Anyone that’s been put through the public education system since Reagan and especially those of us at post-secondary institutions have seen an increasing pressure to dismantle it while funneling students into a series of for profit institutions, if they can afford it. I remember in elementary school some kids talking about how if a certain law passed they will be sent to a private school. This comment alarmed me—it was perhaps my first moment of political consciousness. And even at that age I knew that offering equal education to all people was a civic imperative along with health care and free and open elections.

Of course, since my childhood many things have changed, but one thing neither my fellow students or I (my generation) would have expected in this destructive march toward privatization is the amount of violent state repression that has accompanied this shift. With the corporatization of our schools comes inevitable militarization employed at repressing any dissent expressed by the people benefitting from the current social system. I will show that as public education become more expensive and its facilities become privatized, campus police departments have received more funding and will be emboldened to regard students as debtor-criminals and thus use violence against them. The infamous pepper spraying outrage at UC Davis is an alarmingly clear example of this type of violence. Sadly, it is not the only one.

I have been a student at various public colleges and universities in California and one in Germany since about 2002. According to the Cal State website, from 2002 to now, annual tuition has gone from $1,428 to $4,440. Another 9%-12% tuition increase is expected in Fall of this year. Like the majority of students in the CSU system I have received financial aid and am currently in debt to a few different banks. My job opportunities and potential to earn have not kept up with the inflation that the cost of my education is subject to, but that comes part and parcel with the introduction of what Paolo Freire termed the “Banking Model of Education.”

The changes have come rapidly. Our schools are modeled like corporations with faculty as low level customer-service employees vending knowledge and the students as the clients. Andrew Hannon explains that this corporatization process has occurred at the behest of and in order to benefit a new administrative class: “As tuition has expanded so too has the academic managerial class, transitioning from a system in which administrative responsibilities were filled by faculty members to one modeled on corporations, featuring managers paid more like their industry equivalents than their faculty coworkers” (“The Banking Model of Education”).

Along with the transition to the Banking Model students have seen the introduction of campus austerity measures such as the “furlough” where professors are forced to cut their syllabi and “volunteer” days off without pay. Then there’s the school textbook racket that has been behind inflated prices and outdated/redundant technology students are forced to buy. The general sentiment among conscious students is that we refuse to be simply customers in the education store.

The creation of a administrational hierarchy external to the more communistic world of academic ethics has fundamentally changed the nature of education to a system of debt and exchange, “Student debt encourages us to think about education the wrong way, as an individual experience rather than a collective endeavor. Thinking about it in terms of individuals also blinds us to the systemic implications of funding Higher Education through personal debt.” Individualization and the exchange of money for knowledge naturally leads to increased privatization of educational services. It is easy to imagine that students trained in critical thinking would not long stand for a university system that provides less while costing more and more every year. Many students have fought back. In fact, most contemporary student struggles have centered around exposing and attempting to thwart or slow the implementation of the Banking Model.

Student, faculty and even staff have led demonstrations against the recent changes in the educational system that are visible on all public university campuses. For instance, seventeen students and custodial workers were arrested at UC Irvine at a sit-in at the Chancellor’s office during the 2011 March 4th day of action for education. I was arrested at a similar action at UC Berkeley on March 3-4. Many campuses now host their own “Occupy” movements.

This problem is not isolated to California: the year I studied abroad in Germany was the first year that German universities introduced a student fee—up until that point ALL higher education was publicly subsidized and, in principle, open to all. Universität Tübingen began charging each student €500 a semester, the first time they had ever been asked to pay out of pocket to learn. Students, faculty, and the general public were outraged at this move towards a Banking Model of Education. The city was wracked with protests week after week. Graffiti on the walls everywhere read, “Wir Bezahlen Nicht.” We Won’t Pay.

As soon as students graduate from university into towering monthly payments, they find themselves asking the same questions “Why should the intellectual debt of learning become a literal debt? Are student loans actually an advance by students to their future employers? Is this a new way of owing one’s soul to the company store? Do federal loans fuel escalating tuition rates? … Who should pay for this crisis? What lesson do tens of thousands of dollars in debt teach our students?”
What students want most—and I know this not only because I’m a student who wants the same thing, but because it’s written on banners everywhere—is to have a role in the decision making process of the university, to defend democracy. This is an institution founded to serve students, those who want to learn, and what better way to learn than participating. We don’t want to just have student government elections, we want to have real power in choosing the character and direction of our educational institutions. This is our future after all, we can’t let administrators high jack it for a few extra bucks in their wallet. The episode of the students being “nudged” violently by riot cops at Berkeley on November 10th 2011 has shown us that the administration is not interested in listening to student concerns or challenging the privatization of our public schools.

As I mentioned in the beginning of the article, when a university begins its trip down the road to privatization, campus police departments also receive more funding. My current university, San Francisco State University, is the most militarized campus in the CSU system with a total of 39 sworn officers, while my sister university UC San Francisco has almost 200 “peace” officers. UC Berkeley comes in second place. I remember in 2008 when CSU Long Beach bought a mobile command center (nothing more than a trailer painted black and white) for it’s Police Department. Is it any surprise that an geographical area once host to relatively effective student protests is experiencing some of the most visible increases in institutional repression?

An increase in campus police budgets tends to create a shift in how student disciplinary matters are handled on campus when students do raise their voices. Whereas students used to be called before a judicial council for violations of student code of conduct, we are now handed over to the police and the state for criminal prosecution. The student protestor is no longer simply challenging the honor of the university institution, they are cutting into the bottom line of the university store. Protestors, under the Banking Model, are in the best case scenario nothing but thieves. In the worst case, we are yet another terrorist class.

Once the means of dissent within the universities are quelled, the task of liberalizing public higher education becomes merely procedural, inevitable. Twenty years after recovering from the effects of pepper spray and the frustration of being silenced at our own schools, students will still live like servants, indentured to the federal government and banks by a punitive monthly loan payment. This is how dreams are killed.

It is not certain what the future has in store for public education both in California and across the globe, however we can make some guesses based on the course that has been plotted by administrators and federal governments. We will continue to see services related to the university lose funding and either disappear or be outsourced to private companies. In order to avoid massive student loans, students will be increasingly forced to compete for and depend on corporate scholarships and grants. These corporations will then have the power to directly dictate the parameters of our educations.

Student demonstrations will become effectively illegal on campus—regulated in content, requiring permits, relegated to police supervised “Free Speech Zones.” When any of these precedents are violated, students should expect not only to get arrested and taken to court off campus but to face disciplinary action on campus—being suspended, expelled, or otherwise punished by the administration like in grade school. Demonstrations will eventually move completely off campus for bogus public safety reasons or fizzle out for fear of repression, especially if fascist policies continue to prevail. Let’s hope that what happened to the brave Scholl Siblings never happens to a student protestor again.

Although the situation described in this article may seem isolated to the public higher educational system, traces of the shift in power relations described above resonate in many other facets of our society in these historical times.

References

David Graeber, Debt: The First 5,000 Years

Andrew Hannon, “The Banking Model of Education.” http://www.socialtextjournal.org/periscope/2011/09/the-banking-model-of-education.php

Last Wheeler 9 Trial Begins
October 11, 2011
9:00am
Wiley Manuel Courthouse Dept. 113
661 Washington St. Oakland, CA

Oakland, CA—On October 11, 2011, the three remaining students, revolutionaries and activists are beginning trial for charges related to a demonstration on March 2, 2011 at UC Berkeley to protest the recent budget cuts targeting public education.

Seventeen people were arrested during a non-violent sit-in that day, with 9 activists eventually going to trial over whether the First Amendment is valid on public university campuses. Six of those activists were acquitted last week of “Disturbing the Peace” while the remaining 3 student activists are being additionally charged with resisting arrest.

The defendants have promised to fight and defeat these charges and reject any plea deals. In a situation when public education has been under attack for years as part of a broader program of cutting educational funding while instituting a “Banking Model of Education,” these defendants have upheld education as a basic human right.

The defendants have issued a call for support in a recently released flier:

“To all those who recognize education as a basic human right, to all who believe in critical thinking, to all who dream of a better world and to all who feel that political protest against budget cuts should not be met with state repression: join in supporting the Wheeler 9. Be at all the court hearings at Wiley Courthouse to put the system on notice that these kinds of charges are ILLEGITIMATE.”

As one of the defendants said, “UC Berkeley is the historical birthplace of the free speech movement. This movement has been under a relentless attack by the powers-that-be. This cannot be allowed to continue.”

So here in this isolated-place
I started to lick your flames.
And your papillae studded tongue
Began to lick my mane:

Two jaguars encircling a postponed dream…
                        [Our fangs pierce the skull to the brain—
                        we carry our dear cubs with these]
No! these jaws were meant to lick you,
More, these jaws were meant to roar!
        Over plastic covered oceans
        Of deformed fish swallowing the chemicals gurgling
        Fake pee that got me a job
        Crankin moot mathematics
        In the Greenhouse where
        A poem hangs on the wall: Let the Lover Be

“We live our lives because we decline to know
the nothingness that is the truth.”
~~Let the lover be—
Forget that 1 + 1 = anything but none—
Live
And revolve violently!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Graham Archer, National Lawyer’s Guild – graham@garcher.com

“WHEELER 9” STANDING TRIAL THIS WEEK
FOR PRO-EDUCATION DEMONSTRATIONS AT UC BERKELEY

OAKLAND — A group of 9 students and pro-education activists are beginning trial today at 9 a.m. for charges relating to their involvement in pro-education demonstrations last March 2nd at Wheeler Hall on the UC-Berkeley campus.

The demonstrators – who nonviolently protested escalating tuition hikes that are making a UC education unaffordable for countless Californians – are pleading not guilty to charges of trespassing for staging a sit-in within a campus building. The trial is being held in Alameda County Superior Court at the Wiley W. Manuel Courthouse, 661 Washington St.

On March 2, a coalition of campus and community organizations staged a demonstration against budget cuts to the UC and CSU system that would drastically raise the cost of higher education in California and impact ethnic studies. Near the end of the night-time demonstration, 17 students were arrested when they staged a sit-in in the lobby of Wheeler Hall. Of those, 14 face charges of charged with trespassing, and three others are additionally charged with peacefully delaying an officer, otherwise known as peacefully resisting arrest.

These demonstrations are part of an ongoing movement among the students of UC Berkeley and around the world in the fight for affordable education. As politicians race feverishly to cut social programs from already strained state and national budgets, tuitions at public universities have reached a record high, leaving many low income students unable to attend. Despite the firings, the furloughs, and the fee increases, administrators continue to receive regular wage increases and bonuses while those who use the university clamor for justice. As demonstration after demonstration, op-ed articles, and a growing chorus of bloggers have warned of the long-term consequences of neglecting higher education, UC students have received nothing but another 9.6% fee hike. And those students who raised a peaceful but insistent call for quality affordable education are being prosecuted in an attempt to silence their walk to the debt-guillotine.

The defendants—representing Laney Community College, UC Berkeley, San Jose State University, San Jose Community College, Diablo Valley College, San Francisco State, and local high schools—have asked for anyone who stands in solidarity with affordable education, free speech and against the repression of peaceful protest to attend the trial and spread the word!

—

The Blind Willies have put together a video of their performance at the Wheeler Hall demonstration that includes a lot of footage from the actual demonstration/police action.

Blind Willies – Soon My Work Will Be Over

Yes! I felt the damp moss
Of your furry chin bristle crisis
When the first airplanes
Drew overhead virtually flightless~~
They seeded the clouds with
The nightmares of nations,
       And poisoned our last avenues of struggle
       And poisoned our parents and children.

And they keep you feeding on lies
but you keep on not believing
Until it’s the only voice
That clears this chaotic mess alive.
So you give up and say
              2 + 2 = 5
Because you just want to believe
              2 + 2 = 5
And when you give up
More than a part of you dies.

                     And you and me…
              Now we know that black…
To be defined by where you work
Will never be a richman’s burden!
Red aloof but for you and me [zusammen]
Entangled on this earth
Grey underground, in love green
Underfoot you and me.
Now chainsaws with phantom limbs
Claw strips of deer flesh
From our flesh red lips—
A home of bark green
You and me, [zusammen] see?
Tree of leaves, the love of bullets and seeds
Sooty antennae grey that cross tar sands/
Streams of piss in the stars:
The hot tail of a meteor
In the back of your car in LA
~~Watching red-eyed signs of life
    And yellow windows of living-dead lights.

II. An Immigrant Text
-wat it do?
              -lost and alone, u?
-doin mathematics, 2+ 2

Screens, ghosts of steam,
I find
Solace in the sighing warmth
Of my sole morning scream.

Tracing ten days blind—
Dried out shells of snails white
Like little infinities on forest floors,
All worlds curled in tight,
Furls of time crusted together among
Calcified and cracking seams of detrite—
A labyrinth that stretched out reads:
       ~~This jaguar’s holy heart below
       Throbs a bitter but loyal symphony:
       A time for art to thaw ice in the cold,
               A time to fight
       And make love among the dark forest’s gold leaves.

Well, love was a lonely joke
Before I met you, grey,
Doling out sentences to the victims,
Never using an ¡ or an !
Then the day after the last day
Smoldering you breathed smoke
Grey rivers from my mouth,
       Wading through hallucinating groves,
       Exhaling coke into dense air.
                    I met you standing under stars

                        |You were unalone on Ellis Island|

- words by Michaël Veremans, image by Joey Magnum

The Center for Creative Cultivation is proud to bring you a twelve hour ART EXTRAVAGANZA from noon to midnight at the gorgeous Pillar Box Studios in Downtown LA, and the best part is, there’s NO COVER!

Bring your chosen weapons of artistic inspiration from 12 noon to 5pm and enjoy some gourmet vegan food, a free yoga class, live figure drawing, and a groovy jam session.

Then, as Art Walk starts swinging, make sure to stop by and check out our amazing lineup of artists and performers! Four live bands, eight DJs, and over twenty five local artists and vendors collaborating for a great cause …don’t forget to wet your whistle at our Donation Bar!

All proceeds will go directly to The Center for Creative Cultivation, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing after school art and music education for students of the LAUSD. Learn more about the cause here: http://www.facebook.com/centerforcreativecultivation

.:LINEUP:.

12:00pm: Food & Drink, Mix & Mingle

2:00pm: Yoga Lesson with Julia

3:00-6:00pm: Figure Drawing & Open Jam Session

6:00pm: Live Band – KIAIRE
http://www.facebook.com/kiaire

6:30pm: DJ SALLY
http://www.facebook.com/djsexysally

7:00pm: Live Band – BALEEN
http://www.facebook.com/pa​ges/Baleen/119392634748435

7:30PM: DJ RAYCHILL
http://www.soundcloud.com/​djraychill

8:15pm: DJ – MIXWELL
http://soundcloud.com/mixw​ellhouse

9:00pm: Live Band – MANY OF ODD NATURE
http://manyofoddnature.com​/

9:30pm: DJ SATOKI

10:00pm: Live Band – LADYHEAT
http://www.facebook.com/la​dyheatmusic

10:30pm: DJ BILLEKTRO

11:00pm: DJ JOHNNY JEWEL

11:30PM: DJ – CALYPSO
http://soundcloud.com/caly​pso-dj

11:30pm: DJ – DRIFT THE DEAN

PRIZES, RAFFLES, and SILENT ART AUCTION ALL DAY & NIGHT!

CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS:
Robn Parsons, Michael Nemo, Jinx Art, Lily Rodriguez, Lauryn Soorani, Abby Catoera, Dirt Faery, Bubbles & Frown, Yxtabay, Eydie McConnell, Chris Tejada, Michelle Guerrero , Matisse Ibarra, Maximillian Piras, Smart Pencil Designs, Kelly Campanella, Travis Ott-conn, Stephanie Linanati, Lisa Purviance , Marianne Williams, Lauren O’Connell and more!!!

DON’T PANIC! @ Pillar Box Studios
Thursday, August 11th
12PM – 12AM
ALL AGES / NO COVER
931 E. Pico Blvd. Los Angeles, 90021

His mane was well tangled
In progressively retreating halos
And his eyes panned and glinted—
Green-glowing round turtle shells—
That flashed a beautiful blaze,
Reaching to the sinking sun.

Knives of grass, dry weeds,
The debris of plate gold glory,
Stabbed into his black sodden paws
And left behind congealed blood
That rose blue like the last sunset
In the sky that flickered and faded and died.

The rabbits were dead also:
Dried in the seaward wind
And taken by their skeletons
To the surface of some great welling—
Pouring golden tears
Over the vacant skyline.

While the lion watched the nighttime come alone,
Sheets of sand blew through his nostrils
And his rib cage showed
A decaying metal grating
Under his matted, dark fur
With its suffocating staleness.

He was now thin and dim
And dreamed of long-not-had rest
Until he could stand no more
And sunk into the ground.
And when his proud bones cracked,
The very marrow seaped into the salt.

Das weiss ich, das weisse Wesen,
Der Eisbär, er versteht nur Eis
Und er weiss einfach Weiss,
Einfach Weiss, weiches Weiss.
Er darf nicht wählen wo er lebt,
Er ist auch weiss also passt allein Eis.
Und er will es wirklich,
Weil nichts ohne Eis ihm wahr ist,
Im Norden und sonst sind Träume.
Er lebt wo Waffen in Wolken
Aus Nebel und Mist bersten
Und Wale läuten in gedämpften Fragen
Weil wasser streckt weit auf jede Seite aus.
Und er wundert sich über die Wale,
Was sie sind, und wohin sie schwimmen.

Was wünscht der Eisbär, fragt man.
Er wünscht sich Wasser,
In dem er frische Fische
Fangen und fressen würde
Wenn er hungrig ist;
Wo er schwimmen
Und sich waschen würde.

Wo will er wandern, der Eisbär, fragt man.
Er will in weissen Wolken wandern,
Und wenn die Welt zu warm wird,
Will er lieber sterben und zu Wolken werden,
Dann würden Kinder fragen,
Was war ein Eisbär,
Er war ein weisses Wesen,
Der nur die Vergangenheit ist.

Er wächst im Schnee auf
Wo wildes weisses Wetter
Bringt ewigen Winter,
In dem kein Vogel fliegt.
Er wartet auf andere weisse Wesen,
Die langsam und einsam auf wachen
Und jedes Jahr wachen weniger.

Also, wenn man fragt,
Was war ein Eisbär,
Sag mal, dass sie nur
Illusionen in Weiss waren,
Und Geister in den Schatten versteckt.

So sagt die Mama und so geht’s.

- Michaël Veremans