(thanks Thomas.)
The ISO are really pissing me off. They've been trying to hijack some meetings in ways which are not only infuriatingly obvious, obstructive, and counterproductive, but may actually be hurting our organizing with specific individuals in departments in which we are not as strong as we need to be. The shit they keep bringin up over and over again isn't even important stuff. it's not going to win this strike. It may not even help us win this strike. Today one ISO guy told me that the undergrad solidarity group (and he isn't even an undergrad) was "more militant" than us because they wanted to hand out a stupid, badly written leaflet telling prospectve students not to come here and all we grad students are doing is, uh, putting ourselves on the line, organzining like hell, and going on strike. Oh, wait. Thankfully, whatever drama there's been, we're still winning, because people are working their asses off to make that happen. But why can't they just do what the Yale ISO folks did - call us the "old guard" (damn you, "Alex Felstiner") and then disappear for months at a time? Seriously.
The undergrads - the actual undergrads, have been fantastic. And this is coming out of a place of frustration and exhaustion. I'll take it dwon if someone tells me to.
am i the old guard?
ReplyDeletewas i the old guard?
now i'm all curious about what that's in reference to.
When i tried to organize Sam at the beginning of junior year, he made repeated references to how strongly he disliked someone named Alex Felstiner and his kow-towing to the union brass. Then, the following summer, when i made Thomas try to deal with him and Leela, they told him that the old guard had to be deposed. I think that meant both of us, although you are like 7 months older than me, which, in Julie-speak, means you're about 87 and 7 months.
ReplyDeletehey- i was looking over nyuinc.org and saw a link to your blog. after scrolling down i read this particular post intently because i am an organizer in gus (grad-undergrad solidarity) and the ISO are pissing me off too!
ReplyDeletei just wanted to let ya know (if you dont already) that that flyer that the ISO guy referenced as proof that gus is "more militant" was written by an ISO gus member--go figure! the flyer, i agree, was horribly written. i just hope that ISO members in gus aren't accidently representing gus as a whole because that would be upsetting.
Hey Kristin,
ReplyDeleteI certainly didn't mean to suggest that the ISO people in GUS are representative of the organization as a whole. Like I said above, you guys are doing fantastic work and we're all excited about what we can do together in the coming weeks to reshape the way the university works.