gadfly on zinelibrary

Vol 1.2 is also now available on the zine library. Get it by click on the image below

video repost

from State of Collapse.

And the mainstream media source: http://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta/attorney-cop-used-excessive-926236.html

Fucking pig bastards, all should be disbanded.
ACAB. Remember that. Nothing good can come from having a police force.

I'M A MIDD KID, I experiment with moderately liberal social attitudes that provide a self-satisfied sense of rebellion against the values of my parents, while still remaining well within the comfortable boundaries of bourgeois societal norms

OUT NOW!

Download the latest printed edition of the Gadfly here!

Hard copies will be appearing around campus today and tomorrow!
They are available NOW at the following locations:
Ross Dining Hall
Proctor Dining Hall
Davis Library
Crossroads Café
The Gamut Room

The "hardcover" copies are going quickly, but there are some paper copies available as well!


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All copies were printed using donated student printing quotas. If you want to donate some of your leftover printing money next semester, please e-mail us! It would be greatly appreciated!

out monday

being released on monday.
volume 1.2 of the gadfly.

100 copies are hand-bound with screen printed covers on recycled cardboard.
Additional copies without the cardboard covers will be available.
and it will be available to download.

keep your eyes peeled.

lecture of interest

thought this would be of interest to gadfly readers. it is not sponsored by us.

From Rabble-rousers to Revolutionaries: Inside Egypt’s Youth Movement, First in 2008, Again in 2011

By

David Wolman ’96.5

Author, Journalist, and Contributing Editor

WIRED Magazine

4:30 p.m., Tuesday, 4/26

Dana Auditorium

Middlebury Dis/identifications: Building an Anti-Institution Campus Movement

I am writing this article to bring other activists into a conversation that has already begun among students who are working toward revolution and liberation, and who see all systems of oppression and privilege as irrevocably intertwined. I am writing this article for all of the radical activists who have ever felt disempowered or silenced after requesting institutional support for their causes. I am writing this article because, as an anti-oppression activist, I believe that the institution of Middlebury is systematically co-opting, regulating, neutralizing, silencing, and marginalizing our movements. When we want to make big waves at Middlebury, it can be nearly impossible to get authority figures to support us. The reason for this is that we are struggling for survival and liberation within an institution whose goals are often fundamentally at odds with our own. I am writing this article because I’m angry, and because, as Audre Lorde once wrote, “anger expressed and translated into action in the service of our vision and our future is a liberating and strengthening act of clarification, for it is in the painful process of this translation that we identify who are our allies with whom we have grave differences, and who are our genuine enemies.”

Let me start by defining what Middlebury is, exactly, because I think we students often forget. Middlebury is a corporation that disproportionately admits and hires heterosexual, able-bodied, cisgender, English-speaking white people with U.S. citizenship and no criminal background. It both benefits from and perpetuates oppressive ideologies of racism, sexism, capitalism, ableism, imperialism, and the gender binary. A corporation’s primary goal is to accumulate wealth. In a racist and sexist country, making profit typically requires perpetuating systems of power like white and male privilege. As a corporation, then, Middlebury would not exist today without oppressive systems like capitalism, white supremacy, and patriarchy. I am not arguing that Administrators intentionally perpetuate these systems. But first and foremost, Administrators are accountable to the corporation, and they want to preserve a particular image of this corporation that will lead to more profit. This means that for things like safety and access, Administrators typically will not go beyond compliance with government regulations. For example, why would they make old buildings more wheelchair accessible if the ADA doesn’t require it? The issue is not whether these are “nice people” who run our school; the issue is accountability, and the connections between Middlebury and the vast systems of power that structure all of our lives.

In the context of this corporate landscape, we cannot expect the institution to protect us from experiences of marginalization and violence in the classroom, in our dorms, and in the dining halls.

Think of the most successful activist campaigns in the past few years, and think of how they were presented to both the Administration, and to the general community: carbon neutrality, all-gender housing, and student printing budgets come to my mind. While these were all important victories that were achieved in spite of great institutional resistance, what these campaigns have in common is that they either save money for the corporation, or prevent potential lawsuits on the basis of discrimination (which also saves money). In order to be considered “successful” activists, we are often forced to perpetuate the common-sense logic of capitalism: goals like accumulating endless profit and competing with other higher-ed corporations are not questioned, and we ignore the human costs of exploited staff members and investments in unsustainable or oppressive markets.

For those who are or have been directly marginalized by capitalism, putting a dollar value on our activism can be degrading, oppressive, and marginalizing. But on a more systematic level, being forced to quantify our activism effectively silences radical or minority causes, whose goals may not save Middlebury enough money, or may not fit into this monetized system at all. The causes that lose out are the ones that overtly challenge Middlebury’s whiteness, male supremacy, and able-bodied privilege: causes with labels like “Diversity”, “Social Justice”, and “Sustainability” receive funding and institutional support because they lead to increased prestige and profits without forcing anyone to critically interrogate privilege and oppression. Ask yourself: if a top Administrator is presented with two campaigns – one that advertises experiences of racism in the classroom to incoming students of color, and one that advertises the racial diversity of our student body – whom do you think will get funding and support? Institutional support always comes with strings attached, which forces students to become accountable to the corporation, rather than to the political causes or marginalized populations we are supposed to be fighting for. Collaborating with Administrators limits our options in terms of the goals we can pursue and how we can achieve them. As someone who believes that capitalism is thoroughly enmeshed with all other systems of oppression, the goal of my activism is not to make Middlebury wealthier or more competitive, but rather to make it a more accessible environment with a more equitable power structure.

When activists work within Middlebury’s institutionalized avenues of change, we are forced to structure our organizations on a vertical-power model, like a corporation, with something mimicking a board of directors that makes decisions about how to spend money and what causes to support. This corporatized system of activism forces members of the same clubs to compete with one another for organizational power, which often silences and marginalizes those who do not win positions of authority. Corporatized activism also serves to pit entire clubs against each other in competition: environmentalists, prison abolitionists, and anti-racists compete for funding for symposia, speakers, parties, and club budgets, instead of collaborating to make the most effective, cross-cutting events and clubs possible. As a result, many radical activists who have been denied funding harbor resentment against students and organizations whose projects help Middlebury gain some “green prestige” or “diversity points”, but which don’t significantly improve the quality of our lives. The thing is, there is money at Middlebury, but most of it is spent on things like paint jobs and renovations. Our activism need not be a zero-sum game. We need to stop resenting the people whom the institution privileges, and start blaming the institution itself for pitting us against one another, for forcing us to see our causes as mutually exclusive, for spending money excessively and irresponsibly, and for using the empty promise of funding to neutralize radical critiques of power.

The lack of diversity among our organizing strategies shows that this institution not only structures and regulates our movements, but it has even limited the possibilities we can imagine for a better campus, and for a better world beyond Middlebury. I want to argue that the only way to combat the control that Middlebury has over our bodies, movements, and imaginations is through a radical dis-identification with the institution. In other words, we need to start thinking about what it would mean to work outside of these avenues that are designed to produce profit and prestige. While we should respect the efforts of institutional players like the Chief Diversity Officer and the Sexual Assault Oversight Committee, we should do so with extreme skepticism and distance, acknowledging that we are accountable to different causes.

Given that Administrators are accountable to the corporation, it is not surprising when they co-opt, exploit, and neutralize the efforts of radical student activists. Personally, I have routinely had my ideas co-opted by College employees, only to see them passed off as the gifts of a benevolent institution. I have been asked to put in long hours of unpaid labor for the goal of improving Middlebury – have completed research, staff workshops, and outreach campaigns that, frankly, are in the job descriptions of Administrators – and when my help was no longer needed or it was seen as forcing Middlebury beyond compliance, I have been told to be quiet and go home. In the classroom and in meetings with Administrators, I have been made to feel ridiculous, naïve, and immature for holding radical anti-capitalist and transfeminist views, and for making “impossible demands”. I know I am not the only one who has experienced this treatment. If this has been your experience, let’s vocalize and share our dissatisfaction, and turn it into something transformative.

We need to acknowledge that the revolution will not be funded – it will not come from the top-down, but from the ground-up. Instead of working with people who do not respect me and who want to keep me from dreaming big, I’d like to work directly with my communities to find ways of organizing outside the institution to build trust, love, accountability, and transformation in ways that aren’t defined by profit, prestige, and privilege. This is the conversation that I want us all to have.

This article was not meant to be an exhaustive critique of activism at Middlebury. But for those activists who have ever felt silenced and marginalized by the institution, I think we need to face some uncomfortable truths about our activism. First, we need to be more transparent about the fact that Middlebury would not be here without capitalism, white supremacy, and the stolen land it occupies. We need to question what it means to fight for acceptance, liberation, accessibility, and justice within such a corporation. We need to ask what it means that we, as anti-oppression activists, benefit from the social, cultural, and material capital that this oppressive institution hands to us. Second, we need to restructure our movements, and redefine political success as something more powerful and pervasive than a policy change or a Council. We need to rely less on institutional patronage as a means to our ends, and build community alternatives to colluding with authority, while being realistic about the fact that this community entirely renews itself every four years. Finally, and most importantly, we need to renegotiate the connections among our movements and the institution. In seeking out the radical possibilities for anti-institution collaboration, we need to demand – not request – that this experience we have purchased is not a damaging one. We need to turn our dissatisfaction with the institution into positive change by spreading guerilla art, staging sit-ins, storming Community Council meetings, organizing labor and academic strikes, speaking the truth to prospective students and Administrators, and shouting out our stories of how this institution has marginalized us.

What we need to do is stop trusting and identifying with Middlebury, Inc., and start being proud of our identities as wing-nuts, as rabble-rousers, and as pissed-off radicals.


(the gadfly )

A Palestinian State: No Freedom of Movement

A Palestinian State: No Freedom of Movement

"Nothing shall be done that may prejudice the religious or civil rights of the existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine" – Balfour Declaration, 1917

Despite the intention of the 1917 Balfour Declaration, existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine have consistently been denied their civil rights. Palestinians have been under strict regulations in the form of checkpoints, curfews, closures, and physical boundaries such as roads and blockades that have hindered the formation of a vibrant Palestinian civil society. The Israeli-Palestinian Agreement in 1993 (Olso I) served as a framework towards a two-state solution whereby Israel and Palestine agreed to, “strive to live in peaceful coexistence and mutual dignity and security to achieve a just, lasting, and comprehensive peace settlement.” Oslo included in Article 8, “Public Order and Security,” that “Israel will continue to carry the responsibility for defending against external threats, as well as the responsibility for overall security of Israelis for the purpose of safeguarding their internal security and public order.” On the ground, the enforcement of security became the strict establishment of separate roads for Israelis and Palestinians along with harsher restrictions on permits. A fundamental component of social order is the freedom of movement. Described as the matrix of control, Israeli regulations deny Palestinians freedom of movement through militarized regulations that directly prevent the emergence of an effective civil society within Palestinian territories. Throughout the peace process security concerns have resulted in the establishment of checkpoints with harsher permit systems, separation in the form of highways, bypass roads and curfews. These security measures have been in the interest of Israeli’s safety and have become methods of indirect control over Palestinian civil society.

Olso I marked the beginning of highly restricted movement within and around Occupied Territories. Oslo served as an interim-agreement to facilitate the establishment of a Palestinian state that could peacefully coexist with Israel. The agreement sought to establish a valid Palestinian state, ensured the withdrawal of the Israeli military, and also ensured the deployment of Israeli troops in Occupied Territories. These practices were important measures of ensuring security. During the time of Oslo, Israel had been victim to a suicide bombing, attacks and stabbings. Soon it was common for Israeli cars to be stoned when crossing Occupied Territories. An increase in uprisings during 1987 until 1993 instilled fear among Israelis. Thus, the legitimate use of force over the Palestinians in order to maintain security was regularly employed.

In September 1995, the Oslo II agreement set-up a framework that would divide the settlements into blocs: the West Bank was divided into Areas A, B, C, and D and Gaza was divided into Yellow, Green, Blue and White Areas. Oslo II began the total redeployment of the Israeli military in the areas that were strictly Palestinian settlements. These divisions worsened the constraints on movement between settlements. The break of the Second Intifada (2000-2004) resulted in severe enforcements on closures and curfews in Occupied Territories and established roads for Israelis with secondary routes for Palestinians.

Checkpoints serve as barriers between the areas within Occupied Territories. About 50,000 settlers live in each area and are required to present their permits in order to cross the checkpoints. Israeli troops staff checkpoints and are in charge of controlling the movement of persons and goods. By 2004, there were 48 staffed permanent barriers and 607 blockades. Palestinians apply for permits through the Civil Administration on the basis of age, sex, employment, institutional affiliation and political activity. Israelis are issued cards with blue plastic holders, Palestinian carry orange, and Gazans carry red holders. Additionally, political prisoners are also issued a different color. Based on criteria authorized by the Civil Administration, permits control access to cross certain checkpoints and roads.

Restrictions placed on movement through the use of checkpoints indirectly prevents Palestinians the access to resources, jobs and healthcare. After 1991, strict sanctions on Arab employers who were required permits resulted in a significant decline of the Palestinian workforce in Israel. Stories of Palestinian sending for an ambulance and the ambulance not being able to cross the checkpoint or blockade are commonly heard. Palestinian women have given birth at checkpoints. Moreover, the restrictions on movement undermine a flourishing Palestinian civil society. The humiliation the checkpoint system instills in the Palestinian people is detrimental. For a pregnant woman to have to give birth at a checkpoint because she is a potential security threat highlights the extreme measures taken on the restriction of movement by the Israeli military.

Systems of roads are constructed throughout the Occupied Territories to maintain separation between Israelis and Palestinians. There are twenty-nine bypass roads that cross West Bank settlements in order to connect Israeli settlements. Israeli settlements are built along the highways and the Green line. Palestinian construction is prohibited nearby. Highways and bypass roads fragment Palestinian settlements, creating disunity and isolation. A civil society becomes impossible to garner when there is such a divide among communities. Palestinian settlements are cut off from one another making inter-relationships, mobilization and attaining resources nearly impossible. The construction of roads has connected Israeli settlers while fragmenting Palestinian settlers.

Curfews have been issued in Palestinian settlements by the Israeli military as a method of security. This has proved to be a repressive security tactic against Palestinian life. Curfews function as collective punishment. Curfews allow the military to restrict entering and exiting an area under curfew and can last anywhere from a few hours to a few weeks. Palestinians refer to curfews as man’ al-tajawwul, an Arabic expression meaning “banning of movement.” Curfews were commonly used during the Second Intifada as a means of repressing uprisings and violence. Loss of jobs was a consequence for areas that were under curfew. Data has shown that from September 2000 to June 2003 employed dropped 50% in areas under curfew. Additionally, schools have been forced to close for long periods of time due to absences of students and teachers. Curfews are still a legitimate security measure employed by the Israeli military. These measures hinder the prospects of an effective civil society by denying Palestinians their basic rights through confinement. The divisions that are caused by checkpoints and roads are only furthered by the social and political isolation caused by curfews.

The formation of a civil society relies on basic freedoms that allow for freedom expression and movement. Israel’s interest in maintaining security has restricted basic freedoms, which has severely harmed the social and political fabric of the Palestinian people. Civil society among Occupied Territories cannot emerge when freedom of movement is denied. Apart from the immediate effects on movement, the morale of Palestinian nationhood is at risk. Unity and self-determination are values that strengthen civil society. Restrictions on movement through separation and control has divided and humiliated the Palestinian people. The civil liberties of Palestinians are absent from the current social and political reality. The peace process must reconsider what a two-state solution means for such an asymmetrical structure of power. There must be a shift in Israeli’s interest for security otherwise Palestinian civil society will not flourish.

Juliano Mer-Khamis, actor, director and political activist, was killed on April 4^th in the Palestinian city of Jenin. He ran the Freedom Theatre in Jenin, which sought to empower Palestinian children through expression. There must be justice for Juliano and those who are suffering due to this enduring crisis.

Dedicated Towards What?

Middlebury College does not equally value all of its students as it is interested in crafting and applauding those who align with its informally maintained narrow mission.  In the following passages we investigate a few topics of exploration to breakdown just what our institution does value and question our dedication towards distinction and domination instead of justice.

Activism

            President Liebowitz is eager to step up at any opportunity to applaud the efforts of our student activism on campus.  He is quick to point out that the Environmental Council, which includes students, helped to push a skeptical board of trustees into building our biomass plant to reduce our carbon footprint.  In fact, he clings to that golden message so much that it got him into Time magazine as one of “The 10 Best College Presidents.” 

Liebowitz likes to tell of how enthusiastic he was when a group of students came to his office and informed him they wanted to enter the Solar Decathlon.  He excitedly threw thousands from his discretionary funds behind the students.  Additionally, he organized an all-star team of faculty and administrators to assist them in creating a stellar proposal.  Due in large part to Liebowitz’s emphatic support of this endeavor, Middlebury has been accepted by the United States Department of Energy as the only liberal arts college in the history of the competition.  Students working on the project have been able to take a reduced course load since they are receiving credit for their dedicated work to the house.  While the house will be built and displayed on the National Mall next fall, the students involved were told not to worry about their classes because the Dean that has been assigned to work with them will graciously ensure they receive appropriate accommodations to receive full credit for their work despite being off campus for most all of the semester.

            Students are so passionate and determined to get their voice out on the issues they feel strongly about that ten percent of our student body will be traveling to Washington DC for the student climate activist summit Powershift.  The Student Government Association graciously awarded thousands of dollars in “loans” so that the organizers could make reservations for bus transportation down to the event.  I use the word “loan” hesitantly because it was kind of like the subprime mortgages that were given out to non credit worthy homebuyers that ended up destroying our world by causing an economic downturn so horrible that we were forced to shut down Atwater Dining Hall.  There is no way that these loans will be paid back in full, but it is okay, there will be forgiveness because the event bolsters Middlebury’s image.  Dean Collado, while hesitating to meet with the Institutional Diversity Committee until six months into her return to the college, despite holding the title as Chief Diversity Officer, nevertheless put her entire support right away behind the Powershift efforts.  She even hosted a retreat with Posse and the environmental group Sunday Night Group to try to darken the average skin color of the Middlebury students headed down to Washington.

            What is the common theme that holds all of these pretty images together?  They are green, but more importantly, they get Middlebury College absurd amounts of press and recognition.  While each of these endeavors are certainly fantastic and the accolades that accommodate them are undoubtedly deserved, to claim from this that Middlebury actually supports student activism would be omitting just as big of a piece of the story as our admissions does in their blatant propaganda to attract more and more students to apply to the college so that we can reject them and increase our ranking.

            Let me put this as clearly as possible: Middlebury College does not care about student activism.  Well, what do I mean?  Didn’t I just outline how impressive the administrations’ support of student efforts has been?  To be most honest I should add a modifier to the previous statement.  Middlebury College does not care about student activism unless it serves to further the image of Middlebury that the administration has imagined.  The school does not care about radical action that pushes us to uncomfortable positions where we must examine our implications and complicit actions of injustice.  The school does, however, care that student activism comfortably conforms to perpetuate support for what the school wants to be seen as and not how it necessarily is.

            When students demanded that the college to take action to address gender affirming policies and other social justice issues on campus, the administration hesitated to embrace the efforts.  The college saw a rising power of students pushing for a Gender Council and further delayed action and eventually voted it down in attempts to dissipate student momentum and further marginalize issues of gender that make this campus an incredibly unwelcoming and discriminatory place for far too many students.

            However, the administration was not quick to attempt to kill this grassroots, social justice oriented, policy change agent.  First they wanted to squeeze Gender Council for all they were worth before setting them out to dry.  The brilliant students were asked to give presentations to administrators who did not understand the issues being raised.  These workshops were incredibly time intensive to prepare and made the courses the students were enrolled in very challenging to keep up with.  The administration abused the students for their incredible work and failed to give them any recognition.

            Just like the biomass gasification plant, students pushed and pushed for Gender Council.  Unlike the bio plant the students were never taken seriously with Gender Council.  Just like the Solar Decathlon, the students involved in the Gender Council efforts put in so much time that it took away from their studies.  Unlike the Solar Decathlon, the Gender Council students were told that their efforts were entirely “volunteered” and they were not to receive any course credit.  Just like Powershift, Gender Council tried to be inclusive of all students on campus.  Unlike Powershift, Gender Council did not have the administration bring in different student organizations from across campus and encourage them to participate.

            As this evidences, Middlebury College does not care about student activism when it questions privileges and pushes for just systemic change.  The administration relegates all race and gender work to a lower status of voluntary work without acknowledging that being able to access facilities is not about getting us in the headlines, but rather about a method of survival for our marginalized students.  “Bad” kids do not ask tough questions.  “Good” kids act as puppets for adults own agenda and massagers of the adults’ egos.

Literacy

            In The Disappearance of Childhood, Neil Postman argues that with the invention of the printing press came the invention of the child.  A knowledge gap was created between those who had access to the “rational” world of written ideas and those who did not.  Literacy was the key to adulthood and had to be earned.

            Middlebury very much agrees with Postman in that they are sure to assign us way too much reading to feasibly actually complete, just so on Princeton Review rankings we can jump for joy when we are one of the top schools where “Students Study the Most.”  To make it out of Middlebury you have to be “literate” and thus on the path to becoming a successful adult.

            However, it is not just important that we are literate, but rather also what we are literate in.  “Good” kids do not read romance novels.  When one was assigned to a Sociology of Heterosexuality course, students nervously made excuses why they were purchasing a romance novel in the stores.  The less courageous students just went to Amazon.  It feels so wrong to buy a romance novel because that is not what “good” kids read.  We have all internalized this notion that we have to maintain a front of being a “good” kids because otherwise how else would we have ever gotten into Middlebury?  One student admitted in class that she was so embarrassed by the cover of her book that she was sure to purchase in the self-checkout aisle so she would not be seen.

            Romance novels may be bad, but worse is to be literate in the humanities.  Despite Middlebury claiming that it wants us to be well versed in a diverse array of disciplines, the liberal arts rhetoric runs no deeper than lip service.  “Bad” kids go out and change the world in ways that do not get Middlebury press.  “Good” kids go out and change the world in ways that do.  Ultimately, “good” kids go out to become “good” adults and make a lot of money (ethically or not is irrelevant) and donate it back in the form of a building to the school so they can be forever immortalized.

Preparing us to be “good” adults is all about preparing us to dominate.  We may like that you can think, but while you are at it major in Economics so you do not just end up starting to think so hard that you begin to undermine capitalistic principles that allow us to study drowning in such privilege.

The only students that are “good” enough to meet with the “holy” board of trustees are those involved in the Student Investment Committee.  These students literally manage a few hundred thousand dollars of our endowment and are continually applauded by our administration for their success.  The college holds them up as being the exemplary model of who and what a “good” Middlebury student is.

The Student Investment Committee knows their important role in helping “kids” grow up to be the successful adults that Middlebury wants them to be.  A poster to recruit for the group reads: “Because being literate enough to read Kant does not mean you are financially literate enough to pick the right mortgage.”  By reading this article and working through my ideas it has been demonstrated that you are clearly literate, but just what type of literate are you?  Is it the appropriate literacy to be granted adulthood by Middlebury standards?

Protecting the PhD

            “Adult status has to be earned so damn those “kids” whose intelligence positions them over me.  They do not have a PhD yet and I will make that known.”  Of course our professors may not convey themselves as blatant as this, but undoubtedly the thought has crossed many of their minds.  This, in turn, has shaped their action towards their students.  In so doing, protectionary measures are taken to ensure the value of the PhD is retained.

            If the measure by which we considered one to be an adult was put into question we would have a lot of previously “adults” fighting to regain the dominant status they thought that they had worked and deserved to acquire.  Of course there is no one finite measure of adulthood and we should really be using plurals to take about the concept since there are so many various conceptions. 

Just like other identities, the saliency of which basis we use to position ourselves as adults or children varies on our situation.  In the college setting, most certainly an important signifier of status and distinction is the terminal degree possessed by faculty.  Once granted a PhD, these newly arrived adults are actively investing in ensuring chil does not substitute in for the Ph.

Students may be encouraged to think critically in the classroom, but like all behaviors there is a limit we place on this.  A student’s capacity to think may be highly regarded until it reaches the point of competition with the instructor.  At this point nervous energy invades and the defense of the border of distinction is on.

Many professors work to ensure that this point will never come close to being reached.  They do so by having their students remind them of their doctoral status every time the students wish to address them.  Such is like reminding Jane and Bobby to call Edwin’s mom Mrs. Claudett.  See Mrs. Claudett is a woman who has achieved “adulthood” and the “kids” Jane and Bobby are thus of a lower status and they must address her in a way that maintains such inequality.

This fact is internalized to such a large degree that at new faculty trainings at Middlebury a topic of concern is what the students should be allowed to call the arriving scholars.  When one woman professor suggested that she wanted her students to call her by her name, others jumped on her repulsively.  To use your first name in the classroom destroys a distance that faculty “work hard” to “achieve.”  It immediately allows the status of that person’s “adulthood” in the academy to come into question. 

The college creates stern policy against students earning credit for courses taught at community colleges.  Likewise, online classes receive no credit.  These policies are heavily endorsed by our faculty because they want to have written into bylaws the fact that students may not receive credit from a location where they may not necessarily be taught by someone with a PhD.

When one person gets challenged there is a frantic response because we are concerned about a snowball being started that will soon upend the privileged position we know ourselves as occupying and put into question who we really are.  Suddenly we are left without our signifier of distinction from the students and consequently are extremely uncomfortable by that fact. 

Soon the growing ball of snow will be put on display in the construction of a snowperson.  Snowpeople are vulnerable for they lack the clothing that would try to trick us into believing that they are a more significant being then they really are, just a mound of matter like us all, a mere mortal who will melt away come the wrath of a global warming.

Languages

            Although we may ostentatiously wish to believe otherwise, most people do not know what the heck Middlebury College is and could not care less about it.  When people ask us where it is they immediately everyone must be a skier not the valedictorians of their high school.  When people have heard of Middlebury, they talk about what great language programs it has.

            Why is our language program so revered and what is its honest purpose?  The fact is we do not learn languages at Middlebury to celebrate cultures, rather we merely learn languages to dominate them.  “Bad” kids may be involved in actions that appreciate life (drugs, punk rock, skateboarding), but we must criticize such “immature hedonistic fools.”  We are “good” kids and that means we have no time to enjoy life, but rather must follow the correct disciplined path so that we may become proper adults who have the power to control and manipulate life.

            Any song that may be learned in our language classes should be utilized for nothing more than a mnemonic device that then allows us to progress to our next stage in becoming dictating adults.  Most of our language classes do not even try to put up a façade that claims otherwise. 

On one of the first vocabulary lists for students learning in Arabic is “United Nations.”  That of course is because we are explicitly teaching our “good” kids to become diplomats.  The very Arabic they learn is incredibly classed and only used by high political officials.  One student remarked that learning Arabic here and then expecting to be able to use it to talk to somebody on the street would be just like learning Latin in our Classics department and then expecting to fluently interact with everyone in Italy.

            In Hebrew classes students are always debating Palestine and Israel.  We actively teach that there is no other reason why one should desire to learn the language.

            All of our languages are taught in a very elite dialect of the colonizer and never of the colonized.  The locations of our schools abroad perfectly illustrates this point as well.  We do not want to teach the dialect of some “powerless people” because then how will you be able to utilize the language to extract power from them?

            Just as we as “good” kids speak the “proper” dialects of the languages we learn, so too is there immense pressure on students to speak “standard” American English.  While we have a student body from all over the globe, it would be very hard to decipher that fact merely from how we talk.  When the kid from Texas has the exact same “non-existent” accent as the kid from the Midwest, we are clearly devaluing a certain culture and placing one above another, but so too is that what Middlebury is always doing.  As “good” kids we have been granted the duty to learn to dominate the world.

Spraypainting Workshop

There's an event through VACA (Vitality of the Artistic Community Association) this Saturday (16 April) that might be of interest.

Stenciling/Spraypainting Workshop
LoFo
2pm
All supplies provided

Later the same evening there is an exhibition of student artwork at the Old Stone Mill Gallery. 6-8pm. Also free.

-t h e g (a) d f l y

RADICALISM & CURRICULUM: TWO WORDS YOU WILL NEVER SEE IN THE SAME SENTENCE

Anyone who takes a political science or philosophy course at Middlebury College and expects a balanced curriculum, with readings ranging from radicals like Emma Goldman and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon to liberals like John Rawls and Peter Singer to conservatives like Edmund Burke and Thomas Hobbes to fascists like Mussolini and Franco, will be sorely disappointed. Instead, you will find readings by theorists ranging from Rawls to Hobbes, staying almost entirely within the mainstream political binary that consists of only two options. If you’re lucky, maybe you will get three options, perhaps in the “suggested readings.” Professors proudly declare that they have shown both sides of the issue, when in reality, there are almost always more than just two sides to any given issue. If you are exposed to a radical viewpoint, it will probably be a cursory read of Marx’s Communist Manifesto, which your professor hastily dismisses as having not worked in reality. Your professor will conclude that you’ve covered all the radical viewpoints now (after all, Marxism is the only radical viewpoint, right?) and move on to the material that should be “taken seriously.” But more likely, you will not even be exposed to any radical viewpoints at all, as was the case in Murray Dry’s American Political Regime. You would never know from that class that radical labor unions had considerable power in the early 20^th century United States, the membership of the I.W.W. numbering over 100,000 in 1923, until the government cracked down on radicalism in the First Red Scare.

            Some departments, courses, and professors are better than others. You might read about prison abolition in a sociology course, and you might look at some radical views about art in an aesthetics course. But in most courses, especially those that are overtly about political issues, this is unlikely. Indeed, a survey of introductory political science courses reveals Marx’s Communist Manifesto and Capital as the only radical readings on the syllabi, and these in only two of six 100-level courses. Among the three 100-level philosophy courses offered, no readings presenting politically radical ideas appear on the syllabi. Between the two 100-level economics courses, again no readings presenting radical ideas appear on the syllabi…of course, economics courses don’t even pretend to represent radical viewpoints.

            This is an appeal for true balance in the curriculum. It is easy to ignore viewpoints outside the mainstream in the bubble that is Middlebury College, where we never have to come in contact with people outside of this insulated community. It is easy, but it is not right. When I chose to spend my undergraduate years at Middlebury, I expected an institution that values pluralism and encourages differing opinions. Instead, I found an institution that lives in a binary.

-BOS

You've Earned the Right to be Exploited

pigs on campus

Saturday April 9 2011

Approximately 11:30AM, cop seen "talking to" (questioning?) people in Proctor Dining Hall.

A few minutes later, two cop cars parked behind a public safety vehicle in parking spots behind the library. 3 pigs and 1 pub safe officer were talking in a group behind the library.

There reason for being here is unknown. Keep your eyes and ears open.

Fuck all cops and cop collaborators. They have no purpose in our, or any, community.

Challenging a "Culture of Despair"

The following is an email correspondence between a student and the Chair of the Economics Department.  It is in response to an offensive lecture the college hosted without allowing for any critique.  The email and op-ed following the event have gotten numerous people talking on our campus about many significant issues and has demonstrated that we all have the power to make some noise and begin to challenge domineering and “unquestionable” subjects.  While certainly some have disagreed with the methodology and language used in the email, ultimately being firm and honest about grave matters is essential to questioning a serious action.  Focusing merely on timing and language is simply an act of resistance (see Dr. King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”).  You all can and should speak up to challenge one another in our community!

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Subject: March 17: Talk on early non-marital childbearing

Phil  Levine (Wellesley College)

Early Non-Marital Childbearing and the "Culture of Despair"

Location/Time: Thursday, March 17, 4:30-5:30 Axinn 220

This paper borrows from the tradition of other social sciences in considering the impact that “culture” (broadly defined as the economic and social environment in which the poor live) plays in determining early, non-marital childbearing. Along with others before us, we hypothesize that the despair and hopelessness that poor, young women may face increases the likelihood that they will choose to give birth at an early age outside of marriage. We derive a formal economic model that incorporates the role a woman’s perception of economic success may play in determining her childbearing and marital outcomes. We operationalize this perception mainly by using the level of income inequality that exists in a woman’s state of residence. We empirically investigate whether low socioeconomic status (SES) women are more responsive to differences in the level of income inequality in terms of their childbearing and marital outcomes. We find low SES women have more teen, non-marital births when they live in higher inequality locations, all else equal, supporting our hypothesis. The mechanism driving this finding is less frequent use of abortion. For women in their early 20s, higher inequality reduces the prevalence of shotgun marriages among low SES women, leading to more (fewer) non-marital (marital) births.

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Dear Chair Matthews,

I am deeply appalled and tremendously offended that your department has chosen to endorse such a hateful lecture.  "Culture of despair" rhetoric is simply a re-branding of the equally problematic "culture of poverty" that both dehumanizes the poor and blames them for their "condition".  Where are the voices of the women in this study?  They have been simply reduced to a faulty economic model.

We must stand up as a community to blatantly discriminatory lectures that our college endorses.  As human beings striving to be just and fair we cannot tolerate hate.  The college has a history of supporting hateful racism, classism, sexism...and that is wrong.  A few years ago Charles Murray came to campus to speak about his disgusting justification of the superiority of whites in the Bell Curve and we did not bring him here ironically or bring somebody else afterwards to critique his oppressive position.

Thank you very much for reminding me that just because Middlebury offers wonderful classes such as Writing for Social Change and Social Justice in Education that does not actually mean it is committed to those principles.  Believing so would be a terrible mistake to make that would blind us to the horrible injustices this institution is involved in and specifically the oppression that your department perpetuates.

We must actively resist the oppression and it starts with you writing an all-campus apology and clarification.

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Thanks for sharing.

The department has not “endorsed … a hateful lecture.”  First, invitations to present seminars on campus aren’t endorsements. Second, it’s not clear to me – and unless you’ve managed to find the time to read Professor Levine’s paper before most of us have, I don’t know how it could be clear to you – that it is in fact “hateful” in the ways you suggest.  (I would suggest, however, that the analogy to Murray’s problematic work isn’t constructive here.)

I’d be pleased to send you the paper, and I would be pleased, perhaps even with a colleague or two, to discuss it with you.  I would further encourage you to attend the lecture and ask questions:  in advertising it to other departments and programs, it was our hope that the resulting conversation would reflect an even more diverse set of ideas and methods than usual.  That’s what the “liberal arts experience” is all about.

I’m afraid, however, that there will be no “all campus apology.”

Best wishes, PHM

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Dear Professor Matthews,

I appreciate your offer to sit down together and read Professor Levine's paper; however, I do not appreciate the condescending tone by which you addressed me to distance yourself from this act of injustice you are unfortunately supporting.

Every move you make is political and you can never try to remove yourself from power, pretending to be able to do so is woefully destructive.  Each book you assign to your class, every word you choose to use in lecture, and every penny you use to bring speakers to campus is a reflection and perpetuation of an ideology; there is always an embedded endorsement.

Your misunderstanding as to why this talk is hateful exactly illustrates the problematic position of not reading culture critically and acknowledging how you are situated in power structures.  As one of my friends put it: "This is just a further example of why a more appropriate name for the Econ department is the Economics Department of Oppression and Lack of Understanding."  I am not suggesting that this title is an essential component of Econ on this campus, but rather demanding that you take proactive measures to ensure that it continues to be so applicable no longer.

By no means is this an attack on you or your department; rather, this is firm stance against horrible injustice and the dehumanization of a group you are playing a part in the oppression of.

Unfortunately, your calculation that this event will lead to a more diverse set of ideas is terribly misguided.  Consider the fact that all-gender bathrooms are currently being advocated for (and much over due) on campus.  Under your misunderstanding of diversity it would possibly be harmful to focus the discussion in such a place so that we are dedicated to social justice, we should probably encourage a more diverse set of ideas around the issue, perhaps maybe we should posit something else into the conversation such as creating "White Only" and "Colored Only" bathrooms?  What do you think about that diverse idea?

A liberal arts education is not about being indoctrinated with hate.  As our mission statement reflects the experience is more about cultivating "the intellectual, creative, physical, ethical, and social qualities essential for leadership."  This lecture runs in opposition to such ethical and social qualities and therefore it is your duty to clarify and respond in an all-campus apology.

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Dear Professor Matthews,

I respectfully attended the event this afternoon, but unfortunately was not respected back.  I am curious as to why this was, perhaps you along with the administration could address this for me and the rest of our college community.

I am puzzled by how quick you were to defend Levine without having read the paper yourself and to leap to the assumption that I had no grounds for objection since I likely had not read it either.  Through the lecture, however, you now know how unsubstantiated your resistance was.

As you encouraged, I questioned Levine at the lecture.  I explicitly stated numerous questions drawing on verbatim quotes from his speech as well as troubling passages from his paper (that yes I have indeed read).  Unfortunately, I failed to receive an answer.  While I respectfully allowed the event to proceed, we certainly learned much from the silence.  Numerous members of our college community expressed disbelief in the unprofessionalism by which he handled his response; we are all left waiting for this troubling issue to seriously be addressed.

Please know that I want to engage in constructive dialogue with you.  While you invited me to speak with Levine, the offer was revoked upon the opening of my mouth.  While I find this incredibly problematic, I am not going to let it get in the way of us having an important conversation.

I look forward to your response to these urgent concerns and receiving a genuine all-campus apology that ensures such events will not be supported by the Economics Department without critical follow up.

"Il Faut Gagner"

I began writing this mid-February with intentions of writing more, but I let it drop as I started having more work to do for classes (something I’m not used to having to do in France…) Now it’s the beginning of April and Libya and Syria have added themselves to rebelling countries in the Muslim/North African world. –Laurice Fox, ‘12

“Il faut gagner!”

“…Sinon c’est la fin du monde!” I cried out jokingly—my competitive nature present. Directly across the table, Diego, poker faced—emotions well masked behind sunglasses…what I would consider a cheap way out—curtly and frankly followed my statement with: “Wikileaks est la fin du monde.” Yes; frank, unprecedented, unexplained. Everyone else around the table was having his or her own conversation before the next round commenced, but there I was immediately thrown back, and of course immediately prepared with a response. Kneeling on my chair, caipirinha in hand, I retorted, “Le fin du monde!? Ou peut-être wikileaks va faire le monde mieux!” I said it in a giddy matter—a little affected by the previous cocktails. Through the ring-clouds of cigarette smoke, cards, chips, Diego stared back at me still poker-faced, through his opaque sunglasses, leaning calmly on the edge of the table, arms crossed. He embodied the Pierce Brosnan/James Bond persona very well. And it was not until directly after my response that I actually thought about it…and thought some more about his statement and recent events.

So, still positioned on the chair on my knees and glass in hand, I drifted away from the playing table into my thoughts for a moment. What was my reasoning in my response? That Wikileaks has revealed how corrupt governments of countries are and therefore the citizens of these countries are actively demanding for political reform and so far succeeding if we look to Tunisia and Egypt as examples? Is that not a change better for the people—at least the over–looked and under- represented? So…where was Shady coming from letting his comment unfurl and blend in with the rest of the smoke rings over the table? Wikileaks: the end of the world. I assumed he was referring to what would happen after the people of these corrupt countries, which at the moment we can specify as North Africa, attained political reform. These countries may over-turn their corrupt governments, but what happens after? More political turmoil? Destabilized allies? More revolts? Interference from political super powers that could end badly? I streamed through these thoughts picturing corruption, countries at war, military verse civilian violence, and then I emerged from them and said to Diego: “En fait, t’as raison. Je pense que t’as raison.” He just stared back…

I don’t want to say that Wikileaks is the end of the world, though. Not yet at least. When I think of the end of the world I think of nuclear warfare or natural disasters of such a large scale that nearly the whole human race is effaced. For now, I can at least say that Wikileaks is the end of an era—or the beginning of one.