Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels To Be The Next President of Purdue University

 

Picture from Thinq

Something about this seems a little odd.  One might say, ass backwards.  From Balloon Juice, here's why:

Purdue University’s Board of Trustees has just voted unanimously to install Governor Mitch Daniels as the new president. As a doctoral student at the university, there’s a lot to say about this, and I intend to, but for now it’s enough to point out that while in office Governor Daniels pushed to cut funding to Indiana’s public universities again and again. I simply cannot fathom extending an invitation to lead an organization to a man who had worked tirelessly to defund that organization; it simply would not be countenanced in other contexts. In addition, Governor Daniels’s administration has repeatedly attacked public education and public teachers,  pushing for privatization schemes like private school vouchers and ascribing broad educational failures to Indiana’s schoolteachers, without providing responsible evidence. The man is an enemy of public education in Indiana who has now been selected to run one of our public universities. Internal opposition to that selection is the purest, more rational self-interest regardless of the political views of the individuals so opposed. Our media, of course, will regard any protest as a sign of liberal bias, no matter what kinds of complaints are voiced against Daniels.

This reminds me of when George W. Bush appointed John Bolton to be the American Ambassador to the United Nation.  Another thing to keep an eye out for, although I am sure almost no one in the mainstream media will pick it up, is when Freddie deBour is saying about students taking pictures outside the Board of Trustees meeting:

Today, I’ve heard repeated stories of intimidation by security at the Board of Trustees meeting, including signs that forbid protests that were not in keeping with “accepted social behavior” and the like. I’m also hearing that students who took pictures of that signage and of security were followed and searched by security, unlike other attendees. Many described the meeting as unlike any event they had ever attended at Purdue in terms of the amount and aggression of security. I’m still trying to get all the facts, but as soon as I know enough and have pictures to share, I will report back to you guys.

 Also, is there not a law in Indiana that says active Governors cannot be appointed to the Board of Trustees of a state college; let alone, become the President of a state college?  I guess not.

Videos for Martin Luther King Day

In the past year, the prevalence and importance of protest has gained traction like no other time in at least 20 years, and perhaps longer.  On this Martin Luther King day, let us remember the importance of King, not only as a Civil Rights leader, but as a protestor against injustice of all types.  As important as the message of racial equality, he also stood up against economic inequality and unjust wars. 

2011 Person of the Year

I know I am a couple of weeks late writing on this story, but I would just like to take a moment to give credit to Time Magazine's choice for the 2011 Person of the Year: The Protestor.

 

Photo from Huffington Post

Clearly the biggest news story of the year were the protests that arose in the Arab World, and that soon spread to other parts of the globe as well (including in the United States with the Occupy Wall Street movement).  Discontent at those in charge is something that so often gets talked about, but very little ever get's done about it.  Sometimes, a person get's kicked out of elected office, and the next person to replace them is either just as ineffective, or worse than the person they replace.  Occasionally, you see a massive uprising against one's government in a foreign country, but that ultimately falter via government crackdown through brutality and fear (e.g. Iran, 2009).

But this year was different.  Why this year, and not any other year?  It is hard to say.  Time Magazine writer Kurt Anderson writes this:

It's remarkable how much the protest vanguards share. Everywhere they are disproportionately young, middle class and educated. Almost all the protests this year began as independent affairs, without much encouragement from or endorsement by existing political parties or opposition bigwigs. All over the world, the protesters of 2011 share a belief that their countries' political systems and economies have grown dysfunctional and corrupt — sham democracies rigged to favor the rich and powerful and prevent significant change. They are fervent small-d democrats.

For most years, Time would bestow this distinction to one individual, but in more recent years, it seems they have given the "person" of the year (singular) to groups of individuals.  Examples include "The Peacemakers" (1993; represented Yasser Arafat, F.W. de Klerk, Nelson Mandela, and Yitzhak Rabin), "The American Soldier" (2003), and the lazy and pandering "You" in 2006 (representing people who post things on the internet).  Of course, this year falls under that category of multiple winners as "Person of the Year", and "protesters" they couldn't have picked a more appropriate choice.

But what if you did have to pick just one person to represent the whole protest movement?  Quite a daunting task considering that the number of individuals involved in protest movements around the world this year are (at a minimum) in the hundreds of thousands, if not in the millions.  In addition, there is not one person who is primarily in charge of any of these movements, nor one individual that is the "face" of any of these movements, other than the faces of some of the despots who the protestors are demonstrating against to begin with (e.g. Mubarak, Gaddafi, Putin, etc.).  These were truly democratic movements in every sense of the word.  But there is one person, however, that can earn this distinction, because without him, all of these demonstrations may have never even started (or had the impact that they did).

Many people have suggested (and I happen to agree) that the Person of the Year for 2011 is the man in the picture at the top of this post: Mohamed Bouazizi.  Who is, or rather, who was Mr. Bouazizi?  Here is a description from an article on him from the website African Success, where I also copied the picture from above:

Mohamed Bouazizi  was a Tunisian street vendor born March 29,1984- died January 4,2011, poured petrol over himself on December 17, 2011 and set himself, alight in front of the office of the Governor of his region, life turned upside down in Tunisia and the fires that he lit has burned until it engulfed the entire country from town to town.

 Photo from African Success

He was a student from Sidi Bouzid and upon his father’s death, was obliged to stop his studies and find a job.Faced with the difficulty of finding a job, he ended up becoming a street seller, without official authorisation and desperate he plied his trade as best he could.

His plight echoed the hapless fate of so many thousands and thosuands of young Tunisians, seduced by the promises of western education, yet frustrated and thwarted by a visionless, un-productive, corrupt power structure which dominated the country and suffocated creativity and innovation.


In Tunisia, the President Zine el_Abidine Ben Ali and his family rules his country with an iron bar.

Papers to do this and that, land to build houses on, authorisations of all sorts were obtained by the ‘kind patronage’ of the President and his family.

Mohamed didn’t have the right papers and on the 17th December[2010] the police confiscated his good and threw him out of the market because he wasn’t paying the right dividends to the people the President had put in place. Apparently slapped on the face by Faida Hamdy, it has been upheld that the indignation was the 'spark' that led to him setting fire to himself. Her family have always upheld that she never touched him and a witness who had originally affirmed that she did slap him and has since added that it wasn't true that she didn't slap him.

Mohamed decided to protest by the only means he knew and poured petrol on himself, took out his lighter and burnt himself, becoming the hero and initiator of the ‘Jasmin revolution,’ which brought down the President and his family on 14 January 2011 and made him a martyr and hero of the nation.

The tragic story and suicide of Mr. Bouazizi lead to the ousting of Tunisia's president, and that could have been the end of the story.  A small story of and tragedy and triumph for justice in a small African country took place, but the rest of the world kept going along with business as usual.  But that did not happen.  Here is a piece from an article Reuters on why the The Times of the United Kingdom named Mr. Bouaziz their Person of the Year:

Bouazizi' death from his wounds in January prompted protests across Tunisia, forcing autocratic President Zine Al-Abidine Ben Ali to flee the country. Soon afterwards, millions took to the streets in Egypt, Libya, Syria and elsewhere to protest against repression, corruption, poverty and joblessness.

The uprisings unseated despots in Libya, Egypt and Yemen as well as Tunisia, while Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad's writ is disintegrating and other authoritarian rulers in the region are eyeing the tide of public anger with nervousness.

Tunisia has since elected new leaders through peaceful democratic elections.

In an October interview with Reuters, Bouazizi's mother Manoubia urged the new leaders to honor her son's sacrifice by helping poor people like him.

"Nothing would have happened if my son had not reacted against voicelessness and a lack of respect," she said.

"But I hope the people who are going to govern will be able to keep this message in mind and give consideration to all Tunisians, including the poor."

 

Photo from Reuters

Without the death of Mr. Bouazizi, not only would there have not been an uprising in Tunisia, there probably would have been no Tahrir Square, no Arab Spring, no Indignant's protest in Spain, no austerity protest in Greece, no protests on the Kremlin and no Occupy Wall Street.  Without Mr. Bouazizi, both Hosni Mubarak and Moammar Gaddafi would probably still be in power, and it is possible that no one in America would be talking about the wealth disparity between the 99% and the 1%.

While I sincerely hope that no one ever imitates the drastic actions that Mr. Bouazizi took, we who care about these protest movements need to realize what he did, why he did it, and pay tribute to him and what has happened since then.  May the memory of Mohamed Bouazizi live on.  And may the movements around the globe that he helped create continue to gain momentum in 2012 and beyond!

Figting for the 100% (Not Against the 1%)

Activist Van Jones gives perhaps the best speech on the Occupy Wall Street movement at Occupy Boston since it began several weeks ago. Jones does an excelling job of highlighting the movement's short history, and explains the significance of demonstration and occupation as a tactic (as opposed to tactics like lobbying and writing politicians). The speech is quite inspiring despite the fact that a fire alarm continuously sounds off during the second half of the speech.



I say this is the best speech on the movement, but I am open to other suggestions if you find a better speech. Bill Maher's most recent New Rules is a good one also.

MLK, Poverty, and Occupy Wall Street

Picture of Martin Luther King at a march for sanitation workers in Memphis.  Photo comes from San Francisco Bay View website.

Today, nearly everyone from every political background admires King.  But if King were alive today, he probably would have been called a "a left-wing nut", a "socialist", and even "anti-American".  And just like the Occupy Wall Street movement today, King was considered both radical and controversial during his time.

Today, the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial had it's long-awaited dedication.  It is only by coincidence that the Occupy Wall Street movement is gradually increasing support across the country, and around the world.  There is no doubt that today, MLK would not only support the movement with his words, but would be right there with the protesters risking arrest.

Indeed, right before he was assassinated, King had helped organize the "Poor People's Campaign", which was focused on economic justice in the United States.  43 years later, the Occupy Wall Street movement is protesting economic justice in a similar manner as the protests King was involved in, but under different circumstances.  Just as Americans all love Martin Luther King now, and realize how right he was, will America look back to the supporters of the Occupy Wall Street movement in 40 years, and realize how right they are?  I can only hope so.

Here is a link to a YouTube video from a few months back by the amazing Tavis Smiley. He discusses the vital need for American politicians to tackle the issue of poverty (he quote King at the beginning of the video).  This was made before the Occupy Wall Street movement, but it does allude to the disgusting fact that so much wealth in America (the richest, most powerful nation in the history of the world), is occupied by the richest 1%.  This is one of the main things the Occupy Wall Street protesters are standing up against.

A Video for Sunday: Socialism/Occupy Wall Street Edition

 

Picture from Crain's New York Business

This week, I am providing a double dose of videos.

I recently had the immense pleasure of listening to Upton Sinclair's The Jungle on audio book.  It's a novel about a Lithuanian family that moves to Chicago trying to find the American dream at the beginning of the 20th century.  What they actually find is personal and economic hardships not to be wished upon anyone.  Numerous events of a devastating nature crush the family into the lowest depths of despondency and poverty.  By the end of the novel, the main character, Jurgis Rudkus, realizes that evils of American capitalism and finds grace in supporting the socialist movement.  The novel was Sinclair's attempt for the American people to look at the evils of American economic system, and realize that socialism is the direction the country needed to head in.  Here is a video, originally posted on TeacherTube, that talks about the book a little more in depth, and what the real legacy of the book actually came to be after it was published. 



This book, as well as the the ever-growing Occupy Wall Street protests, provides a good opportunity to re-look at socialism.  For the longest time, the word "socialism" has had a dirty connotation to it in the United States, and even more so from the American right ever since Obama took office.  When people hear the term, they equate it with communism.  Images of the Soviet Union, Maoist China, and Che Guevera come to many American's minds.  But the reality is that most developed countries around the world, including the United States, have socialism in their economic system to a certain point.  Except unlike other countries in the world, socialism is generally not the evil, dirty word that it is in the United States.  And truth be told, many of us who do call ourselves socialists wouldn't advocate government takeover of all industries and private property (like some claim).  Most socialists (including myself) would probably prefer a type of mixed economic system: a capitalist/socialist hybrid where great emphasis is placed on economic equality, worker's right, and protections in case something bad happens to one of it's citizens (e.g. health care, unemployment benefits, etc.)  Here is a clip from a while ago by MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell on the the use of the word "socialist" to describe himself.



It should be noted that not all those who support the Occupy Wall Street movement are socialists.  What those of us who do support these demonstrations agree upon is that damage that the banks and corporations have done to our economy, and that something needs to be done about the way they do business.  It is a grave injustice that in this economy, corporations are receiving record profits, CEOs and other corporate executives are receiving bonuses, and more corporate cash than ever is being filtered into our political system (among so many other things).  All the while, no new jobs are being added to our economy, and millions of American's are suffering economic hardship, and are worried that they will never be financially secure again.  I won't say we have it as rough as Jurgis and his family did in the early 20th Century, but it is still quite bad, and we deserve better.

Photo from rrstar.com

There are those (myself included) who support the movement, but have expressed criticism to protesters on a couple of different points.  First, the protest needs to broaden it's marchers so that it will be more than just "hippie-types".  While it is perhaps unfair to classify all of those involved with such a stereotype (and we should be grateful to those "hippie-types" for getting the protest off the ground), this is a movement that has grown into something big.  If we really are the "99ers", and we really want to make a significant change in our system, our movement must go mainstream, and try to bring in more than those from the activist left.  We need to bring in average citizens who may normally not be involved with political issues  These can be liberals, socialists, fed up capitalists, moderates, maybe even some conservatives.  We need to grow and unify.

A second criticism is that, while those who are protesting are clearly angry at the actions of Wall Street, they must also be able to come up with some specific, concrete ideas for policy change.  Hopefully, this movement is young, and when it comes to the potential to create change, the sky is the limit.  However, Eric Stetson at Daily Kos has some good ideas for short term changes:

1. A bailout for homeowners who are facing foreclosure and unemployed people with student loan debt -- of equal or greater value as the bank bailouts. Give these people a fresh start by forgiving their debts and keeping them in their homes, and thus improving the economy for all.
2. The "Buffett Tax" (i.e. taxing capital gains at the same rate as income earned from a job, so that working people won't pay higher taxes than the idle rich). It's only fair! And this will help to fund #1.
3. A short-term trading transaction tax for people and financial institutions who use Wall Street as a casino. Such a tax could raise huge amounts of money to fund #1, and would likely reduce the volatility in the markets by making computerized "high frequency auto-trading" by large investment companies less profitable. Such a tax would also make it harder for already-wealthy institutions to "vacuum up" more and more money from the productive sectors of the economy into the black hole of their own coffers.