wave on May 13. As one of the high points of activism during this era, the strike at the University of Illinois was a local manifestation of a national movement. It is a story that deserves to be told and remembered by activists today.

Posted in Education, Politics, Youth | Comments Off

“Poetry for the People” Celebrates National Poetry Month

Posted on 04/02/2011 by Public i

Over the last year, the Public i has put on a series of poetry workshops to promote more poetry in the Champaign-Urbana community. The project is culminating with this special issue of works by local poets in commemoration of National Poetry Month. Workshops were held by local poets Matt Murrey, Ruth Nicole Brown, Janice Harrington, and Oakland-based poet Lisa Marie Rollins. We want to thank Aaron Ammons of SPEAK Café for promoting our project and emceeing our ﬁnal issue release/open mic party on April 30. We are grateful to Carol Inskeep at Urbana Free Library, Janice Harrington at Urbana’s Neighborhood Connections, and Amanda Raklovits at Douglass Library for hosting workshops. Thanks also go to artist Damian Duffy for our poster design. We are greatly appreciative to the City of Urbana Public Arts Commission for a grant to fund this project.

You Can’t Hang This on the Wall
By Elizabeth Barrette

Snowdrops sprout and bloom.
Sparrows mob the feeders.
Crocus, hyacinths, tulips, daffodils—
Peonies come late to the party.
Cardinals whistle in the wind.
Apricots open their pale umbrellas;
Pear blossoms smell yeasty-sweet.
Cherry trees give it up at last,
Their petals like tiny white kites.
Hawthorn dons her crown just as
Blackbirds come home from vacation.

These are the signs by which
I count my seasons, winter into spring.
This is my calendar.

My Dedication to Music
By Brittany Wilson

Melodies I hear as I drift up and away
Words that I write on a slate that was once
blank
Pictures I paint on a canvas once clean
Notes in the air swim around as a sing
Rhythmic movements etched on the ground as I
dance
Involuntary reﬂexes as I clap my hands
A smile that resembles the sun in the sky
In the worlds of John Legend, in the clouds, I’m
so high
As the melodies fade away my feet touch the
ground
I’m not tired yet, I beg, one more round

So away I go as I close my eyes
Saying, “This is my jam” as I pretend to ﬂy
Up in the air, no worries live here
Now I am the pilot, it is I who will steer
Living in bliss, ooh it feels so good
Who knew it’d be you who truly understood
Quarters and eighths, sixteenths and more
Thirty seconds and sixty-fourths so fast I get
sore
I beg for you to stop so it comes to an end
Back to reality, pain is my friend

The Son Who Is Lost To Me
By Sharon Henson

Declared a biological impossibility,
you willed yourself into existence
and entered my world anyway,
already impatient and bored.

Sobered by parenting responsibilities,
I devoted myself to sharing with you
the best of myself:
positive outlook on life
strong faith in God
joy of reading and learning
time for fun and play
love of nature
appreciation for a simple life

But the mix wasn’t right.
What I offered wasn’t what you needed.
Each year the divide between us grew
wider
until the day you crossed the river into
adulthood.

The rift remains.
It hangs between us when we speak to one
another.
“You let me down,” it seems to say.
“God gave you the wrong mother,” I reply.

Coal Dreams
By Elizabeth Abraham

With up-raised glasses the two young men stare
out from the photograph, brown with age.
As they toast, their future is unknown, whereas
I see the image and hear the cage
groan as it lowers them into the mine.
They smile at me and I recall tales
of how they came to a new land lush
with harsh opportunity. Grandfather speaks
of two brothers, of thirty years of darkness
underground, heaving coal that fueled
their children’s dreams and mine.
He cradles his glass for a new toast.
I know his hard hands but not the brother lost,
yet feel the pain of drinking all alone.

Buho and Lucerito
(Owl and Little Star)
By Matt Nelson

And the one-eyed owl
Dances silent
With little star.

Encircling
In the inky dark,
Drawn to the twinkling
Light.

The shadow of their waltz
Cast dense on the bareness
Of winter earth.

Little star glows and pulses,
Sparkling at the owl.
Enticing him to persist.

The owl’s deep chest
Fills with blood and glee
As his outsized wings cut
Brisk air…
Drifting as close to his friend
As he can…even if
He can never seem to soar high
Enough to touch.

There’ll Come a Day
By Conrad Wetzel

There’ll come a day when the hearts of all rejoice,
And altogether join with one great voice
One great song of one great good,
Peace and joy and brotherhood.
There’ll come a day when the hearts of all rejoice.

There’ll come a day when the wars on earth will cease,
And all shall work together building peace.
When our guns and bombs and spears
Will be buried with our fears.
There’ll come a day when the wars on earth will cease.

There’ll come a day when the wrongs of race will end,
And each shall honor each one as a friend.
Heart to heart and hand to hand,
In each city, in each land.
There’ll come a day when the wrongs of race will end.

There’ll come a day when we gladly turn from greed,
And each shall seek to serve a neighbor’s need.
Share our silver and our gold,
Conquer hunger, want, and cold.
There’ll come a day when we gladly turn from greed.

The Bicyclist
By Matt Nelson

Mom rode at night.

On an old ten speed my
Dad bought off one of his drunk friends for
Five bucks.

Mom wanted to learn earlier but
Was too poor when she was younger to have a bike.

She would climb onto that rusty Schwinn
And would push off with a slight expel of
Air.
Pedaling with determination

For the few brief seconds she was upright
Grace and freedom surrounded her
Self-conscious frame.

She was most beautiful during those moments.

Her face beaming smiling
Doubt drowned out by the soft glow
Of the streetlight.

She would eventually fall down
After a few times circling the yard.
All of us laughing and clapping
Loving her for being so brave.
She would always laugh with us
Her embarrassment hidden under the bike that
Laid upon her body.

She rode that bike
Like this every night for one whole summer.
Mom never got better at staying upright
But it mattered so little…
Each night she would climb again and again onto
That old ten speed.

The wheels turning in time with her heart.

Miz Plantation
By Elizabeth Simpson

Miz Plantation had sweet tea and linen-
Let me tell you the rest:

Being told to give my baby to your darker breast.
Seeing my husband’s child coming from between your thighs.
Late at night hearing his grunts, and your cries—
What could I do? This was my test—
I chose to despise you.
What could I do? Not sympathize, because that leads to action and
What could I do?
White women were property, too.
The compromise?

I took myself, and tore her in two:
On one side was whiteness,
on the other was you.
Sister against sister, our ancient hearts: broken.
The song of our blood: divided.
Our wombs cut open.

I hated her for taking my man
though he took her
after she was bought—
do you see the plan?
He never gets caught.

My mothers chose their comfort against yours—
the soft of their skin against the sweat of your pores
That’s how it begins—
she set the course, and I followed it.
That’s what she fed me—
and I swallowed it.

Sister, we’ve been divided for four hundred years-
our stories, our blood, our pain, our tears—
It may take centuries to restore what’s been denied,
but now, it’s my turn to decide,
and I, putting the safety of whiteness aside,
choose you.

Problem Solved?
By Anne Ehrlich

when johnny looks at granpa’s watch he sees
not only numbers but a work of art
ﬁrst sticks and stones to track the playful sun
which sometimes disappeared and then
returned.

The birds knew when to sing but when to plant
was what the peasant knew he had to know
and Kings and Emperors to plan their wars.
They had to ﬁnd the key to read the skies.

And so great minds assumed the task to make
a frame of time with days and hours and
months
and seasons yea of years. Justinian.
So why did not the seasons match the frame?

Required; calibrations be revised!
And hence the cry—GO GO GREGORIAN!

A Sonnet
By Sandra Batzli

As history tells us time again
A tyrant’s quest for wealth and power
Will cause the people grief and pain
Destroy their lives from hour to hour.
Encircling round, they use their might
Ignoring cries to stop, to cease.
Amoeba-like beneath the light,
Engulﬁng all within their reach.
Do only wise men see man’s plight?
The greater battle to be won
Requires all to merge and ﬁght
Without the need for sword or gun
To ﬁgure ways to heal our earth
Or lose our common home and berth.

From the Champaign County Juvenile
Detention Center (Names withheld)

Life

Life is a journey
Take the right path
Learn, love and
Live each day like your last
Face your fears
Cause no tears
Make the right move
Win don’t lose
Do your bet
Worry less
Help others
Be nice
Show affection
Get through life

Then, Six Weeks Later…
By Tauby Shimkin

On Sunday, the day that Daddy was free,
For afternoon play before it got dark,
Like angel children, their father and me
Six rode in the car to Allerton park
In the light of September’s golden air
I’m with Lisa, the youngest, aged three
Hand in hand in dappled lane, not a care.
The others are playing where we can’t see.
I’d never known content in such measure
The moment caught as the camera’s prize
I wish I would have been told to treasure
The luminous glint in my daughter’s eyes
Fractured shards of time splinter in space.
Only in dreams do I now see her face.

Life is a Ocean

Life is a ocean you can go
The opposite way or follow the
Motions
You can either be up or down
Or always be negative and drownin’
I always try to be positive and
Stay aﬂoat but there’s always
Someone in life who wants to
Sink your boat
I can chill with the crowd
of ﬁsh or the sharks and
Become someone’s dish
You can’t judge unless you
Been on the other side of
The sea so stop criticizing
And try to be me
So life is like a ocean I
Now choose the right path and
Go with the right motions

Chocolate Veggies
By Arola Oluwehinmi

Carrot, Cabbage and Cucumbers
Mom says they’ll make me grow
Snickers, M&Ms and Milky Way
Mom says they’ve got to go.

I ponder and begin to wonder
What about chocolate cauliﬂower and toffee
celery
Vanilla broccoli, Reese’s green beans and Skittles
on a cob
Lettuce Ice cream and pepper popsicles
They’ll sure make grow
And no one has to know.

Ignore Other
By Eric Phetteplace

Gray beard gone brown
with dirt. Slack eyes/
strange skin. On hands
pool of without
pigment like Lake
Erie shape. Mouth
not visible;
soft gristles speak
—Spare change? Turn cheek.
You ever thought
“steal their wheelchair?”
You ever thought
“self same?” Birth stains
your slick shaved skull
delirium
tremens termite
in family tree
tremor in growth
rings. You know you
should sympathize
but somehow don’t.
It’s easier.
Choke the thin sprouts
under middle
class canopy.
Chew the burger
and trash the half
that’s left.

What Little Poems Are Made Of
By John Wason

Attention arrested.
Synapses engaged.
Emotion invested_
Rapture, and rage.

In throbbing tumescence,
The poet engorged;
From seminal essence
The poem is forged.

Billy, my Pigow
By Arola Oluwehinmi

I have a pigow named Billy.
He is part pig and part cow.
Billy is very, very silly.
He ate my brother’s shoe
And chased my sister’s dog Willy.

The other day we went to church
And left Billy on the porch.
Our neighbor screamed wow!
When she saw my pigow.

So Billy decided to show off
He let out a big puff
And blew down the neighbor’s shrub
Guess who had to clean up.

Now I give Billy smaller portions
To reduce his motions
He is still very, very silly
And that is the story of my pigow, Billy.

Staple of the community
By Carol Ammons

The entire body, radio, print, literacy
A vast project, a complete work
Where musicians, activist, artist
Churn out justice for the less,
Fortunately,
We, Be, IMC
A staple of the community
Feeding the news, Through the veins of
in-justice!

Two Weeks, One Day

Saturday around 7:00 am
In my bed, im layin’ my momma
Starts yellin’ like a lion, she
Tells me to get up I said hell
Naw, and then came the
Brawl
She pulled off my warm protection
Then that’s when I got to
Acting
Court ordered, charged with electricity
Realized there had to be changes
In my simplicity
See, it’s been two weeks
And one day, after this im only
Going one way, that way is up
I’m changing my ways, gonna
Do what’s right day and night
Because life is a ﬁght so
Carefully pick and choose
Your battles
Pick the right path to travel
And on your way don’t bite
The hand that feeds you
‘cause that hand can point
The way to go, like my mother
Who removed the protection
I want, but in reality was the
Protection I needed, and I cut
It down so now I have time
To think about what imma do
Now

Lilacs In Bloom

Sometimes
I see it.
Clear as
light upon water.
A tendril
of Blue smoke
in a sunbeam.

A moment.
A possibility.
A breach
in the Samsara
of the preta loka.

Where the love-less
the life-less drone
of the undead
cannot go.

—altazor

Seascape
By Durango Mendoza

I
ﬂy
high
on gusts
with gulls.
Plummet earth-
ward through lull
holes in the blue, to
smack the sparkling water-
points for ﬁsh and shoot back
up
as
sails pop like riﬂes, and the wind, feisty as a girl, plays gaily
with the heaving schooner’s probing mast, then rolls,
out-stretched, over the water, becalmed.

The Storm
By Jasmine T. Williams
Rain sounds
Thunder echos across the sky
The World trembles and holds its breath
Everything is ﬂipped upside-down as Nature weeps for her
planet
Terror stalls even the bravest heart
The scent of the end hangs heavy in the air
Silence thick as dirt clings to all who witness
Nothing is safe as destruction takes its iron ﬁsts and strucks
down man-kind

Just a Mattress
By Nneka J. Howell

Soft and pleasant as I rest my skull on the soft utters beneath me; teething on energy lost.

Buried upon the quilt are the sheets                holding my ﬁgure in place as I rest.
My black outline sinks into the shadows        in memory of my loving grandma.
When revealed, one see’s the stains;               once touched by her shaking hands-
wondering what caused her to spill                 such liquids on an unknown demand.
So even when I dress the bed,                         I picture me by her organs as I settle.
For this blessing once was hers;                       something to sooth her mind with.
Laying upon her presence even if                    she is far beyond the sky’s eyes.
I lay in memories of such disguise                   by no surprise, I close my blinds.
For this is not just a mattress,                          I feel her touch me with security-
wrapping me with wisdom and                        loving me with opportunity.

One day this mattress will distort, and when it does I will call it art!

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Jackie Robinson Day

Posted on 04/02/2011 by Neil Parthun

April 15 marks the 64th anniversary of baseball’s desegregation. Many see Robinson as a pioneer who did things the ‘right way.’Others derided Robinson as an “establishment hero.” In 2009, Robinson was claimed as a ‘GOP Hero’ due to his being a Republican. Despite these depictions, we still have an incomplete view of a complex person.
Robinson was born in 1919, the youngest of ﬁve. A year after he was born, his father abandoned the family. Robinson described their economic situation: “She didn’t make enough, however, to support herself and ﬁve children… Her salary, plus the help from welfare, barely enabled her to make ends meet.”
In high school, Jackie lettered in four sports. This success was rivaled only by his reputation as a vocal opponent of racism. While in junior college, Jackie was arrested for confronting police about the unreasonable detention of a black friend. He received probation and a two year suspended sentence. This incident, and other rumored encounters, established Jackie’s reputation for being unafraid to confront racism.
Jackie further demonstrated his athletic excellence at UCLA where he became the school’s ﬁrst athlete of any race to letter in four sports. After two years, Robinson decided to drop out, saying, “I was convinced that no amount of education could help a black man get a job,” due to discrimination. He played semi-pro football and became a youth football director. This career was put on hold when he was drafted into the Army.
In 1942, Jackie was assigned to Fort Riley, Kansas. As a morale ofﬁcer, Robinson used his position to speak out. In one instance, he agitated for increased seating for black soldiers at the post exchange and confronted racist defenses of the arrangement. On another occasion, Robinson faced a court martial for refusing to move to the back of an Army bus. Jackie openly confronted the military police over what he called, the “elaborate lengths to which racists in the Armed Forces would go to put a vocal black man in his place.” After his commanding ofﬁcer refused to charge him, Jackie was transferred to a different unit where he was charged with a number of spurious offenses. Ultimately, he was given an honorable discharge in November 1944.
While waiting for his discharge, Robinson began playing for the Negro Leagues but he tired of the schedule and segregated accommodations. Robinson wrote: “In those days, a white ballplayer could look forward to some streak of luck or some reward for hard work to carry him into prominence or even stardom. What had the black player to hope for?” The ﬁrst commissioner of baseball, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, who maintained the color line, limited hope.
After Landis’ death in 1944, Robinson got the attention of the Brooklyn Dodgers. The Dodgers were looking for an African American player because general manager, Branch Rickey, believed they were, “the greatest untapped reservoir of raw material in the history of the game,” and would make the Dodgers, “winners for years to come.” Jackie was only chosen after a secret meeting where he guaranteed that he would not violently react to racial taunts.
Robinson joined the Dodgers on April 15, 1947. Early in the season, some teammates started a petition to remove him. To stop the controversy, Dodgers manager, Leo Derocher, weighed in: “I do not care if the guy is yellow or black, or if he has stripes like a [expletive] zebra. I’m the manager of this team, and I say he plays.” After this, most of his teammates began to support Robinson.
Despite this growing support, opposing teams harassed and used dirty plays to harm him.
A week after Jackie’s debut, the Philadelphia Phillies were playing the Dodgers. As Robinson recounted, “… I just tried to play ball and ignore the insults but it was really getting to me.For one wild and crazed moment, I thought, ‘To Hell with Mr. Rickey’s noble experiment. To Hell with the image of the patient black freak I was supposed to create.’ I could throw down my bat, stride over to that Phillies dugout, grab one of those white sons of bitches and smash his teeth in with my despised black ﬁst.”
Sensing Jackie’s anger, his teammates demanded that the Phillies stop. When this didn’t work, the Dodgers grabbed bats and converged on the Philadelphia dugout.
The most notable player supporting Robinson was shortstop and white southerner, Pee Wee Reese. In 1948, Reese put his arm around Robinson in response to fans that were shouting slurs before a game. In another instance, the Ku Klux Klan publicized threats that they would shoot Robinson. Reese responded saying, “I think we’ll all wear 42 and have ourselves a shooting gallery.”
The solidarity helped Jackie on the ﬁeld and he led the league in stolen bases, had a .297 average and earned the Rookie of the Year award.
Over time, Jackie was given more latitude. By the start of the 1949 season, Robinson was allowed to argue calls with umpires and retaliate against players. Yet, there developed a public perception that Robinson had gotten his civil rights the ‘right way.’ This perception led to some backlash against Jackie as well.
In July 1949, Robinson was called to testify in front of the House of Representatives Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) about comments made by Paul Robeson. Jackie was hesitant to appear because Robeson had been one of the most notable early agitators for desegregating baseball, but chose to do so because he feared repercussions for himself and others. While Robinson made statements like: “[T]he fact that it is a Communist who denounces injustice in the courts, police brutality, and lynching when it happens doesn’t change the truth of his charges,” his testimony also strongly criticized some of Robinson’s stances. Due to his HUAC testimony and lifelong support the Republican Party, Robinson was derided as the ‘white man’s black’.
Robinson’s embrace of the Republicans needs context.
The Democrats of his era were the party of Southern racism. Jackie was Republican but was appalled by what the Republicans had become in 1964. When Barry Goldwater won the nomination, Jackie reacted by saying,
“That convention was one of the most unforgettable and frightening experiences of my life. The hatred I saw was unique to me because it was hatred directed against a white man. It embodied a revulsion for all he stood for, including his enlightened attitude towards black people. A new breed of Republicans had taken over the GOP” (Referring to Goldwater’s supporters attitudes toward other Republican candidates.)
Robinson was also heavily involved in the burgeoning civil rights movement. He supported the sit-ins and freedom rides, fundraised for the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee and was the most requested speaker from the NAACP.
Much of the nuance of Jackie’s legacy has been stripped away. His playing career marked the start of ‘integration’ in the ‘segregation, integration, celebration’ framing of baseball history. Through that traditional mantra, we’ve inserted simplified melodrama in the place of human intricacies and emotion. As we celebrate another Jackie Robinson Day, let’s retire the static, elementary school book report style of history.

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A Tribute to Robert G. (Bob) Kirchner

Posted on 04/02/2011 by Claudia Lennhoff

Bob Kirchner, only 54 years old, died of a heart attack on the morning of Sunday, April 17. Bob was a local attorney who defended many who had no resources; he helped and legally supported many local non-proﬁts, including CCHCC; he served on the County Board and the County Board of Health; and did much more. Bob was a true champion of justice for people and for the organizations who ﬁght for justice for the people.
Our deepest sympathies go to Bob’s wife Gerri Kirchner, with whom he had a great and beautiful partnership and to whom he was utterly devoted. Our sympathies also go to Ruth Wyman, our dear friend and the young attorney with whom Bob worked for many years.
I ﬁrst met Bob in 1999, when I was a scared and very green “Interim Director” at CCHCC. He had agreed to help CCHCC, pro bono, in a legal struggle against Provena Covenant when the hospital ended the Medicare 100/Plus Program. (Please note that CCHCC now has a very positive working relationship with Provena Covenant, and the Medicare 100/Plus Program was reinstated in 2005.)
The struggle with Provena Covenant was very nasty and I was clearly out of my league. One day, I received a very intimidating package from the then-IL Attorney General’s ofﬁce. It was a set of “interrogatories” demanding that I produce a bunch of documents and answer a bunch of questions that clearly implied that CCHCC was undertaking fraudulent and illegal activities in the efforts to reinstate Medicare 100/Plus. The letter basically said that we were lying to seniors about the program and trying to coerce, under false pretenses, their involvement in the program. It also said that the IL AG’s ofﬁce could bill CCHCC for the costs of their investigation into us! An action like this could have sunk CCHCC ﬁnancially, and the threat was very real. The ﬁrst person I called was Bob. He was calm, of course, and I felt the tiniest bit reassured. I was a very new Director and I didn’t want CCHCC to fail on my watch, and certainly not for something so unfair.
Bob set up a meeting with staff of the AG’s ofﬁce with my collegue Mike Doyle and myself. We traveled to Chicago for the meeting. It was terrifying, and I could see
from the cold blank stares of the AG’s staff that it was not really going well. I didn’t understand where the AG’s office got the idea that CCHCC was defrauding consumers, and when I tried to ask about this, we got no answer.
Then, out of nowhere, Bob said, in his very calm and soft voice, that he knew that high-ups from Provena had met with staff from the AG’s office, and he gave the dates and times of the meetings—and he looked at each one as he said “they met with you, and you, and you, and you…”—and he went on to say that the AG’s office seemed to be subverting their legal and ethical duties in order to do the bidding of a corporation.
Stunned silence! …followed by awkward throat clearing noises and furtive glances between the AG’s staff.
I sat there knowing that Bob had just dropped a bombshell that was going to turn everything around. What the AG’s ofﬁce was doing was illegal and wrong, and
they were busted! Bob had this information up his sleeve, from who knows where. He was never one to brag or talk unnecessarily.
In that moment, I felt that I and CCHCC had been rescued from the forces of corruption, and Bob became my ﬁrst personal hero.
In less than a week, CCHCC got a letter from the AG’s ofﬁce saying that they were dropping their investigation and thanking
us for satisfying their interrogatories.
That’s just one of many stories. But it’s the one where I learned that I could totally and completely count on Bob, and that he would ﬁght with all he had in the pursuit of justice. Not only was Bob my personal hero, but I knew that he was a champion, the likes of which I’d never known. I never imagined that he wouldn’t be here.
Beyond helping us with the Medicare 100/Plus Program, Bob was a champion for low-income children while he served on the County Board and the County Board of
Health. On Bob’s watch, we (CCHCC, Bill Mueller, working with public health advocates on the Board of Health—Michele Spading, Karen Bojda, Jan Thom and others) were able to create the child dental access program to provide free dental care to low-income county children. Believe it or not, we had to ﬁght year after year to
keep that program alive—there were opponents to the program! And year after year, Bob championed that good ﬁght.
Over time, that program grew and led to the creation of the now well-established non-profit, SmileHealthy, where Nancy Greenwalt is the Executive Director.
I don’t know how many suffering low-income clients I brought to Bob to help with some legal issue or another where I would offer to pay for their consultation or
they would offer to make payments as they were able. Bob always helped my clients, and me too, pro bono. One time I asked Bob why he wouldn’t let me pay him for legal services he provided to me and he said that it was because I was always helping others—as if somehow there was a community debt and that community debt was borne by him and it was up to him to repay it—as if he himself wasn’t also always helping others.
I marvel when I think of how generous Bob was with his time, energy, intellect, resources—and that at the core of it all was his heart:his deep and abiding love for
people, his love for justice, and his outrage at injustice and corruption and the devastation that those produce.
In 2005, because of Bob’s tenacious, principled and dedicated work on behalf of CCHCC, we established the Robert G. Kirchner Legal Justice Award.
We at CCHCC mourn the death of Bob Kirchner, a great and steady champion for justice, a champion for the people, and our beloved friend. We wish to honor and celebrate Bob’s life and his accomplishments by working to protect the valuable programs in our community that Bob helped to create, helped to save, and helped to maintain.
With deepest sympathies to all who mourn for Bob Kirchner. (The above is an abbreviated version of a full tribute that can be seen at www.healthcareconsumers.org/)
The staff of the Public i joins with Claudia in mourning the loss of Bob Kirchner who fought so tenaciously for justice, within the courts and on the County Board, for the most vulnerable in our community.We extend our condolences to his family and his legal associate, Ruth Wyman.

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WRFU Tower Approved

Posted on 04/02/2011 by Tatyana Safronova

The April 4th unanimous vote by the Urbana City Council approving the plan for construction of a new 100 ft radio tower for WRFU was a victory for a multi-year community effort. That evening, WRFU volunteers, friends and supporters filled the City chambers and spoke out for the tower. People in the audience and in the Council were excited by an idea we at WRFU and volunteers at the Independent Media Center had been working on for years: to raise our antenna from 65 feet in the air to 100 and allow our signal to reach farther into Urbana and Champaign. This new infrastructure will be an asset for our community, both maximizing the reach of our signal and attracting possible partners for co-location on the tower, like wireless Internet projects already in the works in town.

For now, however, our signal, will continue to originate from the 65 ft tower that sits atop the Independent Media Center building. The approval of our permit was an important step, but it’s not the end. An additional challenge lies in meeting our funding goals. We are continuing efforts to raise close to $5,000 for construction. WRFU also requires the approval of the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency to start the groundbreaking. A letter of support sent by city council member, Eric Jakobsson helps put the historical question into context.
A LETTER FROM ERIC JAKOBSSON, 2ND WARD, URBANA CITY COUNCIL
“In dealing with the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency, perhaps some points about the history of the Eiffel Tower in Paris are instructive:
Today, the Eiffel Tower is the most distinctive feature of the Paris skyline, an iconic image that nobody would dream of tearing down. It IS Paris, to the same degree that Notre Dame and the Louvre are Paris. It was built for a worldwide exposition in 1889.
Its building aroused ﬁerce opposition among Paris’ cultural elite, because of inconsistency with other Paris architecture. The elite were partly placated by the promise that it would be torn down in 1909, when the property lease to the builders expired. But by 1909 it was judged that the tower had become too important for the then-new means of communication across the nation—radio! Many of the cultural elite were furious all over again, but to no avail. Needless to say, almost everybody is now happy that the Eiffel Tower was built and was not torn down. The moral of this story is that it is very good to preserve history, but even better to MAKE history. Vive la tour Eiffel! Vive la tour WRFU!”
Now more than ever, WRFU needs you. Interested in fundraising, community radio, radio engineering, music or community engagement? Have a personality for radio or you wish you did? Become a WRFU member and share your expertise or start a show and learn about radio broadcasting. 65 or 100 feet in the air, we’re always broadcasting locally grown programming. We look forward to our expansion and hope you’ll join us,. Let’s make community radio by the people for the people for our community like the Eiffel Tower is to Paris—inseparable.

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Call for Submission: April Poetry Slam Hosted by Aaron Ammons

Posted on 03/28/2011 by Public i

Get published in the Public i:
WHEN: Saturday, April 30th, 7-9:30pm
WHERE:Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center
202 S. Broadway in downtown Urbana

The Public i is pleased to present its final event in the Poetry for the People Series. Over the past six months, the Public i has held a series of workshops hosted by local and national poets. In celebration of April being National Poetry Month, the Public i is publishing a special edition of the April issue with poetry submitted by the public. We are looking for written word in all forms, forms authors of all walks of life. Aaron Ammons, local poet and MC of the widely successful S.P.E.A.K. Cafe, will host. This free event is open to the public. Bring your friends, poetry you’ve written, and work written by others that’s had a powerful influence on your life, to share. Poetry Slam will be aired live on the radio, WRFO 104.5 FM. Food, drink and copies of the Public i will be provided. For more information, check out our Facebook page.

To be published, email your submissions to print[at]ucimc[dot]org by April 20th.

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“A Side of Prejudice with That?”

Posted on 03/28/2011 by Paul Nolan

When you walk into a fast food restaurant and place your order, there are many things that you expect to get: food, a drink, some napkins, a couple of packets of ketchup and salt. At most places, that pretty much covers the gamut, but not at Chick-fil-A. No, at Chick-fil-A you get something extra … a little discrimination with each and every purchase. Don’t see it? (Try looking under the waffle fries… it’s definitely there somewhere.)

Every time you pay for something at Chick-fil-A, you pay for discrimination. Part of your money goes to finance anti-LGBTQ groups including Focus on the Family, the National Organization for Marriage, Exodus International, and the Pennsylvania Family Institute. Let’s take a brief look at each of these organizations.

Focus on the Family (FOTF) has worked against LGBTQ rights and same-sex marriage for a number of years. They joined with other groups to form ProtectMarriage.com to support passage of the 2008, Proposition 8 in California’s that banned same-sex marriage in. FOTF claims that the LGBTQ community is out to destroy marriage and the traditional family.

The National Organization for Marriage (NOM) was formed in 2007 for the express purpose of preventing LGBTQ folk from being able to legally obtain civil unions or marriage. They have worked towards these ends in Maine, New York, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and the District of Columbia, and are best known for their efforts in California. Exodus International (EI) started in 1976 and is part of the ex-gay ministries movement. This movement believes that, with therapy, homosexuals can be changed into heterosexuals.

The Pennsylvania Family Institute (PFI) also works against LGBTQ rights. When California’s Proposition 8 was struck down as unconstitutional, they filed an amicus brief against this ruling. They also lobbied against proposed state legislation to ban discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation. In February of 2011, Chick-fil-A co-sponsored an event with PFI titled: “The Art of Marriage.” The event was intended to bring Pennsylvania back to “the biblical definition of marriage.”

Chick-fil-A owners assert that their entire business model is rooted in Christianity. The official statement of the corporation’s purpose is: “To glorify God by being a faithful steward of all that is entrusted to us.” All of the company’s stores are closed on Sunday. Truett Cathy, the company’s founder, states that this is “our way of honoring God.” The company puts its Christian principles into practice by placing Christian toys and CDs in their children’s meals. Veggie Tales toys, Financial Peace for Kids books, and Adventures in Odyssey CDs from the radio division of Focus on the Family are some of the things given away.

Chick-fil-A finances anti-LGBTQ groups through its WinShape Foundation. College scholarships, boys and girls camps, foster homes, and a marriage retreat are some of the things offered. All of the programs are founded on the ideals of Christian belief. The marriage retreat is open to couples ranging from those who need a breather from the world to those who are considering divorce. All couples are welcome except for same-sex couples. Apparently they can just suffer.

On a number of college campuses, students are organizing to either remove Chick-fil-A or keep it from coming to their campus. The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign joins Indiana University-South Bend, Texas Tech University, the University of New Orleans, Mississippi State University, Indiana University Bloomington, the University of Arizona, and the University of Mississippi in trying to remove the franchise. Duke University, the University of North Texas, Florida Gulf Coast University, and Louisiana State University are trying to keep Chick-fil-A from coming to their campuses.

In February of this year, the LGBTQ student group , OUTlaw, started the drive to prevent the renewal of the Illini Union’s Chick-fil-A contract. MSE Branded Foods currently handles all of our food services. The UIUC’s con- tract with MSE Branded Foods ends in December of 2012. OUTlaw created the Facebook page, “UI Students Against Chick Fil A on Campus,” to let folks know about their efforts. In coordination with what OUTlaw has done, eQuality Champaign-Urbana has organized a boycott of Chick-fil-A that began in early March. Go to the “Boycott Chick-fil-A” UIUC group on Facebook to show your support.

Some extras with our food are good, others aren’t. Homophobia is never a desired extra, no matter what. When we eat at Chick-fil-A,, we are financing the work of those who fight against equality. I for one refuse to pay for the discrimination against friends, family, co-workers or myself, and that is why I am boycotting Chick-fil-A.

Posted in Human Rights, LGBTQA | Leave a comment

Portraits of Local African American Women

Posted on 03/28/2011 by Public i

These images reprinted in the Public i are among 23 portraits created by local artist Jason Patterson. They hung in the Murphy Gallery of the Campus YMCA for February and March, Black History Month and Women’s History Month. The exhibit runs until April 1. Jason will be showing his latest work at the IMC on April 9 with an opening at 8 p.m.

STATEMENT BY THE ARTIST JASON PATTERSON
Twenty-Three Portraits is a series honoring African American women of the University of Illinois and the Champaign-Urbana area who have made significant cultural, academic, civic and social contributions to the community. The work spans the years from Luetta Smith Lee, born in Urbana one year before the end of The Civil War, to Maudelle Brown Bousfield, the first Black woman to graduate from The University of Illinois in 1906, to the present, Phyllis Clark, who in 1993 was the first African American to be elected Urbana city clerk, an office she still holds today.

These works, while recognizing the importance of these women, also look at the historical convention and concept of The Portrait, specifically in the public and academic context. How do we perceive images of people, painted or photographed, on the walls of government buildings or in university halls? What positive or negative effects does this tradition have on us consciously and subconsciously? What new ideas, perceptions or understandings can be realized when these 23 portraits compositionally adhere to, but at the same time contras, with, the traditional motifs of classic portraiture?
For more of Jason’s work go to: jasonpatterson.wordpress.com

Posted in African Americans, Arts, Women | Leave a comment

Solidarity Rally Turns into Spontaneous Temporary Occupation

Posted on 03/28/2011 by Brian Dolinar

Solidarity on the UI Quad

On Friday, March 11, 2011, approximately 300 people joined a nationwide student walkout and rally on the quad at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. What was unique about this rally was the number of many new faces of people who did not typically show up for rallies on campus. They have clearly been inspired by the mass protests in Wisconsin and rapidly spreading throughout the Midwest in Indiana and Ohio.

The rally was part of a nationwide call for student walkouts in solidarity with union workers in Wisconsin. On Wednesday, Republican lawmakers rammed through legislation undermining the collective bargaining rights of public sector unions in the state capitol in Wisconsin where there have been ongoing demonstrations for three weeks. On Friday morning, Governor Scott Walker signed the bill into action.

At the rally on the University of Illinois quad, there were some 50 Uni High students who missed class to attend. There were also more than a dozen students from Urbana High School. Also present were many members of the Graduate Employees’ Organization, professors, undergraduate students, and SEIU members who are currently involved in negotiations for a new contract.

The rally ended with a spontaneous march to Swanlund Administration Building and up to the third floor where Chancellor Robert Easter’s office is located. In the lobby outside the Chancellor’s office, about 15 students talked about an occupation. Instead, about 15 students, mostly undergraduates, sat down in the lobby and came up with a list of six demands:

We want more direct say in when tuition is raised and by how much tuition is raised. We want a tuition freeze.
We want transparency in how the University spends its money. We want this information more available and publicized.
Better representation of students and faculty on the Board of Trustees. Students/faculty should be able to elect a portion of the Board of Trustees that is proportional to the amount of funding provided by the students.
Living wages for building and food service workers. The people who prepare the meals and the classrooms that nurture the students of the university should not receive wages below the poverty line.
DREAM Scholarships for undocumented students.
Administrative raises should have to be approved by the students in the student senate.

Two administrators showed up to talk to the students sitting in the lobby―Jan Dennis from University Relations and Robin Kaler from Public Affairs―but they offered no answers to the questions about next year’s tuition hikes. After occupying the lobby for an hour and a half, students left the building with a new determination.

At a speech given by Board of Trustees Chair, Christopher Kennedy at Beckman Institute on March 14, about 20 students, both undergraduates and graduates, picketed outside. They chanted, “No Cuts to Education! We won’t Take Re-Segregation! That’s Bullshit! Get off it! This School is Not for Profit!”

Posted in Labor/Economics | Leave a comment

We Went to Madison: Now Let’s Talk

Posted on 03/28/2011 by Will Adams

We went to Madison for our own reasons and had own experiences, but we want to speak less in terms of autobiography; our emphasis here is on the movement and all those present… What follows is a selection of a conversation we had in our efforts to move from individual experiences to broader implications.

AN EMOTIONAL ROLLERCOASTER
Trevor: There was so much energy the first day we were there. Folks were hopeful and I had a sense of solidarity amid the mass of bodies. Yet, I didn’t feel like we were seeing positive consequences. It seemed that the people in the rotunda were satisfied with the adrenaline. They focused on what they ‘didn’t want,’ and that was their endpoint. The next day when the bill passed, the energy was gone. I became despairing. So often we sit back and take what politicians do even when we disagree; here, people had chosen to act! When the bill passed anyway, I felt like activism doesn’t mean anything, but this didn’t last. My hope was renewed when Will pointed out that folks weren’t giving up. The occupation continued.

SOLIDARITY AND THE “DEMOCRATIC-NESS” OF ORGANIZING
Julianne: ”Being there was it’s own world, most relateble to four seemingly disconnected happenings in my life. It struck me as a cross between:

a lock-in in a building like Grand Central Terminal in New York City complete with rambling crazy people
a model UN conference with different groups working really hard day and night, cracked out on caffeine, not talking much to other people working really hard
a homecoming rally with painted faces and signs for the teams, and
a well orchestrated church event with lots of donated free food and people going way out their way to contribute in whatever way they could.

I went to Madison with the intention of being in solidarity. In the school, we had ideas about how to make this a successful protest: agree on a set of demands; encourage people to stay in the capital -emphasizing the importance of staying when asked to leave; and, discourage in-fighting, favoring unity in larger common goals. After 11 days of presence in the building, it seemed that there was no central organization. In a lot of ways this was beautiful. Individuals showed up and participated how they saw fit. People figured out things that needed to be done and made them happen. People took responsibility for themselves and had each other’s backs. There was a prevailing sense of shared struggle, however, we didn’t hear one common goal articulated.
Jerehme: Some of what I noticed echoes what Julianne picked up on. There was a shared idea of occupation, but no overarching unity of ideological purpose. We saw anti-capitalism signs, signs lamenting this as an attack on the middle class, others decrying corporate control of government, and many critiquing Walker directly. It appeared that we were seeing an Autonomous Movement. In such movements, roles are assumed as people identify needs rather than being predetermined. Individuals organize based on their own desires. These movements lack a strong degree of coherence for the same reasons.
In the last 2 hours of our stay we met a member of the teaching assistants’ union who was one of the organizers helping to direct responses to various situations like the attempted lockdown. Talking with her, revealed some underlying structure for the event. A small fraction of leaders from different unions worked to develop some consensus on what happening and what to do. We asked if we could join in the planning, but were told no. Though that could have been disappointing, Our group felt this was understandable and fit with the autonomous nature of this effort; the people who propel the action control the terms on which it takes place. I felt the people who had come to advocate for themselves had an idea of the boundaries of the protest. Being told no defined that boundary. We didn’t feel excluded, rather, we felt that by accepting this, we were respecting the decision of the autonomous decentralized collective movement.

PROTESTING AND THE LEGISLATIVE/POLITICAL PROCESS
Snow Leopard: Surrounded by the roar of our fellow protesters while simultaneously viewing screens showing republican representatives spouting inanities about the absent democrats, I was struck by how much I don’t know about the legislative and political process. I wondered how what we were doing might intersect with the political process. Is it effective to have groups of people standing around chanting? How does this type of action affect political processes? In Egypt, the masses of people gathering and chanting led to the fall of the government. The effects of similar actions in the U.S. seem much less clear.
Julianne: In some ways, it was a mass presence, not a mass protest. While the openness of the event left space for broad involvement, it was also frustrating at times. Being there didn’t get us access to information any quicker than we would’ve from having cell phones and Internet. It was a resource-intensive choice to go, a big deal, I’d never seen anything like it and I learned from the experience. Would I do it again? Not sure. There is value in staying home and interacting with world events where you are. It’s also important that there are times when you feel called to go.

SUCCESS
Will: How might we see this event as a success? We came into this thinking there needed to be unity in demands. We came away realizing this isn’t completely so. Some of the goals that emerged required unity, others did not. For example, to have “success” regarding the occupation of the capital, we needed enough people to be there and paying attention so that when the police told people to leave, there would be an active and actionable choice to stay.
This unity was present, and people did stay. Success? For those whose goal was to rebuff the effort to eliminate collective bargaining rights, was it a failure since the bill passed? It would seem so; however, the diversity of ideological desires and agendas present meant that it was possible to be successful and unsuccessful simultaneously. Their efforts did not end with the bill passage. Some of the efforts have shifted into recall campaigns. Other efforts are following up on judicial challenges to the legislation. Wisconsin may choose not to have a republican governor again for awhile. The momentum continues.

The Madison movement may have set precedents for future actions. The biggest difference in this protest com- pared to others I’ve been to was that those who showed up were mostly “normal people,” not just “activist types.” When we looked around, it wasn’t just college students and old-time lefties; nurses and firefighters, janitors and secretaries, farmers and teaching assistants took turns sleeping on the marble floors. The ripples of this are yet to be fully appreciated.

Posted in Community Forum, Labor/Economics | Leave a comment

Mothers Strike!

Posted on 03/28/2011 by Snow Leopard

Historically, traditional economists have excluded the value of household economy work from economic calculations insisting that the household economy doesn’t constitute labor and can’t be quantified. However, if we consider the tasks themselves involved in “housework,” as Riane Eisler does, we can calculate that a fair-wage estimate for this work would be (at least) $134,471 annually. Others have calculated the value of household work if it were done by a third party, i.e., cooking by chefs, cleaning by maids, childcare by daycare workers, etc. The rate in Canada came to approximately $386 billion; in Switzerland, it equaled 70% of the gross domestic product; worldwide, the UN estimates it at $15 trillion (all values adjusted for inflation).

Corporations have leveraged this “hidden” economy to raise profits. As Eisler points out, back-up child care for working mothers has saved 6,900 days of absenteeism in one year. Telecommuting increased sales productivity by $40 mil- lion. Paid parental leave has generated 2.5% higher profits, higher customer satisfaction ratings, and a 3 to 11% market value increase. Measures like these have decreased absenteeism and employee turnover, and increased concentration, productivity, job retention, and company loyalty.

Similarly, government investments into the household economy have been shown to markedly increase childhood quality of life, but sexism moderates these effects. Mothers are shown to spend more money than fathers on goods that benefit their children. While this may not seem surprising, the degree of difference is dramatic. In Brazil, one dollar in a mother’s hand goes as far as $18 in the father’s; paying $11.40 more per month to a Guatemalan mother is equivalent to paying a father $166 more. This difference results largely from fathers’ spending on alcohol, gambling, cigarettes, and prostitution. Getting money to mothers is a better idea.

Looking at this another way, mothers give away (in the form of their unpaid labor) more than the total GDP of the US ($15 trillion) every year. Imagine the level of protest and strife that would result if workers in the “public sphere” were expected to do the same. If this were any other industry, we’d probably be witnessing strikes. I say mothers should strike and refuse to return to work until things have been settled at a bargaining table.

Striking doesn’t mean abandoning their children; union strikers don’t abandon their children, they organize to ensure participants’ families needs are addressed. Women who are not mothers share in the inequalities of the current system and could join with mothers to strengthen their efforts. Threats of arrest for child neglect could be countered by the pointing out that it would be the arresting forces that created the neglect by removing women from their families. Furthermore, mass action by women would draw upon the strength of numbers; the unity of mass arrest has consistently served those who fight for civil rights. The outcry against striking mothers will be considerable, no doubt. But that outcry would be telling. Claims of neglect and abandonment aimed at mothers would highlight the unequal expectations held for women and men. Is she alone responsible for the home and child? Would fathers be justified in standing by and letting children suffer and homes fall apart?

I want to emphasize this point. Whatever the practical feasibility of mothers going on strike—one can ask, go on strike for what or from whom—the notion of mothers striking often meets the immediate (perhaps knee-jerk) argument that children will die if the mothers don’t take care of them. This rings like an indictment loudly and clearly-it perpetuates the idea that only mothers are responsible for children or that we cannot expect men to take up the task.

Others argue that strikes would not be legitimate actions for mothers because what they do isn’t work—as if cooking, cleaning, and daycare are not professions. Others would argue that mothers voluntarily choose to take on these tasks—but when up to 81% of women “volunteer” for housework compared to 1.3% of men, it stops seeming voluntary. The argument that since some males help with household work so there is now some semblance of equality fails therefore women should not be paid, falls short as well; all labor should be recognized.

Some argue that the work women do, if only with respect to raising children, and the kind of work for which striking is deemed acceptable (like police work), are not equal. When sanitation workers strike, a sector of the society panics; if mothers strike, indignation rather than panic would be the likely result. That’s more a problem with the arrangement of society than an indictment of the notion of mother’s striking. It is worthwhile to consider the idea of a Mothers’ strike, even if they would not actually chose to do so. Thinking about a strike could serve as a prod to address the inequities of a system in which women are still paid 75¢ to the dollar men make for equivalent jobs.

From the beginning, capitalism has been imperialism writ small, colonizing the domestic sphere to externalize its labor costs, while ultimately assuring that men could not support their families (hence, the need for two-income households now). Ironically, one result of women’s liberation, was that it freed women to could participate more fully in their own oppression (if they had children or aspirations to a middle-class lifestyle).

If a strike seems farfetched, then at least the notion of some kind of collective action on the part of women need not be. Collectively organized, women (and men who support them) would be able to seek out leverage points toward equity; these include the obvious economic inequalities, and the more subtle challenges involving the cultural norms of patriarchy.

In a few decades, the world’s population may reach 9.1 billion. Imagine the work involved in diapering alone! As Cindy L’Hirondelle notes, “Women who provide all this free labor in a capitalist system in which nothing else is free must stop being so nice.”

Posted in Human Rights, Labor/Economics | Leave a comment

Comfort Food

Posted on 03/28/2011 by Jacqueline Hannah

ITALIAN BEAN SOUP
In about 3 quarts of water, cook about 1 cup of rice, or diallini or salad macs (I use whole wheat macaroni) and 1 medium diced potato (skin left on.) Add the sauce (the sauce refers to the rest of the recipe, below.) Salt to taste. Cook until rice or ditalini are cooked. Add 1 can kidney beans or Roman beans (I use 1.5 cups kidney and add 1.5 cups garbanzos to replace the meat in the recipe.)

BEAN SOUP SAUCE

2 T cooking oil or chopped salt pork (I use cooking oliveoil)
1 T ground pork (again, I leave this out usually, although Gimme Lean “ground beef” is a great veggie substitute in this recipe if you want to leave that element of flavor/texture in the dish)
1 large or 2 medium cloves garlic
1 cup chopped parsley
1 cup tomato or tomato juice (my mom always uses juice, so that’s generally what I use, but this is a great place to use up some over-ripe tomatoes in the summer too)salt to taste

If chopped salt pork is used, sauté it a bit before adding. With oil, you can start right off. Sauté until ground meat is dry (mom’s note is to add the garlic with the meat, it was left out of the recipe by great grandma). Add the parsley and tomato. Allow it to simmer about 1/2 hour. (Add the “sauce” to the water, potato, and pasta, then do the simmering.)

We’ve all got them. I’m talking about comfort foods that bring back a very specific memory or warm feeling from childhood. Many of mine are not-so-healthy, but one of the big exceptions is my great grandma Fiocchi’s Italian bean soup. While I have vague memories of my still-agile great grandmother bustling in her kitchen making this soup when I was very, very young, my real memories of this soup are from my mother’s kitchen. I adored this soup, the tender bits of potato were my very favorite part, my mom always cut them very small and uniform and there was something about that exact way she chopped them every time that made the soup extra special for me.

And there was this flavor, this one really rich flavor in it that I couldn’t put my finger on as a child or teen. I now know it was the flavor of gobs of fresh parsley adding it to, any soup or sauce is still an almost guaranteed way to make me fall in love with a dish.

All of great grandma’s recipes that had been transcribed directly from great grandma by one of her daughters and my mom photocopied them all and gave them to me to use in my own kitchen when I got married. Even though I only use a few of the recipes now as a vegetarian (many contain meat) and others I just haven’t gotten around to trying, this collection of recipes is to this day my most
treasured wedding present. The food processor died long ago, the towel sets wore out, but this collection of recipes still has a special place on my cookbook shelf.

I’ve made adjustments to the way my great grandma prepared the soup, but the happy warm feeling it brings me to taste it is just the same. I look forward to passing the recipe down to my son some day. Maybe on his wedding day.

Here is the recipe as I inherited it, exactly as my great grandma dictated it, meat left in. It’s a very simple recipe with few ingredients, like all recipes for the best comfort food. There are lots of recipes that are complex and intricate that we can bring out to enliven a celebration or holiday, but comfort food is meant to be easy, everyday food.

I’ve added my adjustments and comments in parenthesis. And yes, it is very, very affordable to make, even with the ground pork. To make it a truly “Food for All” recipe, steal a page from the Italians by putting a piece or hunk of stale bread in the bottom of each serving bowl and ladling the soup over. Not only do you get to use up bread that otherwise might have gone to waste, it adds a delicious heartiness and texture to the soup.

Posted in Food, Women | Leave a comment

Revisiting Women’s History Month

Posted on 03/28/2011 by KristinaWho

In late February, at the cusp of Women’s History Month, Stephen Colbert interviewed women’s studies author, Stephanie Coontz. In typical Colbert fashion, he cajoles Coontz as she discusses, A Strange Stirring, her new book about Betty Friedan’s, Feminine Mystique. Colbert challenged her to prove that women really had it as bad as Friedan claimed. America has a tradition of using commemorative holidays to bring out the experiences of acknowledged underrepresented voices, but this tradition is also awash with failed expectations and missed opportunities. Current celebrations have shifted quite far from the ideas upon which the holidays were originally based. They are often ‘honored’ with an institutionalized passivity, and fail to acknowledge that one month a year is not enough to address continuing inequality and human suffering.

NOT A HALLMARK CREATION
The original Mother’s Day Proclamation was written in 1870 by author and song-writer, Julia Ward Howe. Proposed as a way to reunite families torn apart by the Civil War, Howe called for a day when mothers of soldiers should rise up to denounce violence and war. The idea was taken up again by Ann Jarvis in the 1910s after the death of her own mother, a suffrage activist herself. who was largely responsible for the federal attention the idea received.

In 1914, Woodrow Wilson proclaimed May 9 to be Mother’s Day. This was the first commemorative holiday recognized by the United States (US) federal government The official plan for the holiday was for a public expression of our love and reverence for the mothers of our country by displaying the US flag on all government buildings. Wilson’s mild-mannered proclamation was a far cry from the original intent of this holiday. It was, in fact, an attempt to nullify the increasing pressures of women’s suffrage. Suffrage activists did not accept this as the end of their journey to equal representation. Organizers instead used this act of tokenism to their advantage, further fueling their indignation and dedication. It was a time to act, not celebrate. These strong women continue advocating for their cause and a few years later, women gained the right to vote.

COMMEMORATIVE RECOGNITION (IN)ACTION
Rather than being a call to action and continued struggles for equality, commemorative holidays today are more commonly viewed as a static tribute to how far we’ve come. In 1987, when Ronald Reagen proclaimed March to be Women’s History Month, he called upon Americans to honor the achievements of American women. This translates to public school students memorizing facts about women and recitations in classrooms. Libraries publish book lists of traditional female authors, but rarely include the work of established contemporary authors such as Coontz (unfortunately). Post offices peddle commemorative stamps of Susan B. Anthony or Rosa Parks next to Snoopy and Woodstock. Outside of these institutional, orchestrated responses, little is done by the general public to contextualize the ideas in their own lives.

I attribute this perfunctory attitude toward commemorative holidays to the business-as-usual approach to awareness, and to the flurry of partially recognized commemorative holidays. From holidays sponsored by federal programs, such as the Department of Homeland Security’s National Cybersecurity Awareness Month, to local holidays recognized by city officials, such as Champaign-Urbana’s own infamous Unofficial St. Patrick’s Day. The range and scope of holidays send mixed messages regarding the relative significance of the issues being addressed and the meanings these events hold. On top of this, public schools and other government programs attempt to provide some formal narrative for such events, but this typically leads to sterilized presentations with little sense of personal relevance. Commemorative holidays often completely disconnected from the original intentions that prompted them in the first place.

ONE POSSIBLE SOLUTION
Colbert was partially correct when he described the problems in Friedan’s book as those of upper-middle class, mostly white, married, suburban mothers in the 1950s. In fact, it was that very rationale that was used to keep them in the home by men, by their parents, and often by their own consciences, internalizing the shame they felt for complaining when there were graver injustices others were experiencing in other parts of the world. Had women responded by closing their mouths and settling, there may not have been a civil rights movement, equal opportunity, or reproductive rights policies. Instead, different groups of the underrepresented sought each other out and fought together. Those from all walks of life protested for the common good of all members of society.

Whatever flaws they have, commemorative holidays do present opportunities for meaningful learning and action. It’s the responsibility of the citizenry to recognize an opportunity when presented with one, and to act as the activists of the 1910s did. When Wilson threw them the symbolic bone of Mother’s Day, they took that bone and demanded a steak. Commemorative holidays are a testament to being halfway there, but these are not times to rest on our successes. It was people’s actions that created the issues these holidays reflect, and the call to action should be continued through them. Every commemorative holiday should remind us to fight intolerance and injustice together as a community.

Posted in Community Forum, Women | Leave a comment

Ex-Cop Lisa Staples Back in Court on Second DUI

Posted on 03/28/2011 by Brian Dolinar

Lisa Staples' mangled car--from stoplisa.blogspot.com

On Monday, March 14, 2011, former Champaign police detective Lisa Staples returned to court for a second DUI. She nearly killed two 17-year-old girls on December 19, 2010 when she struck their car at high speeds. According to four additional charges filed in court, Staples also lied when applying for a new driver’s license and Illinois state ID card just two days after her license was taken away.

In the initial report by Mary Schenk in the News-Gazette, Sheriff Dan Walsh was interviewed. Giving a minimum of the details, Walsh said that Staples had apparently rear-ended a small SUV on a country road near Bondville. Walsh provided irrelevant information about an Ameren gas line that was damaged. What Walsh did not say, and Schenk failed to follow up on, was that there was much more damage done that night.

A decision by State’s Attorney Julia Rietz in January 2007 made police reports unavailable to the public. For further information, I had to locate Kathryn Rose, the mother of Kelsey Rose, the 17-year-old girl who was driving the Jeep that was smashed by Staples. Kathryn told me that, according to a Sheriff’s deputy, Staples was driving 80-90 miles per hour when her BMW struck the car driven by her daughter. The Jeep flipped four times after going off the road and breaking the Ameren gas line. As a mother, Kathryn was simply relieved that her daughter and friend lived through the experience.

Kelsey and her friend who was in the passenger seat, Margarita Solache, refused medical treatment after the accident. According to Kathryn, they wanted to avoid the trauma of going to the emergency room. Yet both of the girls are currently undergoing physical therapy. The only reason the two girls survived was because they were wearing seat-belts. The car they were driving was totaled. The mangled vehicle can be seen in photos posted online. Asked whether her family planned to file a civil suit against Staples, Kathryn said they had not yet decided.

Kathryn said that a deputy told her Staples was fighting with police when they arrived and denied she was involved in the accident. She had claimed she was a bystander there to offer help. Staples refused a breathalyzer and was immediately arrested. She posted a $100 bond and three hours later was out of jail.

Four new felony counts filed by Assistant State’s Attorney Scott Larson claim that on December 21 Staples made a false affidavit when she applied for a driver’s license and state ID. On both the forms she had failed to reveal that her license was currently in the possession of the circuit court of Champaign County. She also listed as her address 82 E. University Ave., the address of her former employer, the Champaign Police Department.

The last time Staples was charged with a DUI, she received favorable treatment in the courts. Due to public outrage, she was forced to resign from the Champaign Police Department. To read about Staples’ first DUI go here. What will become of her after this latest episode remains to be seen.

As a police officer, Staples had the responsibility of upholding the laws. Now she apparently does not think she should be subject to those same laws.

Posted in News | Leave a comment

Letter from Madison, February 27, 2011

Posted on 03/28/2011 by Michael Veredame

This Sunday Zach Poppel and I traveled to Madison to support the occupation of the Wisconsin Capitol. I want to share some of my experiences.

As we left for Madison, we knew we might not be able to get into the building, and therefore we were ready to support our colleagues inside who faced potential arrest.
Amy Livingston and Anna Kurhajec had arrived the night before, and Leighton Christiansen came with another labor group that morning.

We got got into the line for entrance into the capital at about 3:20, and the police had promised to close the doors promptly at 4:00. The line was moving slowly
(police were allowing one person in for every two that left), but we knew that Leighton was inside. Sometime around 3:45 we resigned ourselves to the fact that we probably wouldn’t get in, though we stayed in line. Shortly before 4:00, we got word that Amy and Anna had been among the last people to make it in after waiting about two hours. When the doors closed at 4:00, the outside crowd chanted, “Let Us In” for 15 more minutes.

You all can see what happened inside from the TV feeds. On the outside, we saw an energetic protest that still had the spirit of Saturday’s rally. Despite the bitter cold, people were in good spirits. We kept hearing conflicting reports about the status of the people inside. Earlier in the day we had heard promises that there would be no arrests; later on it seemed arrests were likely. While still waiting in
line, I had scrawled Kerry Pimblott’s telephone number on my arm with a permanent marker in case of arrest, a surreal experience for someone who’s never even had a speeding ticket. I had to explain what was going on to my (borderline hysterical) parents.

Once the doors were closed, of course we were worried about our friends inside. The plan was for us to be their first phone call if they were arrested. There were ACLU people available, but they would be responsible for all the protesters. People made a commitment to stay until either everyone was out of the building or the police had announced there were no arrests. Driveways, entrances, and exits were blocked.

As the temperatures dropped, people climbed up to the second floor to look peek inside. At one point we formed a human chain around the building. We also held a candlelight vigil and chants and drumming continued. As an unplanned event, this was a much smaller crowd than the massive Saturday rally, but it maintained tremendous energy. For me, the most thrilling part was hearing the car horns of supporters driving the streets around the capital. As the day passed, they fell into a regular pattern: a surprisingly well-coordinated call-and-response chorus version of “this is what democracy looks like.” Successive waves of commuters picked up on the game and kept it going. This will be one of my favorite memories.

Though none of us could get in the building, we were heartened to see food and supplies go in, as well as additional press. By 7:00 we had received word that everyone inside had been guaranteed they would be able to spend the night peacefully and would not be arrested. The outside protest began to disperse and we knew Leighton, Amy, and Anna would not need bail, so we headed home.
Stopping to warm up at a local bar, One thing you notice in Madison is that just about every local business has a sign supporting public sector union rights.

Right now, Walker is thoroughly despised in Madison. However much he likes to talk about the silent majority who supports him, I have seen almost no evidence of this. He literally cannot be seated in a restaurant in Madison as evidenced when he went to one of Madison’s premier restaurants, and the owners refused to serve him. What I did see was a massive group of people (and their dogs), diverse in race, ethnicity, age, economic background, sexual identity, religion, and professed politics (it was surprising how many “conservatives” believe in union rights). All
of them have had enough of Gov. Walker, after his less than two months in office. An incredible proliferation of clever signs lambaste Walker and his multi-billionaire
benefactors, the Koch brothers, punning and the double entendre are very alive in the Badger state. There is a serious tone as well. People here profess their disgust for Walker’s willingness, caught on tape, to plant agents provocateurs in the crowd to try to cause violence and discredit the movement. What kind of governor, the Madison Chief of Police asked, would consider risking the safety of law enforcement officers and protesters, including their children, for his political gain and backed down from the idea only because he decided it would hurt him politically?

It was also a crowd that connected the dots, and demonstrated precisely the kind of critical self-awareness that Left intellectuals often claim to be unable to find in
the American working and middle classes. These were not people marching, as the Right charges, just to protect their own benefits. The people marching understood the connections between war spending, corporate welfare, and tax cuts on the one hand, and cuts in education, health care, and social programs on the other. They understand that the divisions between skilled and unskilled, middle and working class, union and nonunion, and private and public sector, are meant to divide working people against one another.

My overall impression, like the Saturday protest the day before, was of incredible peace and harmony. I have never seen this many people assembled (for any reason, not just a political rally) without any unpleasantness or violence. People speak plainly and from the heart, in their posters and in their words, about how this bill will affect their lives, how it will take away things they’ve won, not only through their individual effort but through generations of workers who have sacrificed to build their unions.

Two weeks ago I remember telling someone that “Wisconsin is coming to all of America next.” At the time, this sounded ominous and threatening. Now, it has become transformed into something hopeful. I’d like to think that the energy, passion, selflessness, and civic engagement that Wisconsin has shown the world can become a model for all of us. Wisconsin is coming to all of America next,
but not in the way Scott Walker intended.

Does anyone know how to get permanent marker writing off your skin?

Peace,
Michael

Posted in Community Forum, Labor/Economics | Leave a comment

Is it Fear of Uprisings or Altruistic Punishment?

Posted on 03/28/2011 by Antonia Darder

As the uprisings are spreading around the world and in the United States, there are many who feel fear, reticence, and intense skittishness about what is transpiring. Yet, this anxiety, rather than surprising, is well-cultivated by the contemporary hegemonic forces that govern our lives.

What is most important for us to understand is that we, as a people, are most conditioned to fear when populations reclaim their social agency and collective power and rise up against the unjust policies of the state. Here I am speaking of protests that are generally aimed against economic and social policies of repression that are directly tied to the interests of the powerful ruling class. As much as U.S. rhetorics would like to pretend we are a classless nation, such protests are forms of class struggle.

Moreover, as an educator what I see is that the hegemonic pedagogy of the West socializes us all to be self-centered individuals and to fear or hold suspect communal life. Along with this we are conditioned to fear “the wrath” of the masses, if and when they should rise collectively to counter the long-term political betrayal of our leaders. This causes even good liberals to worry incessantly about the dangers of mass protests.

This is partly because by the time people throw caution to the wind and mount collective action on the street, they are responding not only from a place of reason but also from their emotions, their hearts. The result is a reclaiming of humanity and public space—both well domesticated and controlled under contemporary Western rule—when the people finally refuse to permit the oppressive forces of
injustice to be reasoned away or for repressive public policies to press upon our souls one more moment, without responding.

No historical transformation has ever been possible without the consolidation of the passion or Eros, as George Katsiaficas reminds us, of the people on the streets,
collectively directed with their reason toward their pursuit of justice. But we are also taught that to enter collectively into this state of uprising is dangerous, for in many
instances it may result in violence with impunity by the State, in an effort to regain control of public life. What is often dismissed, as Paulo Freire reminds us in
Pedagogy of the Oppressed, is that violence, more often than not, is initiated not by those rebelling from oppression but by those who refuse to step down or cede their power when the people have called for change. So in many ways, we can also think of uprisings that call for the ousting of government heads and officials as forms of “altruistic punishment,” a term used by Stephen Hall to speak of a collectively loving act of faith by the people, rightly exercised with their “flesh and blood” for the greater good.

In Western societies with a heavy cultural emphasis on dispassionate reason and unrelenting individualism, such values function to distort the inherent communality that even neuroscientists now conclude is actually hardwired in human beings for our collective survival. However, Westerners, who often have so much less to lose as compared to the people of Bahrain, for instance, tend to be even more fearful of collective action, given their deeply conditioned cultural belief that cool individual reason is superior to passionate collective action. This misguided notion is reinforced by the fact that mass action with stirred emotions is only considered legitimate in the exercise of war, not democratic life.

Again, all this works well to temper mass action, particularly in the West. Hence, it may not be easy for many to trust the uprisings in Wisconsin and around the world
today, given deep unexamined insecurities and fears, intensified by a lack of faith in the people and an accompanying anxiety that things could get or be worse. That
said, it should not be surprising that the more disconnected a person or class may feel from the passion that stirs the collective action of disenfranchised masses, the more concern they are bound to express for their individual wellbeing.

Thus, as we have seen time and again, the privileged will attempt to use their cool reason and social apparatus of wealth to separate themselves from the collective action of the disenfranchised, who through their passionate uprising threaten the
privileges and entitlements which the elite have enjoyed undisturbed for so long. What we should fear then is not the uprising of the masses who call for justice, but the fearful reactionary and violent responses of the powerful, when they realize
that they cannot effectively thwart the “altruistic punishment” of a people grown weary by the impunity of political-economic oppression and a government’s betrayal of universal human rights.

Posted in Human Rights, International | Leave a comment

Awakening to The Limits of the Obama Presidency

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Graduate Employees Lobby Illinois Legislators to Protect Workers’ Rights

Portrait of Ethel Rosenberg by Jason Patterson

The 1970 Student Strike in Protest of Kent State Killings

“Poetry for the People” Celebrates National Poetry Month

Jackie Robinson Day

A Tribute to Robert G. (Bob) Kirchner

WRFU Tower Approved

Call for Submission: April Poetry Slam Hosted by Aaron Ammons

“A Side of Prejudice with That?”

Portraits of Local African American Women

Solidarity Rally Turns into Spontaneous Temporary Occupation

We Went to Madison: Now Let’s Talk

Mothers Strike!

Comfort Food

Revisiting Women’s History Month

Ex-Cop Lisa Staples Back in Court on Second DUI

Letter from Madison, February 27, 2011

Is it Fear of Uprisings or Altruistic Punishment?

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