One Winning Way to Build the Peace Movement And One Losing Way — Be Freedom

Q. What cloaks the empire and turns a mighty movement into a mirage? A. Narrow partisan politics. When anti-war activism plays second-fiddle to “follow the leader” the chosen champion and the opposing villian loom so large that they become the main focus of attention obscuring the empire and dumbing the movement down. But, build independent […]

via One Winning Way to Build the Peace Movement And One Losing Way — Be Freedom

Cartoon of the day on the (rigged) #economy — @DFRuccio’s occasional links & commentary

Special mention

via Cartoon of the day — occasional links & commentary

Recovering from workplace bullying and other traumatic experiences: “Can’t” or “won’t”? — Minding the Workplace

When it comes to folks who are dealing with severe workplace bullying and mobbing, sexual harassment, or other forms of targeted interpersonal mistreatment, we sometimes see people who seem to be stuck in a place of rumination and obsession: He just won’t move forward. I think he prefers to suffer and be a victim. She […]

via Recovering from workplace bullying and other traumatic experiences: “Can’t” or “won’t”? — Minding the Workplace

“Going with the Carnies” A Campus Equity Poem

The Adjunct Crisis

For our poetry reading tonight I decided to write a poem about one Summer night I had when I was 16.  It’s not about Adjuncting per se, but it’s about how we lead ourselves into abusive work environments which is due to either where we’ve been, or how we don’t value ourselves.

I ask that even if after all the exhortations I have made about doing something for Campus Equity Week, that you have done nothing, that you at least value yourself.

You are not just the work you do, nor should it ever define you.

Going with the Carnies

Dog day turned dog night,the summer sultry air was suffocating yet not enough to cut the tension of getting a paying gig after a summer of mowing lawns for free. Jeff and I waited in the Southgate Lot for Jason, a guy Jeff said would pay us to help break…

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Useful Campus Equity Week Links

The Adjunct Crisis

Hi All:

With Campus Equity Week (Oct. 21^st-25^th) around the corner, I would share some materials with you which can give some context as to what Campus Equity Week is about.

Campus Equity Week is about recognizing the manifestations of inequity on college campuses first with regard to teaching working conditions, but also, by extention, student learning conditions. It is also about communicating these concerns beyond contingent faculty to our respective campus communities at large.

The underfunding of public education, coupled with an economic business model built around providing workers “flexibility” in the forms of “at will” labor with no benefits, has left many students, faculty and staff economically challenged and impairs our collective capacity to create better outcomes for our students.

My hope is that you and/or the students you work with will have the opportunity to participate in Campus Equity Week events however you…

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Soldiers and Veterans are Anti-War Leaders. Could This Be The Peace Movement of Our Time?

Don’t see what this has to do with precarious times or higher ed and adjunct issues? Just ask…

Be Freedom

“The greatest purveyor of violence in the world: My own government.”  — Martin Luther King

If you want to stop the wars, challenge the empire and deal with climate crisis then support our anti-war soldiers and veterans. Soldiers and veterans carry special knowledge. Sometimes that knowledge starts with the gut-wrenching realization that they have fought, suffered, killed and died in vain — or worse. It’s hard not to hear the echoes of anti-war Vietnam veterans in the words of today’s war veterans. High-stakes betrayal teaches some mighty hard lessons.

“We were lied to, and… we were betrayed…. This really wasn’t about going after Al-Qaeda. This wasn’t about fulfilling that mission of protecting the American people at all. It was a regime change war that was launched under the guise of national security, under the guise of humanitarianism, and, “Look at all these atrocities that this brutal dictator has done to his…

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Inside Bill Gates’ Hubris: Propaganda to Make America Neoliberal Again

On the interconnected perils of megalomania and philanthropiracy…

gadflyonthewallblog

Once upon a time, the world was run by rich men.

And all was good.

But then the world was conquered by other rich men.

And that is something the first group of rich men could not allow.

That is the reason behind Netflix’s new film “Inside Bill’s Brain: Decoding Bill Gates.”

The three-part documentary goes live on Sept. 20. But the film’s aims are clear from the trailer.

It’s a vanity project about Bill Gates, the second richest man in the world.
By examining his mind and motivations, director and executive producer Davis Guggenheim will show us how Gates deserves his billionaire status and that we should allow him to use his philanthrocapitalist ventures to rule the world.

After all, shouldn’t the best and richest among us make all the decisions?

It’s a cry for oligarchy in an age of idiocracy, a love letter to neoliberalism in…

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What is Social Movement Unionism?

from the archives, for Labor Day as it ought to be

Be Freedom

Sixth in the series: On Organizing

What is Social Movment Unionism?

The rarest and most politically charged form of unionism, social movement unionism is also the most difficult form of working-class rebellion to define or realize. When the borderlines between working class struggles and movements centered on race, gender, sexuality, age, and empire merge into a movement of movements — then political innovations and revolutionary changes are afoot.

Revolutions defy easy description, and we have yet to articulate a working theory.  But, if we look carefully at social movement unionism  we might begin to see the political attitudes and alliances that can help us envision what transformative change looks like in our time. The evolution of union activity: from conventional unionism, to professional unionism to public interest unionism takes us to the revolutionary threshold of social movement unionism. 

As we approach that threshold, members, leaders and staff consciously belong to a larger…

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Time is running out

Connecting the capitalism with labor, economic and climate collapses. Don’t be in denial about the outcomes.

More Jason Moore on the Exhaustion of Cheap Natures and the Crisis of Capitalism

More about “Capitalocene” https://www.google.com/search?q=capitalocene

occasional links & commentary

Richard Reeves is right about one thing: time is crucial to capitalism’s legitimacy. The premise and promise of capitalism are that the future will be better than the present. And “if capitalism loses its lease on the future, it is in trouble.”

The fact is, things are not getting better for the vast majority of American workers. They’re falling behind. For example, as is clear in the chart above, the labor share in the U.S. nonfarm business sector has fallen more than 13 percent since early 2001—and there’s no indication that trend will be reversed anytime in the foreseeable future.

Time is clearly running out on capitalism.

It’s not as though Americans are unaware of this and other related trends, such as the looming climate crisis.*

Back in 2014, most Americans (62 percent) said the economic system in the United States unfairly favored powerful interests; only about a third (34…

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What it’s like as an adjunct wondering if your classes will fill, and whether it’s all worth it…

The Adjunct Crisis

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