Bulletin N°229

Subject: ON DEMOCRATIC MOVEMENTS, LARGE AND SMALL : FROM THE CENTER FOR THE ADVANCED STUDY OF AMERICAN INSTITUTIONS AND SOCIAL MOVEMENTS, GRENOBLE, FRANCE .

16 April 2006
Grenoble, France

Dear Colleagues and Friends of CEIMSA,

The long march, wrote one colleague recently, is to dismantle the authoritarian management of our universities and prepare our colleagues and students to resist the corporate take-over of civil society. We need to defend traditional academic freedom from Corporatism and create an environment conducive to scientific work and the free exchange of ideas. The authoritarian hierarchy of command and control is not compatible with scientific work and cultural pursuits.

We have received many impressions of  the national strikes in France , and a surge of optimism has been registered internationally, despite the disinformation and outright distortions about the student non-violent movement in France . French students want guaranteed jobs so they do not spend a life time eaten by financial worries and insecurities. In a word they are demanding the right to be citizens and not indentured servants, dependent on the whims of  masters. Other nations, other cultures might find this hard to believe, or even to understand, in the context of their own life styles. It's a majority viewpoint in France and should be that of the entire world. "Neither master nor slave!" was the radical egalitarian cry one century ago and more; its resonance is still heard in the post-modern heads of state today.

New York University professor of political science Bertell Ollman, president and founder of The International Endowment for Democracy, is soliciting international support to challenge the tyranny of capital in the United States . We recommend that our readers visit the IED web site, and make contact with this democratic movement- in-the-making.

Our research center continues to receive mail about the dangers democracy represents to tyrants large and small. Item A. is an article forwarded to us by our Grenoble colleague, Dr. Elisabeth Chamorand, and written by Barbara Ehrenreich on the "disposable labor force" and "it's better than nothing" workers in late capitalism.

Item B. is the CEIMSA advertisement for our next campus cultural event, the showing of Mark Kitchell's award-winning documentary, BERKELEY IN THE 60s, next Thursday evening, April 20th, at Stendhal University.

Item C. is a report from our colleague in Montpellier, Professor Ronald Creagh, on last week's conference on pacifist movements, with a selection of photographs taken at the conference in Chambéry.

Item D. is a link to t r u t h o u t  Video Podcasting, where Dr. James Cohen has found  a 7-minute video by Chris Hume capturing "some of the spirit of the huge immigrant rally in Los Angeles, California several days ago".

And, finally, item E. is material sent to us by community organizer Monty Kroopkin from San Diego, California concerning The March 25 Coalition  which is organizing a May Day Boycott of business as usual in the United States of America ; a warning of things to come if the political economy in America is not brought under democratic control.


Sincerely,
Francis McCollum Feeley
Professor of American Studies/
Director of Research
Université de Grenoble-3
http://dimension.ucsd.edu/CEIMSA-IN-EXILE/


____________
A.
from Elisabeth Chamorand
14 April 2006

Francis,
Here is another view of the French student movement from America .
Elisabeth
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/040706LA.shtml

_______________
B.
from Francis Feeley :
15 April 2006
Subject: Documentary Film to be shown on campus next Thursday.

The Award-Winning Documentry Film, BERKELEY IN THE 60s, will be shown on the Stendhal University campus next Thursday, 20 April, at the Maison des Langues et Cultures in Amphitheater Jacques Cartier, at 17h30.
The public is invited to this free showing.
F. Feeley

_______________
C.
from Ronald Creagh :
11 April 2006
Subject: Symposium

Dear Francis

Thank you for that wonderful symposium. You have done almost single handedly an amazing work. I hope this will stimulate you for new projects, once you have taken a good rest to avoid any post-symposium depression.

Tania also gave us a beautiful performance. It was a great moment of emotion. You may see already some photos at:

http://raforum.apinc.org/article.php3?id_article=3552

Other photos are most welcome, of course.

I am putting on the web the summaries and photos.

The French contributions are at:

http://raforum.apinc.org/article.php3?id_article=3553

The English contributions are at:

http://raforum.apinc.org/article.php3?id_article=3555

You are indexed at:

http://raforum.apinc.org/mot.php3?id_mot=2371


Please let everyone know about the website ..., but tell them that if they wish to have their photo removed, it will be done as soon as possible.

Thank you, Francis, for a great moment in my life!

Ronald


_____________
D.
from James Cohen :
14 April 2006

Francis,
More on social movements in the United States .

Click below for a video (7 min.) by Chris Hume of truthout.org which seizes some of the spirit of the huge immigrant rally in LA several days ago; also a few scenes in which Senator John Kerry (Democrat of Massachusetts – anyone remember him?) explains to some inquisitive youths why he thinks the Senate version of the immigration bill – the one which, it turns out, is NOT emerging for the moment in spite of efforts to achieve a compromise – is extremely fair and equitable (cough, cough).
– jim

Link : http://www.truthout.org/multimedia.htm

______________
E.
from Monty Kroopkin :
Date: Sat, 15 Apr 2006
Subject: national day of protest on May 1


About the May Day general strike/boycott/day of protest, please pass this around, and please send me copies of any articles and any organization endorsements that you see.

Francis,
This is the official May Day flyer of the March 25th Coalition.

 Official Flyer of March 25th Coalition for May 1 Boycott.pdf

I am working on getting my SEIU chapter and the San Diego-Imperial Counties Labor Council to adopt some resolution of support, similar to the one done in San Francisco (see attached).

SEIU did have speakers at the April 9 demo, and the Labor Council here endorsed the April 9 action (see below) but, it has not done anything yet about May 1. It is vital that we build really broad support for the human rights of immigrant workers and their families. It is vital that we defeat the fascist attempts to further divide the country and to impose more fear, more repression and a lower standard of living on all of us.

Personally, I would rather see a mass movement to advocate freedom of movement and abolition of borders, or even just abolition of the "country quotas"  that assign each country a maximum number of people that can enter the U.S. legally each year. These immigration barriers have historically been an intentional racist device to encourage white people to come here and limit everybody else to smaller numbers.  Even though this racist purpose now goes against the interests of the globalization capitalists (they want total mobility of labor forces and production facilities across all borders) these "country quotas" are still the backbone of U.S. immigration law.  This is why millions of people give up on trying to enter the  country legally, and decide to break a racist and unjust law and enter the country illegally. If you can't get work in your home country and know there is work here, you go where the work is, and do whatever it takes to find a job to survive.

In the case in particular of Mexican immigrants, we cannot allow the bigots to erase a central fact of history: Very much like our government lied about reasons and invaded Iraq and now occupies it, in 1848 our government lied about reasons and invaded Mexico and is still occupying the northern half of their country. The "Southwest" is not. It is the Northwest of Mexico. Having won that war, our government can pass all the laws it wants to annex this land and call it U.S. territory and our news media can ignore the truth every day, but this is an Occupied Territory. All people everywhere have the right to resist the military occupation of their land. Nobody (other than Native Americans) has more right to live in California than Mexicans.

Right now, amnesty, full recognition of human rights, and changing the law to make it easier to enter the country legally, these are modest demands and not beyond what is politically possible. If we instead allow the fascists in Congress to have their way, we will all have to live with a vast police state that stops everybody on the streets and at our workplaces to demand to see our papers and spies on everybody to see if we are giving "illegal" assistance (charity) to undocumented workers and  their families. They will put tens of thousands of people in prisons (we already have 2 million in prison, the highest rate of incarceration of any industrialized country). And once in prison, people here are forced to do slave labor for corporations and the government. WE HAVE TO STOP THEM.

An Injury to One is an Injury to All!

For the Works,
Monty Reed Kroopkin

 
 San Diego-Imperial Counties Labor Council

Greetings,

 
 

*********************
Francis McCollum Feeley
Professor of American Studies/
Director of Research
Université de Grenoble-3
Grenoble, France
http://dimension.ucsd.edu/CEIMSA-IN-EXILE/