Prop 30 About to Fail: Needs Student Support

The latest polls show that Prop 30, Governor Brown's measure increasing taxes to support education (including higher education), is likely to fail without increased student mobilization.  Many college students are voting against it because they think it applies only to K-12 education and don't realize that huge tuition increases are imminent if the measure fails.  Michael Meranze has more details.

Our rivers are full of fish! #Romney

"No presidential candidate in the future will be so inept that four of his major speeches can be boiled down to these historic four sentences: Agriculture is important. Our rivers are full of fish. You cannot have freedom without liberty. Our future lies ahead."

The Louisville Courier-Journal on Dewey's 1948 campaign against Truman.  How could they know that Mitt Romney had been born the year before?

Haven't posted much this summer--working on a new book on African Americans and the welfare state--but I couldn't resist this one!

Executive Council of Davis Academic Senate Censures Katehi

The Executive Council of the Davis Academic Senate censured Chancellor Katehi.

The Executive Council of the Davis Division of the Academic Senate hereby censures Chancellor Linda P. B. Katehi for failure to perform adequately the tasks of her office and failure to provide clarity, candor, and trustworthy accounts in relation to the events of November 18, 2011.  

The Council's action is based on a report by a special committee.  That report is here.  The special committee called for the resignation of Katehi and two other top officials.  The Executive Council did not go that far.

Reynoso Task Force to Release Pepper Spray Report at Noon Wednesday April 11 #occupyucdavis

From UC Davis Office of University Communications: 

 

The task force looking into last November's pepper-spray incident has made tentative arrangements to share its findings at a campus forum this Wednesday, April 11 at 3:30 pm in Freeborn Hall.

 

Plans for Wednesday's public meeting will be confirmed after a hearing Tuesday morning in Alameda County Superior Court, at which a judge is expected to approve an agreement allowing the task force report to be released.

 

More information is available in this announcement from the UC Office of the President: http://news.ucdavis.edu/download/201204/Task_force_announcement_4.9.12.pdf

The report is schedule to be released at noon on April 11.  

UC President Mark Yudof will ask regents to endorse Brown tax initiative

University of California President Mark Yudof has announced that he will ask the regents to endorse Governor Brown's tax initiative.  Others should be asking/demanding this as well.

Liz Cheney as #Romney Running Mate?

I had lunch with a senior colleague today who predicts that Romney will choose foreign policy hawk Liz Cheney (Dick and Lynne's daughter) as his running mate.  Here's a piece by Michael Chase outlining the case for Cheney (though he thinks Jeb Bush will actually get the nod).

My colleague shared my glee at Romney's ineptitude and Obama's newfound strength.  I told him that my only fear is that Romney will somehow lose the nomination in a brokered convention.  He doubts that anyone will step up because this is a losing year for Republicans and, in recent history, losing nominees don't get a second chance.

Two 2012 ballot initiatives to raise taxes in California #Occupy

Bob Samuels describes the new ballot initiative on taxes that emerged as a compromise between Governor Jerry Brown's initiative and the California Federation of Teachers' Millionaire's Tax.

1. PERSONAL INCOME TAX:
a. 1% increase on incomes of $250,000 ($500,000 for couples). No change from Governor’s initiative.
b. 2% increase on incomes of $300,000 ($600,000 for couples). Governor’s initiative was 1.5%.
c. 3% increase on incomes of $500,000 ($1 million for couples). Governor’s initiative was 2%.
d. These tax increases remain in place for 7 years. Governor’s initiative was 5 years.
2. SALES TAX: increase quarter cent (Governor’s was half cent). Same expiration as the Governor’s.
3. STRUCTURE: The measure will be based on the Governor’s initiative structure, with the changes noted in #1 and #2 above.
4. REVENUES (NOTE: THESE ESTIMATES ARE PRELIMINARY): This new measure will generate about $9 billion for the 2012-13 budget (up from the $6.9 billion in the Governor’s initiative).

Meanwhile Pasadena civil rights attorney, Molly Munger, the daughter of billionaire Berkshire Hathaway chairman Charles Munger, pushes forward with her own initiative despite Brown's claim that the presence of two tax initiatives on the ballot will kill them both.  Munger's initiative, "Our Children Our Future," increases income taxes on a sliding scale ranging from 4/10 of 1% for households making less than $35,000 and 2.2% for couples making more than $5 million.  It seems unlikely to pass as it raises income taxes on more than just rich people.  The tax increase will raise $10 billion and this will be earmarked for K-12 education.  The initiative has been endorsed by the California Parent Teacher Association (PTA).  Munger has donated $3.4 million to the effort and has already begun airing a very nice television ad.  Munger and Brown are talking but have not yet reached any agreement.

Brown claims that all the money raised by his initiative will go to K-12 education and community colleges but this is only technically true because Brown will reduce other funding to schools and colleges in order to balance California's budget.

Court prohibits 13 UC Berkeley students and instructors from participating in #Occupy on any UC campus

This is an astounding account of the stay-away orders recently issued to UC Berkeley students and instructors.

Those of us with classes and teaching duties (which includes 12 of the 13 being charged) are allowed to visit campus for “lawful business.” We can attend our courses and meet with our students as usual. While a reasonable exception to an unreasonable order, this further reveals how the stay-away orders have been constructed expressly to eliminate our political engagement on campus. The stay-away-order-plus-exception effectively distills our lives as students and workers from all other trivial or superficial aspects. We are reduced to mere academics, without political or social lives, whose sole purpose is to work and study and return home. We cannot attend a lecture on campus. Or meet with a friend for coffee. Or stop to talk with a former student. And we most certainly can’t attend any protest. The court is permitting us to contribute to business as usual at the university so long as we do not do anything outside of the strict delimitation of such business, as long we do not attempt to challenge it in any way. We are made into model students and workers, perfectly obedient, without the encumbrance of feelings and thoughts beyond our academic work on campus.

Henry A. Giroux on Why Faculty Should Join #Occupy

Henry A. Giroux writes movingly on Why Faculty Should Join Occupy Movement Protesters on College Campuses:

The notion of the university as a center of critique and a vital democratic public sphere that cultivates the knowledge, skills, and values necessary for the production of a democratic polity is giving way to a view of the university as a marketing machine essential to the production of identities in which the only obligation of citizenship is to be a consumer.

Thanks to Jaime Becker for the link.

Kenneth Saltman on Corporate School Reform

Kenneth Saltman, in a long critique of the corporate take over of K-12 education, offers several insights relevant to the privatization of public higher education.  

For example:

The corporate takeover of schooling means the overemphasis on standards and standardization, testing and "accountability" that replicate a corporate logic in which measurable task performance and submission to authority become central. Intellectual curiosity, investigation, teacher autonomy and critical pedagogy, not to mention critical theory, have no place in this view. "Critical" in this context means not merely problem-solving skills, but the skills and dispositions for criticizing how particular claims to truth secure particular forms of authority. 

...

Privatization produces social relations defined through capitalist reproduction that function pedagogically to instantiate habits of docility and submission to authority at odds with collective control, dialogue, debate, dissent, and other public democratic practices. Privatization fosters individualization in part by encouraging everyone to understand education as a private service primarily about maximizing one's own capacity for competition. This runs counter to valuing public schooling for the benefit to all. 

Thanks to Jaime Becker for the link.  Wendy Brown is also very good on the relationship between democracy and the privatization of schooling.

Davis Faculty Association's Critique of the Administration's New Demonstration Policies #occupyucdavis

Dear Provost Hexter and Vice Chancellor Meyer:

I write on behalf of the Davis Faculty Association in consultation with its board to raise several serious objections to the “Demonstration Management Principles and Policies” outlined in your email to the UC Davis community on March 1, 2012.  We particularly wish to raise the following three points:

1.  The first of your principles states that “The campus's efforts to manage these situations have been, and are, guided by patience and restraint.”  We find such an assertion to be demonstrably untrue, at least with regard to the first clause. Surely you do not mean to suggest, for example, that the pepper-spray incident itself was handled with patience and restraint.

2.  We find it unacceptable that you elected to introduce these new principles just prior to the long-delayed release of the Reynoso report on Tuesday.  Surely the faculty should at least be allowed to see and digest this report about the pepper-spray incident before they are given, or are asked to accept, any new principles for dealing with precisely such situations.  In our view, you are insulting the very process initiated by the administration — the process that was so often declared to be necessary before any judgment of the Chancellor’s responsibility for these events — by introducing these principles just prior to the release of the Reynoso report.

3.  Your letter fails even to mention, and indeed, seems pointedly to ignore, the recently-passed Senate resolution that "demands that police deployment against protestors be considered only after all reasonable efforts have been exhausted and with direct consultation with Academic Senate leadership." You state that "campus police may be required to help respond to or resolve emergency situations." This statement does not make clear that you intend to account for and include the specific recommendation of the Senate resolution in the structure of the administration's decision-making process.

In short, the board of the DFA believes that the principles outlined in your letter are unacceptable, and that they represent an attempt to bypass and ignore the lessons of our recent history.

We respectfully request a specific response to each of the three points detailed above.  We have also decided to make this an open letter: we are sending a copy of it (and any response you care to offer) to our membership, and are also posting it on our website.

Sincerely,
Scott C. Shershow
Professor of English
Chair, Davis Faculty Association




The Administration's Policy


Dear UC Davis Community,

As Occupy activities continue nationally and locally, some of you have expressed interest in knowing more about our approach to managing campus protests.

We're writing to update you on this and the anticipated release of a report from the Reynoso Task Force, which has been conducting an inquiry into the pepper spraying of students last November 18 during a demonstration on the Quad.

The Task Force has indicated that it hopes to unveil the report and invite input at a public forum on our campus on March 6. Further details will be provided soon. Task force update from Justice Reynoso can be viewed at:
http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/article/27156

Meanwhile, since classes resumed in January there has been a brief occupation of the former Cross Cultural Center; placement of tents on the Quad; sustained efforts by a small group of demonstrators to deny access to employees and customers to the U.S. Bank office in Memorial Union; and, most recently, disruption of a lecture featuring Israeli soldiers.

Here are the principles underlying our efforts to protect lawful freedom of expression:

*  The campus's efforts to manage these situations have been, and are, guided by patience and restraint.

*  When protesters' actions exceed established guidelines for protected free speech, we are seeking to engage and listen to them while explaining the potential implications of their actions. At the former Cross Cultural Center, for example, this approach facilitated a peaceful end to a potentially divisive situation. To view the established guidelines for protected free speech please see:
http://news.ucdavis.edu/download/Rights_and_Responsibilities_Re_Peaceful_Protest-2.1.12.pdf

*  We have formed engagement teams to visit protest sites and communicate directly with protesters. At the bank, we have consistently and persistently conveyed to demonstrators that they are violating campus and state regulations by denying access to customers and bank staff, and that they are subject to campus disciplinary and criminal misdemeanor sanctions. You can view information about how UC Davis has conveyed this information (UC Davis pursues legal and campus process for bank blockers) at:
http://dateline.ucdavis.edu/dl_detail.php?id=13890

*  We will communicate similarly with any individuals participating in occupation activities on the Quad or elsewhere on campus, recognizing that campus police may be required to help respond to or resolve emergency situations.

*  We will continue to monitor these situations and will take action as necessary to ensure that all members of our campus community can practice their First Amendment rights while also permitting the ongoing operations of the university's teaching, research, and public service functions.

For many, these are difficult times. As a community, we respect the passion and energy of those seeking to create constructive economic and social change. We hope that participants in campus will respect the rights of community members to freely engage in academic, professional and personal pursuits.

Sincerely,

Ralph J. Hexter
Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor

John A. Meyer
Vice Chancellor-Administrative and Resource Management

The Political Context of the March 5 Rally in Sacramento

My speech at the March 1 Rally at UC Davis:


Last time I gave a speech at a rally, as a graduate student, I just winged it and it didn’t go so well--so today I wrote some things down.  I want to talk mainly about the political situation surrounding public education and some new openings in the political context.

Since I arrived here a decade ago, I’ve watched the California legislature and Governors Davis, Schwarzenegger and Brown systematically de-fund the greatest public university system in the world.  Meanwhile, the university has tried to balance its books on the backs of the students.

Over those ten years, many of us (students, faculty, staff and sometimes administrators) have organized, lobbied and protested but the cuts have just kept coming.  In the last three years, the Great Recession has made California’s budget crisis even worse, the cuts have been deeper, and the tuition increases have been just ridiculous.

Part of the problem is Prop 13, the 1978 ballot initiative that required a 2/3 supermajority for any increase in California’s taxes.  This allowed a minority of Republican legislators to hold a blue state hostage to their anti-tax, anti-government, anti-equality agenda and forced us into a budget crisis.  Unfortunately, Californians seemed in no mood to repeal Prop 13 despite the deterioration of California’s public services (and especially its schools).  And any attempt at repeal would certainly be countered by a massive corporate advertising blitz.

It’s a bleak picture.  But lately things are looking up a bit. The Democrats are currently two seats away from a 2/3 supermajority in both the Senate and Assembly and the November election may allow them to achieve it.  In 2008, Californians gave a citizen’s commission (rather than the legislature) the power to draw legislative districts.  Under these new districts, the Democrats will most likely pick up enough seats in the State Senate and MAY be able to do so in the State Assembly.  Two of the closest Assembly races are local.  The 8^th District in East Sacramento County where three Democrats face off against two Republicans and the 9^th district in Elk Grove/Lodi where UC Davis Med School Professor Dr. Richard Pan faces off against two Republicans.  The top two vote getters in the June 5 primary will go on to the November election.

Another development is both hopeful and terrifying.  Governor Brown has placed a referendum on the November ballot to temporarily raise income taxes for the wealthy and sales taxes for everyone.  If the measure passes, he promises an increase for higher education of 4 percent per year for three years.  But if it fails, more cuts.  The measure appears to have the support of a slim majority of the voters at this moment, but only if two similar initiatives are removed from the ballot.

If the Democrats do win a supermajority, the battle to restore UC funding will still be at the beginning.  Democratic legislators, like most politicians, are cowards and many have bought into the Republican argument that tax increases retard economic growth.  We will need to pressure them hard--both during and after the election.  The Governor’s commitment to higher education is also suspect.

We also must pressure the UC and UC Davis Administrations.  Unfortunately, the administration has a very narrow view of politics. It is resigned to meekly lobbying legislators for funding, failing miserably, and then raising tuition.  It has not yet committed to campaigning for a new legislative majority that can re-fund the UC System and forcing that majority to do so.  We must demand such a commitment from the regents, UC President Mark Yudof, and our Chancellor (who happens to be on the defensive right now). 

The protests have been making a difference.  They caused Yudof and the regents to back off the latest round of tuition increases, for the moment.  And 74% of Californians now believe that state funding for higher education is inadequate.  Unfortunately, only 45% are willing to pay higher taxes to restore funding. 

We need to help Californians understand that new revenues will be necessary if we hope to preserve affordable higher education.  We also need to convince them that the benefits of affordable higher education do not just go to individual students but to all the lives they touch. Affordable public education helps Californians to live more prosperous, healthy and meaningful lives, it helps them understand and participate in their democracy, it promotes social mobility and equality of opportunity, and it promotes economic and cultural growth.

The occupy movement has so far remained non-partisan and non-electoral in order to avoid being co-opted by the Democrats and in order to seek deeper levels of change than simply electing a new slate of legislators beholden to corporate campaign contributions. 

That’s probably wise for occupy, but the movement to defend higher education pre-dates occupy and is bigger than occupy.  There are roles and responsibilities for all of us. 

As a movement, we must work at all levels—though not everyone must work at every level—protesting, changing public opinion, lobbying elected officials, and winning elections.  At this moment, we have a political opening—Let’s use it.

I want to end with the names of three websites that I think are especially useful (just google them): ReFund California, Remaking the University, and Fight for your Education.  I also have links to all of these on my blog: after-dinner critic.

Days of Action to Defend Public Education, March 1-5

March 1-5 have been declared statewide days of action to defend public education. During these days there will be a number of actions at UCD and the capitol in Sacramento.

March 1st - Day of action at UC Davis in solidarity with colleges and universities nationwide (see http://www.occupyed.org/)

11am, UCD Quad - Funeral Procession For Public Education: March and eulogy. Wear black!

12pm, UCD Quad - Rally: speakers (TBA) and open mic

If you would like to do a workshop, teach-in, lecture, etc in the afternoon please email: ucdecolonized-occupied@googlegroups.com

March 3rd - Re-establish the occupation of the Quad!

The 99 mile march will be arriving in Davis on March 4th (see below). Help us re-occupy the quad to give them a proper welcome! We'll be setting up starting at 4pm.

March 4th - The 99 mile March comes to UCD! (see http://www.facebook.com/events/358957210789016/)

The march will arrive in davis in late afternoon/early evening. Potluck
and film screening 

March 5th - Occupy the Capitol! (see http://www.facebook.com/events/253346818068978/)

10am - mass march
11 am - rally at the Capitol building
12:30 - lunch @ Capitol
3:30 - Nonviolent direct action training

Carpooling to sacramento-please email the address below if you want a ride or plan to drive and will have extra seats:

ucdecolonized-occupied@googlegroups.com

Musings From the Middle Ground

Nickolas Perrone, a grad student in the UC Davis History Department, offers some ideas about engaging students who are deeply concerned about the fate of the university but don't spend their free time reading Fanon.

Alice O'Connor on Reclaiming Progressive Narratives #ows

Slate: The 99 Percent Plan: How to make Occupy catch on

Were history a guide to today's politics, progressives would be redoubling their efforts to turn  the still-unraveling crisis of capitalism into an opportunity for system-changing reform. Certainly they would be doing everything within their power to combat the logic of austerity and entitlement-slashing that has crystalized into a new Washington "consensus," and instead to shape the debate around issues of employment, inequality, the erosion of the safety net, and the unprecedented concentrations of wealth and economic power that have survived the Great Recession intact. But they would also move to engage the debate at a deeper level: in terms of what a just, equitable and socially as well as financially productive economy looks like and what roles the state and the market should play in bringing it about.

Yet, 2012 finds progressives without any such unifying vision to mobilize a broad-based reform movement, let alone to define the debate about the economic future. Instead, by some still-puzzling turn of events, the Tea Party infused political right has capitalized on the crisis produced by already radically deregulated "free-market" financial capitalism to promote an even more radically right-wing agenda based on the argument that what we need now is more of the same—further tax cutting, deeper spending cuts, more deregulation and the eventual elimination of what remains of social welfare and labor rights. Right-wing activists have also reclaimed the moral high ground by framing their agenda as a crusade to save capitalism and political freedom from the threat of liberal "big government," albeit by resorting to the decidedly low-road tactics of blaming the Great Recession on overly-generous entitlements, organized labor and the "undeserving" poor. For the time being, this is the narrative that is setting the terms of the debate in Washington over what the post-recession economy should look like.

Still, there is reason for hope. From Wisconsin to Wall Street, grassroots movements have resuscitated flagging reform momentum, organizing to defend the rights and dignity of labor, to protest the rise and concentrated power of "the 1 percent," and to make deeper, decades-in-the-making issues of inequality the center of a campaign to renew representative democracy. Whether and how this translates into a more concrete reform program — and whether it will be able to displace the still locked-in logic of austerity and retrenchment  —remains to be seen.

Hope can also be found in the enduring salience of an older tradition of progressive economic reform. From the late 19th century through the New Deal, similarly fraught moments of economic crisis and inequality were used to frame a series of public debates about the rise of industrial and finance capitalism, and the hazards it introduced. Chief among these were the problems of inequality and concentrated economic power that marked the decades around the turn of that century as what, until very recently, was our first and only Gilded Age.

Indeed, that era's skewed patterns of wealth and income distribution were much like our own. They stemmed from deliberate,  ideologically slanted policy choices and industry practices in a political system dominated by the interests of big corporations and the wealthy. They reflected vast imbalances of power when it came to controlling wages, prices, working conditions and the broader fate of the economy. For the great majority of citizens, the material risks and consequences of these imbalances were palpable, and never more so than in the sequence of mass unemployment, falling property values, foreclosure and deepening depression that periodically gripped the economy in the wake of the financial panics endemic to unregulated industrial capitalism.

The moral and political hazards of Gilded Age capitalism were palpable as well, inspiring a language of protest most recently echoed in anti-Wall Street demonstrations in Zuccotti Park. Then as now critics protested the "evils" of inequality and wealth concentration as akin to plutocracy, predation, malefaction, economic oligarchy and outright theft. They worried about the corrupting influences of a financial sector that had grown too large and of the speculative pursuit of profit for its own sake.

But the progressives of yesteryear voiced their concerns in the name of more positive, traditionally republican principles as well: principles grounded in ideas about socially productive labor as the source of true economic value and civic virtue; about the need to balance the public interest against the overreaching claims of narrow private economic interests; about the importance of free (that is, autonomous and independent) and fairly compensated labor that were rapidly being undermined by the work conditions of industrial capitalism. While hardly uncontested, and by no means applied equitably across the lines of race, ethnicity and gender, these principles stood in sharp contrast to Andrew Carnegie's self-justifying Gospel of Wealth and every-man-for-himself Social Darwinism. They provided the basis for framing Gilded Age inequality as a violation of traditional republican values, and for justifying such measures as anti-trust legislation, labor and environmental protections, the progressive income tax, and financial reform. The true radicals, in this narrative, were the proponents of laissez faire.

Over the course of several decades, a wide and by no means unified array of political actors — labor unions, farmer alliances, consumer groups and policy intellectuals as well as elected officials from both major political parties — would draw on these principles and values to build a case not only against the "evils" of wealth concentration and oligarchic control but for a political economy that represented the worth and served the interests of  the people. Few issues absorbed as much public attention — or have as much contemporary relevance — as the Congressional investigations of Wall Street and the banking industry conducted in response to the system-shaking financial panics of 1907 and 1929.

The first of these investigations was conducted in 1912-13, and was aptly dubbed "the hunt for the money trust" in a series of riveting blow-by-blow articles by renowned investigative journalist Ida B. Tarbell. It also produced the well-known broadside by lawyer and future Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis, who published a series of articles in Harper's Weekly in 1913, soon after collected in a book with the memorably aphoristic title "Other People's Money, and How the Bankers Use It." The articles, illustrated with caricatures of overfed plutocrats, used evidence from the "money trust" investigations to track the system of "interlocking directorates" that had allowed a small coterie of investment bankers to establish monopoly control over the nation's credit, and hence over the economy writ large. Worse still, they financed their riskiest and most personally profitable ventures by using bank deposits — the modest savings of the average citizen — appropriating the people's capital and putting it to self-enriching but otherwise unproductive speculative use. Brandeis looked to the state for regulation, suggesting, among other things, that banks be regulated as public utilities, entrusted as they were with safeguarding so much of the nation's wealth. But in "Other People's Money," he offered a complementary strategy as well. Banking, he urged, could be by and for the "the people" if the millions of farmers, workers and clerks who entrusted their savings to the big banks would put it in credit unions and banking cooperatives — the financial instruments of industrial democracy — instead.

Although it would take another two decades — and a more massive financial collapse — to pass meaningful financial regulation, Brandeis' basic formulation continued to serve as a powerful touchstone for reform throughout the New Deal. In 1933, the Senate instigated the well-known Pecora investigations of the Wall Street money trust and its role in the stock market crash of 1929. (Congress soon after passed the Glass-Steagall Act to prevent the very abuses that would lead once again to reckless financial speculation in the wake of its 1999 repeal.) Echoes of "Other People's Money" could be heard in letters to Ferdinand Pecora, the chief counsel for the investigation,  urging him to "bring all these crooks to their knees, and make them repay us decent and honest people" for the life savings they had lost.

In 1938, countering the ill-advised austerity measures that had led to the deep "Roosevelt recession" the previous year, progressives in the administration pushed a vacillating president to step up the battle against the monopoly practices that, they suspected, were stifling the recovery.  After three years of research, the eventual recommendations of the Temporary National Economic Committee were fairly tepid, nor did the committee find evidence of the suspected capital strike.  But by then FDR had used the TNEC's creation to turn the tables on his conservative critics.  The true threat to liberty came not from an elected and publicly accountable government, as detractors charged, but from "a concentration of private power without equal in history." He also joined a host of other political activists and reformers in recognizing the necessity, indeed the imperative, of a government prepared to hold private industry accountable to the standards of democracy.  "[T]he liberty of a democracy is not safe," the president argued, "if its business system does not provide employment and produce and distribute goods in such a way as to sustain an acceptable standard of living."

Though articulated in immediate response to the looming threat of economic oligarchy, these principles of reform and regulation were embedded in the more expansive idea of the economic and  political rights of citizenship — and the role of government in protecting them — that had become the cornerstone of New Deal reform. FDR enumerated these as a "second," economic bill of rights in his 1944 State of the Union address. Among them were the right to a job with a fair wage, a decent home, a good education and healthcare as well as the right to an equitable playing field and to protections against the power of organized wealth. Underlying these rights, FDR declared, was an even more basic and "self-evident" — republican — economic truth: True freedom rested on economic security and prosperity for all. This principle would be embraced by generations of civil rights, women's rights and labor movement activists as they struggled to make the country live up to that promise.

It is against this historical backdrop that the convergence of Wisconsin and Occupy Wall Street can be seen as an opportunity to articulate some core principles of a progressive vision for the 21st century economy: jobs at living wages for all who want them; equal opportunity regardless of race, class, gender, religion or sexual orientation; universal access to social goods such as health, education, decent housing and economic security; a fair distribution of wealth and income; a democratic system of finance; respect for human dignity in the workplace and the public sphere; a  market regulated by representative government rather than left to its own devices. These, at a minimum, are a starting point for an economy that creates the  conditions within which modern-day democracy can thrive.

At a time when even the most modest healthcare and financial reform measures spur charges of "European-style social democracy," it may be tempting to conclude that these expansive ideals are simply too far outside the realm of political possibility to be relevant. But that logic, decades in the making, has already exacted a devastating political price. We see it in the failure, after nearly 40 years of falling wages and rising inequality, to make full employment that sustains decent standards of living a standard-bearer for economic health. We see it in the absence — public outrage over Wall Street bailouts and "too big to fail" aside — of any real challenge to the logic and power that continues to sustain our modern-day money trust. We see it in the inability of progressive individuals, organizations and movements to connect to create an economy that works for the benefit of a democratic polity rather than the other way around. And we see it in the right's enduring monopoly on the politics and the rhetoric of economic values and reform. It's high time for progressives to reclaim that too-long neglected territory, lest we do ourselves the injustice of forgetting a vital part of our past.

Alice O'Connor is a professor of history at the University of California Santa Barbara, where she teaches and writes about the history of U.S. social policy, political economy, and the politics of wealth and poverty. Her publications include "Social Science for What?: Philanthropy and the Social Question in a World Turned Rightside Up" and "Poverty Knowledge: Social Science, Social Policy and the Poor in Twentieth Century United States History."  More Alice O'Connor

March 1-5: Mobilization for Higher Education in California #occupyucdavis #occupyeducation

From UC Davis Faculty Association Chair Scott Shershow:

A major mobilization is coming March 1 - 5, 2012, to put pressure on the Governor and legislature to renew support for public education in California and for raising taxes to restore the state funding that UC, the CSUs, the CCs, and K-12 to meet the needs of our people for high quality, affordable education. There will be a variety of marches, rallies and other activities around the state, culminating with a protest on the Capitol grounds in Sacramento on Monday, March 5th. A key part the action is a "99-mile March for Public Education & Social Justice," starting in Oakland/Berkeley on March 1 and going to Sacramento.

We urge university faculty to participate. First, please consider taking some time to discuss the impact of the budget cuts on your campus and the rest of public higher education with your students. The cuts are not only leading to an upward spiral in tuition, they are affecting faculty and student staff support, course offerings, graduate student recruitment, building maintenance, and a host of other things that are compromising our ability to carry out research and instructional missions. Please share your own concerns and listen to what they have to say about theirs – and what can be done to solve the problems.

Second, if you can, please attend one of the marches, rallies, or other events being planned for March 1. At UC Davis this is taking the form of a funeral for higher education to be held on the Quad from noon to 3 pm (details available at http://www.facebook.com/events/186731684760172/). A list of other March 1 events is available at http://occupyeducationca.org/wordpress/?page_id=12. Bus and carpool transit to many of these events is also available.

It would be great to have faculty attend in robes, if you have your own regalia. If many faculty attend in gowns this would be sure to get press attention -- and, no doubt, interviews. It would be good to have as many faculty as possible talk to the press.

Third, if you can, please join the demonstration at the Capitol on Monday, March 5th. The first rally will begin at 11 am on the north steps and a second rally is scheduled for 5:30 pm, with other events planned throughout the day. A signup form for bus transit from the Davis campus and around the state is available at http://occupyeducationca.org/wordpress/?p=355.

If you would like more background information about the state fiscal crisis, what can be done to solve it, and the movement for refunding the state budget and supporting public education, please check out the information at the following links:

   http://keepcaliforniaspromise.org/
   http://teachthebudget.com/
   http://againstcuts.org/
   http://reclaimuc.blogspot.com/

Why Do Americans Argue About Abortion?

A post based on my book on Dissent's blog: 
"Abortion is once again center stage in presidential politics, as it has been, off and on, for the last thirty years. This may seem only natural for an issue that speaks to the deepest of human values, but in fact, abortion lies at the margins of politics in most other rich countries. Why are things so different here?"...

Town Hall Meeting on UC System protest policing, February 10

The UC Office of the President is holding a Town hall meeting at UC Davis on protest policing in the UC System on Friday February 10 from 4 to 6 p.m. at the Conference Center Ballroom, adjacent to the Vanderhoef Quad at the campus’s south entry.

Last November, President Mark G. Yudof appointed UC General Counsel Charles Robinson and UC Berkeley School of Law Dean Christopher Edley Jr. to lead a systemwide examination of police protocols and policies as they apply to protests at all UC campuses.  The meeting is part of this examination.

We Want The Same Deal You Got!

UC Davis history professor Louis Warren's A New Campus Contract provides a history of declining funding for the University of California and a strategy for restoring it.  It revolves around reminding California taxpayers, and especially legislators, that they benefited from affordable education when they were young but are now unwilling to pay for the next generation.  He argues that students should tell legislators--"We want the same deal that you got!"

I think Warren's talk at a recent teach-in was more powerful than this piece.  But it's good to have this in print.

Higher Education as a Public Good

Recently my colleagues Laura Grindstaff and John R. Hall wrote excellent pieces on the marketization and privatization of the UC System and on the necessity of convincing Americans that higher education is a public good.

A New Quarter Begins at UC Davis #occupyUCDavis #UCDavis #Katehi

Here is an update on the UC Davis situation that I wrote with Sara Augusto (a Ph.D. Candidate in my department) for Dissent's blog.  It discusses the positions of supporters and opponents of Katehi, as well as Katehi's interactions with students in the aftermath of November 18th.

Why the Eggheads were Pepper-Sprayed #OccupyUCDavis #UCD #UCDavis

This post from the Occupy UC Davis web site explains why the eggheads were pepper sprayed: "for their own safety."

First Occupy UC Davis General Assembly of the Quarter at Noon on Quad #OccupyUCDavis #UCDavis

This text update from Occupy UC Davis is pretty cool!

"Please get out your cell phone and text "UCDACTION" to 23559. This will allow us to send you a text message to let you know of any MAJOR actions planned, so you can be there to see it. We promise not to spam you - there is an average of one text message sent over this line every two weeks."

UC Davis Administration Offers Free Therapy to Protestors #OccupyUCDavis #UCD #UCDavis

An excellent post by Crank at Bicycle Barricade, analyzes the therapeutic discourse of the UC Davis Administration on the events of November 18. 

"Since that date, UC Davis administration has deployed a therapeutic discourse which seeks to shift the focus from accountability (negatively construed as “blame”) to healing and moving forward."

UC Davis Eggheads Pepper-Sprayed #OccupyUCDavis #UCDavis

Robert Arneson's egghead sculptures at UC Davis were pepper-sprayed Sunday night.  They have since been cleaned.  More pictures.

“Bob Arneson believed that art should interact with everyday life. He wanted art that regular people would understand and enjoy. Maybe that's why the Eggheads are the most photographed objects on campus.” — Nelson Art Gallery Director Renny Pritikin

UC Davis Faculty to vote on Katehi February 7 #UCDavis #OccupyUCDavis #Katehi

The UC Davis Academic Senate today released the full text of three proposed resolutions about Chancellor Katehi and the events of November 18.  On February 7, members of the faculty will receive on-line ballots and statements supporting and opposing the resolutions.  The resolutions are the same as those in my earlier posts: A expresses a lack of confidence in Katehi, B condemns police violence against protestors and expresses confidence in Katehi.  C condemns police violence against protestors.   One difference is that Resolution B now includes a long list of "whereas" statements.  Supporters of Resolution A (those wishing to express "no confidence" in Chancellor Katehi) introduced Resolution C in order to ensure that Resolution B did not syphon off support for their resolution by condemning police violence.  I analyzed the rationales and prospects of these resolutions here.  You can comment on the resolutions and see the list of signatories here. 

Resolution A

In light of the events on the quadrangle of the UC Davis campus on the afternoon of Friday November 18, 2011, in light of Chancellor Linda Katehi’s email to faculty of November 18 in which she admitted that she had ordered the police to take action against the students who were demonstrating on the quadrangle and said that she had had “no option” but to proceed in this way, and in light of the failure of Chancellor Katehi to act effectively to resolve the resulting crisis in the intervening days,

Be it therefore resolved that the Davis Division of the Senate of the University of California lacks confidence in the leadership of Chancellor Katehi, and

Be it also resolved that the result of the vote on this motion be communicated to the Board of Regents and the President of the University of California.

Resolution B

Whereas non-violent political protest, free assembly, and free speech are constitutional rights valued at the UC Davis,

And whereas the response of the UC Davis Police Department to peaceful protestors on November 18, 2011 was appalling,  

And whereas in the UC Davis culture it is customary for representative(s) from the highest levels of the administration to engage in direct dialogue with demonstrators, 

And whereas prior to November 18, 2011 Chancellor Linda Katehi worked diligently to elevate the national and international stature of the Davis campus,

And whereas the presence of an accomplished scholar at the top post has helped UC Davis attract and retain outstanding scholars, including faculty members serving at the highest levels of administration,

And whereas in the last two years, Chancellor Linda Katehi developed a bold plan for campus growth that includes an aggressive fund-raising campaign that will alleviate the burden imposed by ever decreasing state financial support,

And whereas Chancellor Linda Katehi apologized to University community for the events of November 18, 2011,

And whereas Chancellor Linda Katehi publically stated that she will ensure that such events do not recur,

And whereas the events of November 18 transformed Linda Katehi into a Chancellor who engages in a full and open dialogue with students, staff, and faculty,

And whereas Chancellor Katehi moved expeditiously to replace the flawed communications in the two days following the events with a campus-wide dialogue through a series of town hall meetings with students, staff, and faculty,

And whereas a Chancellor with first-hand experience of the horrific events of November 18, 2011 is better qualified to deal with its aftermath,

And whereas dispatching police before engaging in a direct dialogue with protesters, while running counter to the UC Davis culture, does not outweigh the Chancellor Katehi’s impeccable performance of all her other duties,

And whereas Chancellor Katehi’s resignation would have devastating effects on the moral and academic standing of the campus, thereby making it highly unlikely that UC Davis could attract a Chancellor of her stature,

And whereas it is time to promote a constructive healing process rather than risk more harm by pressuring the Chancellor to resign:

Be it therefore resolved that the Davis Division of the Academic Senate:

1. Condemns both the dispatch of police in response to non-violent protests and the use of excessive force that led to the deplorable pepper-spraying events of November 18, 2011.
2. Opposes all violent police responses to non-violent protests on campus.
3. Demands that police deployment against protesters be considered only after all reasonable administrative efforts to bridge differences have been exhausted, including direct consultation with the leadership of the Davis Division of the Academic Senate.
4. Accepts Chancellor Linda Katehi’s good faith apology.
5. Expresses confidence in Chancellor Linda Katehi’s leadership and efforts to place UC Davis among the top 5 public universities in the nation.

Resolution C

Be it resolved that that the Davis Division of the Senate of the University of California hereby

(1) condemns both the dispatch of police and use of excessive force in response to non-violent protests on November 18, 2011; 

(2) opposes violent police response to non-violent protests on campus; 

(3) demands that police deployment against protestors be considered only after all reasonable efforts have been exhausted and with direct consultation with Academic Senate leadership.