[Peace-discuss] [Peace] AWARE has been asked to consider supporting the 13 demands of the BSFR at UIUC

Sun Sep 18 17:58:24 UTC 2016

1) The demands have been co-written among many groups. One of the lead
organizers of the demands is my good friend Muhammad Yousuf, a member of
Students for Justice in Palestine who is fiercely critical of America's
military.

2) I will ask them if they support this demand and get back to you!

On Sun, Sep 18, 2016 at 7:20 AM, Carl G. Estabrook <galliher at illinois.edu>
wrote:

> Harry—
>
> 1.) Who organized BSFR and wrote these demands? What are their politics?
>
> 2.) Even the 'full text of demand 13’ falls short of AWARE’s call for the
> end of US offensive military operations, from the Obama-Clinton
> administration’s attacks on eight countries (Bush only attacked six) to
> Obama’s drone assassination program, which Noam Chomsky has called “the
> most extreme terrorist campaign of modern times,” and the activities - in
> more than half the countries of the world  - of the US ’secret army’, the
> 70,000-member Special Operations Command; for bringing home all US troops
> abroad; and for the closing of the 1,000 US military bases in foreign
> countries.
>
> Does BSFR endorse AWARE’s demands?
>
> Regards, Carl
>
>
> On Sep 17, 2016, at 11:46 PM, Harry Mickalide <mickalideh at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> Allow me to address two of Carl's concerns.
>
> 1) The demands are not just being pursued by a loud minority, but are
> supported by an extensive list of campus organizations which are listed in
> Karen's original email. The student activist community as a whole has
> rallied around the list of demands.
>
> 2) We do not have to speculate if these demands critique US war-making
> because the full text
> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.bsfruiuc.com_our-2Ddemands&d=CwMFaQ&c=8hUWFZcy2Z-Za5rBPlktOQ&r=tfHzwZBcTLEveiewRiq0OdhFmfRmlvZjpIBS0AUJ2v0&m=o-R3dTl1eeG1R131MFZX3fqdVZm6JPTzPDa0HmF8zbY&s=eMj0gGF4ywt4bYGqjV7n0Y39t86JrjnwnS0qdohgm3E&e=>of
> demand 13, the divestment demand, explicitly calls on the university to
> divest from  "corporations which actively support or enable states
> currently carrying out human right’s abuses (e.g., Israel, Saudi Arabia,
> Myanmar), all private prison corporations, and all private military
> contractors and weapons manufacturers."
>
> -Harry
>
> On Fri, Sep 16, 2016 at 10:35 PM, Carl G. Estabrook via Peace <
> peace at lists.chambana.net> wrote:
>
>> I think we should try to have a serious discussion of this proposal,
>> online and perhaps in several meetings.
>>
>> The central question would seem to be, How does it comport with AWARE's
>> antiwar remit?
>>
>> But there are obviously other important questions, e.g., What do we know
>> of ‘Black Students for Revolution’?
>> A severe critic might suggest that a similar list could be circulated by
>> ‘Some Students for Self-Promotion.’
>> I’m old enough to remember where the loudest voices for ‘militant action’
>> came from during the Vietnam war: they were provocateurs.
>>
>> The list certainly raises (once again) questions of the nature and
>> provenance of identity politics (the mainstay of the Clinton campaign).
>> See Adolph Reed's mordant description (expressed I admit in somewhat
>> clotted prose):
>>
>>         "[Identity] politics is not an alternative to class politics; it
>> is a class politics, the politics of the left-wing of neoliberalism. It is
>> the expression and active agency of a political order and moral economy in
>> which capitalist market forces are treated as unassailable nature.
>>         "An integral element of that moral economy is displacement of the
>> critique of the invidious outcomes produced by capitalist class power onto
>> equally naturalized categories of ascriptive identity that sort us into
>> groups supposedly defined by what we essentially are rather than what we
>> do. As I have argued, following Walter Michaels and others, within that
>> moral economy a society in which 1% of the population controlled 90% of the
>> resources could be just, provided that roughly 12% of the 1% were black,
>> 12% were Latino, 50% were women, and whatever the appropriate proportions
>> were LGBT people.
>>         "It would be tough to imagine a normative ideal that expresses
>> more unambiguously the social position of people who consider themselves
>> candidates for inclusion in, or at least significant staff positions in
>> service to, the ruling class” <http://bennorton.com/adolph-r
>> eed-identity-politics-is-neoliberalism/
>> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__bennorton.com_adolph-2Dreed-2Didentity-2Dpolitics-2Dis-2Dneoliberalism_&d=CwMFaQ&c=8hUWFZcy2Z-Za5rBPlktOQ&r=tfHzwZBcTLEveiewRiq0OdhFmfRmlvZjpIBS0AUJ2v0&m=o-R3dTl1eeG1R131MFZX3fqdVZm6JPTzPDa0HmF8zbY&s=KCHHTQvGaFqO-EU71sncMrhBbU3sji60UbczTfM_s88&e=>
>> >.
>>
>> It’s difficult to see how a serious critique of US war-making can arise
>> from identity politics. (Not enough blacks and women among Special Forces
>> killers?)
>> It would seem that US war-making arises from domestic and foreign class
>> conflicts; given that we’ve killed more than 20 million in 37 nations since
>> WWII, we should be clear about causes.
>> <https://www.popularresistance.org/us-has-killed-more-than-
>> 20-million-in-37-nations-since-wwii/
>> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.popularresistance.org_us-2Dhas-2Dkilled-2Dmore-2Dthan-2D20-2Dmillion-2Din-2D37-2Dnations-2Dsince-2Dwwii_&d=CwMFaQ&c=8hUWFZcy2Z-Za5rBPlktOQ&r=tfHzwZBcTLEveiewRiq0OdhFmfRmlvZjpIBS0AUJ2v0&m=o-R3dTl1eeG1R131MFZX3fqdVZm6JPTzPDa0HmF8zbY&s=EqfTjVHhfyhf69mJFNdV1R4zT4lwLU5j1_JgOnCyEcI&e=>
>> >.
>>
>> AWARE has seen as its task for 15 years to encourage awareness of how and
>> why the US government is the greatest purveyor of violence in the world
>> today.
>> And to do that we must tell the truth and shame the devil, as Hotspur
>> says.
>>
>> I’m not convinced that endorsing these demands contributes to that
>> effort. —CGE
>>
>>
>> >> On Sep 15, 2016, at 9:53 PM, Karen Medina via Peace <
>> peace at lists.chambana.net> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> Dear Peace-Discuss,
>> >>
>> >> At the next AWARE meeting*, I will present the 13 demands of the
>> "Black Students for Revolution" at UIUC for consideration. BSFRUIUC has
>> asked if AWARE will sign on to be a community supporter/endorser of the
>> demands.
>> >> http://www.bsfruiuc.com/our-demands
>> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.bsfruiuc.com_our-2Ddemands&d=CwMFaQ&c=8hUWFZcy2Z-Za5rBPlktOQ&r=tfHzwZBcTLEveiewRiq0OdhFmfRmlvZjpIBS0AUJ2v0&m=o-R3dTl1eeG1R131MFZX3fqdVZm6JPTzPDa0HmF8zbY&s=eMj0gGF4ywt4bYGqjV7n0Y39t86JrjnwnS0qdohgm3E&e=>
>> >> *(I might miss this upcoming meeting, but the next week's meeting then)
>> >> -- karen medina
>> >> -------------------------------
>> >> 1. WE DEMAND that UIUC immediately and permanently halt tuition hikes.
>> >> 2.
>> >> WE DEMAND that the racial and economic demographics of UIUC students,
>> faculty and staff reflect the racial and economic demographics of Illinois
>> by 2032.
>> >> 3.
>> >> WE DEMAND that all on-campus sexual predators, especially those
>> affiliated with the Greek Life system, face severe penalties for all forms
>> of sexual violence.
>> >> 4. WE DEMAND that UIUC makes a permanent commitment not to consolidate
>> or combine the LGBT Resource Center and Women’s Resource Center in addition
>> to the continued autonomy of all cultural centers and ethnic studies
>> programs.
>> >> 5. WE DEMAND that UIUC collect and track gender and sexuality based
>> demographics as an official population.
>> >> 6. WE DEMAND that queer and trans students be given priority for all
>> university sponsored all-gendered housing options and that genderqueer and
>> trans students be offered these spaces at a discounted rate corresponding
>> with the less expensive standard housing option.
>> >> 7. WE DEMAND that UIUC hire a truly independent consultant to review
>> the salaries of all University employees in order to detect and correct
>> gender and race-based pay inequality
>> >> 8. WE DEMAND a living wage for all University employees and
>> subcontracted workers and that this rate be indexed for inflation.
>> >> 9. WE DEMAND all employees of UIUC have access to at least six months
>> of paid parental leave following the birth or adoption of a child.
>> >> 10. WE DEMAND that UIUC cease and desist job outsourcing and hire
>> directly from underrepresented populations in Urbana-Champaign and the
>> surrounding communities.
>> >> 11. WE DEMAND that UIUC work towards bridging the gap between this
>> campus and the surrounding Black community of Urbana-Champaign.
>> >> 12. WE DEMAND that UIUC implement fair-chance admissions and
>> employment policies for those with past conviction records (Ban the Box).
>> >> 13. WE DEMAND that UIUC release an annual, easily-accessible, and
>> comprehensive report of all its investments and move to divest from
>> socially and politically negligent corporations.
>> >>
>> >> List of Endorsing Local Organizations
>> >> 
>> >>      • Black Students for Revolution
>> >>
>> >>      • SJP - Students for Justice in Palestine
>> >>
>> >>      • Planner’s Network
>> >>
>> >>      • MEChA - Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan
>> >>
>> >>      • AASSCC - African American Studies Scholars Cultural Committee
>> >>
>> >>      • CUTES - Campus Union for Trans Equality and Support
>> >>
>> >>      • UMMA - United Muslim & Minority Advocates
>> >>
>> >>      • GEO - Graduate Employees Organization
>> >>
>> >>      • MSU - Mixed Student Union
>> >>
>> >>      • Women of Pride
>> >>
>> >>      • BLM-CU (community) - Black Lives Matter - Champaign Urbana
>> >>
>> >>      • SACC - Students for an Arab Cultural Center at Illinois
>> >>
>> >>      • The Gharbzadegi Art Collective
>> >>
>> >>      • Allies and Accomplices for Racial Justice
>> >>
>> >>      • Men of Impact*
>> >>
>> >>      • Students Against Sexual Assault
>> >>
>> >>      • My Sister’s Keeper*
>> >>
>> >>      • STEM Boycotts the War Machine
>> >>
>> >>      • NAISO - Native American and Indigenous Student Organization
>> >>
>> >>      • SECS - Students for Environmental ConcernS
>> >>
>> >>      • WORD - Writers Organizing Realistic Dialect
>> >>
>> >>      • ASA - Arab Student Association
>> >>
>> >>      • UIUC Beyond Coal
>> >>
>> >>      • Black Rose/Rosa Negra Central Illinois Chapter
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> _______________________________________________
>> >> Peace mailing list
>> >> Peace at lists.chambana.net
>> >> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace
>> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__lists.chambana.net_mailman_listinfo_peace&d=CwMFaQ&c=8hUWFZcy2Z-Za5rBPlktOQ&r=tfHzwZBcTLEveiewRiq0OdhFmfRmlvZjpIBS0AUJ2v0&m=o-R3dTl1eeG1R131MFZX3fqdVZm6JPTzPDa0HmF8zbY&s=lTBTYb-U6Fg8pyvxcK1xiITnGqSXBCtHDBFXjNwSpJc&e=>
>> >
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Peace mailing list
>> Peace at lists.chambana.net
>> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace
>> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__lists.chambana.net_mailman_listinfo_peace&d=CwMFaQ&c=8hUWFZcy2Z-Za5rBPlktOQ&r=tfHzwZBcTLEveiewRiq0OdhFmfRmlvZjpIBS0AUJ2v0&m=o-R3dTl1eeG1R131MFZX3fqdVZm6JPTzPDa0HmF8zbY&s=lTBTYb-U6Fg8pyvxcK1xiITnGqSXBCtHDBFXjNwSpJc&e=>
>>
>
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace-discuss/attachments/20160918/31d272de/attachment-0001.html>