[Soon to be a Major Motion Picture — :)]
The following screed was posted on Hunter-L, a Hunter College listserv, in response to a petition posted to support OCCUPY WALL STREET. Hunter-L is used by faculty and students and staff for disseminating information and has a long history of turbulence and relevance . The petition can be found much further down in this blog.
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>Democracy only can flourish if all voices are both heard and heeded …”
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Attention D:F/M Colleagues Tami Gold***Ricardo Miranda***Bernard Stein***Kelly Anderson***Isabel Pinedo***Tim Portlock.
OCCUPY D:F/M! Part 1
A Public Service Announcement
Yes, liberate America from those voraciously greedy, ravenously anti-Democratic, money-grabbing financiers but True Democracy begins at home. Would you not agree? For example: Who was the SlumDogVigilante who ripped down the students’ Klemente Soto Velez posters last year? Should other students be concerned about SDV stalking their projects?
OCCUPY D:F/M can address these other daunting, haunting issues as well: The cancelling last year of the Klemente Soto Velez Screening because of “hurtful” emails? Where was the Democracy in that decision? Are there more “hurtful” emails in the works? Colleagues still trying to enforce a no-flunk policy on non-tenured Colleagues: Adjuncts be wary? Allegations of Grade Appeal decisions so despicable that they can’t be posted on this listserv? There have been some lulus, right? The D:F/M Academic Freedom Mavens should have been all over this, right?
Nevertheless, together, we can address: The skeletons rattling in the closet. The ones beating on the door to get in? Should some Colleagues be concerned about their public personas going the way of the Dodo?
God(s) forbid!
Democracy begins at home. OCCUPY D:F/M! Bring Democracy home.
End Part 1.
G Morris
D:F/M
October. 24, 2011
STATEMENT BY FACULTY MEMBERS OF HUNTER COLLEGE, CUNY,
IN SUPPORT OF THE OCCUPY WALL STREET MOVEMENTWe, the undersigned faculty and staff of Hunter College of the City University of New York, express our support as professionals and citizens for the protest movement, “Occupy Wall Street.” We see it as a new, creative awakening about the need for social justice that reflects the best traditions of American democracy and resonates with democratic protests across the globe.
This movement emerged in response to the continuing economic crisis in our country and much of the world, starting with “the economic meltdown” of September 2008. When that crisis occurred, our governmental leaders told us that the livelihoods of all Americans were threatened if we did not respond immediately with massive taxpayer support for our country’s biggest financial institutions. They were “too big to fail.” Since then, the endangered big banks have recovered; corporate profits have skyrocketed; executive bonuses continue unabated; thousands of small banks have been forced out of business, and millions of Americans have been put out of work. Yet the response by our elected leaders to the many Americans who have suffered because of the irresponsible and dangerous behavior of a few has been meager. Since 2008, thousands of families have had their homes taken from them; students are increasingly burdened by colossal debt to pay for their college education; New York State’s governor remains intent on lowering taxes for the richest New Yorkers while cutting back on education and health care, and economic inequality has reached its greatest heights in this country since the Great Depression. These economic and political phenomena evidence a continuing policy that regards most Americans as “too little to help.”
Democracy only can flourish if all voices are both heard and heeded and if the political order is understood. The Occupy Wall Street movement has given voice to citizens from across the political spectrum that have been neither heard nor heeded; it has shed light on the way in which the economic and political system in our country unfairly, but really, works. In this vein, it honors free speech, intellectual inquiry, and human well-being. It also has found common ground with economically and politically disenfranchised persons throughout Europe, the Middle East, Latin America, Africa, Asia, and Australia–all protesting corrosive inequalities.
As civic intellectuals and professors at a great public university, we hereby declare our support for this important movement. In so doing, we join our colleagues in colleges and universities across the nation and the world. May it grow.
SIGNATORIES
John R. Wallach (Political Science/Human Rights)
Ros Petchesky (Political Science/Women & Gender Studies)
Tami Gold (Film & Media Studies)
Bernard Stein (Journalism, Film & Media Studies)
(continued)
Gregory Johnson (Anthropology)
Isabel Pinedo (Film & Media Studies)
Rupal Oza (Director, Women & Gender Studies)
Diana Conchado (Spanish, Romance Languages)
Ricardo Miranda
Sarah E. Chinn (English)
Tim Portlock
Cheryl Harding
Kelly Anderson
Tags: BIG CORPORATIONS, DEMOCRACY, OCCUPY, OCCUPY D:F/M, OCCUPY WALL STREET