Posts by Hilary Stace
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A print run of 50,000! That will be a valuable archival record in the future.
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Penny Red who wrote that amazing piece about the London riots is now at the escalating Occupy Wall Street protest.
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The Occupy Wall Street movement is in its second week and has now become Occupy together and is spreading across the US. For the first few days it was ignored by the mainstream media and only Al-Jazeera and the local Indymedia covered it. Somehow even twitter prevented it trending. Now it has even made it to the Stuff website. Shows the power of the social media, and the collective action of real people, over the big corporates. Very heartening.
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OnPoint: Set it on fire, then, in reply to richard,
Actually Nordmeyer's budget was very fair and far sighted. He was just bashed by the tory media and the tobacco and alcohol lobbies..
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OnPoint: Set it on fire, then, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
There was a large active campaign over several months to fight the closure of GWS, just as the more recent battles over the closure of other programmes are fought at every step. Many of us wrote submissions and gave evidence. What the VUSA helped with was organising meetings of affected students, compiling submissions for those who hadn't the time to do their own or didn't want to, and keeping everyone informed about what was happening as the decision went through the various parts of university management and governance, including reporting from council. All invaluable.
I am pleased to report that I have just voted in the 2011 VUSA elections, including for the person who helped us fight the GWS decision. It is heartening that almost all positions were contested with many of them mentioning the uncertain future under VSM. I doubt whether any of them are over 22 years old. I do love young activists.
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My parents were at Canterbury university in the 1930s. My father's cousin (same surname) was head of the Students' Association. It was one of the most important roles on campus. My father was editor of Canta. That was another, but not of the same status as President of the Assocation. But it was my father who got to interview Karl Popper.
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What annoys me about all this is that it is just another attack on the universities being the 'conscience and critic' of society. When Victoria wanted to close the Gender and Women's Studies programme last year, the Students' assn helped us fight it. We lost but at least we had resources to challenge the decision. Similarly there are now cutbacks to many of those programmes that encourage critical thinking such as politics, policy, education, criminology, and the library. Generations of students have learned journalism and activism skills through university newspapers and other media - this will now be diluted or lost. VUW's Post Graduate student's assn is also very active and has its own conference every year.
This is in addition to the cutting of student and staff reps from polytech boards last year. The agenda is to make education just another commodity for individuals to buy, and dumb down democracy. Stephen Joyce has a lot to answer for.
I've been to a VSM university in Australia. Only a fraction of the students pay the levy. There is only basic very health and other support. There is no student university life on campus. People come for their lectures and go again. It was all very bleak.
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The universities will now require of students an increased student services levy and the university management will decide how and what services will be provided from that fee - and they will be of a narrower range and will cost students more. Any assets students' associations own that have been built up by their members over many decades will be privatised, so this is just another way to force asset sales. The VUSA recently made a big investment in the revamped field at Victoria. They will no longer be able to develop or invest in such assets. So the whole thing is just about privatisation, less democracy and fewer services. The middle class students will be fine. Those who will miss out will be those who need advocacy, social support or the services that made a university a vibrant place for student social life. These includes students from out of town, or poor ones. It's a triumph for the whole neo-lib ideology of individualism over the collective. (But it's only temporary as the pendulum is swinging away from neo-liberalism and towards a new collective and compassionate society as indicated by the @occupywallst movement which is mainly comprised of young people.)
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Sorry, but just had to post this. It's from the BBC news so sort of relevant. Apologies if already been mentioned today on other threads. A money trader confesses the economy is stuffed but recessions are wonderful opportunities for money traders to make money - as if there's no morality about it all