Plagiarism and Politics

When I first started teaching, I was shocked by the quality of my students' writing. Most graduate students in the humanities are. It was obvious when students who struggled as writers all semester long suddenly turned in perfect prose complete with references to the work of Derrida and Karl Marx. The plagiarism or other types of cheating were so obvious in these papers, and in a writing-intensive class of twenty, relatively easy to correct. Upon receiving a paper like that, I would haul the student into my office and ask them to explain the paper to me in greater detail. If the student couldn't (I had one kid a couple of years ago who couldn't even define the words he'd used in "his" paper) it was obvious that he or she had gotten another person to write it for them or had copied it from somewhere. Another surefire way to catch plagiarism is that often the plagiarized essays don't actually answer the question you've aksed.
Ahh...those were the days. Now, in the age of the internet, the cheating is harder to catch because students find papers that are badly written enough to be "average" student work, and it's also harder to know your students' "regular" writing style when you have about 200 of them a semester. Students who might not have gone to a fraternity in search of a paper in the past can now easily download a paper from the internet.
The idealistic educators who talk about how important it is to teach citation, sourcing, and to assign projects with multiple drafts of an essay (all of which the superteacher must read and comment upon) in order to avoid plagiarism by teaching creatively don't take into account the kinds of teaching loads that those of us in community colleges and high schools often have. Of course, plagiarism is probably most serious in high school, where students are often NOT learning the essential writing skills that will make it less necessary for them to plagiarize out of desperation in college. The reason they're NOT learning how to write has less to do with lazy teachers than with workloads that are not designed for teaching writing or critical thinking.
This is all a prelude to a confession. Yes, I admit it, I use the evil, plagiarism police website, "Turnitin.com," which has been denounced as wicked by many students and progressive educators. As this reviewer from Bedford St. Martins puts it, Turnitin's strategy of creating a database of student papers against which it checks other papers might amount to the theft of the students' intellectual property, even if the actual papers are password protected and can't be viewed by people outside the class (including teachers). Instead, sections that match will show up highlighted, but the author's name is not there. The critics make a good case, because it's clear that the people who run turnitin are out to make money. This isn't a non-profit service. Moreover, having students turn their papers into turnitin tends to "assume" guilt.
On the other hand, I must say that the ease of plagiarism in the age of google and electronic term-paper databases such as lazystudents.com "cheathouse" and "researchpaper.com" makes it hard to resist a similarly easy tool like "turnitin." While a plagiarized paper is usually obvious, finding its source can take hours that you don't have in your day. At some point you begin to feel obsessive and crazy when trying to catch a cheater. Are you surprised to hear that when confronted with plagiarism, students will deny it? Something about those particular students who are brazen enough to copy an entire paper from somewhere else...they're also willing to lie about it even when caught red-handed. I have a favorite story I tell about this. Last year I had a student who turned in a completely incoherent copied-and-pasted essay for her take-home final. I found the original sources (several different essays on different topics, none of which even remotely agreed with each other) using "Turnitin.com," and told her, she actually said that she "gave the exam to my friend to do, and I didn't know that she would do that."
No, I am not joking.

Moreover, if you look at the websites above, you'll see the entitlement of many of today's consumer-oriented college students, and you may perhaps come to understand the maddening experience of trying to reach a student who really doesn't give a shit about all the things you're trying to teach: synthesizing material, analytical thinking, personal reactions to historical tragedies ... whatever. They'd rather be playing with their X-boxes. Oh sorry, they'd rather be using school as a fast-track to a career in computer programming.
The whole argument FOR cheating and against "turnitin" from people on slashdot and other programmers all seems to relate to a contempt for liberal arts education itself. As far as these guys are concerned, the humanities in general are a useless pursuit and that they should not have been forced into writing essays on literature in high school and college in the first place. For those who would say that it's the teacher's fault if students plagiarize, because they're forcing the students into "boring" pursuits and that these history and English teachers represent the "man" in contrast to the anti-establishment engineering and computer teachers??? I say, "fie!" You are just spewing a bunch of "cultural elite" bullshit that you plagiarised from Dan Quayle and George Bush Sr. Being able to copy code might get you a job, but it won't help you figure out when you're being lied to if you're not able to parse people's rhetoric.
Despite my defense of my police tactics, I don't know if I'll continue to use turnitin in the future. Even when I do, I think there is considerable flexibility in using turnitin. As many of turnitin's critics note, the database searcher will highlight any text at all that's duplicated elsewhere. If students include quotations in their paper, even properly cited ones, they show up. The only time I have ever fully relied on turnitin to "catch" a student was when the entire paper, or a very substantial portion of it was copied from elsewhere without attribution. Before the advent of turniton, I used to "google" strings of text from such papers and was able to find the sources after perhaps an hour's work, but it's much easier to have turnitin do that instead. And for those of you on the left, students don't plagiarize because they're the wretched of the earth. You can be just as nice as pie to some students - who are not special, sacred people, but flawed and complicated people like the rest of us - and they will still cheat.
Really, is finding a quick route to catching people who use a quick route to doing their homework so WRONG?

What is a Good Contract?

I'm racing against the clock grading final exams right now, and don't really have time to do a real entry. This is my excuse. Do you buy it?
I'd like to open the virtual floor for discussion on the transit strike. When I got up yesterday morning, I heard Mimi Rosenberg on WBAI saying the MTA had won a "good contract." Other people I've talked to have characterized it as "phyrric victory" at best. What I hadn't realized when I heard ol' Mimi talking yesterday was that the give back on health care, characterized as 1 + 1/2 percent in the press, amounts to a $34 million dollar give back. Also, when you consider how low the raises they got were (barely cost of living), the give-back on health care means their wage increase is below inflation. But, with the focus on the pension demand getting taken off the table, having workers contribute "just a little" to their health care didn't seem that bad.
Nonetheless, the press carries on their war on the working class. I saw a typical comment in NY magazine yesterday while I was sitting in the waiting room at the doctor's office. In their issue on things to love about NY, make the annoying and inaccurate comment that NYers, who have "nothing against republicans" but save our "real rage for terrorists and dissemblers and possibly a certain transit union that asks for full pensions at age 50." whaa----?
Doesn't that just capture the "Bloomberg democrat" attitude to a T?
So, here's the question. I see Rosenberg's wish to define this as a "good contract" as some effort to see a victory! in the strike instead of adopting a critical attitude of union leadership in such an anti-union climate. It's probably also the product of the low expectations and small-minded incrementalism that characterize labor bureaucrats in general.
What is the solution, oh readers? In an era of what a friend of mine calls "desperation strikes" that are sweeping the country in a mini-strike wave, is it possible to make these efforts victorious rather than disastrous in the long term?

Anxiety Index: Xmas Edition

Brought to you by Piranha via America Blog
Thursday, December 22, 2005

While Bush was busy illegally spying on Americans, someone just stole 400 pounds of high-powered explosives including undetectable C-4
by John in DC - 12/22/2005 01:24:00 PM

Seriously. This is the stuff used to blow up commercial airliners. Merry Christmas!

From ABC:

Officials are investigating the theft of 400 pounds of high-powered plastic explosives in New Mexico. The material was stolen from a bunker owned by a bomb expert who works at a national research lab outside Albuquerque, N.M.
ABC News has been told it's one of the most significant thefts of high-power explosives ever in the United States....
The missing 400 pounds of explosives includes 150 pounds of what is known as C-4 plastic, or "sheet explosive," which can be shaped and molded and is often used by terrorists and military operatives.
"It is a very dangerous material, we want to keep this off the streets," Cherry told ABC News.
Also, 2,500 detonators were missing from a storage explosive container, or magazine, in a bunker owned by Cherry Engineering....
And if that didn't scare you, get this:
The missing material included 150 pounds of the plastic explosive compound C-4 and 250 pounds of undetectable "sheet explosives" - a DuPont flexible explosive material that can be hidden in books and letters - as well as blasting caps, the news report said.

Did you get that?

Spinning the Illegal Search Issue; Gorelick Myth?

The transit strike distracted me a bit from the president's recent on-air admission of an impeachable offense, so I didn't have time to dig around for the origin of the Republican talking point that showed up as a comment on my blog last week under the entry about our lawless President.
In case you don't read people's comments, here's what ANONYMOUS said so bravely here (I think he or she was directed here after seeing me linked on Newsweek's "who's blogging" page)
Anonymous said...

Do you people not realize that the spying would have taken place even WITH a court order? All that can be argued is the process and there is evidence that the process IS LEGAL if you look at decisions on FISA by courts and if you look at what Jamie Gorelick, a Clinton Justice Department staffer, said in 1994 about the SAME subject. This is her testimony before the Senate intelligence committee on July 14th of 1994. She said, Jamie Gorelick, "The Department of Justice believes, and the case law supports, that the president has inherent authority to conduct warrantless physical searches for foreign intelligence purposes, and that the President may, as has been done, delegate this authority to the Attorney General. It is important to understand, that the rules and methodology for criminal searches are inconsistent with the collection of foreign intelligence and would unduly frustrate the president in carrying out his foreign intelligence responsibilities."
This case involved foreign intelligence gathering within US borders. All we have is yet another attempt by liberals to politicize something they actually have said they support in the past simply because of their hatred of Bush.
The main point, though, is that this spying still would have occurred EVEN with a judge's signature since the NSA has never had a warrant rejected. So why are you all so upset?

My initial response to this anonymous poster was that I'm not a Clinton supporter and wasn't then either, so I wasn't part of that "you people" that the poster was imagining, but by the way, people are upset about this because it's happening NOW, not ten years ago." But, I could have gone further and answered the question at the end.

In addition, I was curious about this claim about Gorelick and Clinton, so I decided to do a little fact checking on Anonymous's comment. I hadn't even started looking yet when I opened up FAIR's website to see this article here, which points out that at least one Republican accusation about spying during Clinton's administration actually omits a part of the sentence.
Media Matters is reporting a lot on the 994 Gorelick argument spin 1and explains some of the background, which relates to the Aldrich Ames case. If you're curious, you can read the testimony by Gorelick that the Right is calling equivalent to Bush's flagrant violation of the law. Think Progress, which brings you the Gorelick testimony, also has this article about the "Gorelick Myth."
So, since I'm het up about the president's stated argument that he gets to do whatever he wants all by himself, I'm wondering if indeed Gorelick's argument is identical to Bush's recent one. If you read them both, it is pretty clear that they are not.

Gorelick is arguing that congress should pass legislation that would establish FISA procedures for physical searches by the president in foreign intelligence cases, which did not exist at the time because the FISA court was established to govern phonetaps and other forms of electronic surveillance. Gorelick also wants to make sure Congress doesn't force the president to follow the 4th amendment when doing foreign intelligence surveillance, arguing that the 4th amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure does not apply in foreign intelligence gathering. I see this argument as generally problematic and yes, when there was anti-terrorism legislation in 1995, I didn't support it - and erm no, I didn't vote for Clinton in 1996. However, it seems to me that Gorelick's speech exists to identify a loophole in the FISA court warrant procedures and recommends closing it so that future administrations can seek FISA warrants for physical searches - instead of going through the regular criminal courts.
Interestingly, Gorelick sites a Watergate case, United States vs. Ehrlichman 1976 to argue that the Atty General can be delegated by the President to conduct a warrantless search. Now this I find fascinating, because obviously Watergate cases should be an example that limits presidential power, but if you look at some articles that cite decisions made during Watergate, it appears that the decisionswere written in such a way as to protect executive power as much as possible.
The point remains, after all this, that the existing laws are still skewed to give the President a lot of power to do a lot of shit. As this 2002 article by Dahlia Lithwick critiquing FISA and changes to it with the Patriot Act, along with moves by Ashcroft points out, the FISA court is a super secret "spy court" and its existence is already a mistake. The article which describes the FISA's first ever rejection of an Atty General's request in 2002-2003, covers much of the same ground that Blue Chevigny did in the TAL episode "secret government" that I linked earlier - but you don't have to wade through their radio archive to hear it, you can just read it.
So, if I agree that every president has already tried to do warrantless searches and that many already have, using FISA, and the Patriot Act, what line did Bush really cross? That's what the Right wants to know.
Bush didn't even bother to go the friendliest and most super-secret court in the land to get his search warrant. He knowingly chose to violate the 1978 law that said he needed a warrant. This is unprecedented since Watergate, as James Bamford, no friend to Clinton put it in this MSNBC interview. (you have to go all the way to the bottom), in which he says :
Yes. This is the first time since basically the ‘60‘s or early ‘70‘s when the Nixon administration illegally did a lot of domestic spying with the NSA and again, that was why they created the FISA Court. What the Bush administration is doing is flaunting the law. The law clearly says if you want to eavesdrop on U.S. citizens, you only have one choice. That choice is to go to the court and get a warrant or don‘t do it.
Bush even admitted what he did, and defended it on the grounds that he's the commander in chief. What this means for "law n order" in our country is serious. As Dahlia Lithwick argues in a more recent editorial,

Americans believed they were bargaining in good faith with their government over the original deal struck in 1978 when Congress enacted the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. FISA was supposed to represent a compromise between security and civil liberties, by making it illegal to spy on Americans without judicial oversight but setting the bar for such oversight quite low. Even as amended by the Patriot Act—which further lowered the standards for a FISA warrant—the statute still purported to adhere to the fundamental bargain: Americans would not be spied upon by their government without basic constitutional checks in place.
The Bush administration is forever quick to point out the flaws in all these bargains we have struck. The Patriot Act didn't go far enough, so the administration pushed for Patriot II. The Geneva Conventions afforded prisoners too many rights, so those rights were suspended. The statutory definition of torture precluded intelligence-gathering, so new definitions were invented. FISA was too cumbersome in a crisis, so it doesn't bind the president. Perhaps it's naive to think we had these negotiations in public because this delicate allocation of rights and powers is fundamental to a democracy. It's not shocking that the Bush administration sought to expand its powers. It's shocking that the president unfailingly refuses to ask.
There are two explanations for the Bush administration's failure to stay within the boundaries of the legal structures for which it's bargained: One is that the administration believes it is fighting this war on its own; the courts, the Congress, and the American people are all standing in its way. The other is that the administration is convinced that none of our statutes or policies or systems will actually work in a pinch. Our laws aren't just broken. They are unfixable.

Long and now short. President made a speech saying "I'm above the law, because there's terrorism," and a bunch of idiots are defending him by saying "b-b-b-but Clinton." ho hum.

And they call the TWU a bunch of thugs. ahhh, the hypocrisy. If it had a smell it would be burning plastic.

How Did the "Public" Really Feel about the Strike?

It's hard to know where the public was at about the strikers, but I thought this morning that I would collect all the different poll information and see if it could provide any answers. If you look at this marist poll, you'll see that 39% of all NYers blamed the MTA for the strike, but that 58% of Black New Yorkers blamed the MTA. According to the same poll, African-Americans and Latinos supported the strike more than whites did. That fits my anecdotal experience. I was crossing the Brooklyn Bridge yesterday carrying a big sign reading "I support the TWU" and got more smiles from Blacks than I did from whites.
According to this article in the Daily News, news directors on local radio stations were surprised by the level of public support for the union:

In a WWRL poll, 71% of respondents blamed the MTA and only 14% blamed the transit workers, which Bishop said he found "a little surprising. I would have thought it would have been more even."
Almost every station that took calls found support for the transit workers. "I've used the transit system for years," said Margaret, a caller to WOR, "and I've talked with many workers about the horrible conditions. We need to support them."
"Perhaps surprisingly, there's a lot of support for the strike," said WOR news director Joe Bartlett. He suggested residents were coping with the strike "because this is a city that doesn't cave under pressure. New Yorkers thrive on adversity."
The local CBS affiliate did a poll and found 63% "angry" about the strike after the first day, but if you look at the comments from people who bothered to write letters, many are supportive of the strikers and aggravated with the media coverage. ABC did a poll asking "which side are you on," and found over 50% in support of the union. MYDD has an article on polls which finds high public support in spite of negative media coverage.
My guess is that despite all the lip-service to poor people being inconvienced by the strike that the major vocal opposition to the strike came from the middle and upper class, who talked in the abstract about people earning $20,000 who were hurt by it, but that poor people felt the sacrifice was worth it if it meant a better deal for the workers. Does anyone out there have any numbers on that, besides the Marist report showing the 60% support for the strike from African Americans?

Some took advantage of the strike and the temporary ban on single-driver vehicles to promote transportation alternatives.

Sorry, Technical Difficulties Prevented Posting in the Last Couple of Days

For some reason, blogger hasn't been cooperating with me lately. I've been writing these big posts with tons of links and then losing the whole entry. agggh.

Here's one I did around this time yesterday, and it's still relevant, so I'm posting it now:
Last night, I was up chatting late with a friend who had a great insight. I was telling him how the NY city govt's and the media's line on the strike has been that the TWU strikers are hurting low-wage workers who have it worse than they do. He remarked on the interesting timing of this new-found interest in the city's poor and compared it to the right's newfound interest in the rights of Iraqis. When I got up to read the "papers" this morning, I found another example. Did anyone else find it sort of ironic that the NY Daily News published an article about the impact of the subway strike on the homeless population?
Come on, Mayor, Come on Governor....since when have you showed a whit of compassion for the city's low wage workers?and poor? how about rents and building plans in the city, who are they for? have you shown an interest in even the small business owners? I think a lot of them were and are pretty pissed about your various stadium and real-estate deals. Is it really the TWU that's making the lives of the lower wage workers bad in this town? No, no, and no.

More Strike Info....

On the TWU Local 100 web-page, there is an important article called Rumor Control.
Read it and feel better.

Court Support for TWU Local 100's Leaders

Just got this note in my email:

The New York Times reports that New York State Supreme Court Judge
Theodore Jones has ordered TWU President Roger Toussaint and the top
leaders of Local 100 to appear in room 227 of Kings County Supreme
Court tomorrow (Thursday) at 11 AM. The Times reports that Judge
Jones said he wants the union leadership in court tomorrow because he
is considering sentencing them to jail for calling the strike.



WHAT CAN WE DO?
1. COME TO COURT: Room 227 is the biggest court room in Brooklyn. It
seats several hundred people. The hearing is open to the public.
Kings County Supreme Court is at 360 Adams Street, near Borough
Hall. The main entrance is on Court Street at Montague Street. There
is another entrance on Adams Street. The Court is only a few blocks
from the Brooklyn Bridge. People coming from Queens, East New York
or Bed/Stuy can take the Long Island Railroad to the nearby [Flatbush
Ave. stop] Brooklyn Terminal at Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues [one
mile walk/bike].

2. COME TO COURT EARLY TO MEET THE PRESS - The media has been
crucifying the union and trying to portray the image that the public
is against the strike. Tomorrow will be an excellent opportunity to
meet the press before the court hearing and make statements of
support and solidarity with the strikers and their union and to show
the transit workers that they are not in this fight alone.

3. CONTACT ELIOT SPITZER - Attorney General Spitzer is representing
the state in the lawsuit before Judge Jones. According to the Times
Spitzer has not yet said he supports imprisoning the union
leadership. Convince Spitzer that jailing the union leaders will
create chaos and make negotiations impossible. More importantly, tell
Spitzer that you will not vote for him for governor if he does not
oppose jailing the union officials. Spitzer's phone number is
212-416-8000 his e-mail
is: http://www.oag.state.ny.us/online_forms/email_ag.jsp


In addition to TWU Local 100 being on strike, Staten Island's transportation
union (ATU 726) is also on strike! Students and supporters can join their
pickets lines at the following two Staten Island Depots:

Castleton Bus Depot
Located at the corners of Castlton Ave and Clove Road (Port Richmond, Staten
Island)

Yukon Bus Depot
Located on Yukon Avenue between Forest Hill Road & Richmond Avenue (New
Springville. Staten Island).

For more information, visit ATU 726's website at
http://home.si.rr.com/fxd/

The TWU has set up picket lines at the following locations:

BRONX
Dyer Avenue
Gunhill Depot: 1910 Bartow Avenue
Pelham Barn/Westchester Sq. Yard: Eastchester Rd. & Water Street
Zerega CMF: 750 Zerega Avenue
180th Street Yard: 1151 East 180 Street
West Farms Depot: 1100 East 177th Street
Concourse Yard: 3119 Jerome Avenue
Jerome Yard: Jerome Ave. & Van Courtlandt Ave.
239th St. Barn: 4570 Furman Avenue
240th St. Barn: 5911 Broadway
241st St. White Plains Road. (RTO)
242nd St. Yard
Eastchester Depot: Interstate 95 at Exit 13
Parkchester (RTO)
Yonkers Depot: 59 Babcock St.
Tiffany Iron: 1170 Oakpoint Avenue
Woodlawn 1 & 9 Lines (RTO)

BROOKLYN
370 Jay St./130 Livingston
Bedford
Bergen St. Shop
Conway
Crosstown-Box St.
East New York Depot/Shop: 1700 Bushwick Avenue
Flatbush Ave / Nostrand (RTO)
Flatbush Depot: Flatbush & Utica Ave.
Coney Island Yard: Avenue X & McDonald
Ulmer Park Depot: Cropsey Ave. & Bay
Jackie Gleason Depot: 871 Fifth Avenue
Pitkin Yard: 1434 Sutter Avenue
Livonia Shop: 824 Linwood Shop
Atlantic Ave/Bergen Street Shop: 1415 Bergen Street
Linden Shop: 1500 Linden Blvd.
Cozine: 50 Cozine Avenue
Rockaway Parkway Carnarsie L-line
Stillwell Ave.

QUEENS
71st & Continental G,R & V lines (RTO)
179th St. F-line (RTO)
College Point Depot: 128-15 28th Avenue
Corona Barn: 126-53 Willets Point Blvd.
Ditmars Blvd. N & W lines (RTO)
Fresh Pond Depot: 56-99 Fresh Pond Road
Jamaica Barn: 7815 Grand Central Parkway
Jamaica Depot: 114-15 Guy R. Brewer Blvd.
Main St. 7-line (RTO)
Maspeth CMF:
Parsons / Archer E & J lines (RTO)
Triboro Coach Depot: 8501 24th Avenue
Woodside Electronic Shop: 33-33 54th Street

MANHATTAN
34th St. - Penn Station *
Chambers St. Flagging Quarters (RTO)
Grand Central Station (RTO)
Kingsbridge Depot: 4065 10th Avenue
207th St. Yard: 3961 10 Avenue
Manhattanville Depot: 666 West 133rd St.
100th Street Depot: 1552 Lexington Avenue at 100th Street
Michael J. Quill Depot: 525 11th Avenue
West 53rd St Power/RCC: 53rd St. btw 8/9
126th Street Depot: 2460 Second Avenue
148th St. Lenox Ave.
168th St. C Line

TWU solidarity from PSC President Barbara Bowen; Transit Tidbit

After reading about the TWU late into the night, I got up this morning to hear these guys from the fiscal policy institute on WBAI's "Wake Up Call." They say it's not pensions that are breaking the bank at the MTA. It's the tax-cutting that led to debt funding of the MTA building projectswhich has led to a huge set of debt payments that get more and more burdensome as times goes on. I seem to recall blogging about this issue about a year ago.

Then, when I turned on my computer, I got this email from the pres. of my union, who says, "support the TWU," in stirring and convincing terms:

The TWU negotiations spotlight the ideological nature of these [city and state contract] negotiations. The TWU strike is primarily about resisting the introduction of a lower level of benefits for the next generation of workers. Transit workers are standing up against what other unions have accepted as inevitable: that collective bargaining will be an opportunity to dismantle the benefits won by generations of workers. The first step in this national anti-labor agenda was undermining salaries; now healthcare and pensions are under attack.

One of the strongest things we can do to support our own contract fight-in addition to the letters to the Chancellor-is support the TWU. Their settlement is likely to have a direct impact on the next round of bargaining in the State, as the TWU is typically the first State contract to be settled. If they lose the fight against a new, lower pension tier, we can expect to see similar concessions in pensions and other benefits demanded of us. And in defying the Taylor Law's regressive, punitive ban on strikes for public employee unions, TWU is helping to change the political climate in which all collective bargaining for public employees in New York takes place. In the most material sense, their fight is our fight. PSC members-and all public sector employees in New York-have a lot at stake in their success.

On this first day of the strike, several PSC members and staffers have already joined TWU strikers on the picket lines. The PSC is organizing a contingent of members to walk the picket line with TWU at the Michael Quill bus depot on 11th Avenue and 41st Street every day the strike lasts, from noon to 2:00. Groups of members in the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens have also formed to offer picket support. Call John Hyland at the PSC office if you are available to join them, or check the TWU website for the location nearest you. Members report today that TWU workers are enormously heartened by our presence on the picket line.

The showing of labor solidarity behind the TWU should work to strengthen the position of all the public employee unions in the city that do not yet have contracts. The PSC is pushing relentlessly for a good settlement, and we will continue to work throughout the transit strike and the holiday period to achieve it. I will update you as soon as there is movement. Thank you for your support.

In solidarity,

Barbara Bowen

* * *

 
 

Shut Down Is Right....

My feet sure hurt, but it will be a small price to pay if this strike achieves its goal of challenging the aggressive management tactics in city contract negotiations.
In order for that to happen, the strikers need your support. At the end of this entry, you'll find a list of contact numbers. Along with walking on the picket lines or doing other on-the-ground strike support, it's a good idea to write or call local media and political leaders about your support for the strikers.

In case you're wavering in your desire to support the transit workers and are confused by the current incomplete explanations of the iesues you're seeing the local media, here's as much of a rundown as I can give.
The Big Picture:
First of all, what's going on between the MTA and the TWU is part of an ongoing trend not only in all city contract negotiations, but in contract negotiations in general. No matter what you hear about these contracts in the corporate media, whose owners are anti-union by definition, in industry after industry, managment's contract offers call for concessions and cutbacks from labor. Since at least the 1970s, unions have not fought management's offers, but have taken concessions in hopes of hanging on to their union or to their jobs. As union leadership has become increasingly ineffective, the percentage of American workers in unions has decreased.
In the last round of city contract negotiations, New York City has fit this general pattern. With anti-union mayors, state legislatures and governors, city workers have faced absurd demands for give-backs from management. City employees from DC-37, to the UFT and to the Transit Workers have been forced to "pay back" any cost of living wage increase with "productivity increases," while taking cuts in benefits, and sacrificing the benefits of newer workers in a pattern union people call "eating their young." While busily handing out tax-payer dollars to billionaires and corporations, such as Michael Ratner, American Express, and Goldman-Sachs, the city cries "poor!" and with a combination of give-backs and low-ball raises, hands its essential workers pay cuts.
In standing up to the demands that the MTA is making, the TWU is not being selfish, as has been charged in the local media, but is standing up for all city workers, and for all workers who have faced similar management demands. These demands have big implications. If you listen to the pundits on the mainstream media in NYC talk about the pension issue, for example, you'll hear them argue that "pensions in general are "breaking the back of municipal governments," and when you hear this, you can bet it's a quick leap from reducing pensions in one contract to reducing them in another one. Given the current attack on social security, and the "state of emergency" that's leading calls for privatization, don't blame me for being skeptical about the pension crisis. it's easy to convince people with aging family members' whose care is expensive that the city just might not be able to afford pensions anymore because (some) people live so damn long these days. But cities pay for lots of expensives things that none of us could afford on our own. Did you ever try building a highway or repairing a freeway? Damn! That's expensive. What about bridge maintenance? (last decade's repairs on the Williamsburg bridge cost $1 billion dollars).
Some of those things, like the famous bridge to nowhere in Alaska, are paid for with federal tax dollars. Do you ever hear a city's leaders say that we are going to have to get rid of roads, bridges, or landfills, or palatial mansions for the mayor because "these things are really expensive!" (ok, we do hear about it, but only about New Orleans).

You've probably also heard reporters talk about the "Parent Union" and its rejection of the strike. What's this about and why does it happen, does it suggest that the strike is somehow illegitimate?
Last night, as we were waiting and waiting to hear from the union about whether the strike was on or not, it turns out that the international's president, Michael T. O'Brian, disciple of past pres, and friend to Al D'Amato, Sonny Hall, and winner of the dubiously named "George Meany" award, was not supporting the move to strike. He has even publicly called for TWU members to cross picket lines.
Yet again, the TWU strike is part of a larger pattern here. Surprise, Surprise, I can't believe I'm hearing about a international union leader who doesn't represent the wishes of the rank and file membership of the union. In this case, there is a long-running feud between the Transit workers' international leadership and the TWU local 100 because in 2001, the local voted in leadership from a democracy caucus within the union that organized for years before Toussaint's victory.
Now that some fear the international will try to take over the Local in a hostile move to curb the power of this active membership, it puts Toussaint's move in the last round of contract negotiations into a bit of perspective. The consequences of such a move would be a blow against TWU, for sure, and worse, it attempts to strike another blow against the rank and file democracy movement in the labor movement. Whatever criticisms you may have of Toussaint, TWU Local 100 is doing the right thing this time around. OK, here are the numbers:

Contact Info (from JFREJ alerts)

To email the Mayor and Governor, you need to go to the web addresses below and fill out a form. If you contact the news outlets, you need to include your name, phone number, and address for verification.

Mayor Bloomberg
http://www.nyc.gov/portal/index.jsp?epi_menuItemID=bd08ee7c7c1ffec87c4b36d501c789a0&epi_menuID=beb0d8fdaa9e1607a62fa24601c789a0&epi_baseMenuID=27579af732d48f86a62fa24601c789a0&doc_name=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nyc.gov%2Fhtml%2Fmail%2Fhtml%2Fmayor.html
Governor Pataki
http://161.11.3.75/govemail

US Senator Chuck Schumer (212) 486-4430
US Senator Hillary Clinton (212) 688-6262

New York Times Letter to the Editor
letters@nytimes.com

Daily News Letters to the Editor
voicers@edit.nydailynews.com

***********************************

2. Take it to the Street: Support TWU Local 100! Join a picket line in your neighborhood!
* you should probably go during rush hour. * *
BRONX
Dyer Avenue
Gunhill Depot: 1910 Bartow Avenue
Pelham Barn/Westchester Sq. Yard: Eastchester Rd. & Water Street
Zerega CMF: 750 Zerega Avenue
180th Street Yard: 1151 East 180 Street
West Farms Depot: 1100 East 177th Street
Concourse Yard: 3119 Jerome Avenue
Jerome Yard: Jerome Ave. & Van Courtlandt Ave.
239th St. Barn: 4570 Furman Avenue
240th St. Barn: 5911 Broadway
241st St. White Plains Road. (RTO)
242nd St. Yard
Eastchester Depot: Interstate 95 at Exit 13
Parkchester (RTO)
Yonkers Depot: 59 Babcock St.
Tiffany Iron: 1170 Oakpoint Avenue
Woodlawn 1 & 9 Lines (RTO)

BROOKLYN
370 Jay St./130 Livingston
Bedford
Bergen St. Shop
Conway
Crosstown-Box St.
East New York Depot/Shop: 1700 Bushwick Avenue
Flatbush Ave / Nostrand (RTO)
Flatbush Depot: Flatbush & Utica Ave.
Coney Island Yard: Avenue X & McDonald
Ulmer Park Depot: Cropsey Ave. & Bay
Jackie Gleason Depot: 871 Fifth Avenue
Pitkin Yard: 1434 Sutter Avenue
Livonia Shop: 824 Linwood Shop
Atlantic Ave/Bergen Street Shop: 1415 Bergen Street
Linden Shop: 1500 Linden Blvd.
Cozine: 50 Cozine Avenue
Rockaway Parkway Carnarsie L-line
Stillwell Ave.

QUEENS
71st & Continental G,R & V lines (RTO)
179th St. F-line (RTO)
College Point Depot: 128-15 28th Avenue
Corona Barn: 126-53 Willets Point Blvd.
Ditmars Blvd. N & W lines (RTO)
Fresh Pond Depot: 56-99 Fresh Pond Road
Jamaica Barn: 7815 Grand Central Parkway
Jamaica Depot: 114-15 Guy R. Brewer Blvd.
Main St. 7-line (RTO)
Maspeth CMF:
Parsons / Archer E & J lines (RTO)
Triboro Coach Depot: 8501 24th Avenue
Woodside Electronic Shop: 33-33 54th Street

MANHATTAN
34th St. - Penn Station *
Chambers St. Flagging Quarters (RTO)
Grand Central Station (RTO)
Kingsbridge Depot: 4065 10th Avenue
207th St. Yard: 3961 10 Avenue
Manhattanville Depot: 666 West 133rd St.
100th Street Depot: 1552 Lexington Avenue at 100th Street
Michael J. Quill Depot: 525 11th Avenue
West 53rd St Power/RCC: 53rd St. btw 8/9
126th Street Depot: 2460 Second Avenue
148th St. Lenox Ave.
168th St. C Line

What Do We Want? Contract! When Do We Want it? NOW....If We Don't Get It? Shut it Down!

That's what we were chanting this afternoon on 3rd avenue and 39th street. I had a hole in my sock and I got cold enough that I didn't stay for all the speeches (you can hear the rebroadcast on "Building Bridges") and there's a good report of another twu rally at Truthout.
ALthough this is a serious turning point for NYC labor, I'm experiencing it like a potential snow day right now. I don't want to go to work tomorrow. I want to stay up reading Theodore Draper's book on Iran and Contra Affairs, and then I want to sleep in till nine, or maybe till noon. I want to walk to the Pakistani stores on Coney Island Ave. and buy garam masala and try making curry. I didn't buy a new weekly metrocard this morning in anticipation of a possible strike. The way I used to when I was in elementary school when the snow was coming down in Georgia, I'm sitting up late, waiting for the announcement that the strike is on. I feel the train rumbling underneath me, and everyone on NY1 is wondering aloud, but none of them seem to have an idea of what will really happen.
The last news I heard on the TV, if NY1's report can be trusted at all, is that the mta is now offering 3%, 4% and 3.5% raises, and pulling back a little on the pension age for new workers - ALTHOUGH they want to institute a 6% give-back for those workers in the first several years to pay for the pensions at 55. That's ridiculous. When unions say "no give backs!" that's the sort of thing they mean. I hate this trend of making people pay for their benefits with increased productivity. They also haven't given any news on the disciplinary complaint questions.
Does anyone really believe that the train workers are slackers who owe the city more productivity? Don't they contribute something to the city, aren't they worth as much as money as Bruce Ratner and his real-estate mogul buddies?
The best thing that could happen would be for this strike to go ahead and for it to turn the trend in the city around. Wouldn't it be great if this was the beginning of the rejetion of the pattern that's squeezing NYC's workers? Wouldn't it be great if people all over the city were emboldened and inspired by the TWU's brave stance? Wouldn't it be great if the Metronorth RR honored the picket lines? It's possible, right?
However, as much as I'd like to be optimistic, I'm nervous as hell. Strikes are hard and an illegal strike is harder. In the long run, I'm concerned about what the result will be for the union and then for the rest of the unions in town.
The TV coverage is all focused on what it will do to business to have the transit workers go out. Well then, I guess that means that the city needs these people to work, and the city/state oughta commit to paying them and giving them the respect they're asking for. And now the question still remains: will they go or won't they? I hope Toussaint et al make an announcement before I fall asleep. Nitey nite.

It's on in Queens, and maybe tomorrow, elsewhere. If you want to get out and support your city's engines, here are the picket locations


All TWU Local 100 Members: Below is a listing of all initial Strike Locations. Report to the one nearest to your home.

BRONX

Gunhill Depot: 1910 Bartow Avenue

Pelham Barn/Westchester Sq. Yard: Eastchester Rd. & Water Street

Zerega CMF: 750 Zerega Avenue

180th Street Yard: 1151 East 180 Street

West Farms Depot: 1100 East 177th Street

Concourse Yard: 3119 Jerome Avenue

Jerome Yard: Jerome Ave. & Van Courtlandt Ave.

239th St. Barn: 4570 Furman Avenue

240th St. Barn: 5911 Broadway

Eastchester Depot: Interstate 95 at Exit 13

Yonkers Depot: 59 Babcock St.

Tiffany Iron: 1170 Oakpoint Avenue

BROOKLYN

East New York Depot/Shop: 1700 Bushwick Avenue

Flatbush Depot: Flatbush & Utica Ave.

Coney Island Yard: Avenue X & McDonald

Ulmer Park Depot: Cropsey Ave. & Bay

Jackie Gleason Depot: 871 Fifth Avenue

Pitkin Yard: 1434 Sutter Avenue

Livonia Shop: 824 Linwood Shop

Atlantic Ave/Bergen Street Shop: 1415 Bergen Street

Linden Shop: 1500 Linden Blvd.

Cozine: 50 Cozine Avenue

QUEENS

Fresh Pond Depot: 56-99 Fresh Pond Road

Jamaica Barn: 7815 Grand Central Parkway

Jamaica Depot: 114-15 Guy R. Brewer Blvd.

Corona Barn: 126-53 Willets Point Blvd.

Triboro Coach Depot: 8501 24th Avenue

College Point Depot: 128-15 28th Avenue

Maspeth CMF:

Woodside Electronic Shop: 33-33 54th Street

MANHATTAN

Kingsbridge Depot: 4065 10th Avenue

207th St. Yard: 3961 10 Avenue

Manhattanville Depot: 666 West 133rd St.

100th Street Depot: 1552 Lexington Avenue at 100th Street

Michael J. Quill Depot: 525 11th Avenue

West 53rd St Power/RCC: 53rd St. btw 8/9

126th Street Depot: 2460 Second Avenue

The Lawless President Keeps On

Now that Marc Maron isn't telling jokes on the air anymore, all I have to do is read the real news and listen to Deepa Fernandes do "wakeup call" on WBAI. I'm depressed as hell by the reports of Bush's speech last night. No, I didn't watch it. I just couldn't stomach it. There's something about this flagrant defense of indefensible activity that infuriates me. The flaccid responses by the congressional democrats aren't any more cheering. Too bad. At least we can count on Cindy Sheehan to tell it like it is.
Kucinich has a nice bill on the floor of the house. Good luck with that one.
If you're curious about the FISA court that people are talking about now, I recommend the episode of "This American Life" called "Secret Government." In the 15 minute discussion of the FISA court from January of 2003, TAL says that the court has never turned down a wiretap until that year, when

This past summer the court said issued an opinion that said Attorney General John Ashcroft and the Justice Department were going way too far in their zeal for wiretaps. It cited 75 cases in which the Justice Department tried to sneak around rules to protect Americans from surveillance. Blue Chevigny reports on attempts to loosen up the rules on who the government spies on here in the U.S., and on this first-ever glimpse inside this secret court.

* * * Reading about the Mayor's and Governor's comments to the transit workers union is also pretty disheartening. It hurts me when I read the Governor making such nasty remarks about his role in the negotiations.
However, maybe there will be a great spirit of solidarity in the city in the coming days. From everything I hear, it seems that a strike is unavoidable at this point, unless the MTA finally gives in on the pension demand. There's only one thing to be done when you find the morning news this depressing, and that's to go to a rally. Yes, indeed, right after I get done reviewing for finals with my students today, I'm planning on going to the TWU support rally at Pataki's office.
Here's where and when : in front of the governor's office at 633 Third Ave at 39 St., Monday, Dec. 19, at 4 p.m.

How Committed are we to the Rule of Law?

Once during the semester, one of my more ambitious students defended the United States against all other nations by arguing that we respected "the rule of law." He was wrong, of course, but I didn't interject. Another popular proclamation calls us, "a nation of laws, not of men," and while we may be a nation of lawsuits, this "nation of laws" rhetoric is once again being shown up for its emptiness this weekend. I don't just mean that the president doesn't respect the law, but that a seemingly large number of Americans doesn't care either.
Today, in Common Dreams, David Sirota compares Bush's defiance of law with Richard Nixon's and cites this David Frost interviewin which Nixon says that the president himself is the "dividing line" between legality and illegality. If we were a nation of law, surely the media would be writing about law-breaking. However, as both Sirota and Alexander Cockburn point out, the papers are doing nothing of the kind. The New York Times' shameful decision not to print the story a year ago once again confirms its lack of credibility as the "paper of record."
It's not just the media that is failing to do its job, it was also the Senate Intelligence committee members, who were briefed on the policy but did not oppose it. Nancy Pelosi, for example, says she "expressed strong concerns," but perhaps she thought publicizing a classified report of illegal government activites was more illegal than doing the spying?
Finally, to find the real lovers of "law n' order," I went to read "Free Republic," the best place to take the temperature of the right wing grassroots, and it does seem that they're coming up with the standard excuse for these activities. First, they argue, "the people that the NSA is spying on aren't innocent," and they also say, "b-b-b-but Clinton used the FBI to spy on American citizens too."
So there, they've confirmed it. We're a nation of men, not laws. It's OK to spy if you spy on the right people, and it's OK to spy if you're the right people. As long as "enlightened statesmen are at the helm" we can trust them to do whatever the hell they think is fit. Think I'm exaggerating?
"You're right," one freeper says in response to a liberal commenter who'd suggested that he would be up in arms if Clinton or Gore had endorsed spying on Americans. However, he said, that's because he trusts Bush with the "responsibility" of breaking the law, wouldn't trust Gore or Clinton.
Another I just have to quote at length:
Again, our enemy is not a nation, rather our enemy resides in many nations through out the world. The enemy is an idealogy based on extreme Islam. All terrorists are muslims. Islam is the one thing all terrorists have in common. So long as those being spyed on in America are muslims, or Americans doing a suspicious business with muslims, or having close suspect ties with known muslims, I don't have a problem with this since we are at war with muslims. However, if those being spyed on have no relations to Islam, I have a problem with these kinds of invasions of privacy. I find them anti American, anti freedom, and anti Constitution.
Problem is, how do we know? How do we find out? Do we simply take their word for it? Like most took the word of those marshals at Miami?
by takenoprisoner (It is an err of celestial proportions to sacrifice freedom for security)
This is Bush's base, and they don't understand democracy at all. Hell, I don't trust anybody to break the law that's written to protect my freedom from surveillance and whatnot, but, hey, call me a "left wing whack-job with a tinfoil hat." After all, I think there's some value to the constitution, even if I don't trust anybody to actually enforce it. As our Atty Gen. Alberto "Torquemada Gonzales puts it, that's "quaint."
As Cockburn, St. Clair and Sirota point out, the media's not helping folks get it. While you're frustrated and frothing, and wishing you had something to do with your pent up frustration, it's worth participating in this little mediamatters email letter campaign to MSNBC about Chris Matthews.

Insight from Marc Maron, Self Involved Diary Blogs....Are they worth reading?

I'm really slothful. It's 3:47 pm and I'm still in my pajamas and still listening to morning radio. How is that? It's because I'm working. I'm listening to "back issues" of Morning Sedition as an accompaniment for the most tedious parts of end-of-semester grading. Somehow, these tasks wind up taking longer than I ever anticipate. It took TWO hours for me to edit and correct my students' paraphrasings of Federalist #10. It's taken four hours to calculate their homework grades and I'm not even done yet. In another two hours, it will be time for me to put on my "street clothes" as we used to call them and go to a going-away party for some friends of mine who are leaving the US in disgust. I had thought I would get to one of the ten books on my list from a few days ago, but my brain has been so unstimulated for so long now that I am wondering whether I will ever retain anything more complicated than a comedy bit on talk-radio ever again.
Speaking of radio bits....some back issues of MS have some of my favorite bits. One of the June shows (with Sue Ellicott still on and irritating both Marc and Mark) had the much-missed and against the twelve-step rules: "Recovery Corner" where Marc M. gave George Bush AA advice.
As the episodes get closer to the present, the one thing that sometimes struck me as "off" about the show, which seemed to increase with its success, was Marc's preoccupation with talking about his personal life on the air. On the other hand, some of that stuff is truly funny once you get past waiting for him to "talk about the issues!" and it probably explains why so many of us feel that we really know Marc Maron as a person. He's pretty insightful about himself, I think. I was able to get something useful out of his reflections of some of his very human failings, like his enduring resentment of John Stewart's success. He's even able to talk about how Stewart won the arguments they used to have.
Speaking of lingering resentment, my enjoyment of the radio show and my feelings about Marc M. are bound up with my with my lingering resentment about my last relationship. One of the great benefits of our break-up was guilt-free and judgement-free enjoyment of "Morning Sedition," which my ex hated, and seemed to look down on me for enjoying. There are other things that I enjoy more intensely because of my experience with that guy too.
The only good thing about not being able to get rid of your hatred for and anger at your ex is that you can coninue these intense feelings of enjoying things that the ex in question hated. Before meeting that person, you might have taken them for granted, but until your little detour into self-denial with some judgemental jerk, you never quite realized how GREAT your favorite morning show really was, and how GREAT you are for listening to it, and how MUCH your life has improved since you stopped being with that mean guy who kept criticizing your favorite morning radio show. I felt the same way about cheese and wine after I got dumped by a vegan straight-edge guy that I dated for about a minute in Grad school. I don't know if there have been that many others, but being with someone who's really critical and judgemental can make your own life seem like an unending river of joy in comparison.
And now, it's sundown and I haven't gotten dressed yet. wow.
Back to grading.
Maybe later I'll say something more interesting for more of you.

They're Going Out....Soon

A few minutes ago, I heard the traffic and weather guy on Air America say that the TWU had just voted to go on a "partial" strike, but have set no official time for its beginning. It's starting with private bus lines in Queens. According to the NYT, a full strike won't begin, if it does, until Tuesday morning. In my apartment, we will know when the trains stop running, because the whole place shakes a little when the train goes rumbling underneath us. The Village Voice has printed more from Toussaint's statement to the press and gives more of the union's side of things. It suggests that the vote to begin an MTA-wide strike on Monday leaves the door open for the MTA to return to the bargaining table at the last minute.
So, the predictions of my knowledgeable nay-saying office-mate have turned out to be wrong, but this guy, Dragoneyefly, on Josh Marshall's site had the inside dope yesterday and predicted the strike would begin Monday.
Of course, while I'm writing this, I'm listening to the last "Morning Sedition" show. Cindy Sheehan just called in. The "final show" blog has over 700 comments (a hundred new ones between the time I wrote that and when I started reading them - about 30 minutes). No more Marc and Mark in the AM.
Booo Hooo.

How the "War on Christmas" Rhetoric Works

Last night, while I was waiting for a bus in Park Slope, I saw some people with a Christmas wreath and a Christmas Tree and I thought, "The enemy!"
Wow.
Never have I had such hostility towards Christmas celebrants before. So, you see, the "War on Christmas" works. First, I was just sort of into the festivities of the holiday, the presents, whatever. Now, I seem to have started imagining that everyone who's celebrating the birth of Baby Jesus is potentially an anti-semite in league with Bill O'Reilly. Logically, I know that's not true, but I've come to hate Christmas and Christians because of the wackos who are using the holiday as an excuse to wage "war" on the rest of us. So, I'm completely antagonized by the holiday now.
Good job, right-wing-nuts.
Is this the real goal? They really are the Al Quaeda of America.

How Easily Do You Terminate, Mr. Governor?

I read of Schwarzenegger's decision to reject Stanley "Tookie" Williams' clemency appeal this evening just before I left for work, and before I listened to Amy Goodman's conversation with Barbara Becnel and the DN interview with Williams on the way home. I felt sicker and sicker as the train moved along. According to the LA Times the governor's rejection of clemency was personally and politically difficult for Schwarzenegger, who has denied two pleas for clemency in other cases.
Is it reassuring to hear it was DIFFICULT to decide to kill a fellow human being, whose current position in a maximum security prison and whose rehabilitation as a helper of others makes him no threat to anyone? Not for me. Why is it difficult in this case to do as the anti-abortion activists always say and choose life? What choice is there? Unlike a cluster of cells, Williams is an actual living, conscious human being who's been judged and is now being ushered out of existance. He's not "life" in the abstract, but a person with a history, with feelings, with thoughts, with relationships, with people who love him. He's a person who makes a contribution to the world in which he lives. Is reading all the "relevant materials" that sum up his case enough homework to inform you about whether he deserves to live or die? How is the "Governator,' The "Gropinator," that media-creature in California qualified to make decisions of life and death? What gives the jury or the judge, or any of us that right? Because that's what the law says?
I've had just about enough KILLING in the name of something called law or freedom or justice this week. There was Rigoberto Alpizar, killed in case he might be breaking the law - but it turned out he wasn't really, except that law about saying anything about having a bomb when you're in an airport or a plane. There were this week's ration of deaths, American, Iraqi and others, in the Middle East. Has the murder machine eaten enough flesh yet? Will the next body, Tookie's be enough to satisfy that national unsatisfiable rage that seems to be driving our national culture?
It's always sad when lots and lots of people die through some horrific accident or act of human malevolence, but when one person because of his authority in some political office gets the power to judge the life of another individual, and decides to coldly kill him, the way Arnold Schwarzenegger did this afternoon, in the name of some abstract notion of "justice"... that to me is the most awful killing of all. It is not anonymous, or an abstract killing of nameless masses. It's the intentional, knowing killing of a specific person, whose own individual life carries with it all the weight of his experience. And that life, the life that's been lived, along with the rest of us, is precious. It's not the violation of the "Thou Shalt Not Kill" that bothers me so much when I read about these death penalty stories. It's the violation of "judge not lest ye be judged."
Doesn't the Governor have a beam in his eye?
Despite the scriptures here, I'm not a religious person, but I find Sister Helen Prejean to be wiser about this issue than almost anyone. She's the kind of person who makes Christianity an attractive philosophy, because the God she follows advocates replacing vengeance and "justice" with forgiveness. She also understands how power works, and what kind of power works through the death penalty. A year ago, she wrote, in the New York Review of Books, about the power of the death penalty in America, and the refusal by Bush as Governor of Texas to sign pardons or clemency appeals. She points out in the articles that Governors always claim to "agonize" over these decisions...but often, they're just agonizing over their poll numbers. Bush evaded moral responsibility for taking these lives. Schwarzenegger likewise, makes his case in the name of refusing to overturn a jury's verdict.
I can't get the thought out of my head, that when I wake up in the morning, that a man who is alive now, will be dead, and not by accident, not by unavoidable fate, not by dire necessity, and not for any "greater good," for which he chose to sacrifice his life, but by calm and calculated decision. Yes, that calm and calculated decision is backed by a frenzy for vengeance that can't wait to get its teeth into the next target for impotent rage. What this says about the state of our country seems to clear to just about everyone except a whole hell of a lot of Americans.
And tonight, who knows how the rest of America will respond.

Books You Wish You Had Time to Read

Like many people, I've got a list of books I'm just dying to read if ONLY I had time. My top ten right now are:

Charles Mann, 1491: New Revelations on the Americas before Columbus
Amy Chua, World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability
Alfred Doblin, November 1918 and Karl and Rosa
Tolstoy, Anna Karenina or maybe...
_______, War and Peace (did you hear that DN piece on the WBAI marathon read?)
Brandt Goldstein, Storming the COurt
Graetz and Shapiro, Death by a Thousand Cuts
Theodore Draper, A Very Thin Line: The Iran Contra Affairs
Matthew Josephson, The Robber Barons
Jonathan Kozol, Shame of the Nation
Oh well, let's make it a baker's dozen
I got more than half way through, but haven't finished:
Robert Fisk, Pity the Nation (maybe THAT's what I'll do today)
I've just GOT to read
Norman Finkelstein, Beyond Chutzpah
and I know I will spend forever reading:
Fisk's new one, The Great War for Civilizatiion

and what's on YOUR list, readers?

Newsflash to Wingnuts: ACLU Not Anti-Christian

After I googled Samuel Alito and "third circuit court of appeals," I cama across some wingnut blog which referred to the "Socialist" ACLU and its Christian-hating policies. Damn. I had heard all my various left-wing news outlets talking about the right wing Christmas propaganda war now raging, but I hadn't encountered it in the raw yet.
How can people be so ignorant? Maybe they just listen to the crap that spews out of their teevees and radios and never bother even once to look something up for themselves?
So, if that dope w/the blog comes here, maybe he'll read this list of cases involving religion that the ACLU took on. If the dope says, "but that's the ACLU's web-page! You can't trust them," I have this to say to him: If the ACLU were lying about taking on those cases (like the one of the school girl who wanted to sing some Christian song at her school) then it would be DAMN easy to prove it. It would be as easy to prove as it is easy to prove that Bill O'Reilly never won a Peabody, but he SAID he did. If you read that article, you'll wonder, along with me, "is it legal to lie to like that?" (By the way, if you look up who HAS won Peabodies lately, you'll see Link TV, Dan Rather, and John Stewart, but I don't think the Fox crowd was in the running.
Don't people begin to feel a little bit stupid for continuing to listen to this idiot liar with the loofah on the brain? urgh. Thinking about it makes me queasy. Time for bed. I'm reading Alfred Doblin for the holidays because he is not a liar.
What about you, what's on your winter holiday reading list?

Big News, Good News -- Dave Lindorff on Mumia Abu Jamal's case

As I was waking up this AM I heard something I thought I never would. One of the many appeals for Mumia has actually succeeded. To me, the most amazing part of the third circuit court of appeals decision is that they are willing to hear evidence about Judge Albert Sabo's bias. Was Alito on the bench, or is he off it now that he's a Sup Ct. nominee?
Dave Lindorff, whose research on Mumia'a case is better than most, has a succinct analysis of it on his website. Ever since the disastrous book by "defense" assistant counsel John Williams, and the related firing of Leonard Weinglass from Mumia's case, I've held little hope for the campaign to save him, not because of legal strategy, but because of how popular organizing was being done, or not being done. Now, however, the new atty on the case since last year is doing a great job, and the political organizing around Mumia may also have calmed down in its sectarian frenzy.
It also fits my general belief that when there is greater unrest and momentum for social movements in the society, courts are often more willing to hear appeals, whether as some means of appeasement, or because they too, feel the transition in the air. I don't know the behind-the-scenes specifics on this one though. Do you? If so, please post.

Anxiety Index : Is it a Police State Yet?

The federal cops just killed someone as he was trying to board a plane in Miami.
Read about it here. The flight was from Medillin, Colombia. Think he might not have been a white American?

Mama D on CSPAN

I came home tonight tired after teaching and switched on CSPAN-2 to see what happened today while I was giving my lecture on Vietnam over and over again. Little did I know who I was going to see: Mama D (Dyan French) of New Orleans testifying before a panel from the House of Representatives about the current situation in New Orleans and the racism during the "rescue." "Katrina didn't do this," she said, "the Isms did this," specifically, she said: CapitalISM, and RacISM. When do you hear people like Mama D testifying in front of Congress, calling capitalism out? I guess you hear them when Cynthia McKinney has an influence on who comes to talk. (Several other dems. have boycotted this House committee because it's not independent, but today's hearings were riveting. ( * Watch this space for a transcript.)
Mama D is a longtime New Orleans activist whose home as become an international left-wing hub in the wake of the disaster. Kids are staying with her as she wages the battle to keep New Orleans blacks from being permanently displaced in the frenzy to seize and remake New Orleans for the rich. She wants to know, she says, Who is doing a Christopher Columbus move in her city and why?.... Listening to Mama D, who's organized her house and has fierce rules that try the patience of the anarchists reminds me of reading the much misunderstood John Brown. Like Brown, she acts with passion to "get things done," is revered by some, thought mad by others. Like Brown, she speaks truths that their society is not willing to hear, and sounds either "mad" or wildly perceptive for stating them as she does, depending on who's listening.
Of course, the more sensational things said by those testifying made it into the news and into a (few) blogs, and unfortunately, fueled dismissive comments. One particularly angry member of the panel, Leah Hodges, compared conditions in New Orleans to a Prisoner of War situation and a Concentration Camp. Mama D believes the levees were bombed. More convincingly, the panelists described the abuse they received from police and national guard members who pointed guns at them, their children, and their aged relatives. They also talked about the current police abuse and dire situation in New Orleans, which you can read about here as well.
The Republican Christopher Shays, (from now on let's call him "Mr. Condescension,") and others questioned the women and implied that their testimony was not true, their comments overstatements, their descriptions of threatening behavior from police and military men, "theater." Instead of harping on the "concentration camp" issue, it would help if the congressmen had heard what the panelists were describing and thought about why those comparisons might have been made. What was the important issue here, defending the memory of WWII holocaust victims or hearing what the hell happened in New Orleans?
However, if you don't believe Black nationalists from NOLA when they decide to give Congress hell, go ahead, listen to the stories of Katrina survivors who were interviewed by Ira Glass and friends for the "After the Flood" and "This is Not My Beautiful House" episodes of This American Life, whose interviews with everyone from tourists to long-time residents to New Orleans high-school kids reveal racism at every level of power in the entire Katrina fiasco as well as some amazing stories of people helping each other survive.
Adding to the speakers' descriptions of police abuse is the release this week of memos that indicated FEMA feared rioting in New Orleans. This fear was obvious in the military nature of the response to the survivors, and in the refusal to let people leave the city, the Superdome, and other places. The victims were being held like prisoners in those places...and it was awful.

After being doubted and accused of lying by members of the panel, Mama D responded in audible pain, "if we're not going to talk about the racism....I have wasted my time by coming here."

nyt's execrable editorial

Writing about the Sunday Times on Tuesday is kind of weak, but I started this entry yesterday and just didn't get a chance to write it. If you read the City section, you probably noticed the editorial that scolded the Transit Workers for demanding too much in their contract negotiations. Following a set of terrible public employee contracts that began with DC 37's, mandated "productivity increases" have become the norm, and the NYT's argument in this anti-TWU editorial is that if OTHER city workers take em, it's only fair for the TWU to do so as well. Anyone who understands pattern bargaining knows that it's in the interest of city workers generally if the TWU holds out and doesn't take a concessionary contract.
What is a productivity increase and what role has this particular management demand played in recent contract negotiations? The mgmt. strategy for the productivity increase is to demand that in exchange for a cost-of-living raise, or employer contribution to benefit package, that workers should increase their productivity on the job, whether by working a longer day, as the city's public elementary and high school teachers will, or by going back early at the end of the Summer, as the city is demanding that CUNY's faculty do. Such demands are insidious and play into the aggressive work ethic of neoliberal capitalism. First off, they don't acknowledge the general "productivity increase" that has led to a rising GNP in the US. As Lee Sustar noted in his Counterpunch article, "The One-Sided Class War,"
productivity gains that emerged in the late 1990s continued to accelerate, which meant that fewer workers could produce more. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the 4.3 percent average annual increase in productivity for 2001 to 2004 was last matched in 1948 to 1951.
The global "speed up," sometimes known as "lean production"is erased in all the PR discussions when management asks workers to give even more of their labor over in exchange for benefits and wages that they were already entitled to. Speed up in education could be seen in increased class sizes and other examples of "workload creep," as professors are asked to take on increasing administrative and advisement responsibility. For transit workers, it's seen in demands that subway station agents take on increased responsibilities as the MTA cuts back on staffing to save money, and similar increases for other job titles- despite the fact that the transit workers have already increased their productivity. Let's hope Toussaint doesn't lead the way to sucking up concessions in this round, but everyone I've talked to thinks that he probably will.



* *
On a more hopeful note, I read in today's Times that Jonathan Tasini, who writes the blog Working Life, which I've linked here in the past, is planning on running in the primary against Hilary Clinton on an anti-war platform.

From the Horsie's Mouth - Behind the Scenes at Air America

Jonathan Larsen wrote an excellent tell-all blog entry about Danny Goldberg's stupid choices about Morning Sedition.
I hope they give Marc M. an LA based show, but it would still be better if it was in the AM and during the week. For me, this means turning the dial back to Bernard White and company and putting up with weird holistic health tips as I'm getting up. Does anyone else remember that hour-long show about treating yeast infections by using garlic as a suppository? Now, THAT would have been funny if Maron had done it.

City's Labor Unions Come Out to Support the NYU Strikers

This afternoon I joined perhaps 1000? activists from around NY to picket outside Bobst library in support of GSOC. My union, the PSC, was well represented, as were the transit workers, UNITE/HERE, and several other city unions. While I generally distrust union bureaucrats and yawn cynically when they get up to speak, I was happy to see all the various "elected officials," district council reps, and others who denounced NYU's policies and proclaimed that New York is a "union town." Despite the much heralded split in the AFL-CIO, it was not bitter at this rally: everyone in the crowd clapped and cheered both for John Sweeney and for the spokesman of the "Change to Win" coalition. Of course, in every one of these moments of clapping and cheering, everyone is really cheering for the strikers. Regardless of differences in tactics, rank and filers and the rest of us are ready to support just anything if it seems like it will help other workers win. So, differences were thrown aside to shout "shame! shame! shame!" at NYU, and today's rally at NYU was a true demonstration of solidarity and a rejection of NYU's union busting University Pres, John Sexton. Given the callousness and transparency of NYU's claims, it's easy for workers from all ranks of labor to see the connections between the University's tactics and those of any other business that don't want to bargain with its workers and use idiotic arguments to justify their stingy behavior. Now of course, behind the scenes, there is more going on with labor leaders than meets the eye at rallies like this one. There's a lot of brave talk to get people pumped up, but sometimes the pumping up doesn't lead to a real mobilization. However, in GSOC's case, the mobilization is going well, judging from today's turn-out and from last week's rally with undergraduates in support of GSOC.
If you are interested in the long history of GSOC at NYU, NYU-Inc has a nice archive here, and Amy Goodman hosted a debate between GSOC leader, Michael Palm, and Philosophy professor, Paul Boghossian this morning on Democracy Now.
For those who would dismiss graduate student unions as the whining of the privileged, it might have been a surprise to see and hear the loud support among "real workers" for PSC President Barbara Bowen's speech, which focused on the special type of work that NYU grad students do. It's not just that grad students are workers, she said, but also that intellectual work should be valued, and that the attack on GSOC was an attack on the research, the knowledge, the ideas, that GSOC members (and other academics) produce. I was standing next to a group of Transit Workers Union members, Black and Latino women in nifty blue jackets, and they shouted and clapped and nodded when Bowen spoke -more loudly than they did when Nadler (and the not-so-militant-anymore Toussaint) were up there. Working people know the value of knowledge, even if faux-populists like George Bush and David Brooks don't think so.
One aspect of this notion of intellectual work is similar to the larger pattern in the workforce of replacing full-time workers with part-timers, and grad student unions are a response to this pattern. That's why the most absurd comment that Boghossian made in the Democracy Now interview linked above has to do with drawing a distinction between Adjuncts and Graduate Students, which he bases on the idea that the Graduate Students are different from adjuncts because they will have a "significantly better life" after they cease to be graduate students:
.... There really is a difference between the graduate students and the adjuncts. I mean, Michael is lumping them all together into the category of contingent workers. The adjuncts really did deserve to unionize. I mean, they really are employees, and their labor is used to drive a certain amount of the engine of N.Y.U., and it is very important to protect their rights.
But graduate students are people who are given the privilege of coming to a doctoral program in philosophy, as it might be, or biology, or whatever, and are paid a large amount of money for the privilege of pursuing a degree that will then put -- that will then put them in a position to have a significantly better life. It's really not comparable. And the $50,000 figure, by the way, is not a fiction. I mean, tuition really does cost a lot of money. It costs a lot of money to our undergraduates who are currently unable to get the education that they paid for.
I think this is one of the worst aspects of the anti-union arguments, which always play on the idea that those who would need to join a union are "substandard" while talented and skilled people don't need unions. The idea that the adjuncts working at NYU were once graduate students either at NYU or elsewhere is simply avoided here, because of course that would undermine the idea that it's OK to pay graduate students so little because one day, they will all have tenure track jobs at universities like NYU. The fact that universities like NYU hire so many adjuncts means that graduate education is worth less financially than it used to be for all but a small minority of people who actually land the "plumb jobs." The only conclusion one can draw from the statistics of hiring in higher ed today is that Universities admit more graduate students than will ever be hired as full-time faculty because they need the graduate students as cheap labor both before their degrees are done and afterwards as well.
The first step to changing this bad situation is organizing academic employees, with adjuncts and Grad assistants in the fore-front. After Sexton's threat to fire the strikers at NYU on Monday, we're in a crucial moment for the future of all academics.

 

I love this sign. 

 

GSOC activist leads the audience in a chant. 

 
Now THESE are some cool librarians 

Movement Strategy

Today, I participated in a panel discussion about the war in Iraq and its connection to domestic policy. Since my own research is on movements around law and prison, I spoke about the history of wartime civil liberties repression and the Guantanmo detentions after cramming a couple of informative books and websites. My reading list included: Giorgio Agamben's State of Exception,
the Patriot Act Debates web page, the ACLU's patriot actinfo, Michael Ratner and Ellen Ray's book, Guantanamo:What the World Should Know, and Roger Daniels' Prisoners Without Trial, about the Japanese Internment. I learned a lot fast.
The scariest thing to me about all this stuff is the arbitrary executive power that's been seized under the presumed "state of emergency" created by an indeterminate "War on Terror." As Ratner's book points out, the claims made under vaguely defined "common law war powers" are much bigger than those handed over to the government in either version of the Patriot Act. There were two other panelists, one who talked about corporations' role in setting US foreign policy, and another about Rosa Parks and the Black freedom struggle in the streets.
However, despite the three panelists all arguing that organizing a mass movement is the way to make a change, the question of "what do we about it?" dominated the discussion. Students in the audience, instead of getting their heads together about to create productive strategies, by asking questions such as, "how do we publicize and rally people around the idea of protections of the rights of people who are generally stigmatized and hated in the United States?" or, "how do we effectively combat corporate-driven foreign policies?" we got into an argument about voting, third parties, running for office, and, briefly and bizarrely, for boycotting CUNY for an entire year in protest of proposed tuition hikes. This really got off the ground when one member of the audience began the question period with what sounded like a plug for third parties and Ralph Nader, which in my opinion derailed the discussion entirely.
I sympathize with people's frustrations about organizing, and I think the conversation of tactics is an important one. When people hear "get out the streets," they hear "march around the capital," and I agree that this strategy is of limited value; marching around Washington, DC or other public places, while it shows that large numbers of people support a given cause, does not create a serious obstacle to the forces of power. Cindy Sheehan, with her Crawford campout was much cleverer, but will also need to developnew tactics, although the use of arrests against Crawford protesters will keep the group in the headlines and adds momentum to the Crawford campers' efforts. These efforts alone, however, merely publicize the issue and gain supporters, but do not create an effective obstacle to the war effort itself.
So, after thinking for a while about this discussion, I have to admit that I feel more committed to the notion that educational fora and talking about the issues in groups of sympathetic (and unsympathetic) people is vital to building a strong social movement. After all, if someone's idea of a revolutionary strategy is boycotting a cash-strapped City University, it's clear that the problem is not a surplus of education and knowledge. If this idea strikes you as brilliant, think about it for a few minutes: even if you could get everyone to do this "boycott CUNY" idea, (which you wouldn't be able to because the economic incentive for education is too great), how would a successful boycott against CUNY challenge the power structure? It seems to me it would provide justification for the people in authority to say , "Poor, urban, minority kids don't want to go to school, so let's get rid of the whole place. Let's use that money to fund something for rich people, or to fund a new jail to put all those unemployed kids in." Asking NYC high school kids to boycott CUNY is like suggesting that flood victims in New Orleans boycott FEMA or the Red Cross because of corruption and cronyism. Ain't gonna happen, and even if it did, what would the result be, besides hunger, exhaustion and the undermining of services?
To any readers out there who say, "more action, less talk!" I agree that the "more action" is needed, but it's vital that the action comes out of a place of thoughtfulness and creativity if it's going to make a significant difference. "action" otherwise either will get sucked into the electoral arena, into individualistic efforts around "buying green," or other lifestyle strategies, or it will perhaps go into futile revolutionary posturing that doesn't approach the real institutions of power. I'm not saying that people have to read a bunch of books to figure out how to organize, but it would help if people could analyze the situation broadly when they went about planning their actions to unseat power. Everyone learns these things in the process of activism, however, if only out of necessity, so maybe my immediate reaction to one student's cockamamie "direct action" strategy is excessive.
While the energy of the students was stimulating on one hand, I left the forum feeling concerned that the left has failed to demonstrate any kind of effective leadership, at least in New York City. The sectarian left has continued to fight smaller battles over preferred strategies that seem to promote particular organizations more than build movement unity. The non-sectarian left, including groups like CODEpink and UFPJ got completely neutered by their focus on the 2004 elections and have yet to find their footing. Meanwhile, students at places like CUNY ping-pong these strategies around. If Cindy Sheehan was this generation's Greensboro sit-in, what role will students play in this anti-war movement?

First Amendment Hero?

Over the Summer, many mainstream news sources described administration toady, Judith Miller as a first amendment hero for refusing to reveal her source inside the Whitehouse during the CIA leak investigation. She spent time in prison! people noted.
While that was going on, another journalist was being held (and is still being held, as far as I can tell) because of what he videotaped in Iraq. CBS camerman, Abdel Amir Hussein is being held indefinetely because what he filmed, said the military suggested he was "too close" to the Iraqi insurgency. I just found out about his case because I was searching for information on the current number of detainees at the various US prisons and his name came up.
According to "Reporters Sans Frontiers " he's among the 115 journalists currently held in prison. around the world

Holiday Update

After several hours of watching "Lost" last night and all weekend, I should probably be doing research on television addiction, but instead I'm in my office catching up on paperwork after my two classes on radical abolitionism and free love.
The Thanksgiving weekend was, as you can see from the pictures below, somewhat typically suburban. In addition to the chameleon in the window, we saw a whole family of deer in the backyard. Then there was the trip to Costco, and the antiques outing to Pittsboro, home of that marvelous palace of chic, "Beggars and Choosers."
Along with these suburban pleasures, Southern nostalgia for me includes the smell of woodsmoke and the tangy taste of pimiento cheese. I am partial to the spread when made with
sharp cheddar cheese
pimientos
home-made mayonaise
dijon mustard
1 dash bourbon (Bill Neal style)
salt, pepper and cayenne to taste

Interspersed with the excessive eating, there were more family discussions about politics of many varieties and a trip with the younguns to the white hipster mecca, "the Orange County Social Club" where it was possible to buy four beers for $12.50! which may explain why a single man approached my group of four women (and one man who was married to one of us) and tried to buy us drinks.
For those NYC readers, who want to get a feel for the CH indy scene that congregates a the OCSC think Williamsburg+ college basketball. Oh yeah, it's an indy-rock scene, so there's music involved too. It revolved, when I was there around bands like Polvo, Archers of Loaf, Superchunk, Zen Frisbee, Picasso Trigger, and The Squirrel Nut Zippers. Now, I have no idea who the latest cool bands are, though I saw an old friend from Zen Frisbee at the OCSC and didn't say "hey" because he stopped being nice once he got too cool and now he looks like an old, sad drunk.
More interesting than this hipster scene, I discovered too late in my own Chapel Hill life, is the old-time music world of the mountains that sometimes makes it into the Piedmont. On Saturday night, I got a chance to catch up with my old friend, CeCe Conway, who told me about the Black Banjo Gathering that she organized in Boone, NC. Partly because of this gathering, a new generation of Black musicians is being introduced to old timey-music. Every year, I want to go down South to the fiddlers' conventions and bring some Yankees with me. Cece coached me in fieldwork when I went to a convention with her, which meant I got to hold the camera, and I hope that I can take advantage of this connection in the future....Going to fiddlers' conventions is fun, but going to a fiddlers convention with an Appalachian folklorist is better.
Back in NY, things are somewhat more workaday, and thus all the way home on the plane I read about the Savings and Loan bailout and the role of that tower of "fiscal responsibility" Alan Greenspan.