I should probably be upset that the folks at City Hall are just leaving my personal information up on their screens, for anyone to see, but, at the moment, I’m more curious as to why they’d been looking at my information to begin with. Could it be that they’re having me tracked? Could it be that, without any real threat of student activism to speak of, and with a habitually underachieving population of Muslim extremists, I’m the most attractive target they’ve got for surveillance? I mean, it must be hard to have a huge surveillance infrastructure, like we have here in the United States, and not be able to use it, right? I can see how you might want to try it out. It’s only natural. To not use it would be like having a shiny, new, industrial-sized can of pepper spray, and keeping it in its holster. And, where’s the fun in that?
I went to the gym after work this evening and watched coverage of today’s admission of failure by the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction. I found myself getting incredibly pissed off, to the point of inadvertently blurting out “asshole” a couple of times, and flipping up my middle finger at the television set in disgust. I just couldn’t control my anger at the Republicans, who have demonstrated yet once again that they would rather throw our country into the economic abyss than even consider letting the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans expire. And, as our friends at Think Progress remind us, it isn’t as though the Democrats on the committee didn’t try to find common ground. Here’s an excerpt from their timeline.
February 14, 2011: President Barack Obama submits budget for 2012 with about $2 trillion in deficit reduction, half of which come from spending cuts.
April 15, 2011: House passes Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) budget, which includes $5.8 trillion in spending cuts along with tax cuts for the richest Americans.
May 5, 2011: Vice President Joe Biden begins debt talks.
May 11, 2011: Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) says he will not raise debt limit without spending cuts that match how much the limit is raised.
June 23, 2011: Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) walks away from debt ceiling talks with Biden after refusing to consider any tax increases. The administration had offered $2.4 trillion in spending cuts for $400 billion in taxes, an 83:17 split.
July 7, 2011: Obama and Boehner begin debt-ceiling negotiations.
July 9, 2011: Boehner walks away from Obama’s “grand bargain”: $4 trillion in debt reduction comprised of $1 trillion in revenue and $3 trillion in spending cuts, including entitlement reforms.
July 19, 2011: The Gang of Six proposes a $4 trillion deficit reduction plan, including $2 trillion in revenue.
July 22, 2011: Again, Boehner walks away from negotiations after Obama offers $1.2 trillion in revenues and $1.6 trillion in spending cuts, including entitlements.
July 31, 2011: Debt ceiling agreement is reached, cutting $1 trillion in spending immediately and establishing the super committee to reduce deficits by at least an additional $1.2 trillion.
October 26, 2011: Democrats first super committee offer is $3 trillion in deficit reduction comprised of about $1.3 trillion in revenues and $1.7 trillion in spending cuts, including cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. Republicans immediately reject it. Republicans’ first super committee offer is $2.2 trillion in deficit reduction, which includes no new tax revenues.
November 8, 2011: Republicans’ second super committee offer is $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction. It does include $300 billion in new tax revenue, but in exchange for extending the Bush tax cuts and lowering the top tax rate. The plan would ultimately cut taxes for the wealthy and raise them for everyone else.
November 10, 2011: Democrats’ second offer is $2.3 trillion in deficit reduction, consisting of $1.3 trillion in spending cuts and $1 trillion in revenue. The revenue would be split between $350 billion in concrete measures and $650 billion in future tax reform. Republicans reject it.
November 11, 2011: Democrats agree to Republicans’ top lines including just $400 billion in revenues and $875 billion in spending cuts, but refuse to accept the GOP’s tax cut for the rich. Republicans reject it and make their final offer: $640 billion in spending cuts and $3 billion in revenues.
What this timeline shows is just how much Democrats have been willing to bend, only to have Republicans reject very generous offers. Back in June, Democrats reportedly offered a mere $400 billion in tax increases as part of a $2.4 trillion deficit reduction package — a 83:17 ratio of spending cuts to tax increases. Republicans said no.
And, now, having failed to reach a bipartisan agreement, we trigger the automatic 2013 spending cuts that were stipulated in the original agreement (half from domestic programs, and half from military spending). Republicans are already saying that they’ll find a way to work around this provision, in order to protect military spending, but Obama has come out saying that he’ll veto any such attempt… It seems to me to be a colossal failure on the part of all those involved, but maybe Russ Feingold is right. Maybe this failure today is a good thing, in that in means that Democrats didn’t cave in to Republican pressure, as they so often do. Here’s what Fieigold had to say about today’s events.
The chairs of the congressional super committee just made a huge announcement: The super committee will fail to send a deficit reduction plan to Congress before its deadline this week.
Progressives demanded that the rich pay their fair share, or no deal, and Democrats stood strong.
Democrats tried to craft a compromise with Republicans that included the 1% paying their fair share, but Republicans refused to budge. So Democrats walked away from the bad deals Republicans offered, just as hundreds of thousands of progressives asked them to do.
This news means that Congress will have no fast-track path for dismantling crucial programs like Social Security and Medicare.
Democrats’ strong stand is thanks to you and hundreds of thousands of your fellow progressives around the country who petitioned the super committee or contacted members directly.
We prevented a bad deal from the super committee, but the fight isn’t over. Republicans have shown that protecting corporations and the 1% is their top priority, despite an overwhelming majority of Americans wanting the wealthiest among us to pay their fair share.
Now we must take the fight directly to Republicans, and force them to explain why protecting corporate tax loopholes is more important than preserving Medicare; why cutting Social Security benefits is better than asking the wealthiest individuals and corporations to pay their fair share in taxes; and why coddling corporate America is more important than standing up for average working families.
We must not, and will, not let up in this important fight…
I just hope that the people of America will be able to see the truth behind this recent development, and know that Romney and others are full of shit when they say that it’s all Obama’s fault. This, as much as I’d like to blame the administration, isn’t about a failure of Democratic leadership. This is about class warfare. This is about a very powerful segment of our population that would rather see our nation destroyed than pay the same tax rate that the did under Reagan. This is about purposefully bankrupting the nation so that social programs, like welfare and Social Security, can be destroyed. This is the endgame that Grover Norquist dreamed of when he said, “I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.” This, in my opinion, borders on treason.
For those of you who didn’t catch it, EMU was mentioned in the New York Times a week or so ago. Unfortunately, it wasn’t anything good. It was in relation to the Penn State pedophilia case. EMU, it seems, finds itself in an elite group of American universities – those that have been caught purposefully putting individuals at risk for self-serving reasons… It’s been almost five years now, since EMU administrations tried to hush up the dorm room rape and murder of freshman Laura Dickinson, but I guess some things aren’t so easily forgotten… Here’s a clip from the New York Times:
After the body of an Eastern Michigan University freshman was found in her dorm room in December 2006, naked from the waist down with a pillow over her head, the chief of the university police said there was “no reason to suspect foul play,” and let her parents believe she had died of natural causes.
That silence held for more than two months. In that time, the student who was eventually convicted in her murder had free run of a campus where he was previously caught climbing into a window of a university building…
Part of me feels bad about this… that EMU can’t seem to put this behind them, even after the firing of President Fallon, the paying of $350,000 in federal fines, and the passage of five years without serious incident… but I think it’s probably a good thing. As bad as it might be for the University’s image, I take some comfort in the fact that Dickinson’s murder hasn’t been forgotten, and that the case is still being discussed. One hopes that, maybe, others might learn from it.
Apparently, it wasn’t just the New York Times making the connection between EMU and Penn State. ABC News ran something as well… It was after a mention of this ABC news piece on the AnnArbor.com site, that Geoff Larcom, EMU’s director of media relations, shared the following.
…But far more important are the measures EMU has taken since this tragedy.
* The police chief now reports directly to President Susan Martin, who reads the daily police reports.
* In 2009, EMU dedicated a new $3.9 million police headquarters, repurposing an old building (Hoyt Center) and turning it into a state-of-the-art facility.
* EMU now has about 400 surveillance cameras on campus.
* EMU increased police and dispatch staffing, including adding a group of respected veteran Ann Arbor police officers.
* Installed swipe locks in first-year dorms and instituted a “Gotcha” program where staff checks student residence hall rooms to ensure they remain locked.
* A new leadership team exists — from president, to police chief, to general counsel, to head of student affairs. In addition, EMU now has a vice president for communications, who ensures proactive communication with the EMU community and the public.
* An open and respective environment has been established among the leadership team to encourage the sharing of information, and training in how to properly report issues has been implemented.
* EMU’s system mandates transparency, and public and proactive dissemination of information such as crime notices that might be considered negative, in order to empower the campus community.
Implementation of these and other initiatives make a significant positive impact among current and prospective students, and faculty and staff. Our crime statistics show a dramatic decline in recent years…
So, what do you think? Has EMU done enough to turn things around? Have they regained your trust? Have they demonstrated that they have the best interests of their students in mind? And, at what point should we forget that EMU administrators told students that there was nothing to worry about when they knew that there was a murderer on campus with access to the dorms? What should the statute of limitations be for something like that, anyway?
[note: Geoff Larcom, as some of you may know, was a reporter at the Ann Arbor News before joining the EMU staff, and, in that role, covered the Dickinson murder case.]
By now, you’ve probably seen the the footage of the UC Davis students being pepper sprayed. It’s disgusting stuff. The students are sitting down in a line, across a sidewalk, protesting recent tuition hires, and, ironically enough, episodes of police brutality elsewhere in the University of California system. They are peaceful. No one is yelling. Their arms are linked. Then a cop, decked out his Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome post-appolocyptic riot suit, pulls out a canister of pepper spray, extends his arm so that the canister is just inches from the unprotected eyes of a student sitting at the far end of the line, and begins spraying. Then, this cop casually walks down the line, as though he’s watering a line of tomato plants, spraying directly into the eyes of each student in turn. They all fall over, gasping for air. And then the billy clubs come out… It would seem the police were called on campus at the behest of the UC Davis Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi, who is now being asked by many on campus to resign. Following is an open letter written to Katehi by UC Davis Assistant Professor Nathan Brown.
…Today you ordered police onto our campus to clear student protesters from the quad. These were protesters who participated in a rally speaking out against tuition increases and police brutality on UC campuses on Tuesday—a rally that I organized, and which was endorsed by the Davis Faculty Association. These students attended that rally in response to a call for solidarity from students and faculty who were bludgeoned with batons, hospitalized, and arrested at UC Berkeley last week. In the highest tradition of non-violent civil disobedience, those protesters had linked arms and held their ground in defense of tents they set up beside Sproul Hall. In a gesture of solidarity with those students and faculty, and in solidarity with the national Occupy movement, students at UC Davis set up tents on the main quad. When you ordered police outfitted with riot helmets, brandishing batons and teargas guns to remove their tents today, those students sat down on the ground in a circle and linked arms to protect them.
What happened next?
Without any provocation whatsoever, other than the bodies of these students sitting where they were on the ground, with their arms linked, police pepper-sprayed students. Students remained on the ground, now writhing in pain, with their arms linked.
What happened next?
Police used batons to try to push the students apart. Those they could separate, they arrested, kneeling on their bodies and pushing their heads into the ground. Those they could not separate, they pepper-sprayed directly in the face, holding these students as they did so. When students covered their eyes with their clothing, police forced open their mouths and pepper-sprayed down their throats. Several of these students were hospitalized. Others are seriously injured. One of them, forty-five minutes after being pepper-sprayed down his throat, was still coughing up blood.
This is what happened. You are responsible for it.
You are responsible for it because this is what happens when UC Chancellors order police onto our campuses to disperse peaceful protesters through the use of force: students get hurt. Faculty get hurt. One of the most inspiring things (inspiring for those of us who care about students who assert their rights to free speech and peaceful assembly) about the demonstration in Berkeley on November 9 is that UC Berkeley faculty stood together with students, their arms linked together. Associate Professor of English Celeste Langan was grabbed by her hair, thrown on the ground, and arrested. Associate Professor Geoffrey O’Brien was injured by baton blows. Professor Robert Hass, former Poet Laureate of the United States, National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize winner, was also struck with a baton. These faculty stood together with students in solidarity, and they too were beaten and arrested by the police. In writing this letter, I stand together with those faculty and with the students they supported.
One week after this happened at UC Berkeley, you ordered police to clear tents from the quad at UC Davis. When students responded in the same way—linking arms and holding their ground—police also responded in the same way: with violent force. The fact is: the administration of UC campuses systematically uses police brutality to terrorize students and faculty, to crush political dissent on our campuses, and to suppress free speech and peaceful assembly. Many people know this. Many more people are learning it very quickly.
You are responsible for the police violence directed against students on the UC Davis quad on November 18, 2011. As I said, I am writing to hold you responsible and to demand your immediate resignation on these grounds…
I am writing to tell you in no uncertain terms that there must be space for protest on our campus. There must be space for political dissent on our campus. There must be space for civil disobedience on our campus. There must be space for students to assert their right to decide on the form of their protest, their dissent, and their civil disobedience—including the simple act of setting up tents in solidarity with other students who have done so. There must be space for protest and dissent, especially, when the object of protest and dissent is police brutality itself. You may not order police to forcefully disperse student protesters peacefully protesting police brutality. You may not do so. It is not an option available to you as the Chancellor of a UC campus. That is why I am calling for your immediate resignation.
Your words express concern for the safety of our students. Your actions express no concern whatsoever for the safety of our students. I deduce from this discrepancy that you are not, in fact, concerned about the safety of our students. Your actions directly threaten the safety of our students. And I want you to know that this is clear. It is clear to anyone who reads your campus emails concerning our “Principles of Community” and who also takes the time to inform themselves about your actions. You should bear in mind that when you send emails to the UC Davis community, you address a body of faculty and students who are well trained to see through rhetoric that evinces care for students while implicitly threatening them. I see through your rhetoric very clearly. You also write to a campus community that knows how to speak truth to power. That is what I am doing…
And here’s footage of Chancellor Linda Katehi leaving her office much later that night, after having listened to students outside chanting “We are peaceful” and “Just walk home” for several hours without stop. It’s an incredible scene. I’ve heard the phrase “deafeningly silent” before, but I’ve never actually experienced it. Katehi’s walk to her can seems to go on forever, as she walks the gauntlet of seated, absolutely silent students. It’s really inspiring.
I don’t know about you, but I found that incredibly moving.
[Students of Penn State, I don’t want to tell you how to conduct yourselves, but, if you ever find yourselves in a situation again where a university leader is suspected of having enabled a serial pedophile to rape children on your campus, this might be better way to greet him than screaming support in his front yard, and flipping over news vans.]
…Pervasive police abuses and intimidation tactics applied to peaceful protesters — pepper-spray, assault rifles, tasers, tear gas and the rest — not only harm their victims but also the relationship of the citizenry to the government and the set of core political rights. Implanting fear of authorities in the heart of the citizenry is a far more effective means of tyranny than overtly denying rights. That’s exactly what incidents like this are intended to achieve. Overzealous prosecution of those who engage in peaceful political protest (which we’ve seen and more of over the last several years) as well as the sprawling Surveillance State are the close cousins of excessive police force in both intent and effect: they are all about deterring meaningful challenges to those in power through the exercise of basic rights. Rights are so much more effectively destroyed by bullying a citizenry out of wanting to exercise them than any other means…
Thankfully, as students at neither UM or EMU seem inclined to protest, I don’t suppose we’ll be seeing anything like this playing out locally.
And, lastly, we have this head-scratchingly bizarre footage from the new web chat show PolitiChicks, featuring Tea Party favorite Victoria Jackson, pro-life activist Jennique Stewart, the editor of The Patriot Update Jennie Jones, and conservative columnist Ann-Marie Murrell. (Their second episode, which you can find here, is all about Obama’s birth certificate!)
