Change of Pace: Ms Katehi Sez

Herself, Linda Katehi, Chancellor of the University of California at Davis, under guard during the Student Assembly at UCD November 21, 2011.

I've been on a tangent lately, dealing with Other Things That Must Be Done. My blogging has been intermittent and I have not touched much on the various reports and issues surrounding the incidents of police brutality and administrative incompetence last fall, especially throughout the University of California system, particularly at UC Berkeley and UC Davis.

Teri49 in comments jogged me into thinking about these matters somewhat more than I have for a while, in part because of an incident in Santa Fe that wound up in Federal Court over the improper touching of Capital High School students by private security guards, and in part due to the fact that I'm surprised that the reports which have so far been released have been so highly critical of the University's administrators, essentially accusing them (accurately, I'd say) of pernicious ignorance of their student bodies and disinterest in their campus communities.

Indeed.

I really did not expect this.

And yesterday, Herself made an appearance at the California State Capitol wherein she averred she had personally erred last November in ways that led directly to the Pepper Spray Incident on the UC Davis quad.

Well. Who. Would. Have. Thunk?

Not I, that's for sure.

Look, the whole point of becoming an educational administrator is to avoid accepting responsibility for anything. Everybody knows that. The purpose of educational administration is to put the blame for everything on someone else, and preferably charge them for the privilege of being blamed.

In today's educational environment, it's about The Money, and that's just about all.

But there was Katehi over at the Capitol yesterday mea-ing and culpa-ing up a storm and a half.

What happened at Berkeley and Davis last fall (and other campuses, too) may have shocked the consciences of some members of civilized society, but it was no surprise to anyone who's been aware of or been around militant student protests for the last 30 years or so. It has been standard operating procedure for years for California university police to tase and beat the shit out of students who don't obey their commands promptly and with sufficient subservience. It has happened often enough -- and internationally notoriously, with numerous viral videos in the last few years -- for some people to recognize that this behavior on the part of campus police toward disobedient students is no anomaly, it is policy.

This is all tied in to the notion that obedience is the primary objective of public education, and has been for many a long year now, what with students at all levels of public (and some private) education being subjected to the arbitrary imposition of authority, often brutally, as a matter of course. As if they had no rights that anyone in a position of authority was bound to respect at all.

Public schools and colleges operate like -- and often resemble -- prisons, a factor that led to a spate of school shootings back in the '90's. Campuses are routinely put on "lockdown" -- just like prisons -- and students are routinely subjected to invasive and typically arbitrary search and seizure by campus police and administrators. This has been going on for decades.

"Disturbances" are routinely broken up with tasers, tear gas, batons and sometimes other weapons. Armed guards patrol not only the campuses but the nearby communities as well. There's a law school a few blocks from my house, for example, and the campus police routinely patrol and make arrests in the surrounding community. There is a school district police force -- actually in the school district that succeeded the one where I attended high school -- that is accused of using its powers of arrest to tail and arrest drivers in the area for various minor infractions as a money-making scheme for the district and the department. The level of administrative corruption in education has reached astronomical proportions. Michelle Rhee, for example?

This is the historic and backstory context of the Incidents at Berkeley and Davis last fall, something that so far as I am aware, none of the reports issued so far touch on, nor does the media seem able to pick up on the long-term pattern of brutal enforcement of Obedience in the American educational system.

But I have read the reports, and I am struck by how uniform they are in placing responsibility for what happened last fall on the administrations of the campuses involved, and the overall system administration, and for pointing out that these things have happened over and over again, reports have been issued over and over again, and for some reason, nothing changes...

Administrators are divorced from the student bodies and often from the faculty and staff as well; campus police forces are often left to do their own thing without guidance, or in the case of Davis, have been known to defy instructions (and did so on November 18); students and often the faculties and staffs of the university campuses have little or no trust in either the campus police or administrators.

This has been going on for decades.

This article from The Nation in March puts another angle on what is going on, the "Homeland Security Campus" angle, and I have to agree that the author has a point. There's a whole campus security back channel where the latest developments in repression are being discussed and means and methods tested. When Katehi and others of her ilk speak of the "health and safety" of the students, for example, and then in the next breath order the violent dispersal of a protest -- which has happened over and over again -- which often leads to broken bones and other serious health and safety consequences for the students, she's not speaking about the students' "health and safety" at all. She's concerned about her own health and safety -- ie: preserving her job and her $400,000 salary -- and about the financial health and the paramilitary "safety" squads who do the dirty work of stamping out unpermitted campus protest and enforcing Obedience.

I can recognize all this and more is going on, but I confess I don't know what to do about it apart from continuing and stepping up protests including occupations of campuses, and contrary-wise, refusing to utilize a University system that routinely brutalizes students and faculty.

One thing that's clear from the reports is that the administration of the University is very concerned with the reputation the system has gained for brutal and unnecessary police actions. The University has been heavily recruiting out of state and international students -- who pay even higher tuition and fees than in-state students do. They won't come if the campuses have a reputation for internal violence precipitated by the campus police.

So the adminstrators vow to clean it up by next year some time (ie: when the next cohort of high-value students is due to arrive.)

Meanwhile, the mess that public education has become in this country continues...

The following video is from last December in Sacramento:

And if you haven't already, read this article by Mark Ames to get a better picture of just who Ms Katehi is... layers and layers, wheels within wheels...

Today's Propaganda

A whole raft of things today.

Let's start with the UC Davis "Pepper Spray Report." The judge hearing the matter in Oakland was expected to rule yesterday that the report could be released intact, but instead he decided to split the baby, ruling that the parts of the report (especially "Section 6" in which officers are named and their actions criticized) could be withheld until a final ruling, whenever that comes.

Both "sides" hailed the decision as a propaganda victory, but the public gets nothing out of the deal, as the judge also ordered that the attorneys for both "sides" decide among themselves what could and could not be released and when. Under those conditions, the Report can be sequestered indefinitely, which -- if I may be so bold as to opine on the matter -- is the point.

Over the years, the University of California has done a number of reports on police brutality against students and faculty on campuses and it's always the same: the reports are withheld until "emotions die down," and when they are released, interest has moved to some other issue, the reports are considered "fully" by UCPD and administrators, and little or nothing changes. The next time the students and their faculty allies get uppity, they get the holy shit beat out of them, and the cycle repeats. World without end. Amen.

Nevertheless, every report is hailed as a propaganda victory by both "sides". Clue: there are not "two sides," there's only one, and the primary interest of that side is to ensure that the troubled campus waters are not further roiled by the release of the report.

And so it is again.
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The Afghanistan Massacre Wurlitzer continues with its concerto about the poor soldier who is accused (and now named) in the incident. Sympathy for him and understanding of his plight -- as a fourth deployment vet who didn't want to go, who has two lovely young children and who lives in a modern white house in the pine forests of Washington, etc., etc. -- is being whipped up at every turn. No other soldiers are even hinted at being involved, and the existence of Afghan reports of what happened and who did it are simply ignored. Not only do the Afghans have no voice in this matter, with the exception of Hamid Karzai, they no longer exist at all -- if they ever did. The murder spree has become a complete abstraction in the American media, with Pentagon spokespeople insisting that it will be "thoroughly investigated" while at the same time feeding the media endless streams of sympathetic tidbits about the one accused soldier, who -- from appearances -- has already been cleared of wrong-doing. "Bad things happen in war. Too bad, so sad."

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And then there's this one, which kind of stuns me:

Some of us recall that in January, one of my favorite radio shows, "This American Life," presented a radio version of a dramatization of horrible labor conditions in Chinese plants that make Apple products, especially IPads and such. That show has been pulled from the archives, it seems, because it was not entirely accurate. In fact, it was a radio play, a one-man dramatic exploration of what was going on in Chinese plants that build Apple products. That's how it was presented.

Apple apparently complained, and Ira Glass then closely questioned the dramatist who acknowledged that it was a play (you damn fool!) and he did indeed take advantage of dramatic license to make his point. Yes? So?

Anyone who listens to "This American Life" should know that they are not getting literal truth or "journalism." They are getting what are usually very personal interpretations of events and feelings and all the rest of it. Each segment is a little drama that focuses on... something important to the segment's creator. It's story-telling, often at a very high level of creativity and accomplishment.

But the story about the labor horrors in Apple's Chinese production plants was apparently going "too far."

I'm stunned.

It's nonsense on stilts, but Ira Glass is going to spend the entire show this weekend "explaining" how they could have gotten it so wrong. What a crock. But then maybe Apple has "persuaded" them. They have ways, after all.

FURTHERMORE: Having now listened to this week's episode, I am infuriated with Ira Glass and "This American Life." I do not believe his oh so pious prattling about the untruthfulness of Michael Daisey. For Ira to say several times that if he sees and hears someone say something from the stage he assumes it to be "factual" -- unless it is plainly labeled as "fiction" -- is simply unbelievable. Surely he is not that naive. It's fairly obvious to me that TAL got a demand letter from Apple Legal and they did what they had to do, but I have a hard time believing that they had to smear Michael Daisey in the process. To then follow up their smear job with what amounts to a hagiography of Apple and its manufacturing practices from NYT writer Charles Duhigg just makes it all the more sickening. I wouldn't really like to see other episodes of "This American Life" subjected to the kind of scrutiny this episode got -- because it would simply destroy the program. I think Ira knows that, too.

What happened here shows just how powerful certain corporate interests are in this country, and how obvious their exercise of power can be.
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Finally, an editorial regarding the Limbaugh Matter and the banned Doonsbury strip. What a frightful, confused mess. First they complain that Limbaugh did a bad thing by calling Sandra Fluke those two words. But equally bad, in their eyes, are the efforts of activists to get his show off the air. No, no, no! The radio stations that air his show should be convinced to air opposing view points, and if they don't do it, then the activists should go to Congress and lobby -- for however many years it takes -- to require that opposing viewpoints be aired!

On the other hand, activists are wrong to complain that Doonsbury is being "censored" when some papers won't run the current strip, because, as we know, only Government can "censor" (what complete crap) and what private businesses do is their own affair. If they decide not to run a particular story or comic strip story line, it's not "censorship" (yes it is!) it's just business.

But then, everything is, isn't it?

This Is What A Police State Looks Like (Redux)

By now, it should be clear that the Authorities have been busy during the Occupy semi-hiatus over the winter. Oh yes. Oh. My. Yes.

The other day, the Oakland City Attorney sued one of the local Occupy activists for vandalism for acts he is alleged to have committed in Oakland on the night of General Strike Day, November 2. Cesar is one of the gentlest and most generous people I know. He says that on that night, he was not committing vandalism in Oakland at all. He was trying to protect himself from police munitions fire by "liberating" a piece of plywood covering a window to use as a shield. Cesar was arrested that night for vandalism and failure to disperse, but he has not been charged criminally. The video evidence the city says they will produce more than likely is ambiguous about what actually happened, but it's obvious the City of Oakland is using this case as a weapon to keep "outside agitators" out of Oakland. Message: if people from elsewhere show up in Oakland and something happens, the outsiders will be charged for damages. Sort of like the Hotel Tax, I guess.

Not content with merely charging outsiders for damages, the Alameda County District Attorney has filed criminal charges against a number of UC Berkeley students and one professor for their participation in the iconic protest demonstrations at Sproul Hall on November 9, 2011. It's worse than the Daily Cal reported above. Nancy O'Malley -- the now notorious Alameda County DA -- has charged a total of ten students who participated in the protest at Sproul Hall, some of them charged after the UCPD gained access to their records at the University medical center where they went for treatment of the injuries sustained when they were beaten by police. Only two or three of those charged by the DA were arrested that day. One of them was Celeste Langan who is seen dressed in purple, at the extreme left of the video at the beginning, "resisting" arrest.



http://youtu.be/kNHXuf6qJas

Cute. Her arraignment is scheduled for tomorrow, I believe. Should be quite a show.

These are links to raw footage of some of what was going on that day at UC Berkeley.

http://youtu.be/NSat-nRefXY (Langan is seen in this video, the second person thrown to the ground and trussed up by police at about 3:40; at the end of this video, she is shown being hoisted up and starts to be led away)

http://youtu.be/cEcqsLyX-vI (In this video, which shows nonsequential events, Langan appears at about 2:17 being led away. The determination of the students in the face of what was seen at that time to be outrageous police violence is impressive.)

http://youtu.be/SN7WOsvepUg (This video is sort of the Highlight Reel; early on a female likely Cal student is heard repeating "You're hurting him!" while a protester is being beaten nearby. She is then heard saying to someone "That's how we train them to fucking stop us. We pay for them to fucking hurt us." Which is absolutely true. The UC police and the Alameda County Deputies were actually training not far from this very site a month or so before -- I've read it was with Israeli trainers -- to conduct this kind of action. Celeste Langan is shown in complete shock being led away in flexicuffs at about 3:20.)

The picture used in the article about Israelification of Occupy suppression is of course of the UC Davis pepper spray incident that happened a week after the Cal police riot. After numerous delays, an official report on the incident was supposed to be released on March 6, but the UC Davis police officers union sued to prevent it and got a TRO which is currently in effect. They claim that release of the report will compromise the rights of officers who might be named therein. This matter is also supposed to be heard in court tomorrow.

The NYPD is notorious for spying on various suspect groups including Muslims and Occupy Wall Street, but now, according to In These Times, they've gone further than usual by arresting people for "thought crimes" or "pre-crimes." This practice was more-or-less institutionalized during the RNC convention in St. Paul in 2008 prior to which and during which dozens of arrests were made and property was seized of people who were suspected of making preparations to protest. There is apparently a grand jury empaneled in Chicago that has been trying to develop terrorism charges against some of those who were arrested in Minneapolis and St. Paul four years ago, but many of those subpoenaed have refused to cooperate.

This is a compilation video of some of what was going on in Minneapolis/St. Paul prior to and during the Republican convention.



Notice anything? The exact tactics have been used and are being used against Occupy. At the time, in 2008, what was going on in Minneapolis/St. Paul was seen as way over the top. The rallies and marches and protests during the convention were peaceful, even routine in the context, yet the police were on some kind of hair-trigger/steroid alert against the protesters constantly -- even before the convention, and they have stayed that way afterwards -- and they behaved with what was at that time shocking brutality and over kill. People were being kettled and arrested en masse -- whether or not they had anything to do with protesting -- hundreds were held for days, they were not allowed any sort of contact with the outside, nor did were they allowed medical attention for injuries or other conditions; people were arrested for doing nothing at all, but merely because they had been identified as "potential" protesters. Flash bangs and tear gas were liberally employed against nonviolent protests. Police brutality was commonplace. It was a war zone in which only one side -- the police -- was fighting. The protests were nonviolent. The police, however, employed what were at that time considered extreme levels of violence against them.

And it's going on in much the same way against Occupy.

What gives?

The political conventions are what's called National Special Security Events, during which, essentially, the Constitution is suspended. During National Special Security Events, a form of martial law can be and often is imposed; violent and otherwise unethical or illegal means are typically used to suppress protest. While I've written about National Special Security Events and the nature of policing during them, I'm not at all sure that many Americans actually understand what is going on.

More likely, they see the suppression and assume it is due to something the protesters have done, which is simply not the case. The suppression tactics and the "threat display" aspects of officials are policy during these events. The policy doesn't change based on what the protesters do or don't do. The policy is to suppress, to prevent, and to tightly control the public -- no matter what they do.

Since the October 25 assault on Occupy Oakland, it's looked more and more like the Occupy Movement has been categorized as something that requires NSSE-type suppression. The clue came much earlier, however, when fully armored up riot squads were deployed night after night against a handful of local protesters who were peacefully engaged in civil disobedience. Night after night after night, dozens of riot cops (sometimes up to 70 or 80), squad cars, paddy wagons and so forth were dispatched to round up ten or two or, on one occasion, one protester sitting on the sidewalk refusing to "disperse" at plaza "closing time." It was an absurd goon show that became a joke. But not a funny one. Eventually, even the police recognized how foolish they looked in their little riot get-ups and their ridiculously over produced arrest-theater, and scaled back their overkill, and when the hundreds of thousands of dollars it was costing was released, they stopped doing it altogether. The DA refused to prosecute, and in the end, all the charges against demonstrators were dropped, although there has been an attempt to assess "fees" against those who were arrested multiple times (typically around $300).

As someone pointed out, had the police used their discretion and not engaged in this nonsense to begin with, there wouldn't have been any costs to the city at all. Duh. But no. Civil disobedience must be suppressed. Violently in too many cases.

But even when there isn't police violence during Occupy suppression actions, the official intent is to intimidate and disable. For example:

Occupy Miami raided by SWAT teams (VIDEO) (h/t teri49 in comments)

Objectively, this is just insane. The official fear level about the Occupy movement -- and apparently any other civil disobedience -- has reached a fever pitch. The fact that people are so pissed off and no longer fear saying so seems to have hit a raw nerve among the ruling classes and their enforcers.

Bones are thrown to the masses from time to time, but it doesn't stop the protest and actions. Suppression doesn't stop it; in fact, action seems to be on an increasing curve as more and more activists pick up on the Occupy movement's strategies.

This is not going away, despite the institutionalization of the Police State -- which looks to be full-time and permanent now. The ruling class and its bought and paid for government and enforcers are in a pre-panic state. They do not know how to suppress it, and they don't know how to fully control it. But they don't want to actually listen the voices of the People and do the right thing, either. They still don't think they have to. After all, they have NDAA and HR 347.

We got nothin', right?

We'll see about that.

What About Those Who Don't Want Revolution?

For some time -- quite a few years, in fact -- I have been writing and commenting about the need for Americans to rise up in opposition to the screwage we've been undergoing first as playthings of the neo-cons, then for a change of emphasis, as neo-liberal objects of utility. Or disposal, as the case may be.

"Rising up" is typically characterized as Revolution, and I've written extensively on that topic, too, a good deal of which was written during the Bush Regime.

As far as I know, most of what I wrote about Revolution wound up in Salon's archive dumptster and I have no access to it now, but the point I argued most often at the time -- going back to 2001 -- was that the Busheviks were themselves a Revolutionary force or cadre; they achieved power through a judicial coup and they were using their power to implement a Rightist Revolutionary program, a program that included the institutionalization of an Imperial State, the extinction of the Constitutional Republic once and for all, and the implementation of a corporate-kleptocratic economy.

The Busheviks and their neo-con hangers-on were Revolutionary in part because they could be, in part because they wanted to be, and in part because they were embarked on a transformational crusade from which they could not be dissuaded.

Their opposition, such as it was, in that context was counter-Revolutionary, primarily interested in accommodating the Revolutionaries' demands and preserving what they could salvage of the status quo.

At the time, many people did not see and refused to believe how truly radical and Revolutionary the Busheviks were. Soon enough, especially after the attacks on 9/11 and the subsequent clearly domestic Anthrax attacks, the government of the United States was completely overhauled and transformed into that of an Imperial War-State, run out of the White House bunkers, served by an impotent and compliant Congress and an ambivalent court.

The People, to the extent they were considered at all, were at best considered accessories and props to the Pageant of Empire, to be manipulated and controlled by an enthusiastically complicit media into believing anything the Imperial Headquarters wanted them to. And they did, in their multitudes. They didn't rise up against what was being done to them, they embraced it.

Millions of people in the streets, "singing songs and carrying signs," in protest against the Iraq War -- a full-on, up front, balls out, Imperial war of aggression -- were ostentatiously ignored, protest of any kind was corralled, mocked and dismissed. Remember "Free Speech Zone" and directives from the Busheviks and their spokespeople about what sort of protest and protest message was "acceptable?"

The public treasury was promptly and efficiently looted -- these people do know how to plunder -- and taxation on the favored corporate and wealth sectors was virtually eliminated.

The People did not rise up even after they became uneasy about the course of events when some of the horrors being perpetrated in their names in Iraq and elsewhere became known, when their rights as citizens were dispensed with, even when the economy imploded.

The People were passive, nearly mute. There was no rising up, no People's Revolt, nothing.

When you think about American history and especially the history of resistance to tyranny and exploitative authority, this situation was distinctly odd. The whole country, and its entire tradition and systems of governance was being turned on its head, and the People did nothing. They continued to drudge along quietly, performing the rituals of voting as if they still mattered, becoming obsessed with candidates for office while their pockets were being picked by the corporate raiders who were the real powers behind the Throne.

It was so eerie that people abroad were amazed. "What is wrong with Americans that they resist not, neither do they rise up, nor even do they complain except in the most servile fashion?"

During the Bushevik reign, the Revolutionary changes in the Nation's state of being became normalized.

Most people either didn't notice or they didn't care.

But when the economy collapsed like the house of cards it was, the meme of Change took hold, the need for redemption was recognized, and Barack Obama was sent to sit on the Throne.

It was clear to me during his campaign that his principal role, once in office, was to manage the masses, to keep them in line during the forthcoming unpleasantness. He demonstrated many times that he was a master at it. The People who had grown weary of the Busheviks, their casual cruelties, their plundering ways, and their lies, saw salvation was nigh, and so Obama won the election.

It's impossible to imagine that Crabby Old Man and Herself, the candidates who stood against him in the election, performing the role he was assigned and doing it even a fraction as well.

That said, an ersatz "populist revolt" against him was engineered immediately after the 2008 election and was put in operation through numerous radio and some television ads. It was called "Grassfire, We Resist" (I've mentioned it before, no point in going into details here) and that revolt was transformed into the Tea Party shortly after the inauguration, and we know what that led to: an intensification of the neo-liberal economic follies, and even greater institutionalization of the Imperial Security State. That done, the rebels rested.

Except that another, unexpected, populist revolt got under way last September, Occupy Wall Street that almost immediately spread across the entire nation and overseas. This was the first real mass uprising the nation had seen since the Sixties, and it was clear the authorities had no idea what to do about it.

From very early on, Revolution was in the air; nonviolent Revolution to be sure, but Revolution just the same.

Not a counter-Revolution that would try to reverse the Bushevik-Obama Imperial Revolution, and return to some idealized status quo ante. No. This would be a real Revolution, forward thinking, not going back to anything in the past but forging a brand new path into the Future.

"We are unstoppable; another world is possible."

Six months into it, some people are recognizing the beginnings of success, especially in the more militant outposts of the Movement -- like the O-Place, Oakland.

And it is understandably terrifying.

Many people who signed up for Occupy This or That didn't sign on to Revolution; many who thought that Revolution was called for didn't think this would be it. But there's a Revolution going on anyway, no matter what they thought they were signing up for, and in Oakland, it's getting really scary.

"Victory" is nigh. Is Oakland what a successful Revolution will look like? They aren't there yet, so it's hard to say. They've achieved the first-level victory of de-legitimizing civic authority, but where does it go from there? Either nobody knows or nobody's saying.

A first-level victory standing alone, without a sufficiently coordinated and militant follow up is not ultimately a Revolutionary victory at all.

For example, the militant students at UC Davis achieved a spectacular first-level victory by delegitimizing the authority of the campus police and the administration during and immediately after the Pepper Spray Incident.

They thereupon called for the disbanding of the UC Police, the immediate resignation of the chancellor and a cessation of tuition increases. They held a huge campus rally which I attended, at which they heard contrition from the chancellor and her pledge to do better, they vowed to reestablish their encampment and press their demands relentlessly until they were met.

They might have done so except for the winter break that came swiftly, emptying the campus, but not before the students literally ceded power right back to the administration that had abused them. They did it at a town hall that combined both contrition and control by the administrators in one of the slickest events of the kind I've seen.

By appearing to listen and repeatedly expressing contrition for past misdeeds, and by vowing "full investigation of what happened," and promising that nothing like the Pepper Spray Incident would happen again, the students' emotional demands were satisfied, and the power of their anger was defused.

Not to say this was a totally fraudulent show -- I'll let Nathan Brown say that -- but apart from mitigating the overt brutality of the UC Police, and allowing (even enabling) the re-establishment of the encampment, very little change has actually taken place, and few or none of the students' other demands have been met; there are no reports, for example, and conclusions from the 'investigations' are long past due. Tuition increases have not been mitigated or cancelled. The campus is quiet; the rebellion has been tamed. Linda Katehi is hailed far and wide for successful management of the situation. Voila! No Revolution in Davis.

See how this works?

That's how a Revolution is defused, but in city after city, with Oakland as a sort of Revolutionary pivot, authorities have responded to the militancy of the Occupiers, with ever increasing levels of violence, destruction of property, brutality and mass arrest of demonstrators. That is how authority adds fuel to the fire of Revolution.

What happens to the people who didn't sign up for Revolution who are caught in the middle?

We're seeing the tragic results of what can happen play out in places like Libya and Syria, where the People rose up, believed they could achieve real change through non-violent means, were ruthlessly cut down time and again by what I metaphorically refer to as "The Tsar's Cossaks", which led soon enough to an armed insurrection which in Libya turned into a civil war, the conduct of which was very bloody, the outcome of which was determined by the intervention of outside interests through NATO.

In Syria the nonviolent resistance campaign was met with extravagant levels of state violence and bloodshed, which in turn triggered an armed insurrection which is being countered with even more state bloodlust, inspiring more armed resistance as well as outside intervention on behalf of the rebels -- or so the intervention (sanctions for now) is being propagandized.

In both of these tragic examples of what can happen when nonviolent resistance is met with gross state violence and bloodshed, rather than any attempt at listening to and "taking steps" demanded by the rebels, thousands of noncombatants caught in the middle are paying for someone else's Revolution with their homes and their lives.

There is no sign at all that Occupy will in any way turn into an armed insurrection, but nonviolent demonstrations are being met with increasing levels of police violence, in which many hundreds have been wounded and some nearly killed. Many people who did not sign up for this sort of resistance and the violent response of the police have been caught up in it, and many are conflicted about it and are speaking out.

For the most part, they want "the violence" to end; and most don't want a Revolution at all. The question becomes one of how to stop it, or whether those engaged even want to stop it.

Defusing a Revolution is simple enough if it is done early on; the longer the struggle continues, the harder it is to defuse. What if the authorities don't want to defuse the situation, they want to crush the rebels? And what if they are prepared to do it through any means necessary, including jeopardizing the safety of the non-Revolutionary minded?

And what is the responsibility of the Revolutionaries for the safety of those who are caught in the middle of the conflict, a conflict that potentially can't be defused (because it's too late or because the authorities don't want to defuse it)?

While the issues surrounding Violent/Nonviolent action and reaction are being worked on by various elements in the Occupy Movement, there are somewhat bigger issues looming. The question of responsibility for the safety of non-Revolutionaries in a conflict situation is one of them.

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...

"These People Don't Know How Power Works!!"

The title of this post is based on a quote said to me during the disastrous visitation of Occupy Sacramento by the city's mayor a number of weeks ago.




I had to be away from the computer during the opening of the festivities of the Town Hall at UC Davis last night, so I was only treated to the question and answer session with the students. I'm not even sure who exactly was on the stage apart from Katehi. I will have to watch the recording when I get a chance and see if I can winkle out names and titles. I will say, however, that the Vice Chancellor sitting next to Katehi [The Provost & Executive Vice Chancellor of UC Davis Ralph J. Hexter] was one of the well-dressed people I was walking among on my way to the campus rally. I distinctly recall him speaking to his colleagues in defense of Katehi and the police and denouncing one of the unions on campus -- and being remonstrated with by someone defending the union. Hm. Interesting. (Of course, there is a caveat. I do not know these people personally. I recognized the Vice Chancellor as the man I heard while walking to the rally, but the mind and memory do curious things with external stimuli. I realize it may not have been him, but instead was someone of similar appearance and demeanor, and my "recognition" of him may be the recognition of similarity rather than the recognition of actuality.)

[Others on stage included: Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs, Fred Wood at the far left; Lt. Matt Carmichael, Interim Police Chief; Ralph J. Hexter; Linda Katehi; and eventually Vice Chancellor for Administrative and Resource Management John Meyer, who has actual authority over the UCD Police Department.]

It was clear from the get-go that most of these students "don't know how power works" either.

Not. A. Clue.

Some do, it's true. But under these circumstances, they had little opportunity to make a case. The game was rigged from the outset.

The situation was somewhat analogous to the Town Hall Seattle panel discussion of "Occupy Seattle" referenced in an earlier post. But no one Mic Checked the Davis Town Hall the way some folks did in Seattle, so the actuality of what was going on may not have been recognized by the participants.

By assembling administrators on a higher level, giving them microphones all the time, having them make unchallenged statements (that part is left out of the video above, I am scouting for more), and allowing ASUCD proctors to "moderate" challenges as strictly as they do (I assume they are ASUCD, but again, I'm scouting for more info), the power dynamic is this: "We are in charge here. You may or may not be recognized for a moment or two, but we will always be recognized because the Power is Ours, not yours. Got that? Good."

The other side, the students, quite simply have no power in this dynamic -- unless they seize it -- at all. That's the point of the lesson here. "We control you and everything here. You control nothing."

This is the problem with the power dynamics in the whole country, the whole wide world in fact, and this is why there is -- by necessity -- a global revolution under way.

There is no other way for the People to be heard at all; on the other hand, exposing the actual power dynamic in play -- such as the one at UC Davis last night or in the disruption of it in Seattle a few days ago -- doesn't necessarily register on the first go-round.

People are conditioned to accept this power dynamic as "natural." Challenges to it are deeply discomforting. Most of the time, most people will abide by the rules and the structure of the power dynamic on display last night at Davis and will not challenge it. To do so is not just threatening to Power, it is a threat to ones own comfort and safety. Challenges to this power dynamic will be met with brutality and worse.

Never mind that that was the topic of discussion last night.

Discussing it in the way it was discussed last night does nothing about it. Promises were made by the panel nonetheless on behalf of "changing policies." Yes, well. That's nice and all, but it is also deliberately meaningless. The students couldn't even get the panelists to describe what the current policy is.

Indeed, they were shocked to learn that no one on the stage was responsible for the actions of the UC Police in last Friday's Incident, and that the police do not report to the Chancellor, and that she has no direct control over them at all. "Then who does?" the multitude demanded to know. She couldn't quite say, she didn't really know the title of the person who did have responsibility, some Vice Chancellor of Something Or Other, he was in the room, over there somewhere....

It was a remarkable moment. But typical. Typical. Typical.

"Never reveal your actual lines of Authority, or if you must reveal them, do so in a manner that confuses the masses; be prepared to change those lines of Authority suddenly."

So the Vice Chancellor of Something or Other was found and brought to the stage and spoke briefly from the podium, complaining that his "portfolio" had been expanded a couple of years ago when the number of Vice Chancellors was reduced, and supervision of the UC Police on campus was dropped in his lap, oh poor pitiful me.

Oh, and he'd come to the University from the Bay Area, where he had served as Assistant City Manager (OMG!) somewhere (it's in the video, I'll try to review it later today and clarify) Yes, better to clarify. Having reviewed the video, I'm kind of gobsmacked. This man was City Manager of Davis before taking up his role at UC, and I think there may be an unpleasant connection between him and a relative. I'm not sure, however, so I will say no more about it. His thinking was... or "the University's thinking" was... that they were looking at Oakland, and what happened there, and to a lesser extent at UC Berkeley, and they didn't want that to happen at UC Davis, so some of the decisions that were made about policing the Occupy demonstrations at Davis were based on what had happened in Oakland -- he said "Oakland!" many times. "Maybe it wasn't the right decision."

Ya think?

And?

"Well, it didn't go the way we'd hoped last Friday."

YA THINK??!

It was a revelatory moment but not particularly instructive. Well, it was instructive if you knew how to process it. The UC Police, effectively, are run out of an obscure office, by someone no one knows, on behalf of relatively shadowy interests, essentially independently of the rest of the University's operations, and their actions are based on "fears" of what might-could happen, because something happened somewhere else that they didn't want to repeat.

In other words, it's a DHS-type operation.

If you parse his commentary sufficiently, you see that the police were sent in as a riot squad because that's how the police are "supposed to" address this kind of encampment defiance by students. Policy, in other words. But what happened at Berkeley when the UC Police went berserk backfired, and they didn't want a repeat of that. It looked bad for one thing. Brought discredit to the University. Yadda yadda. So. The decision of how to break up the demonstration was left to the field commander of the operation -- Lt. Pike -- with the understanding that batons were not to be used except defensively, and only if absolutely necessary if the officers were attacked by the demonstrators.

If the demonstration had to be broken up, some other tactic had to be used. Pepper spray? Well, that's always good! Yes! Let's do pepper spray! Yay!

(It has been pointed out that the spray that was actually used was most likely bear repellant -- though some have denied it -- but that in any case it may have been far stronger than "normal" pepper spray.)

Of course the operational details would be left to the field commanders.

The fact that this Vice Chancellor came to the University from the city manager realm rather than the academic realm is vitally important. In California, police forces are mostly under the authority of the appointed City Managers, not the mayors or elected city councils.

This was something Occupy Sacramento learned very late in the game it seemed to me; though I and others had pointed it out numerous times, the notion did not actually click until the Mayor Himself said so at the disastrous GA he attended.

What this Vice Chancellor was afraid of what that the Occupy demonstration would "get out of hand" -- the same fear at UC Berkeley, BTW -- and "become like Oakland."

There's a whole world view involved in the idea of "becoming like Oakland." Ultimately, a statement like that has nothing to do with the Occupy Movement; it has to do with deep and abiding prejudice against the People of Oakland, many of whom aren't exactly white.

Many of those who are white in Oakland are social/political radicals.

Visit almost any UC campus today and you perhaps will notice that a large proportion of the student body... isn't... white.

You will note, too, that most of the administrators... are.

In other words, many UC campuses may look more "like Oakland" than many of the administrators are comfortable with.

And that discomfort with the People is a consistent issue within the City Manager realm. By and large they are not at all comfortable with the demographic changes going on in California.

Enough said about that.

Katehi was challenged on her experience as a student in Athens when the University she was attending was attacked by the fascist military junta -- and on her recent advisory role on behalf of the Greek government's revision of the University's asylum policy. She got very heated. This was one of the only times she became animated. Most of the time, she was just "tired."

She said that the students who rebelled in 1973 were "mainstream" not radicals at all. On the other hand, the University has been burnt to the ground "twice" she said, by "anarchists" since then. All the Universities in Greece have been "taken over" by "anarchists," she said, and the policies she advised the Greek government on recently had to do with restoring control of the Universities to the People and restoring a "safe" academic environment for the students. She did not advise the (Socialist! she pointed out) Greek government to put police forces back on the campuses the way they had been during the dictatorship.

[Note: from what I have been able to find out, her story is... not entirely true. This is a story of what happened in 1973. I won't get into the details here, but you can read some of eyewitness accounts of what was happening in Athens in December, 2008 -- which is when the anarchists took over the Polytechnic briefly -- here, here, here, here, and here.]

Yes. Well.

A whole other realm of interests and ideas opened up with this sequence.

This fear of "anarchists taking over" is perhaps the key to understanding why so much brutality has been unleashed on Occupy demonstrations so consistently in so many places all over the country and all over the world, and why it was so casually unleashed at UC Berkeley and then at UC Davis. (Not to mention all the other campuses that have experienced police assaults lately -- and there have been many.)

"Anarchists" are the New Terrorists.

Make no mistake.

That's the God-forsaken Truth.

We are all so far over the cliff and down the rabbit hole now that it sometimes seems there is no way back to sanity.

Yet the Revolution abides.

It's going to take me much longer than I have this morning to process all of this into any sort of coherent form. But the Bigger Picture of what is going on is becoming clearer.

I'd love to hear how others see the dynamics in the video above.

Obama Mic Checked

It was bound to happen.

The Mic Check was about the more than 4,000 peaceful protestors who have been arrested so far in the struggle to be heard above the din of the grinding gears of the broken political/media confluence, but despite the President's expressions of concern and solidarity with Frustrated Americans -- "You are why I ran for office in the first place!" -- he failed to address the issue of the thousands upon thousands of arrests, the hundreds upon hundreds of injuries nor even the fact that the voices of large segments of the population continue to be drowned out, as they were at his own little get-together, by the mindless noise of a system in crisis.

The fact that the President has now been Mic Checked, and he addressed nothing of the substance of the People's Petition presented to him in the Mic Check is emblematic of why there must be a Movement, a Revolt, and a Revolution.

They that rule do not hear, do not know, and do not wish to be bothered.

The "Town Hall" with Linda Katehi and the UC Davis community will be partially video streamed here from 5:00p to 6:00p (PST) though the meeting is slated to last till 7:00p:



Link

The University administration has asked that the final hour of the "Town Hall" not be streamed or recorded in any fashion so that those in attendance may speak... in private.

We'll see how THAT goes... heh.

"Which Side Are You On, Boys. Which Side Are You On?"

Athens, November 17, 1973:



Herself, la Katehi, was a student at the Athens Polytechnic University when these events happened.

And now comes news that she helped write the following a few months ago:

University campuses are unsafe. While the [Greek] Constitution permits the university leadership to protect campuses from elements inciting political instability, Rectors have shown themselves unwilling to exercise these rights and fulfill their responsibilities, and to take the decisions needed in order to guarantee the safety of the faculty, staff, and students. As a result, the university administration and teaching staff have not proven themselves good stewards of the facilities with which society has entrusted them.

The politicizing of universities – and in particular, of students – represents participation in the political process that exceeds the bounds of logic. This contributes to the rapid deterioration of tertiary education.

Which had the effect of abolishing University asylum, and from what I can tell, actually reverts Greek universities to the status of "politics free zones" much as California and other state universities were prior to the Free Speech Movement.

Yes, of course Katehi wants to "work with" everyone to make things better.

She remembers 17 November 1973?

In what way I wonder?

"Which side are you on boys, which side are you on?"

------------------------------

This is an even more remarkable story about what happened in Athens at the Polytechnic University in November of 1973, and what 17 Nov means to the Greek People.

ATHENS–November 17: a date that haunts Greece. It’s the date when the uprising of several hundred of students, who stood up against the military dictatorship by occupying the Athens Polytechnic, was brutally crushed. The iconic photo of a tank driving through the Polytechnic’s gate is a symbol of freedom for (probably) all Greeks.

It was back in 1973. The student uprising was crushed but the beggining of the end for the military junta begun that day. The colonels fell from power a year later, in the summer of 1974.

To describe how central this day is for modern Greeks one needs to mention a few simple facts.

• One of the characteristics that the new Greek state has (or had until recently) was the so called “university asylum”. It was an emotionally heavy (due to the Polytechnic uprising) law that officialy prohibited the police from entering any university building. From then onwards, the university compounds would be an area of free expression. In the decades that followed that law meant a lot of freedoms indeed, but few abuses as well. Police only stepped inside university areas after the local dean would ask the prosecutor for their presence. The freedom of speech boomed but Greek universities became at times a haven for different sorts of criminal activity (from rioters who caused mayhem and then hid in university buildings, playing hitch and hike with riot police, to people selling copied DVDs). In any case that law was so emotional for Greeks that, despite its occasional abuses, people were more or less supporting or tolerating it.
• Another illustrative fact is that the biggest terrorist organization in Greece was named after that date. November 17 aka 17N. It was the Greek version of Red Army Faction or the Red Brigades, a pure urban guerilla movement targeting individuals who were connected with the dictatorship or the establishment and was relatively popular, especially up until the end of the 1980s.
• The 1967-1974 dictatorship was one of those CIA sponsored coup d’ etats that were so popular back then. The American role behind the scenes would never wash away from our collective memory. Even today, people in the streets would tell you things like ‘The Americans are behind everything”. The first victim of 17N was Richard Welch, CIA’s station chief in Athens back in 1975. The last one was Stephen Saunders in 2000, he was the military attaché of the British Embassy in Athens. So you get the picture and now you know all about the infamous Greek anti-americanism. This is why the 17 November demonstration always begin from the Polytechnic and ends at the American Embassy.

The graffiti on the Polytechnic’s gate reads “Kick the USA Out” and “Kick NATO Out”

There is much more at the link. It is becoming clearer and clearer to me that a Pandora's Box has been opened (again), and how or when or where we will see a resolution, or even if there will be one, is not for us to know.

Back From UC Davis

[The rally is still going on, so if you want to watch, go to one of the livestreams.]

This was Katehi's appearance:



I didn't take the video; it was posted over at dKos. The video is from Lee Fang, who has been doing excellent work on the Incident at UC Davis. All props.

I did get a video of Nathan Brown's challenge to Katehi, though, and I'll post it as soon as I can upload it. Warning: I was standing at the side of the stage, and a speaker cabinet and hand held signs blocked my view most of the time. That's OK by me. What he had to say is what mattered.



I'm still stunned by what I witnessed.

When I was (much) younger, I spent quite a lot of time on the Davis campus though I was never a student there. This was during my early theater career, and I was mostly involved with the staff of the Theater Arts Department who were generally very cooperative in helping to ensure projects I was involved with were completed as well as possible. Thinking back, I only have the fondest memories of my experiences at Davis and with the professors and staff there. These are still, to my mind, good people. UC Davis was also a primary venue for many musical artists that played the area. I became pretty familiar with the campus and the personnel.

But that was a long time ago. The campus has changed since then. Well, parts of it have. There is now a massive new performing arts center, and lots and lots of new buildings scattered around. But the core of the campus, the Quad, is pretty much the way it was many years ago.

I walked quite a distance through the campus to get to the Quad where the rally was to be held, and I was frequently among students, staff and faculty who were on their way to the rally as well. Many of them were talking about "what happened," and it seemed that most had a low opinion of Katehi, although a few -- who I noticed were dressed very well -- defended her and her actions, as well as those of the police. Oh my.

As I got closer to the Quad, the number of people headed toward it grew and grew, and finally, when I was on the edge of the Quad, just across from the Library, I could hear chanting: "Whose University? OUR University!" very loud and boistrous. There were thousands of people assembled on the Quad when I got there, and many more kept streaming in.

I would say, from my vantage point -- which was mostly on the left side of the stage -- there were at least 5,000 people there, and there could well have been many more as there were many people behind me and I didn't get very many pictures.

There were a number of people who testified about their experience being pepper sprayed, and I would say that David Buscho was the most effective in presenting both a first person statement and his case for the end of this regime of terror against students, faculty and staff. He was very emotional about it, and his emotion was just right. He's also the UCD student who put up the petition citing Nathan Brown's open letter calling for Chancellor Linda Katehi's immediate resignation. That petition has now been signed by almost 68,000 individuals.

The Regime of Terror was a common theme among the speakers. What happened the other day with the pepper spray was just a relatively mild sign of just how they are being forced -- to pay more in tuition and fees, to buckle under to more and more arbitrary impositions of authority, to submit.

My heart went out to them. I "knew" the situation at the Universities and other in public higher education institutions in the state had been on a downward spiral for years. And brutality toward those who got out of line was part of the process of the downward slide. Speakers mentioned that their experiences the other day were awful, but they weren't new. Campus after campus has been subjected to this sort of police state behavior at least since 2009, and in some cases since well before that.

Nathan Brown spoke eloquently about just how awful it is. He challenged Katehi directly -- she was standing by the side of the stage surrounded by media, her own functionaries, and others (I was surprised at who some of them were!) He faced her and spoke directly to her, demanding not just her resignation but the removal of all police from UC campuses. And justice. He was a powerful speaker, and I was reminded, just a little bit, of Mario Savio. Savio was a graduate student, however, not yet a professor!

He was followed by members of the English faculty who vigorously supported his call. Other speakers also called for strict controls on the UC Police Department, or in some cases, its complete disbanding. This is similar to the calls this summer to disband the BART transit police.

The problem, of course, is straightforward enough. Militarized police forces, whether in Oakland or on campuses or anywhere else are a danger to the rights, health and happiness of the American People, and that is what people are reacting so strongly to.

The efforts to but a shiny gloss on this turd of police brutality are failing.

People of Color spoke eloquently if bluntly about how this sort of brutal police behavior that the general public is just beginning to recognize (again) has been going on in poor and minority communities since forever. And police repression can be and often is -- see Egypt -- much worse abroad.

I think the assembled multitudes were clear about that. One thing to keep in mind is that the student body is pretty diverse ethnically (which it really wasn't in my day), and many of the students today have experienced or know those who have experienced the kind of police brutality that has long been routine in minority communities.

There were calls for Katehi to speak shortly after Nathan Brown had concluded his fiery oration, but the crowd was reminded that the Chancellor was "on stack" and she would have to wait just like anyone else. "She's not anyone special." So she waited.

Finally -- but not last to speak by any means -- she appeared. Downcast. Withdrawn. She had given an interview to Michael Krasny of KQED radio earlier today in which she repeated most of what she had to say in her Aggie TV interview from yesterday. Nathan Brown and some of those who were pepper sprayed also appeared on the program, separately as did a couple of police "experts."

At the rally, Katehi had little to say, but she did apologize for what happened to the students -- and many seem to think she was sincere about that. She seemed to choke up and even burst into tears when she saw signs held up by students that read, "17 November 1973. Athens. Do you remember?" She mentions a "plaque" with that date on it and says she remembers it. She was there.

This is what poster Panglozz has to say about Katehi and the events of November 13-17, 1973, in Athens:

Athens NTUA (aka Polytechnic) was the site of a ground-breaking student strike from November 13-17, 1973. To this day, Nov. 17 is a national student holiday in Greece.

The Greek Junta rammed the gates of the University with a tank, killing students, and sealing the end of the dictatorship scarcely 6 months later.

Katehi graduated from NTUA in 1977, and was present at the time of the student strike.

Katehi knows visceraly that a student rising, and political suppression can spell the end of the regime. She appears to be of "mainstream" political views, not overtly reactionary, but dislikes the trajectory of modern Greek politics in favor of a more technocratic or corporatist guidance.

Her current position is that of the Greek Junta in November 1973. That knowledge must be deeply painful to her, since the facsist Junta is universally discredited.

She also knows that a single campus revolt can light the spark that burns a corrupt system to the ground.

In an interview, she explains some of her political philosophy vis-a-vis

http://usa.greekreporter.com/...

Despite the rhetoric though, the political system is not addressing these issues. Why is that in your opinion and what is the solution to actually re-launching the next Apollo Program? Are President Obama’s goals realistic without a willingness on behalf of the broader political system and the American people?

The answer to this is very complex. For starters, our current political system is weak and true leadership is badly needed but lacking. We have a society that has created needs that are expensive. We are experiencing demographic changes such as the aging of the baby boom generation, advances in medicine that prolong the average lifespan, an expectation for better health care and a higher quality of life. At the same time, we have a societal crisis of values and an unwillingness to see that this course is unsustainable in the long-run. The result is the creation of serious political gaps, polarization along party lines and our leadership and voters losing the sense of what our country’s strategic goals should be.

What about Greece? What are your thoughts on the sovereign debt crisis there? What caused it, who was responsible and do you see the country emerging from the doldrums? What policies do you think need to be implemented to successfully improve the situation?

Let me start by saying that I cannot speak with much certainty about Greece. I haven’t lived there for a long time, so my information and empirical experience is limited on that subject. What my belief is that the political leadership in Greece made grave directional mistakes during the late 70s and the 80s. It had an opportunity to develop a functioning democracy and bring its economy closer to European standards but it failed. There were decisions made that compromised education and light manufacturing and drove away whatever productive capacity existed. The policies implemented lead to what we see today: heavy indebtedness, outdated infrastructure, a counter-productive culture and eroded educational institutions.

What do you make of the leadership of George Papandreou?

I am hopeful with the direction of the new government. Hard choices need to be made and the new leadership seems like is making a good effort at addressing them. In Greece you have a good talent pool but also an anachronistic bureaucratic system that needs to be fundamentally changed. Only time will show which one will prevail.

by Panglozz on Sun Nov 20, 2011 at 12:46:56 PM PST

The point is that she has seen how a student movement and an attempted -- over the top -- crack down can lead to the toppling of fascist dictatorships. She knows. She's been there. She's seen it for herself.

And somehow, I suspect that somewhere deep inside she recognizes that what is going on throughout the UC system is way too close to what was going on in Greek universities back in the day. She knows exactly where it can lead.

I saw her leave the stage, apparently in tears, and I followed the scrum of news media as she was walked across the campus, apparently headed back to the administration building. I saw her face a few times, and she was clearly devastated and abject. Defeat? I couldn't tell. But emotional devastation, absolutely. She was walked (there were two fellows from Occupy Sacramento on either side of her) back toward the administration building, but at an intersection in the road the scrum stopped. A car that I'd just passed in front of crossing the street pulled to a stop. After a moment or two hesitation, she was escorted to the car and she got in the back seat. The car drove away to shouts of "Don't come back!"

People around me asked what just happened. I said she'd gotten in a car and was driven away. One said to me, "That's too bad. I wanted to shake her hand."

No matter what happens, views differ, eh?

I decided to come back and post what I could about it. I understand there is a call for a general strike on November 28 -- system wide. This is the day the University Regents have cowardly set for a video conference meeting. Should be interesting.

And what to do about the militarized UC Police force and how to restore the system to the People is still a quandry.

I've been to many demonstrations over the years, but this was really something else again. It wasn't just young people speaking their minds, it was them taking charge of their fate.

Nothing is going to be the same again.

Until They Say "NO!"

These three videos give a fuller picture of what was going on at UC Davis on the Day of the Incident with the Pepper Spray.

It was not quiet, but at no time -- what so ever -- were the police under any threat at all. That, unfortunately is not enough to convince them to de-escalate the situation rather than making it worse. Why?

Because, as Katehi said in her interview below, they were "following protocol." In fact, compared to what happened at Berkeley, were numerous students and faculty were bludgeoned by the police, using pepper spray WAS a "de-escalation" -- at least it was to the blind, deaf and dumb brutalizers. It doesn't occur to them not to engage in brutality.

And it doesn't occur to them because brutality in some form is part of the policy their protocols for dealing with resistance -- "violent" or "nonviolent" resistance, it doesn't matter, any more than it would matter whether livestock were getting violently or nonviolently out of control. The policy is to use brutal force. Period.

This is how Nathan Brown puts it -- correctly in my view:

THESIS TWO Police brutality is an administrative tool to enforce tuition increases.

What happened at UC Berkeley on November 9? Students, workers, and faculty showed up en masse to protest tuition increases. In solidarity with the national occupation movement, they set up tents on the grass beside Sproul Hall, the birthplace of the Free Speech Movement. The administration would not tolerate the establishment of an encampment on the Berkeley campus. So the Berkeley administration, as it has done so many times over the past two years, sent in UC police, in this case to clear these tents. Faculty, workers, and students linked arms between the police and the tents, and they held their ground. They did so in the tradition of the most disciplined civil disobedience.

What happened?

Without provocation, UC police bludgeoned faculty, workers, and students. They drove their batons into stomachs and ribcages, they beat people with overhand blows, they grabbed students and faculty by their hair, threw them on the ground, and arrested them. Numerous people were injured. A graduate student was rushed to the hospital and put into urgent care.

Why did this happen? Because tuition increases have to be enforced. It is now registered in the internal papers of the Regents that student protests are an obstacle to further tuition increases, to the program of privatization. This obstacle has to be removed by force. Students are starting to realize that they can no longer afford to pay for an “educational premium” by taking on more and more debt to pay ever-higher tuition. So when they say: we refuse to pay more, we refuse to fall further into debt, they have to be disciplined. The form this discipline takes is police brutality, continually invited and sanctioned by UC Chancellors and senior administrators over the past two years.

Police brutality against students, workers, and faculty is not an accident—just like it has not been an accident for decades in black and brown communities. Like privatization, and as an essential part of privatization, police brutality is a program, an implicit policy. It is a method used by UC administrators to discipline students into paying more, to beat them into taking on more debt, to crush dissent and to suppress free speech. Police brutality is the essence of the administrative logic of privatization.

My emphasis. Not only is this the correct analysis, but it also provides clues to what will be required to change it.

For one thing, there has to be a demand. A non-negotiable demand that police on campus will not be allowed to use physical force of any kind against nonviolent resistance, and they will not be allowed to redefine nonviolent resistance to suit their needs to be violent.

Next, if campus police are trained to be violent against nonviolent resistance (training which was going on this summer on the Berkeley campus) they must say "NO!"

Then, if any campus police are ordered to attack people using nonviolent resistance tactics, they must say "NO!"

Until and unless police department personnel stop obeying orders to commit violent repression and brutally break up nonviolent protests, this sort of thing will just keep happening, no matter all the task forces, reports back, and recommendations.

Right now, it is the policy of the University to use violent tactics to break up nonviolent protests.

Even if that policy is superficially changed, the practice of violence against protesters will continue unless the officers involved themselves do the honorable thing and say "NO!"

We aren't at that point yet, but I think it may be coming.
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As for me, I'm planning to head over to Davis this morning, but as the rally there is being billed as a convergence, I'm not at all sure I'll be able to get even close to it. Davis is a small town and the campus is defensible by closing off a few roads. Getting close to the rally may be impossible. If that's the case, I'll attempt to watch the events on video streams.

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The Four Simultaneous Views Video of the Incident at UC Davis:

Katehi Interviewed Today by Aggie TV

Yes, let's have a "dialogue" for a year... or more.

UC President is APPALLED

Oh really?

From the Office of UC President Mark G. Yudof:

"I am appalled by images of University of California students being doused with pepper spray and jabbed with police batons on our campuses.

"I intend to do everything in my power as president of this university to protect the rights of our students, faculty and staff to engage in non-violent protest.

"Chancellors at the UC Davis and UC Berkeley campuses already have initiated reviews of incidents that occurred on their campuses. I applaud this rapid response and eagerly await the results.

"The University of California, however, is a single university with 10 campuses, and the incidents in recent days cry out for a system-wide response.

"Therefore I will be taking immediate steps to set that response in motion.

"I intend to convene all 10 chancellors, either in person or by telephone, to engage in a full and unfettered discussion about how to ensure proportional law enforcement response to non-violent protest.

"To that end, I will be asking the chancellors to forward to me at once all relevant protocols and policies already in place on their individual campuses, as well as those that apply to the engagement of non-campus police agencies through mutual aid agreements.

"Further, I already have taken steps to assemble experts and stakeholders to conduct a thorough, far-reaching and urgent assessment of campus police procedures involving use of force, including post-incident review processes.

"My intention is not to micromanage our campus police forces. The sworn officers who serve on our campuses are professionals dedicated to the protection of the UC community.

"Nor do I wish to micromanage the chancellors. They are the leaders of our campuses and they have my full trust and confidence.

"Nonetheless, the recent incidents make clear the time has come to take strong action to recommit to the ideal of peaceful protest.

"As I have said before, free speech is part of the DNA of this university, and non-violent protest has long been central to our history. It is a value we must protect with vigilance. I implore students who wish to demonstrate to do so in a peaceful and lawful fashion. I expect campus authorities to honor that right."

Read more: http://www.sacbee.com/2011/11/20/4068647/appalled-uc-president-vows-to.html#ixzz1eIb6qk7V

As usual, it is the pictures of the brutality, not the brutality itself, that has him all worked up.

This is of course standard boilerplate to avoid actually doing anything about police brutality or anything else the Institution doesn't want to do anything about. As I've said, the brutality that is being applied to students in the UC and CSU systems today has been going on for years, at least since tuition-hike protests in 2009. The President of the University knows what the protocols and policies are. There is no bureaucratic mystery.

What the police have been doing is implementing policy, pure and simple.

Everyone should know it. And insofar as they can get away with it, the administration will do nothing -- whatever -- to change the policy of brutalizing any of their charges who get out of line. The "livestock" allusion is not so far from the truth.

The only way to really change it is to take over the University lock, stock and barrel.

To that end, I append the "Occupation Cookbook."

[Note: You can click the link to go to the full-sized Scribd page for this volume, or you can click the full-page icon on the snippet below. The Occupation Cookbook describes the student occupation at the University in Zagreb, Croatia in 2009. It lasted 35 days and led to the Occupiers... taking over the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. Last I heard, they are still running it. ]

The Occupation Cookbook


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And Furthermore:

This is the clearest and most coherent description of what is really going on as I've encountered. I've tried to explain it in my own stumbling way, but Nathan Brown makes it clear as crystal. Brown, by the way, is also the author of the Open Letter calling for Katehi's resignation, now signed by over 43,000 people.

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

The President of the University may well be "appalled" at the sight of the violence he's seen. But it's all but certain neither he nor anyone else will do anything about it.