Strike Debt Rolling Jubilee

David Graeber interviewed by Sam Seder re: Debt and Strike Debt Rolling Jubilee 11.14.12

Yves Smith over at Naked Capitalism has been having something of a peculiar and extended melt-down over the effort by the Occupy affiliated Strike Debt to commit financial/civil disobedience by buying up blocks of noncollectable mostly medical debt and forgiving the debtors from any further obligation to pay.

So far, they've managed to raise enough money to 'retire' around $9,000,000 in noncollectable debt; whether they have actually forgiven more than a small portion of that, I don't know. Exactly how they're going about their task is something of a mystery in that they say they buy blocks of debt anonymously (they don't know whose debt they have purchased, and their purchase of the particular debt is not publicized), then they forgive the debtors through direct contact.

Yves stridently believes that by doing this, Strike Debt is putting itself and the debtors it forgives at serious financial risk and that ultimately the program will be counterproductive.

Could be.

Given the level of overall American indebtedness and the amount of uncollected debt being marketed by the debt industry for bottom-feeders to go after (at about $.05 on the dollar), there's almost no way Strike Debt Rolling Jubilee can have more than a very marginal impact on the American debt problem and the industry that feeds on it. It's a scale issue.

Nonetheless, Yves is convinced that Strike Debt's Rolling Jubilee is the wrong approach to the problem and  that it is or might be dangerous to its participants and their beneficiaries.

Her particular focus has been on potential tax consequences, though perversely (a term she used with regard to those who objected to her tax focus) she denies it. Further, Yves and Lambert insist that Strike Debt is guilty of failing to fully disclose the risks to debtors involved in their efforts.

Yves can and does go into great and stupifying detail over the tax issue. Lambert just acts like a bitter old man yelling at those kids to get off his lawn. And he gets even crabbier when they don't do what he says.

The video above is taken from a radio interview of David Graeber by Sam Seder  in which the topic is addressed from the point of view of Strike Debt's interest in what we might call financial disobedience. Graeber of course is the author of "Debt: The First 5,000 Years" and is one of the prime movers of the Rolling Jubilee action. I've said that they are using the weaknesses in the debt-industry and the debt-system to throw a bit of sand in the gears that are grinding so many people into dust. They cannot have a huge impact directly -- which they seem quite aware of -- but indirectly, especially by highlighting the pervasive problem of household and personal debt in this country, they can have a tremendous impact.

Yves says "No, they're doing it wrong." After she tells them how she thinks they should be doing it, she then suggests that those behind Strike Debt have "another agenda" altogether, and implies that the project is somehow corrupt.

Having been more than peripherally involved with Occupy, I'm more than familiar with this argument regarding practically any project undertaken by or with or through Occupy. The idea that "someone with another agenda" is behind practically everything done with the Occupy imprimatur is unshakable and it has a certain kernel of truth to it, though typically not quite what the accusers believe. Because pretty much everybody who does anything has more than one motive for doing it, and often individuals are seeking to further "another agenda" simultaneously -- human nature and cultural conditioning tend to be darned strong -- the accusation that something done by or through Occupy or by someone or some agency associated with it is somehow tainted by self-interest (the typical charge) is relatively true. Sure. Just as it is true enough in just about any human endeavor. The notion that this is somehow corrupt doesn't scan, however, and there is no sign that any self-interest that may be involved in Strike Debt or the Rolling Jubilee is a priori corrupt or corrupting.

Yves and Lambert apparently want a debt project that plays by the rules, upsets no apple carts, does nothing on behalf of debtors directly, and employs squadrons of lawyers and tax experts to battle the bottom - feeders and the IRS.

Otherwise they claim that Strike Debt and the Rolling Jubilee puts themselves and their beneficiaries in dire jeopardy -- particularly of the tax man. Yves has personal horror stories that can curl your hair to support her case.

I don't doubt her sincerity, but it seems to me that she is vastly overreading the situation, and Lambert is just being stupid by demanding "full disclosure" and apparently condemning the project for not providing links to Yves Smith's extensive risk assessments.

None of the scenarios of potential horrors have played out, but if they do, it doesn't mean that no one associated with the Rolling Jubilee has thought about them before, or that no one is prepared to act to counter whatever takes place.

As an aspect of civil/financial disobedience, and as an "offshoot of Occupy", the project is bound to run into official disapproval and quite possibly cruel and brutal suppressive actions by Authority. Everyone should know that by now, given the outrageous overkill employed to suppress the Occupations. It's a given. Or it should be. The fact that it hasn't happened yet, however, is something to note and to take full advantage of. Strike while the iron is hot and all that. If suppression is going to come it will come, regardless of any efforts to avoid it.

It reminds me of the idea of avoiding any sort of confrontation with police, even to the wearing of bandanas, so as to avoid police crackdowns. I and many others pointed out it doesn't work that way. If the official intent is to crack-down or suppress (as it was with regard to Occupy actions and especially the Occupations themselves) there is no way to avoid it, there is no "making nice," and there is no action the demonstrators can take to prevent Authority from their chosen task. Thus, trying to avoid something that's going to happen no matter what you do can make the inevitable crackdown even worse.

As I pointed out at Yves' Place, it's unlikely that very many of the tens of thousands who were arrested or the thousands who were injured or had their stuff confiscated or destroyed during the Anti-Occupy crackdowns had "full disclosure" of what could happen even if they sat through some of the workshops presented by Legal. Some are still so traumatized by what happened and what they witnessed they can barely speak of it. There is no sign at this point that those who benefit from the Rolling Jubilee will be subjected to such official cruelty, but you never know. If word comes from On High to suppress Strike Debt, it could get very ugly indeed.

Has Rolling Jubilee failed because the participants haven't had adequate warning? Or because there are potential risks and pitfalls? Maybe. But from my perspective (well on the outside), it has a long way to go before it is even noticed beyond a relatively small circle of enthusiasts and nay-sayers...

Life At Versailles, or The "Debate"

Versailles

I watched most of last night's fol de rol with the candidates in Denver and listened to some of the post-game analysis on NBC. What a rollicking good time Chuck Todd was having: "Oh what a horserace we have now!" Because, it would seem, by consensus "Mitt Won!"

And Oh, the keening and garment rending over at dKos in the aftermath of the "Debate" between the two candidates for the Presidency of the United States of America, aka "The Big Chair."

At Versailles, they called it The Throne, and during the Bush Regime, that's just what I called The Big Chair, the Presidency itself. The Throne.

Our Government operates on Royalist lines, that is its way, it's nature. Internally, it's not a democracy at all. It is for all practical purposes a full on monarchy/dictatorship. Let's say a serial monarchy, to be sure, since there are periodic changes in who occupies The Throne, but the Institution carries on no matter what. And the Institution is monarchical, based rather closely on that of 18th Century Britain -- or "Fraunce" for that matter. Thus it is anachronistic as hell.

What we saw last night was an elderly, powdered, bewigged aristo, with very little class, try to sell the People (or at least that part of the People who cast ballots) on a series of bogus premises: that he's competent, that he "cares," that he's full of vim and vigor and energy, and that he has a Plan to "help" the Middle Class. None of this, of course, is true. He's old, he cares not for the Lesser People (and has repeatedly said as much), he's running on nearly empty, and his Plan has nothing to do with "helping" anyone not in his class of looters, predators, and mountebanks. That's just the way it is.

He was "styling" as we used to say in the Circus.

He was a straightforward, obvious hustler and huckster, which tells us something about our Ruling Class, I think, that might help in sorting the wheat from the chaff.

Many people believe they were deceived by Obama in 2008, claiming they didn't know he was a corporatist imperialist warmonger. I find that odd, because Obama was running somewhat to the right of Hillary Clinton, and she was obviously a corporatist imperialist warmonger, so how did it come about that Obama was seen through such a radically different prism -- when he wasn't campaigning as a Man of the People and a Populist or particularly Liberal Peacenik?

I don't know where the image came from because I never saw it. But that's me.  I sometimes see things others don't, sometimes not for years.

Last night, Obama was the Wonk to "Mitch's" (h/t Letterman) hyper-Aristo. Sanity, you might say, in the face of loopieness.

So of course "Mitch" won. It couldn't be any other way. What with "Mitch" hopping around like a string-puppet, and Obama plodding along with his "facts" and his "figures," how could it be?

"Mitch" talked airily about all the "jobs" he was going to "create" as President, but any sentient being  should know by now that he has never had any interest in creating any jobs for you. It's simply not in his portfolio. The fact is he will eliminate your job or ship it to some foreign land in a heartbeat if it will increase his bottom line and the bottom lines of those he serves. He simply has neither the time nor the inclination to fret about you. You, for the most part, don't exist in his world, the world of Versailles.

You might from time to time "exist" in the abstract in Obama's World at Versailles, but only to the extent that you and yours can be motivated or manipulated to go along with something that's already been decided as Policy by the Governing Class. Romney doesn't acknowledge that you exist at all, and his rhetoric about "jobs" is nothing but a sales pitch; Obama only acknowledges you to the extent you are... useful.

Thus, rationally, because you and I exist (if only as tools and abstractions) in Obama's World of Versailles, Obama is the better candidate. But because "Mitch Won!" last night, it's a horserace once again. Obama will not be allowed by the media to run away with the election (which he looked fair to do until last night.)

Many of the points "Mitch" made in his pitch were valid complaints the People have -- about high-end Government beneficence  and low-end despair, which he called "Trickle Down Government" which was interesting -- but he clearly doesn't intend to do anything positive about those complaints, any more than Obama and the Democrats will.

Interesting, too, was the fact that Obama proposed nothing for the short term improvement of the condition of the Masses, any more than he did from the outset of his tenure on The Big Chair. For what it's worth, the Masses are expected and required to pay for the Government beneficence to the High and the Mighty and not get uppity and not complain too much about it, either; rule from Versailles will be imposed, and the People will comply. Period.

"Mitch" on the other hand will promise all sorts of things to the Masses and not deliver anything that would change that fact. He lies. He's a huckster.

Obama is too, but he is in a different category; he's -- dare I say it -- "The Help." Romney and his allies see themselves as the Prime Movers, the Landlords, the rest of us, including Obama himself, being tenants or vermin.

Many of those keening and rending their garments last night were obvious plants, Romney supporters bent on sowing Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt among the Obama partisans. It was obvious. It was also surprising to see how easily FUD is sown through ostensibly liberal online communities. It's a cinch. Of course, I've seen it happen many times, so I shouldn't be surprised, but I still am.

Romney brings up all the things that Obama isn't doing for the People, or isn't doing well. He promises to do something exciting and positive to fix things, but he won't. He's a liar. On the other hand, Obama essentially promises nothing but more of the same, which isn't very good, but at least it's believable.

We have an electoral choice of Versailles or Versailles.  And it really can't be any other way given our anachronistic and balky system.

The only way to change it -- if the People really want to change it -- is through rebellion.

David Graeber Explains It All For You -- and Charlie Rose

I have a fairly high opinion of Graeber's thought, though one could say he doesn't really present well on the television machine.

(I remember one of the disputes I engaged in with another Occupy supporter was over teevee appearances by people who don't do television well; she was outraged that someone who was interviewed about a protest action against Monsanto that was going on at the time didn't speak well enough or in the appropriate and expected sound bites, and therefore wasn't communicating. I pointed out that the interviewee did touch on all the important aspects of the protest and said what needed to be said. Expecting everyone who goes on teevee to "speak in teevee-ese" is unproductive. Would the complainer suggest that everyone who doesn't do teevee well should refuse to be interviewed? How would she make that judgement? Needless to say, the person I was arguing with was offended. I pointed out that I know from bitter experience that I don't do television well, and so I personally refuse to do television interviews. But I don't think there should be a general ban on non-telegenic people granting interviews.)

Graeber makes his points -- perhaps a bit quickly and superficially -- in the video above with regard to Debt and Occupy, the nature of the struggle and the death knell of Capitalism (of course we've heard that before!) and he seems to make an awful lot of sense. The problem, of course, is that Our Rulers simply deny it all.

Thus the mess we're in.

Moisis Litsis Explains It All For you: about Greece

This is the most informed and thorough analysis of what is going on in Greece I've found. It is an interview with Moisis Litsis a journalist with the Greek daily "Eleftherotypia".

A sample:

:D.: Why is Greece different? I mean, why has Greece been the first one? Greek activist Sonia Mitralia says that Troika was using Greece as a lab to see how far they could go. What do you think?

M.L.: Ι think she is right. Even our former Prime Minister Giorgos Papandreou once said for a different reason that we are a “world lab”. As well you know, Greece has a very small proportion of the Eurozone economy (a mere 2% of GDP, in comparison to 11% for example of Spain) and far less of the world economy. So why is there so much noise about the Greek crisis in the last two years, saying that it threatens to destabilize the whole world economy?

Greece was the first example of what everyone nowadays acknowledges: the world debt crisis, with the focus in the Eurozone as a whole. If Greece failed, there was a fear of a domino of defaults in other European countries and maybe the end of the Eurozone process. That’s way they tried to solve the Greek problem, of course without any success. Now there is a common discussion about how the debt crisis threatens to dismantle the whole Eurozone, of course not because of Greece, but because the crisis affects bigger economies, like Spain, Italy and France.

With the harsh austerity, the threat of an immediate default and exit from the euro, the troika first tried to persuade the Greeks that there is no other solution and second to terrorize other peoples, that if they don’t follow the Greek road, they will quickly find themselves in a similar situation.

Later they tried to how far the people would go in their reaction. Despite the continuous strikes, demonstrations, criticisms and polemics, no social explosion happened in Greece, so the rulers of Eurozone may think that they control the playing field, managing to suppress successfully any kind of discontent in other countries. I think that Greece is today the example of what shouldn’t happen in other European countries: To believe that there is no other solution to the debt crisis outside of the troika's policies that impoverished Greek people.


D.: And what about the Greek people? Are they fighting back? Is Greek society united in the struggles? Is there a real counterweight? What is the role of 'aganaktismeni'? (the Greek indignant ones)

M.L.: We had a ton of strikes. Some of them massive, especially in the beginning of the crisis. But Greeks didn’t see any real change. A big moment was last summer when the “aganaktismeni” movement started with thousands of Greeks surrounding parliament, hoping that the majority of PASOK (socialist party) in the end would not vote in the new measures that the troika imposed after the July agreement for a new loan. The only achievement was the replacement of the socialist Prime Minister Giorgos Papandreou with the “technocrat” former central banker Lukas Papademos with the support of the opposition parties of the rightwing New Democracy and the far right LAOS.

I think Greek people was exhausted from not seeing a real change, they are still hesitant to follow the traditional unionists, even the traditional left parties, despite the good results they reached in the latest polls. There are many new initiatives on a local level, but not a general massive movement with a central demand. But the struggle continues.

I think there is a need for a total rejection of current policies and the debt, even to question the Greek involvement in euro. After all, despite the differences about this question in the policies of the different left forces, there is high probability that Greece will be forced to leave the euro, without a real movement ready to counteract the harsh consequences of a move like this. If this happens, there will be tremendous political and social changes.

D.: Why hasn't Greece declared, up to now, an indefinite general strike?

M.L.: For many years I remember the far left to try to promote indefinite general strike without any success. The last two years we had many general strikes, even more than we did in the first years after the fall of junta in 1974, which was a period characterized by a great radicalization and a great youth movement.

People lost also a lot of money from the strikes, mainly those in the public sector, so in these difficult times they are hesitant to go on an indefinite strike, something that the traditional trade union forces don’t really want and are unable to promote.

There is much more at the link.

Envisioning That Better Future -- Two: Debt Crisis

Everyone knows the horrors of The Debt Crisis -- because everyone is exposed to the caterwauling of the media about it every day.

But it is a curious thing. Nearly all the caterwauling is about Government Debt. "Saddling our grandchildren, yadda yadda. Must cut Social Security, must privatize Medicare!!! Debt!!!!"

Yet household debt in the United States is enormous -- what passed for "economic growth" prior to the crash was all fueled with mountains of debt. But we're led to believe that nothing at all can be done to relieve household debt, in fact, in order to revive a consumer economy, personal and household debt would have to increase substantially -- because employers cannot raise wages (perish the thought) to create demand and thus revive the economy.

Households actually have a much greater debt burden than they realize. Not only do they have their mortgage and credit card and vehicle debts (as well as a host of other debts, like student loans and so on) to deal with, they are also saddled with the entire debt burden of government's guarantees to financiers that their gambling debts will also be paid off, in many cases, paid off multiple times.

By you and by me.

Government debt pales by comparison.

While the banksters and financiers have a free ride at your expense and mine -- and keep right on gambling with the proceeds -- American households get buried under even more debt to satisfy the insatiable maw of the vampire squid. Even as they try to get away...

Years ago, at the outset of this Endless Recession, I proposed Household Debt Relief as the primary tool to deal with the economic crash. I suggest that each household be provided with $80,000 to $100,000 for the specific purpose of paying down debt, energy saving home improvements and/or the purchase of a new energy responsible vehicle.

At the time, the idea was greeted with shock bordering on horror. Moral hazard! You can't do that! When I pointed out that Debt Relief for the High and Mighty was the current policy, but none for the ordinary folks, and that policy would ensure the perpetuation of the Recession, the outrage at the very idea of interfering in the marketplace at the household level was ratcheted up. This was even before Santelli's rant -- over the idea of providing a "bail out" to home owners.

Many more now seem to realize that unless there is substantial household debt relief, this Recession really will be Endless. Providing so much relief at the top and nothing at the bottom ("You can declare bankruptcy!" And in many cases, that won't discharge or mitigate debt at all; thanks Joe Biden!) means that the economy simply can't recover. The High and the Mighty hoard their wealth and demand ever more -- and gamble with the rest. Even the normal economy -- at ground level -- is stalled, and yet the high flyers are gambling with abandon. Speculation (with all the 'free money' the financial class has been given) is driving up prices, wages and benfits are falling, debt among the Lesser People is growing, all is not right with the world.

I sometimes think there may be a moment of grace on the horizon when our rulers actually come to their senses and realize Household Debt Relief is a necessity, and they actually do it.

This being an election year, you would think so.

But so far...

Nada.

So what do you do? The trick -- which is being recognized more and more widely -- is to Stop Paying.

Just stop.

If enough people do that, the effect on the financial exploitation system could be monumental and could easily lead to the kind of household debt relief that has been needed for many years.

Cindy Sheehan has made it something of a crusade to stop paying income tax, and the tax protest is a long American tradition. Author Nicholas Carroll has taken the debt bull by the horns full on with his book, "Walk Away From Debt for A Better Future", but that idea, too, of course has been around for a long time. Leaving debt behind was one of the major impetuses for Western Expansion, and debt was a major factor in driving millions out of Europe to come to America.



"Strategic Default/Bankruptcy" is one of the prime methods Our Betters have used for ages to ensure their debts never overwhelm them. They do it all the time in good times and bad; it is part of the process of doing business -- and when Our Betters do it, it is generally a deliberate form of screwing small fry creditors (sometimes big creditors, too) so as not to have to pay them in full.

It's been working for the Big Guys, so they see no reason not to do it.

When ordinary householders got into the game, however, with the real estate crash, that old "moral hazard" thing raised its wrinkly head. For ordinary people to do what the Big Guys have long depended on to cancel/restructure debts was loudly denounced as "immoral" and "evil," if not patently illegal.

I tended to share that point of view until I learned that many of the mortgages that were being foreclosed were being paid off multiple times, that in some places, even after the mortgage is paid through various means, the debtor can still be liable for the entire amount (thus paying off a mortgage that's already been paid off), that some student debt is not cancelable at all making the student debtor liable for the debt potentially for the rest of their lives and so on.

The issue is straightforward: Americans are being ripped off and enserfed by debt, in some cases by debt that cannot be discharged. Furthermore, the only way American consumers have been able to prop up the economy is through boatloads of debt, piled upon more debt, all of which enriches the Highest of the Mighty, while the ordinary schlubb is lucky to be able to maintain a modest lifestyle.

It's insane.

Unless the household debt crisis is addressed, the real economy is going to continue to falter and in many places decline while the false or financial economy is likely to continue to soar.

If public officials will not address the household debt crisis (I thought for a while they would as an election year bone) then people have to take matters into their own hands and stop paying.

It's risky to be sure, but if enough people stop paying simultaneously, there is literally nothing creditors can do about it; and if Authority tries to enforce creditor demands on tens or hundreds of millions of Americans all at once, "Revolution" is far too mild a word for what will happen.

So: get out from under the burden of debt -- yours and the gambling debts of the financial class -- by "walking away."

The model is somewhat like the Bank Funds Transfer last year on Guy Fawkes Day. Hundreds of millions of dollars were taken out of banks and put into credit unions on that day, and apparently the process is continuing -- if the flyers and inducements I get from my credit union are any indication. Take it a step farther and repudiate debt to the banksters as well.

Helpfully, the BBC's Adam Curtis Explains It All For You (about the Greek Colonels and the 1973 University Uprising That Led To Their Downfall)

"History may not repeat, but often rhymes." Attributed to Mark Twain.

Adam Curtis has been making too much sense of things for a lot of years. I would only mention his "Century of the Self," and "The Power of Nightmares" as two of his remarkable documentaries looking into why things are the way they are.

He's found and posted some excellent background material from the vaults that help to explain why things are the way they are in Greece today. I encourage everyone to read it and watch the videos at the link.

Recently, The Greek Thing has come to the fore for a whole lot of reasons. Why things are the way they are in Greece is a complicated story to be sure, but one of the chief reasons has to do with the fascist military dictatorship ("The Colonels") that overthrew the civilian government in 1967. Georgios Papandreou (grandfather of the recently deposed Greek PM of the same name) was PM of Greece several times, the last time from 1964-65, until he was deposed and replaced by a series of caretakers who never managed to gain a vote of confidence in the parliament and finally the whole apparatus of "democracy" was swept away by the intervention of The Colonels who established a very harsh authoritarian rule from 1967 to 1974.

The Colonels were emplaced as Greek rulers with the complicity -- if not active involvement -- of NATO and the CIA.

Many Greeks suffered under The Colonels -- though some flourished, of course. The experience of that military dictatorship (which many Greeks consider to have been worse than the harsh German occupation during WWII) has stuck with the Greek People. They will never forget. And I doubt they will ever entirely forgive.

During the recent tumult in Greece, including the forced resignation of Georgios Papandreou as PM and his replacement with a "technocrat" (as if the American educated Papandreou isn't a "technocrat"), the issue has been ultimately whether the Greek People will be forced to part with what's left of their patrimony and sovereignty and be forced into poverty and servitude to German and French bankers.

The People are not allowed a say in their government's determination to yield to the demands of the European Central Bank and the further demands of Germany and France (primarily) for ever greater levels of Greek "austerity." Meaning basically that whatever assets remain in Greece are to be stripped in order to service their growing debts, debts that will continue to grow because there aren't enough assets to pay them, and the austerity requirements have fatally crippled the Greek economy.

It's a fine mess. And the Greek People are well aware of its nature.

So there have been constant protests and demonstrations in Athens and many other Greek cities against the Eurozone demands for more than a year.

There have long been protests and demonstrations in Athens and elsewhere for all kinds of reasons. Greece is a volatile political environment.

Part of the reason why is that the Will of the People has often been ignored by the Greek Powers That Be.

Gee. Whodathunkit, eh?

There is some very powerful footage in the second video at the link -- I cannot link it directly here -- of the Greek military seige of the Athens Polytechnic University in November, 1973, and there is testimony from survivors. Dozens of students were killed, many shot summarily. The revolt at the University was crushed, but the events that took place there led to the dissolution of the military dictatorship within six months.

Linda Katehi, current Chancellor of the University of California at Davis, was a student at the Athens Polytechnic University in November of 1973, and she says she remembers very well what went on and why. No one who was there is ever likely to forget it.

Last week, she presided over the failed efforts of the UCD police to crush a student revolt on her own campus. It seems sometimes that everyone on the planet has now seen the shocking videos (many of which I have posted here) of Lt. Pike pepper spraying a non-violent line of sitting students on Friday, November 18, 2011. The outrage has been fierce.

And many times, Linda Katehi has been challenged about what happened and why and calls for her resignation have echoed far and wide.

She has not resigned, but she has apologized -- apparently sincerely -- and the Occupy UCD encampment the removal of which she ordered and which was the proximate cause of the protest which led directly to the Incident at UC Davis, has been re-established with the active assistance of the UC Davis police and administration.

She says she does not want anything like what happened on Friday to happen again.

When she has been reminded of the student uprising in Athens in 1973 -- that she was part of -- and the parallels between her ordering the crushing of rebellion on the UC Davis campus and what happened in Athens back then, she has said that the students in revolt in Athens in 1973 were "mainstream." When she is challenged over her recent consultation with the Greek government over the "University asylum" policy -- which the government canceled -- she denies ever recommending that they do any such thing, and she justifies repression of protests and demonstrations in Greece on the basis that the protestors are "anarchists" and have "burned down" the Universities repeatedly. They are not students, and they have no interest in learning.

Of course she's lying, but the whole point of the police brutality and the lies surrounding it -- which have been going on for years -- is to enforce the neo-liberal privatization of the University for the benefit of the 1%. Nathan Brown explains it very clearly here:

http://distributioninsensible.tumblr.com/post/12867650744/five-theses-on-privatization-and-the-uc-struggle



This is what is going on -- throughout the UC system -- and this is what Katehi is part of, as are all the other University of California Chancellors and administrators.

This is their vision of the future, this is their goal.

Much as, ham-handedly, The Colonels had a vision and goal for Greece when time was.

But when they found out the People would rise up, they backed down.

Something similar is happening in Davis and elsewhere in the UC system, elsewhere in the country, elsewhere in the world, but whether the Powers That Be will continue to retreat remains to be seen. My own sense is no. Not on a bet.

They will without doubt ratchet up the pressure and the violence against the Occupy Movement, and resistance to further rule by the Banksters simply because they have to.

If you haven't seen it, "Debtocracy" is an excellent summary of what has been going on lately...