Californians

S

TUDENT

October 24, 2009

The War on

U P NITY&

OWER

San Francisco State University

Analysis The time for action is now! We can beat this system that is sucking the life out of our education and social services. This so called “budget crisis” has enabled legislators to slash and burn the public sector, bulldozing civil services to pave the way for corporate acquisition. There is money available in California, but most of it is being funneled

Third Issue IMPORTANT DATES

Californians At SFSU, and all over the country, budget cuts are just one part of an overall strategy of privatization. Right now the Associated Students Inc. (ASI) is pushing a 93 million dollar proposal to build an unnecessary recreation center. According to an anonymous source, the contractor for the proposed rec. center is bribing students to circulate the petition by offering them ipods. The contractors also brought a temporary rockclimbing wall to campus as an incentive for students to sign petitions in favor of the center. Our ASI money is funding this corporate marketing. Haphazard spending and privatization are decaying education and public services. Fees skyrocket as cuts continue. At CSU Dominguez Hills entire departments are getting cut including their successful Electronic Media Programming and Production program. CSU Bakersfield is planning to end its BA and MA in Spanish, French, and Chicano Studies. Its department of Modern Languages, which primarily serves Latino students, is under attack. Statewide, over 750,000 jobs have disappeared since last year. The fore-

FREE

Oct. 24 9am - 5pm Save Public Education Statewide Conference @ Pauley Ballroom, UC Berk. Oct. 29 7pm S.U.P. Meeting @ Malcom X Plaza, SFSU.

Did you know? Humbolt State University had an overnight library sit-in and teach-in this past Oct. 16.

closure rate has shot up 327 percent since 2007, with up to 500 people losing their homes every day. Evicted families have established tent cities in Sacramento, Stockton, South San Francisco, and throughout Southern California. These temporary cities have been the targets of police raids. People crowded the San Francisco Cow Palace by the thousands to attend a foreclosure prevention fair. Many camped overnight on the pavement to reserve a spot. Despite this, banks have demolished dozens of homes in Temecula and Victorville to make a profit.

Corporate profits in California have risen 580% since 2001; and yet Congress is bailing out corporate banks and funneling trillions of tax dollars into financial black-holes through military spending on imperialist wars abroad. The wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan have also consumed nearly a trillion dollars— 1,700 times the cuts to the CSU System. Perhaps the federal government must declare war on the working class of California before any funding comes our way.

into institutions like prisons the last 20 years, California’s and the military, or lost in prison spending skyrocketed corporate subsidies. 126 percent. Compare this with the 12 percent decrease The cuts to the public in public education funding sector and the boom of and it becomes clear where prisons are no coincidence. our legislators’ priorities The lack of education, public lie. The propagation of an services and decent jobs undereducated, underserved debilitates the working population provides fodder class and results in a steady for these capitalist machines. flow for the Prison Industrial We cannot allow more Complex and the military. young peoples’ lives to be This year, the US military met consumed by this inhuman and even exceeded their system. quota for the first time since the army went voluntary. In CSU Dominguez Hills is

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CSU Freso had a large walkout and sit-in on the 4th floor of their library last Wednesday - Oct. 21st. “I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube.”

-MLK

TO GET INVOLVED

TEXT

SFSUP

a prime example of the direct consequences in which unchecked cuts to public education can result. to recieve free This school’s student body updates on news & is primarily comprised of how to take action. working class students of color. In late July, this school became the first CSU campus to do away with its student newspaper, an administrative decision that has robbed the student body, of a vital and powerful expressive tool. This is not an isolated incident by any means, and can be seen as an indicator

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i n f o @ s t u d e n t u n i t y p o w e r. o r g

Who We Are Founded early in 2009, we believe that California’s budget cuts can only be defeated by a militant student resistance movement, building awareness and uniting both student bodies in a statement of solidarity with the education sector as a whole. We demand the re-rehiring of lecturers, no future layoff, a reversal of fees to 2002 levels, forgiving of student debt, a transparent budget, and a more long-term goal of creating a worker/faculty/studentrun university. Under capitalism, education is geared towards the interests of profit.

What are we fighting for? The attacks on education are part of a larger systemic problem, and the current economic crisis has its roots in a predatory capitalist system that exploits and oppresses the people in favor of a rich minority who profits. Seven trillion dollars have been given to banks and corporations in an attempt to “rescue” the capitalist economy, while politicians and the media would have us believe that cuts to social services like education and healthcare are necessary sacrifices. We are already suffering, forced to pay for their crisis as a handful of people have been profiting.

How To Join? Student Unity & Power meets every Thursday @ 7PM in Malcom X Plaza

FEEDBACK Send us your quetions, comments, concerns, and suggestions to: [email protected]

Student Unity and Power

for the potential future of the CSU system at large. The stifling of these students’ voices illustrates the racist and classist agenda that is becoming increasingly apparent in California’s public education policy. That is exactly why direct action is so crucial at this time. The CSU trustees and California lawmakers are waiting to see what blowback this latest round of cuts will evoke, and will base their next actions upon it. It is up to the students and the rest of the working class to stand up and wield their power. The struggle cannot be won using the tools of the existing system. Victory will not be achieved by jumping from action to action without

In the 60’s, the Black Student Union and Third World Liberation Front were outlets for the civil rights movement, the war in Vietnam, and opposition to an Angloauthoritative system of education. Their academic environment was essentially perpetuating disconnected communities of secondclass citizens. Armed with insight into and awareness of the present situation, the BSU and TWLF established relationships with the community off campus. From 1956 to 1965, the percentage of black students in an average classroom dropped from 1020 percent to 4-5 percent. These conditions gave James Garrett, a key figure in the creation of the BSU, a running start when he arrived at SFSU in 1966. The BSU created an agenda for education that was relevant to the black community and debated the appropriation of funds with the Associated Students legislature. The debates, while unsuccessful, were central to the further organization of black students. In 1964, a combined effort of black and white students taught

a solid strategy. We must join together to network and build organizations, not just within our respective occupations or academic institutions, but also as a statewide community of working people. The strike is the worker’s true instrument of power in this corporate-controlled, capitalist system that is no longer by or for the people but is instead dedicated to the interests of big business and economic imperialism. It is time to send the message that the people who do the work this society depends on reserve the right to withhold their labor from a system that treats them unjustly.

History: The Cauldron reading and writing to primarily black elementary school kids under the title of the Fillmore tutorial program. The BSU was critical of the predominantly white tutors and employed the newly established experimental college to teach black students how to relate the needs of the black community without inadvertently reinforcing white

identities on the children. By 1967 a new BSU constitution established a lecture tour for Bay Area high school and junior colleges to “give insight and to encourage the black students to continue their education.” It established coordinators of the tour, on and off campus, in the hope of involving black professionals as well as creating a “Bay Area federation of students.” The creation of the Third World Liberation Front was made up of six

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student groups. It formed in recognition of similar struggles shared by students hailing from the third world. All of them made efforts to stay connected to the community, advocating involvement with community problems like pigeonholing ghetto kids into jobs that would shortly be obsolete and recruiting n o n - E n g l i s h speaking individuals into Vietnam because they didn’t know they could go to school. The last key role in the onset of the Third World strike was the involvement of two white radical groups, the Students for a Democratic Society and the Progressive Labor Party. The onset of the strike on November 6, 1968, initially launched by the BSU and joined three days in by the TWLF, was over the suspension of George Murray—a teacher at SFSU and member of the Black Panthers. Source: William H. Orrick Jr.’s “Shut it down!: A College in Crisis”

Next Bulletin will be released

November 2, 2009 S p re a d A w a re n e s s