Student Mario Savio speaks out against Corporate U

Students are the raw material. The products are obedient employees, indoctrinated managers, and service intellectuals. Mario Savio explains it in this video. The machine has only been perfected since that time and there are fewer Marios.



Student Mario Savio proposes this solution:



And we have no idea what he means, no idea what he is talking about, because we have no reference point, because we have been schooled too perfectly.

RELATED LINKS:
On the important question of corporatization
Physics-math student between a Rock and a hard place

On the sacred space of the university classroom

In this essay, I put forth that the PowerPoint(TM) presentation is a vehicle for fascism and that professors have pissed away their sacred duty to protect the classroom space from corporate rule; that the only way to fight indoctrination is to replace it with vibrant bursts of self-discovery that emanate from the rebellious self in conflict with the forces of oppression that assault the classroom.

In Canada the professor is the legal occupier of the university classroom during scheduled class times. This means that the professor effectively owns the space. University administrators cannot simply barge in, nor can the police come in without a warrant.

The professor can decide to have guests and can deny the entry of any person who is not a registered student.

In addition, professors have professional independence, known as academic freedom. They are bound only by their professional better judgement, all the usual laws forbidding criminal behaviour, accepted societal norms of ethical conduct, and any rules or policies that have been established by the collegial governance process for universities.

Only rules, guidelines or policies which have been adopted by the relevant collegial governance process have standing in the classroom. Rules unilaterally adopted by the administration cannot be used to limit an individual professor’s academic freedom.

National and international policy statements on academic freedom and legal precedent are unambiguous on the above points: Universities have institutional independence only to enable them to protect the individual academic freedoms of their professors and students. The university senate is the supreme authority on all academic matters originating through the collegial process. In law, university executives are managerial servants not CEO bosses.

Such is the legal status of the classroom in the Canadian university, irrespective of the corruption and hijacking that has led to the present de facto corporate-style managerial invasion that puts corporate branding and global player ass-kissing ahead of education and personal development. [See supporting links below.]

Given this legal status situation and given every professor’s first priority to provide all her students with maximized opportunity for learning, one would predict that the classroom would be a vibrant cauldron of debate, expression, creativity, challenges, questioning, influences, doubts, emotion, cooperation, competition, reflection, and synthesis.

Well no.

Like a nightmare into Orwell’s future, the classroom has become a PowerPoint presentation in which the answer to your question is three slides back – see? Monkeys with guns. Robots with clickers. Professors are too preoccupied with writing what is publishable to do anything but deliver canned trivia, too insecure to put themselves at risk, too standardized to think on the spot, too specialized to know anything useful, too afraid to allow student freedom … they spend most of their energy preserving the image they have of themselves.

The professor has the legal apparatus to create a learning zone, protected from the insanity of the curriculum as roadmap and from the deadening call of the corporate mental environment, yet he chooses to participate in the killing of his students instead. She chooses to continue her own death rather than participate in life and in the lives of her students.

After all, the students want what they have been moulded into. They pay tuition and they want what they pay for. Many believe that what happens in front of a PowerPoint presentation IS learning and they would not want that “learning” to be interrupted by a lengthy discussion.

Of course most students at least unconsciously understand that they are buying a certificate and being initiated into the priesthood. And they have been so abused and so denied intellectual engagement that this acceptance into the order is all that is left for them. There is little chance of rebellion at this stage and they, like their professors, will now defend this image of themselves. They will defend their deaths rather than face their loses.

Such is the present state of university education. The outcome is exactly what the system wants: Cardboard managers of the Lie. It pays. It kills.

The answer is in the slaves themselves, in their capacity to rebel and to take their place – one personal rebellion at a time, sometimes coalescing with others, often not, always liberating when vehement enough to not be crushed.

SUPPORTING LINKS
UNESCO Recommendation concerning the Status of Higher-Education Teaching Personnel
Fourteen Defining Characteristics of Fascism
Rancourt case Academic Freedom website
U of O Watch blog
Academic Squatting essay

When I says 'plutocracy'...

When I says 'plutocracy' I means this:
http://goldenruledocumentary.blogspot.com/

"9 out of 10 elected politicians had more funding than their rivals..."
-Noam Chomsky

A remarkable documentary film.

The Activist Wars

Activist wars about tactics – Not just a question of effectiveness
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Why do activists fight? What are the circumstances of the most widespread and vicious fights between white First World activists (of all colours) who are supposedly against the same injustices and supposedly fighting the same system of exploitation?
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I have seen the biggest disagreements arise regarding differences in tactics. If the activists are all fighting the same oppressor, all pushing in the same direction, then why should they have such visceral confrontations about methods?
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Generally speaking, those who propose more direct and higher risk approaches are told that they “put the movement at risk,” “are counterproductive,” “will give us bad press,” “will turn sympathisers and contributors to the illusive ‘critical mass’ away,” etc. Significant energy is expended confining and normalizing those elements that would be more bold.
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The independent minded are told to subject themselves to the consensus decisions of majority groups, to “show solidarity,” and to “respect what others are trying to achieve.”
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All of this is contrary to the anarchic spirit of exploration, vital impulse, and diversity of tactics. All of this is contrary to the millennial traditions of celebrating the bravest and supporting those who elect to push harder.
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I have come to believe that the majority of organized First World activists prize their security in numbers and in imposed low-risk behaviours more than they are driven to actually fight the oppressor.
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The radicals are seen not only as not fitting in but they also represent a critique of mainstream ineffective protest and of low-risk cooperative behaviour mainly aimed at guilt alleviation and mutual comforting. Such a critique, even if not verbalized, cannot be tolerated. This critique is deeply threatening to self-image and to the main evasion tactic of talking loudly and in large coordinated numbers to the wind.
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Tactics are the expression in action of the activist model. And the two main competing First World models are: (1) the dominant model that low-risk expression if it involves sufficient numbers is the best lever for “progress,” and (2) the minority model that fighting the oppressor means fighting the oppressor, inflicting disabling damage, and thereby necessarily implying a backlash or adjustment and an associated risk.
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So differences in tactics, along this divide, give rise to significant disagreements and often cause break ups. These differences in tactics are at the heart of self-image and worldview, of how the activist perceives her place and purpose. They are tied to the activist’s beliefs about finding meaning.
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Activist wars in across-class oppression
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This is all well known and has been written about often enough, but now consider a special variety of this dynamic – one that arises when middle class First World activists fight the oppressor of an underprivileged group living on the same territory (e.g. aboriginals) or in a distant land (e.g., Palestinians).
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Occasionally, a member of the middle class activist community recognizes that the same oppressor acts in her immediate work or school environment, in the place where her own livelihood and liberation are at stake and decides to directly fight the oppressor (or one of its many tentacles) in her work or school environment, using necessarily high-risk tactics that involve trying to reduce the oppressor’s undemocratic and concentrated power in the work or school environment.
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If this driven activist on the road to liberation claims solidarity with the underprivileged group and draws attention to the across-class character of the oppression by suggesting that we need to actually fight the bastards where we are and where we have power, then that is going too far. The majority middle class weekend and after-work low-risk consensus-seeking activists who fight for the underprivileged simply flip out.
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Corporate media coverage of ineffective actions is allowed whereas media coverage of actions that threaten power is generally not. And media ties the activist to the broad community with its social norms and opinions, which in turn protect the individual resistor from indiscriminate and disproportionate applications of power, such that media-share, media-strategy, and media-use are often at the core of the conflict between activists. And our driven workplace activist is “subverting media away from the dying underprivileged children…”
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The accusations are almost comically predictable: “You are using the underprivileged for your own selfish means, for your own promotion…” “You are privileged; you can therefore not be oppressed.” “How dare you compare their suffering to yours; these people are being killed.”
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The protectors of low-risk activism call upon the obviously extreme suffering of the distant group targeted for aid via critical mass leverage, in order to argue that they need not actually fight anyone. They focus their efforts to eliminate this threat to their cultist belief in action at a distance via multiple filters as the most they can do.
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Their contributions may arguably be important and the nurtured consciousness of First World civil society may arguably play a role in frustrating expressions of war and genocide in non-First-World-middle-class jurisdictions, but the point here is that any suggestion that they are not doing everything they can or that they need to do more that would involve an actual fight with consequences and casualties will not be tolerated.
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An activist from their own privileged class that actually takes the battle personally into the halls of the economic system that sustains the oppression, and is necessarily not polite and suitably restrained in doing so, must be killed, or at least defamed, isolated, and neutralized.
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It’s a mobbing with the full intellectual pretext mill backing of university-bred feminist theory and progressive liberal rationalization. It’s ugly; the finest expression of fear and ignorance that mainstream First World activism can provide.
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Today’s North American mainstream progressive liberal low-risk consensus-seeking hobby activists are possibly the greatest barrier to First World liberation (and whole-world sanity); since the radicals that are neutralized rather than projected and multiplied are the main connections to liberation.
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RELATED POSTS
Activism and Risk
Against Chomsky
Means and Freire
Embracing Hatred
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RESPONSE FROM THE SOCIAL REVOLUTION PARTY:
Open Letter to Denis Rancourt: Harsh Words for the Ex-Professor
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OTHER RELATED EXAMPLES:
Why Norman Finkelstein dropped out of the Gaza Freedom March

On the Need to Embrace Hatred

Emotions are the truest metabolic expressions of how we perceive our immediate circumstances.
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There are no good and bad emotions since spontaneous emotion is simply what we feel in response to our perceived circumstances. Emotions are the most fundamental way, as human beings, that we can experience the outside world of relations, danger, safety, threats, solidarity…
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The more a society suppresses or confines or directs emotion, the less individuals in the society have freedom of expression and self knowledge and knowledge of the world.
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So-called developed world societies, First World societies, are particularly messed up on the emotions front. In Canada, for example, hatred itself is illegal. What could be more pathological on the emotions front than to actually outlaw an emotion?
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As another example, North American mainstream culture would have us accept that sadness is to be avoided and can be suppressed by “putting on a happy face”. With the help of scientific research, we are taught that “acting as if” can produce joy.
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In addition, various North American formal and informal love cults would have us “love our enemies” and “project love into the world” as the ultimate response in the face of aggression and oppression. These cult movements promote a ninja emotional response whereby one replaces an instinctive and guttural and most fundamental emotional response to oppression with its opposite, in the belief that the emotional response will change the real outside circumstances. Whereas this may be superficially true in exploring and developing individual relations within a community of battered individuals wanting mutual support, it can only be understood as disconnected and pathological when applied to real concentrated-force power-imbalance oppression bent on exploitation and domination and steeped in class divisions. Putting the positive emotional cart before the oppression horse is a sick proposal for creating justice.
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The First World mind-fuck regarding emotions is largely due to the institutional and corporate created mental environment that blurs the oppression, thereby making it appear normal to endure the obedience and indoctrination boot camps that are school, university, and salaried work. The emotion mind-fuck is most complete in the privileged classes which are most removed from physical pain (police brutality, environmental health risks, malnutrition, etc.) and are most indoctrinated to manage others.
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This mind-fuck allows First World middle classes to participate in the military economy while sleep walking through the enforced pillaging of Third and Developing World continents, as they gobble up the manufactured narratives of “aid” and “development.” At least the right, when it is honestly expressed, more consciously chooses to pillage and dominate, with its “better them than us” ethos. The latter lower middle class ethos (used by power elites) is seated in a sense of danger that is more authentic than the middle middle class distant “let’s help them” expression of outreach (used by power elites) that translates into risk-free meaningless acts of guilt alleviation.
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This is a call to basics.
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A natural emotional response is to hate one’s oppressor. Let us respect nature at this level. We need to hate our oppressors.
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In the face of aggression, the emotion choice is primarily binary, because the self must decide rather than simply be paralyzed: One either fears and adopts submission or one is angered, owns one’s hatred, and fights back.
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It is a lie to believe that hatred of one’s oppressor, unlike the oppressor’s hatred of his victims, dehumanizes or removes one’s capacity for love. In fact the opposite is true. Hatred of the oppressor and liberation from the oppression through action generates self-respect and love for all those in solidarity against oppression.
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I have met several ex-armed-combatants, liberation fighters, who expressed authentic love and untiring devotion for their liberated communities. Indeed, self-defence and defence of one’s community are themselves expressions of love.
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It is a lie that fighting back only creates more oppression, that liberation can only install new dictators. This is not liberation. Liberation is liberation, a constant life struggle of varying intensity against all assaults to enslave, exploit, and control.
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It is pathological to advance that one cannot use force or feel hatred in defending oneself. The latter pathology is an expression of the First World emotions mind-fuck. These ideas of pseudo-pacifism carry no credibility among resistors.
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Ghandi himself wrote: “we are soldiers of nonviolence, who, if the occasion demands, will lay down their lives for it. Our nonviolence is not a mere policy of the coward. […] It is a thousand times better that we die trying to acquire the strength of arm[s]. Using physical force with courage is far superior to cowardice. At least we would have attempted to act like men.” [1]
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REFERENCES
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[1] As quoted by Norman Finkelstein (and see his reference note (88)):
http://gandhifoundation.org/2009/01/16/resolving-the-israel-palestine-conflict-what-we-can-learn-from-gandhi-by-norman-g-finkelstein/
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RELATED POSTS
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Activism and Risk – Life beyond altruism
Anarchism as cooptation
Against Chomsky
Interpreting Means and Freire
The student as nigger
Survival 101

Anarchism as cooptation

Education vs Praxis.
See this critique and the comments... [LINK]
When it's called anarchism is it anarchism?

Since the above Ottawa Indy Media link no longer works, here is the original article (newly posted on September 18, 2010):

Anarchism as Co-optation
A critique of Cindy Milstein’s “education for freedom”

by Denis G. Rancourt
November 9, 2007
(Originally posted on Ottawa Indy Media)

Cindy Milstein (co-organizer of the annual Renewing the Anarchist Tradition conference, board member with the Institute for Anarchist Studies, member of the Free Society Collective and Black Sheep Books collective; Montpelier, Vermont) gave the Wednesday unScooling Oppression conference plenary talk entitled “Education for Freedom” in Ottawa.

Milstein’s talk upset many anarchists in the audience because her described approach to social justice activism appeared to be counter to anarchism principles while claiming to be grounded in the anarchist tradition.

Milstein wholly endorsed the mainstream idea that change is to a large degree driven and informed by education, that we need to educate ourselves and interact with the community in communicating our discoveries and proposals as key effective steps in catalyzing consciousness and activism. All of Milstein’s many examples were of this type.

By contrast, anarchists, such as Erico Malatesta that Milstein cites, embody the notion that the primordial catalyst for change is the act itself of resistance and defiance against one’s oppressors, that only such acts involving significant personal risk can inform one of the true nature of the oppression, and that any education devoid of a high-risk direct action component is theorizing in a vacuum, typically a vacuum that can only be sustained in highly privileged circles.

Such educational projects, even if they apply horizontal decision making and are inclusive, gender balanced, class conscious, etc., are nonetheless privileged and sophisticated forms of sticking one’s head in the sand. Creating a near-ideal community for mutual support is not activism in itself.

It is only a way of satisfying one’s basic needs for food, water, shelter, love, and community connections, but it does not satisfy one’s need for political agency to truly control one’s life as a citizen of the World. And it does not bring one in solidarity with those at the bottom of the capitalist project.

Only fighting one’s oppressors with the intensity required to be effective will put one at significant risk and only such actions and their backlash can inform one of the true nature of the exploitative instruments of oppression that feed on us all to remove our humanity and maximize profits, interest extortion, and control.

We need to stop thinking of education as a beginning or as a necessary first step. In our society, institutional education and alternative educations that mimic institutional forms by venerating education are instruments of co-optation that neutralize activism by intellectualizing consciousness.

Praxis is action and reflection as equals. Any actor contemplating resistance and its real consequences will be motivated to learn as much as possible about the situation and to perceive reality as clearly as possible. This learning will integrate all backlashes and responses and is not afforded the luxury of intellectualization or mental experimentation into a distant future of idealized possibilities.

Privilege-preserving intellectuals should have the honesty of recognizing their stances and should not use the cover of anarchism in their quests to create nurturing community devoid of the anarchist thrust to demolish dominant hierarchical structures.

(Photo: Cindy Milstein as negative.)

The CBC as an Instrument of Colonialism – Blind to Overt Racism

From: Denis Rancourt <>
Date: Sun, Jul 19, 2009 at 6:27 PM
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Subject: ReVision Quest Feedback, complaint to the CBC Ombudsman
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To: CBC Ombudsman <>
Cc: Chris Straw <>, liaison@radio-canada, marco.dube@cbc, angus.mckinnon@cbc, liaison@cbc
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Dear Mr. Carlin,
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I have attached below all the relevant exchanges in this matter.
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I find the answer from Mr. Straw to be a confirmation of my concerns about ReVision Quest.
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Therefore, I urge you to make a thorough investigation into this matter. It appears that there is a problematic (systemic?) culture within at least part of the CBC that would minimize and recast Canada's well documented and reported genocide of its aboriginal peoples.
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You will have no problem finding the relevant scholarship on this question. The CBC must not act as an agent of a Canada that would deny, minimize, and recast its bloody history in the treatment of aboriginal peoples. Given Canada's documented history of divide and conquer tactics against aboriginals, having co-produced the show with "normalized" (assimilated) aboriginal citizens is not a valid excuse for the continued cover up and violations.
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Portraying present aboriginal misery, which is the necessary fallout of cultural and physical genocide, as simply a social problem of individual choices and family psychology is an insult to humanity. ReVision Quest is an abomination.
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If you find yourself having difficultly seeing the racist nature of ReVision Quest, simply replace "Indian" for "Jew" or for "French Canadian" and I think you will understand what I am talking about.
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If you send me a transcript of the show that I heard on July 6th, I can provide a point by point analysis, if that can be of help in your work.
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As partial reparation I would request a CBC radio series hosted and co-interviewed by academics such as Ward Churchill, and/or activist professionals such as Kevin Annett, and/or key figures of grass roots resistance to uranium mining, treaty disrespect, and border disputes, etc.; not the white-chosen representatives, but the actual resistance that is thankfully covered by IndyMedia and abroad.
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Please keep me informed about the progress of your investigation.
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Sincerely,
Dr. Denis Rancourt
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PS: A starting source could be "A Little Matter of Genocide: Holocaust and denial in the Americas 1492 to the present" by former professor Ward Churchill. Also, this award-winning Canadian video may nucleate your analysis: http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=-6637396204037343133
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PS2: I will take the liberty of putting various civil liberties and justice associations in cc.
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On Wed, Jul 8, 2009 at 10:05 AM, Chris Straw wrote:
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Dear Dr. Rancourt
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I regret to learn that you found our program ReVision Quest disrespectful and offensive. I have discussed your complaint with the senior producer of the program. The team that puts together ReVision Quest takes great care in crafting episodes that offer what they believe to be a balance of history, comedy, currency and insight into issues facing Aboriginal peoples. As you may or may not know, our production team on ReVision Quest consists primarily of programmers of First Nations decent and the majority of episodes are overseen by First Nations producers.
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Please be assured that we take all feedback seriously and do realize that comedy can be a treatment that not everyone will appreciate. In all cases we try to find the best treatment for the material we are examining. We may not always get it absolutely right, but we are always trying to present our ReVision Quest episodes with honesty and respect.
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Thank you for taking the time to share your opinion with us. .. It is also my responsibility to inform you that if you are not satisfied with this response, you may wish to submit the matter for review by the CBC Ombudsman. The Office of the Ombudsman, an independent and impartial body reporting directly to the President, is responsible for evaluating program compliance with the CBC's journalistic policies. The Ombudsman may be reached by mail at the address shown below, or by fax at (416) 205-2825, or by e-mail at ombudsman@cbc.ca.
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Regards,
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Chris Straw Manager,
In-house Program Development CBC Radio ..
604 787 6519 ..


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: CBC Ombudsman
Date: Mon, Jul 6, 2009 at 12:28 PM
Subject: Revision Quest feedback, disgusting colonialism
To: Denis Rancourt <>
Cc: Chris Straw, Jennifer Bailey
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Dear Dr. Rancourt:
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I write to acknowledge receipt of your e-mail. It is the customary practice of CBC’s Office of the Ombudsman to share complaints with the relevant programmers, who have the right to respond first to criticism of their work. I have therefore shared your e-mail with Chris Straw, Manager of In-House Program Development for CBC Radio. If you are not satisfied with the response you receive you may ask me to review the matter.
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Sincerely,
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Vince Carlin
CBC Ombudsman ..


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Denis Rancourt <>
Date: Mon, Jul 6, 2009 at 10:48 AM
Subject: Revision Quest feedback, disgusting colonialism
To: ombudsman@cbc, liaison@radio-canada, marco.dube@cbc, angus.mckinnon@cbc, liaison@cbc
Cc: revisionquest@cbc
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To the CBC and those responsible for its programming:
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I just listened to the latest episode of Revision Quest on CBC radio.
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I am disgusted by this overtly racist program.
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Which other peoples in Canada would have its horrendous history as victims of genocide and colonialism minimized and ridiculed overtly on national radio?
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Please educate yourselves and stop being an arm of continuing disrespect and forced colonial integration.
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Cancel this abomination of a program immediately and replace it with the voices of resistors and grassroots opponents to puppet integration. Do Canada and human dignity a service. Call on the UN for expertize in this area if you can't find the local expert voices.
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Outraged,
Dr. Denis G. Rancourt
Former university professor and social justice activist
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[Photo credits: CBC; Vince Carlin, Ombudsman; CBC logo]