post 1000

Seems like only yesterday I shut down my last blog and swore off blogging and then started this one like 18 hours later, but actually it was well over a year and a half ago... These days I spokesmodel t-shirts.








This is the best WSN strike picture ever taken. John Sexton the puppet of Richard Levin and Lee Bollinger and George W. Bush, supposedly "in Washington D.C.," walking right past John Sexton the GUS/GSOC puppet. Alanis Morisette, this is what irony looks like. (fyi.)

I'm exhausted, and I don't really have a probing, meditative post in me right now, though one certainly begs to be written about the last few days' intensity and everything that's happened, good, bad, mostly good.

We are going to win this strike. We are going to do it because we are strong and committed and because we can. We are going to win this strike because we have to, because too much is at stake to lose, let alone give up.

On February 28 2003, a Friday, the Friday before the March strike, the Reverend W. David Lee told the folks assembled at the First & Summerfield Methodist church a story. He told us about a guy in an art museum who saw a painting of a man playing chess with the devil. The painting was titled "checkmate." The man stared at the painting intently, studying the chess pieces deployed on the checkerboard. His tour group left him behind, i seem to recall, but were loudly reminded of his presence when he began to loudly exclaim "It's a LIE! The Devil has another move!" (Please correct me if i have this all wrong, Josh, Julie, Alek, Katie, or anyone else who was there.) At this point, Reverend Lee brought the message home: "Local 34 has another move! Local 35 has another move! 1199 has another move! GESO HAS ANOTHER MOVE!"

We struck for a week in the freezing cold, 500 undergrads walked out of classes in the middle of a blizzard to watch the snow accumulate atop Cornel West's head and create an new vision of the university immanent in the relationships between strikers, community members, and students. You know the rest.

Last week, President Sexton gave us an ultimatum. He tried to scare us into submission using the most base and violent kinds of fearmongering and intimidation. Today we stood up and said "We're not gonna take it." And "we won't back down." We overwhelmingly resolved to stay out. Tomorrow, we're joining working people from across the country to demand justice from our neoliberal, panoptical employer. Be there.

On monday, We'll be walking the picket line at 8 am.

John Sexton has made his move. He's tried as hard as he can (within the constraints of fantastic faculty and undergrad support) to crush us.

He's failed.

GSOC has another move.