Bulletin N°444

 

Object: ON INTELLECTUAL COWARDICE IN A PROTRACTED PERIOD OF WAR.



10 April 2010
Grenoble, France

Dear Colleagues and Friends of CEIMSA,
That the contemporary political economy which is being imposed upon us today is reproducing ignorant, arrogant, aggressive forms of management in our daily lives seems to be a collective experience of some import. French sociologist, Henri Lefebvre, pioneered research after the Second World War on such topics in modern daily life as : incompatibilities between "style" and "the bureaucratic society of controlled consumption;" the "system of alibis;" "the terrorist society;" "culture as a commodity;" and "the everyday impact of conventional forms of communication, such as symbols, signs, and signals."

I was 27 years old when I undertook the study of Hegel's Science of Logic and Marx's Grundrisse. Like many graduate students at The University of Wisconsin-Madison, I felt that I had not been asking the right questions to understand the War in Vietnam and the specificities of my own life, as a graduate student in history doing original research in 1974. I was working on the topic of social movements in France before and during the First World War. I took periodic breaks from this heavy preliminary reading schedule by reading "lighter" literature of the same period which I hoped would help me get inside these authors' heads as they were writing their books on critial analysis. I had hoped that this would allow some insights into the development of their thinking, so as to better understand such notions as "dialectics," "alienation," "mediation," and "essence," etc....

Recently, I came across my old, torn paperback copy of Grundrisse (Vintage Books, 1973), and I found a passage from Goethe's Faust that I had copied decades ago inside the front cover of this 900 page book on Money, Capital, Production, Circulation, and the Transformation of Surplus Value into Profit, which Marx wrote during the winter of 1857-58, at the age of 39. These lines by Goethe had impressed me at the time and I wrote them down as a sort of dialogue with Marx, who I am sure had read them when he was a student, as well :

I've studied all Philosophy,
Medicine, Jurisprudence too,
Also, to my grief, Theology,
With fervent efforts through & through;
Yet here I stand poor, poor fool! what's more
Not one wit wiser than before!
I'm Master, Doctor, and I've found
For ten long years, that as I chose
I've led my students by the nose,
First up, then down, then all around,
To see that nothing can be Known!
This cuts me to the quick, I'll own!
I'm clearverer than all that tribe,
Doctor, Lawyer, Parson, Scribe;
All doubts and scruples I dispel,
Nor do I fear the devil in hell,
Wherefore I'm shorn of joy as well

. . .

Many a secret to its source
I'll trace, not need I sweat and grieve
Teaching what I do not believe;
So I'll discern what forces bind
The world together, and thereby find
What power moves the stirring seed,
And from spinning empty words be freed!

(Goethe, 1808)

 

Today, several of my graduate students are preparing to conduct original research on daily life in the United States and on the significance of "the moment" in its specificity. Meanwhile, the papers from our 2008 international colloquium on "War, Resistance, and Counter-Resistance" at The University of Paris-Nanterre have been published in a limited French edition : les Publications des ACTS.


The 10 items below offer CEIMSA readers a sobering look at the "Frankenstein society" we have been forced to manufacture and which is being held together today by the forces of unrequited love. Such manipulations serve to postpone the inevitable birth of a new society, which will nevertheless continue to develope organically within the old, cultivating in our daily lives an authentic power of love that will eventually displace the cynical love of power, and overthrow old social relationships which hinder our struggle for survival and sabotage our quest for the fulfillment of our most creative urges which would benefit us and which our society so desperately needs.

Item A. is a Huffington Post broadcast of the recent WikiLeaks publication of an authentic U.S. military video of "collateral murder" from the sky over a neighborhood in Baghdad.

Item B., sent to us by The University of Paris Ph.D. student, Ahmed El Aidi, is an interview with NYU Professor Bertell Ollman discussing the historical significance of President Obama's first term.

Item C., from Information Clearing House, is a Gallup Poll report that underemployment in the U.S. rose to 20.3% in March 2010.

Item D., offers more information on unemployment today in the USA.

Item E., sent to us by UCSD Professor Fred Lonidier, is a brief up-date on the struggle over public education at The University of California.

Item F. is an article, first published in the L.A. Times by peace activist Tom Hayden, discussing the U.S. government strategy of "another century of war."

Item G., is an article by Edward Herman on "class warfare" à la Obama . . . .

Item H. is an article sent to us by George Kenney of Electric Politics, in which he interviews  American journalist Jeffrey Blankfort on "the Israel Lobby."

Item I. is a communication from Lusine Kerobyan, editor-in-chief of O/R Books, about the importance of Norman Finkelstein's new book: This Time We Went Too Far: Truth and Consequences of the Gaza Invasion to be published this month.

Item J., sent to us by NYU professor Mark Crispin Miller, is a report from San Diego, California on the threat to "un-tenure" activist professor Ricardo Dominguez, who is Associate Professor of Visual Arts at UCSD, for obvious political disagreements (with photos by Fred Lonidier).


And finally, we invite CEIMSA readers to watch the four-part interview with Michel Warschawski , author of On the Border, talking with Paul Jay on The Real News Network:


http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=33&Itemid=74&jumival=544


Sincerely,
Francis McCollum Feeley
Professor of American Studies
Director of Research
Université Stendhal Grenoble 3
http://www.ceimsa.org/


______________
A.
from Huffington Post :
Date: 5 April 2010
Subject: Collateral Murder from the sky over Baghdad.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/05/wikileaks-exposes-video-o_n_525569.html


5th April 2010 10:44 EST WikiLeaks has released a classified US military video depicting the indiscriminate slaying of over a dozen people in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad -- including two Reuters news staff.

Reuters has been trying to obtain the video through the Freedom of Information Act, without success since the time of the attack. The video, shot from an Apache helicopter gun-site, clearly shows the unprovoked slaying of a wounded Reuters employee and his rescuers. Two young children involved in the rescue were also seriously wounded.

http://collateralmurder.com/

__________________
B.
from Ahmed El Aidi :
Date: 2 April 2010
Subject: Ollman on Obama.

Hello Mr Feeley,
I thought you'd be interested in Bertell Ollman's point of view on President Obama.
Best regards
Ahmed

http://www.humanite.fr/2009-01-31_L-Humanite-des-debats_Bertell-Ollman-Une-benediction-pour-le-capitalisme

______________
C.
from ICH :
Date: 6 April 2010
Subject: Gallup Poll records that underemployment in the U.S. rose to 20.3% in March 2010.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/


The number of long-term unemployed (more than 27 weeks) in March rose to more than 6.5 million. The percentage of people unemployed for 27 weeks or more also rose to a record 44.1% of all jobless.


Gallup: Underemployment In The U.S. Rises To 20.3% In March
http://www.istockanalyst.com/article/viewarticle/articleid/3999525



________________
D.
from ICH :
Date: 6 April 2010
Sbject: More on Unemployment in the USA.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/


As of last month, more than 6.5 million Americans have been without a job for at least six months, an all-time high, according to Labor Department data. That's more than double the amount this time last year.


Number Of Long-Term Unemployed Continues To Rise, Sets Another All-Time High


The unemployment rate for whites held steady at 8.8 percent compared to February and went down for Asians from 8.4 percent to 7.5 percent. But it rose to 16.5 percent for blacks from 15.8 percent. Hispanics showed a slight increase as well from 12.4 percent to 12.6 percent.

Flat Unemployment Rate Masks the Race Gap

_______________
E.
from Fred Lonidier :
Date: 9 April 2010
Subject: University of California threatens faculty, free speech and research.


Its getting Hectic

Massive tuition increases are on the docket and a surge in racist attacks arise, but the enlightened California Higher Education System has decides instead to eat its own.

The shaping of a progressive, equitable California seems now destined to be created not through the values of "authorities" but instead through the continuing occupation and protest movements.  March 4th's  healthy turnouts, seem to prove the movement's resiliency and expansiveness..

Meanwhile, now the administration cracks down on free speech and academic freedom. Their targets at UC San Diego and UC Riverside are related in a loose collaboration to pushing back against the University's stupidity, and towards a better future. Those involved are our peers, co-workers, friends and collaborators and co-workers.

We know the threats towards Ricardo Dominguez and the rest of Banglab (Micha Cardenas, Brett Stalbaum and Amy Sara Carroll), and the investigation of Ken Ehrlich's authoring of  the Mark Yudof prank ( UC Riverside) are a failing diversion to cower the faculty, staff, and students into fear.  This won't work.

There has been some amazing organizing and solidarity on this already inside and across the University.

Occupy Everything, including Fear.

_______________
F.
from : Tom Hayden :
Date: 1 April 2010
Subject: Another Century of War?
http://www.latimes.com/

Without public debate and without congressional hearings, a segment of the Pentagon and fellow travelers have embraced a doctrine known as the Long War.

Our Government Is Planning to Stay at War for the Next 80 Years
Anyyone Got a Problem with That?
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25126.htm

by Tom Hayden

______________
G.
from Ed Herman :
Date: 3 April 2010
Subject: Class Warfare à la Obama. . . .
http://www.zcommunications.org/znet



Big Government, Deficits, Entitlements, and "Centrists"
by Edward S. Herman


These are words that come into prominence whenever the right wing and business community go on the offensive. Big government was not featured by the right wing or business during the recent (2001-09) Bush years because, although the federal government and budget were growing, it was via an enlargement of the military and police budgets and an attack on the privacy and civil rights of ordinary citizens, in the alleged interest of "national security."

In the Reagan years, also, the size of government grew, but this was not objectionable to the elite establishment because the growth was in military expenditures, with social budgets, organized labor, and environmental protections under attack. During George W. Bush's term, there were a number of encroachments by the federal government on "state's rights," e.g., allowing the feds to override state authority on matters such as environmental rules (the EPA disallowed California's attempt to limit auto tailpipe emissions in 2007) and medical practice (the Department of Justice sought to overturn an Oregon law legalizing physician-assisted suicide in 2002 and later).

There were no Tea Party-like campaigns to protest this growth in government and attack on constitutional (and state's) rights in the Bush years, because the growing and encroaching government was in the right hands. It is only when it gets into the wrong hands and there is the threat that government will serve the undeserving poor­or even the middle class­and neglect the corporate community and national "security" that business, the military-industrial complex (MIC), and right-wing protest cadres get agitated about big government. I refer back to my old definition of conservatism: "An ideology whose central tenet is that the government is too big, except for the police and military establishment."

Deficit Fears

T
his differential treatment naturally also applies to concern over budget deficits. Bush inherited a $230 billion budget surplus from Clinton, which he quickly turned into large deficits. But he did this by cutting taxes in a highly regressive way and generously servicing the MIC, so the business-financial-MIC communities were happy, and this fed into the "free" press keeping expressions of concern over budget deficits at a low key. With Obama, there has been a new surge of worry over budget deficits. Admittedly, these deficits are large, but their large size results mainly from the effects of the severe recession and the inheritance of tax cuts and wars from the Bush years (although the wars continue and even expand under Obama). And they don't really worry the financial community much, as evidenced by the very low rates of interest on government securities.

[]

Reagan's deficits almost tripled the national debt, but the outcries from the establishment were muted in light of his service to them. The Congressional Budget Office estimated in 2004 that a continuation of Bush's policies would triple the national debt by the end of fiscal 2013, with a ten trillion dollar increment, matching the performance of "conservative" Ronald Reagan. But like Reagan, he was an effective class warrior, hence the muting of deficit fears.

In a classic illustration of the double standard based on fear of positive Democratic responses to the needs of ordinary citizens and faith in Republican commitment to the business-financial elite, in 1978, in the Carter years, former Citibank CEO Walter Wriston said that federal deficits were "diverting available capital from productive private investments to finance public expenditures. Only a reduction in the federal deficit would reverse this trend." But with Reagan in office in 1988, Wriston said that we must distinguish between capital and operating budgets, and that the normal household does not treat its home as a current expense, so that we need not worry, as there is "near balance in the operating budget." There had been no distinction between operating and capital budgets with Carter. The business-trustworthy Reagan could run deficits, Carter should not, and the rationalizations followed accordingly.

Obama, like Carter or Clinton, is not trustworthy, even though, like his predecessor Democrats he leans over backwards to prove his reliability to the election-funding community and his rejection of "populism" and any substantial action that might meet the needs of his popular base. But this never suffices, as a Clinton or Obama will have to do something for their base beyond feeling their pain and vowing real action, however skimpy that something and promised action may be. With a George W. Bush or a Reagan in office the service to what Bush­speaking to an elite fund-raising audience of "haves and have mores" that he only half-jokingly called "my base"­is more assured. So is the neglect of, and systematic attack on, the underlying population. Hence the renewed focus on the threat of government deficits.

Entitlement

E
ntitlement is another word that has taken on negative connotations, suggesting claims that may be excessive and at the expense of hard-working, tax-paying Americans. Money for the varied components of the MIC is never referred to as an entitlement, even though a very large part of it is wasteful, fraud-ridden, and pointless, even perverse in relation to any supposed "defense" function. It represents capture by a segment of the powerful­the real and important "special interests"­in the same fashion as does the TARP money that flowed so quickly and massively to the banksters who engineered the current economic crisis. But the phrase "national security" is a marvelous protective cover that rules out the use of a word with negative connotations like "entitlements." Welfare mothers get entitlements, but not military contractors, fat-cat military officials, or bailed-out bankers.

The current prize entitlements demanding attention are Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Of course, the Social Security "entitlements" were paid for by those who are currently, or will be later, getting payments. But those surpluses were used by the political elites to fund ordinary expenses­including vast outlays for MIC weapons purchases and wars­rather then to build an infrastructure that would enhance future productivity and help provide the resources for entitlement payouts. But the main reason these social programs are entitlements is that they service the general citizenry, not just the elite. In the evolving system of class war the elite targets such programs for cost savings to themselves (and profits to Wall Street with the hoped-for privatization of Social Security).

Centrist

A
nother choice term linked to these politically loaded word usages is "centrist." A centrist may be defined as one who recognizes and presses establishment perspectives on "big government, government deficits and entitlements." A centrist regularly supports de facto MIC entitlements, and any wars in hand or contemplated, but worries about the solvency of Social Security and the need to get it and the Medicare-Medicaid programs under sound fiscal management. Of course, the centrist will not support a single-payer health-care financial program, or even a public option, because government is not a good manager and such proposals are not politically feasible. We must curb big government, but not at the expense of national security. We must work hard on eliminating the budget deficit, but not by raising taxes­the centrists uniformly supported the great Bush (regressive) tax cuts of 2001-03.
[]  

The mainstream media love centrists and constantly call on the Democrats to move toward the center in order to win elections (notoriously, after they have lost them) or to get legislation passed in a bipartisan fashion. The media did not press Bush to move to the center. Presumably, he had a "mandate" (from the Republican majority of the Supreme Court). Could it be that what Bush's "base" wants is the "center" that the media also want? And that the "centrists" they love struggle to achieve those same Bush-base ends, fending off or just ignoring whatever the underlying population wants?

Obama recognizes this call and has behaved accordingly. One of his responses to the threat of big government, deficits, and entitlements has been to support establishing a commission to study entitlements. Not the massive and nationally debilitating and unaffordable entitlements of the MIC, but those benefiting the underlying population. The class war goes on.
Z

_________________

Edward S. Herman is an economist and political, social, and media critic. He is the author of numerous articles and books, including the classic Washington Connection and Third World Fascism.


________________
H.
from George Kenney :
Date: 9 April 2010
Subject: Podcast interview w/ Jeffrey Blankfort re the Israel Lobby
http://www.electricpolitics.com/

Dear Francis,
     The political landscape regarding peoples' attitudes toward the Israel Lobby looks a lot like a checkerboard. There's no clear division -- indeed, there's no division at all -- between left and right, just a series of almost (almost) random groupings. I find it particularly vexing that many on the left defer to Noam Chomsky's pro-Zionist views; others may find it equally vexing that certain right-wing American politicians have led the way in taking on the Lobby. In any case, it's useful for all of us to be reminded from time to time how much trouble the Lobby is intent on causing behind the scenes.
     To get at some of these questions I turned to Jeffrey Blankfort, a committed anti-Zionist and pro-Palestinian activist. I would add, in case you're wondering, that he's from a secular Jewish background -- no doubt that partly explains why he doesn't pull any punches. Jeff, nevertheless, is very reasonable in an understated way, even though some might consider him an existential threat. For my own part, I tend to share his views pretty much down the line.
     I hope you find this one interesting and provocative regardless of whether you agree with the analysis.
     As always, please feel free to redistribute the link.
     Thanks for listening!
Best,
g.

http://www.electricpolitics.com/podcast/2010/04/whither_the_israel_lobby.html

________________
I.
from Lusine Kerobyan :
Date: 9 April 2010
Subject: Norman Finkelstein's new book: "This Time We Went Too Far: Truth and Consequences of the Gaza Invasion."
http://orbooks.com/


Dear Francis,
I’m writing to you at Bertell Ollman’s recommendation. We are publishing Norman Finkelstein’s latest book, “This Time We Went Too Far”, on the Gaza invasion and its consequences, and I wanted to see if you might be able to help us spread the word. As the Israeli government attempts to discredit the UN Goldstone Report on the Gaza assault, Dr. Finkelstein’s meticulous study of why Israel attacked, what happened on the ground during the invasion, and the repercussions of the attack in Jewish communities around the world could not be more timely or important.
 
Bertell suggested that you might be able to help us publicize it: perhaps you could review it or send out an announcement (I’m attaching our press release and flyer here) or post a link on your site? In line with the new model of publishing that OR Books is following, we are only selling the book direct to customers from our site, so electronic promotion is vital to getting its message out.
 
If you would like to find out more, please take a look at the press release attached here or visit our website at http://www.orbooks.com/, where you can also watch a brief video about the book.
Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions.
 
I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this.
All best,
Lusiné
 
- - - - -
Lusiné Kerobyan
OR Books
http://orbooks.com/

_____________
J.
from Mark Crispin Miller :
Date: 9 April 2010
Subject: UCSD threatens to "un-tenure" activist professor.


While this particular case has its own (ostensible) reasons, it's clearly part of a far larger drive
to purge the culture of all sources of contrary thought and, therefore, democratic activism. This
drive started in the early Seventies, as David Brock and others have explained, with--to
use a quaint old phrase--Big Business setting out to take the culture back from the then-
rampant movements for peace, environmental sanity and civil rights for everyone. At first,
that plutocratic counter-effort focused mainly on the media, and quickly moved on to undo
the unions; and, then, a little later (the media and unions largely broken as dissenting
institutions), it started taking aim at the Academy, and public education overall.

And so Prof. Dominguez is threatened with the revocation of his tenure--which is to say,
with unemployment--for his disruptive activism. If he were a "good" academic, offering
a version of "resistance" comfortably abstract, his output would, of course, be (modestly)
rewarded and his job security assured. But as he's been devoting his professional attention
to explosive public matters, they have moved to shut him up by threatening that security,
which is to hit him, hard, right where he lives (and set a pretty frightening example for his
peers, especially the younger ones).

Whatever happens next (and if you scroll down toward the bottom of the second item
here, you'll find a link to a petition, and some pertinent addresses for your use), we can
at least take chilly comfort in the fact that the authorities at UCSD have bluntly reconfirmed
Prof. Dominguez's main argument: i.e., that California's universities (like many others coast
to coast) have been simultaneously privatized--not only budgetarily, but in spirit--and politicized, their managers allowing rightist politicians to define what's intellectually acceptable, and what is not.

MCM

Support grows for 'activist' UCSD professor
By Eleanor Yang Su, UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
http://va-grad.ucsd.edu/~drupal/node/1429

 

UCSD Professor Ricardo Dominguez works in the field of electronic civil disobedience, and has become the target of two investigations related to his work, including scrutiny from three
conservative congressmen from San Diego County who question his work helping illegal border crossers find water stations in the desert.

A UCSD visual arts professor facing heat from campus administrators, auditors and police over
two of his controversial projects has canceled a meeting with auditors for Thursday morning after receiving advice from about 200 supporters during a rally.
Ricardo Dominguez was scheduled to meet the auditors to discuss a virtual sit-in he staged last
month on the Web site for the president of the University of California system. The event, which disrupted the site's operations, was held to protest budget cuts and what Dominguez called the increasing privatization of the public university.
Officials at the University of California San Diego are looking at whether the sit-in amounts to a "denial of service attack," in which a hacker tries to shut down a Web site.
Since January, Dominguez said, he's also been questioned by campus administrators about a GPS-enabled cell phone tool he's helping develop that would provide illegal immigrants with information on water bins and Border Patrol lookouts in the border area. That project has drawn complaints from three local congressmen who said public money shouldn't be used to help illegal border-crossers.
"Art is not a crime," Dominguez said during the rally. "Online protest in not a crime."

He fears the investigations could lead to the revocation of his tenured status. UCSD officials said
they honor academic freedom but need to look into any potential criminal activity.
Coalitions of faculty members have organized a letter-writing campaign defending Dominguez
and his work in the field of electronic civil disobedience.
On Thursday morning, the crowd - mostly students - held signs with statements such as, "Save academic freedom at UCSD." They marched from the Geisel library to the office of the visual arts department chairman. Some put tape over their mouths or wore face masks to make a similar point.
The rally participants urged Dominguez to cancel his meeting with the auditors unless his attorney
is present.
 
Ricardo Dominguez (Associate Professor, Visual Arts, UCSD) is currently being threatened with criminal action and the revocation of his tenure by UCOP and several UCSD senior administrators. This is a long, rapidly-developing story. Time is of the essence; Ricardo meets with our SVC on the morning of Thursday, April 7.

UC Office of the President has reportedly been upset over Ricardo's involvement in the Transborder Immigrant Tool - these are recycled cell phones loaded with software that points border-crossers to caches of fresh water in the desert, obviously saving lives. It's a controversial project, to say the least; and Ricardo has received death threats from people in the SD community and beyond. The project was picked up by the national and international presses, and CNN named Ricardo one of its "Most Interesting People" of 2009 because of the project. Several Republican congressmen also recently sent a letter to UCSD demanding that the project be ceased and Ricardo be censured. In response to this, the university has been scrambling to find a way to shut it down. Importantly: the project has been included in every one of Ricardo's professional reviews over the last few years, all of which have gone successfully (and have been signed off on by this very SVC); in addition, the project has been FUNDED by UCSD (and yet again, signed off on by this SVC). Now that the controversy has gotten attention in DC, they're reversing course.

More recently, as part of the March 4 actions, Ricardo's bang.lab created a virtual sit-in on the UCOP web site. A virtual sit-in works in this way:
participants go to a specified web page, which continuously "refreshes"
connections to the target web page (in this case, ucop.edu <http://ucop.edu>). This obviously increases traffic to that site - much like a live sit-in at a specified locale - with the potential effect of making it too busy to accept new incoming connections. It is similar, in form, to what's called a "Distributed Denial of Service Attack" (DDOS). There are several critical difference between a virtual sit-in and a DDOS: a DDOS is prolonged and unending, used by various governmental groups to censor a wide variety of free speech groups, activist groups, etc, and non-transparent (the creators of the DDOS set up virtual robots to blast a given site with millions of hits, and hide the creators behind various firewalls and filters. A virtual sit-in is open, does not use such "robots," and the creators are identified freely).

Please sign the petition below to protect academic freedom and tenure from politically-motivated attacks.

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/stop-the-de-tenuring-of-ricardo-dominguez

Ricardo Dominguez (Associate Professor, Visual Arts, UCSD) is currently being threatened with criminal action and the revocation of his tenure by UCOP and several UCSD senior administrators. This is a long, rapidly-developing story. Time is of the essence; Ricardo meets with our SVC on the morning of Thursday, April 7.

UC Office of the President has reportedly been upset over Ricardo's involvement in the Transborder Immigrant Tool - these are recycled cell phones loaded with software that points border-crossers to caches of fresh water in the desert, obviously saving lives. It's a controversial project, to say the least; and Ricardo has received death threats from people in the SD community and beyond. The project was picked up by the national and international presses, and CNN named Ricardo one of its "Most Interesting People" of 2009 because of the project. Several Republican congressmen also recently sent a letter to UCSD demanding that the project be ceased and Ricardo be censured. In response to this, the university has been scrambling to find a way to shut it down. Importantly: the project has been included in every one of Ricardo's professional reviews over the last few years, all of which have gone successfully (and have been signed off on by this very SVC); in addition, the project has been FUNDED by UCSD (and yet again, signed off on by this SVC). Now that the controversy has gotten attention in DC, they're reversing course.

More recently, as part of the March 4 actions, Ricardo's bang.lab created a virtual sit-in on the UCOP web site. A virtual sit-in works in this way:
participants go to a specified web page, which continuously "refreshes"
connections to the target web page (in this case, ucop.edu <http://ucop.edu>). This obviously increases traffic to that site - much like a live sit-in at a specified locale - with the potential effect of making it too busy to accept new incoming connections. It is similar, in form, to what's called a "Distributed Denial of Service Attack" (DDOS). There are several critical difference between a virtual sit-in and a DDOS: a DDOS is prolonged and unending, used by various governmental groups to censor a wide variety of free speech groups, activist groups, etc, and non-transparent (the creators of the DDOS set up virtual robots to blast a given site with millions of hits, and hide the creators behind various firewalls and filters. A virtual sit-in is open, does not use such "robots," and the creators are identified freely).

Please sign the petition below to protect academic freedom and tenure from politically-motivated attacks.

Dear President Yudof, Chancellor Fox, SVC Drake, and other concerned parties:

We the undersigned write in support of Ricardo Dominguez (Associate Professor, Visual Arts, UCSD) and his collaborators at b.a.n.g lab. We have recently heard disturbing news about Professor Dominguez's tenure being placed under review in response to several of his recent research and performance projects, and we are deeply concerned about such developments. Professor Dominguez is an internationally renowned performance artist and researcher whose work has been curated and anthologized in a wide range of venues; he is known as an exemplary artist, scholar, and teacher; and we count ourselves fortunate to have him as a colleague within the UC system. We write to provide some disciplinary context for his work, which we hope will encourage you to abandon any potential efforts to revoke his tenure.

We understand the projects in question to be:

(1) Professor Dominguez's participation in the inter-institutional project "Transborder Immigrant Tool"; and

(2) Professor Dominguez's participation in a virtual sit-in on the UCOP web site as part of the collective actions taken on March 4, 2010 in response to the current crises facing public higher education in California.

The Transborder Immigrant Tool is an innovative project that cross-cuts technology and the arts. Using low-cost and recycled mobile phones loaded with mapping software, the project aims to reduce deaths and serious illnesses/injuries for those traveling through California%u2019s deserts.
Although this project has been met with some controversy in the press, we see this work as being imminently ethical and, perhaps just as importantly, a serious and innovative extension of precedents in performance research that have similarly aimed to pose questions about structural inequality, citizenship and civility, and humanitarianism. Such questions have occupied performance traditions throughout the 20th and 21st centuries; Dominguez's work, in this regard, is both part of a longer disciplinary tradition in performance and the visual arts and, importantly for the UC, an innovative and forward-thinking extension of these queries to the problems and conditions that define our contemporary age.

It is also important to note, despite sensationalist media reports to the contrary, that the Transborder Immigrant Tool has not as yet been used by anyone unaffiliated with b.a.n.g lab. It is still in development, with input from non-profit border organizations and the Border Patrol. We understand that UCSD has received complaints from several members of the US Congress who have unfortunately been misinformed about the project's scope, and who are attempting to intervene into the practice of academic and artistic freedom. As scholars and artists who have chosen to work in the context of a public institution in the interest of the "greater good,"
we find such interventions from political representatives into university research projects to be unethical and in breach of their responsibilities as elected leaders.

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/stop-the-de-tenuring-of-ricardo-dominguez

You can also send letter directly to:

Write a letter expressing your concerns about this issue, supporting our research, calling for an end to the investigations and an end to the harassment of Ricardo Dominguez and bang.lab/EDT members to:

"Kester, Grant" <gkester@ucsd.edu <mailto:gkester@ucsd.edu>>, "Larsen, Kristina" <klarsen@ucsd.edu <mailto:klarsen@ucsd.edu>>, "Lerer, Seth" <slerer@ucsd.edu <mailto:slerer@ucsd.edu>>, "Lawrence.Pitts@ucop.edu <mailto:Lawrence.Pitts@ucop.edu>"
<Lawrence.Pitts@ucop.edu <mailto:Lawrence.Pitts@ucop.edu>>, "Rosen, Amy" <arosen@ucsd.edu <mailto:arosen@ucsd.edu>>, "SVC Academic Affairs" <SVCAA@ucsd.edu <mailto:SVCAA@ucsd.edu>>, "Ricardo Dominguez" <rrdominguez@ucsd.edu <mailto:rrdominguez@ucsd.edu>>