UNCA Walked Out!

by omarblak - @ Wed Mar 26, 2008 11:02

Glad to see everyone is feeling so good about themselves, ready for that pat on the back. But i highly doubt anyone there is ready to do whatever it takes to end U$ imperialism. In fact i would argue that your symbolic action serves more the meta-narrative of U$ "democracy", benevolence and moral righteousness than it does to challenge those bombs that will always fall as long as people here continue to drive, let someone else grow their food, depend on these pinches máquinas, turn on the AC, be college students, bankers, lawyers, voters, cops, contractors, businessmen and women, stay at home moms, or in simpler words "Americans". Thank you for being impassioned, but please realize that marching on the sidewalk, on parade routes, in manageable and agreeable lines will never, has never, and can never effect change. It would have been much more meaningful for each of those sixty students to have a shovel, a hoe, a rock, a molotov, a new friend, an orgasm, an idea of something different, a clue, a little less ego, a seed, a can of spray paint, a gun, a cock in hand, a sledge, a bag of compost, or just the realization that meeting your neighbor can be more powerful than the ballot. Fuck the vote, fuck the protest, fuck the petition, stand up with your neighbors, your community and manifest the life we want.

by Harry Thu Mar 27, 2008 09:24

UNCA did NOT "walk out." 60 people from a student body of 3,500 (less than 2%) skipped a couple hours of class. I suspect more than that regularly miss classes on any normal day. As the previous commentator said, you may get a fuzzy feeling patting yourselves on the back, but you accomplished nothing.

by subashe Mon Mar 31, 2008 00:42

I've been deeply disappointed with the anti-war movement for years, and most of that is probably guilt at being one of the people who tried and tried and then gave up. I think this March 20th was the first anniversary of the war since it started that I basically just ignored- didn't do any direct action, didn't go to a protest, hardly even talked about it. Yeah, the strategy sucks (and for the anti-Iraq and Afghanistan wars, it has always sucked in this country), but if you only have the capacity to get 60 UNCA students to walk out, there really isn't much more mass-movement stuff you can be doing. I'm really happy that this march happened, because it means that there are some people who aren't too jaded to do anything at all. The two commenters above, what do you do to help end the war?

by omarblak Tue Apr 01, 2008 14:17

What do I do to stop the war? Absolutely nothing. You are making a grand assumption that "war" is an end-able temporal phenomenon. It is actually the reality of the system of privilege and power that is built into the capitalist economy and industrial infrastructure. If the United $tates of Amerika, China, the European Union, ad infinitum continue to exist and its bourgeois benefactors maintain their "right" to their privilege, the bombs will continue to fall. The bombs have never stopped falling, marginalized people have never stopped being murdered. Do you think that just because there is now a white face on the repercussions of "war" that it is something to be stopped and then nothing is wrong? That is problem with the anti-war movement in this country, it is not a question of demanding an end to one particular manifestation of this coercive and authoritarian system, it is the need for an end to the system. What do I do to stop the system, civilization, industrialism, capitalism, power, privilege, etc...i struggle to understand what inside of me reifies and justifies the murder of innocents, both human and not. i try to identify departure points by which i can show others the same inside them. i do whatever i can, legal or not, to undermine the legitimacy of this and every government, bank, industry, ideal, faith, hierarchy, division of labor and specialization, morality, currency, business, protest, petition, candidate, university, kindergarten, hospital, and non-profit organization. I do whatever i can to form relationships with my family, friends, neighbors and lovers that create a sense of interdependence rather than an alienated co-dependence on abstract institutions. Finally when then time comes i will be ready to fight for the world in which no one will be leader nor follower. Civilization is collapsing...let's give it a push!

by jimbob - the media Thu Apr 10, 2008 23:37

The previous poster is right. Albeit the poster uses language of a young 20 something reading too much Green Anarchy mags. I am not trying to stir up a fight here. The poster is right, but what needs to happen is we need to find ways to talk to the average person without using the words: Imperialism, Hierarchy, or some other leftist class war lingo. Point is, we dont know what the @#uck youre talking about.

by omarblak Sat Apr 19, 2008 15:36

Yeah your right about the language, about a decade off on the age though and wrong verb(writes not reads). Sorry but assumed the few people who actually look at this page generally had an understanding of an intellectual vernacular. The point is that activists try to look at issues in too narrow of a perspective. The world and its problems are much more dynamic, even the poorest campesino i've talked to in latin america understands this. Just the fact that anyone has the time to take part in walk outs and protests speaks to your privilege(and mine). It becomes a question of not where and when we can resist, but how to create a community and life of resistance, which entails taking apart our dependence and complicity in the war/poverty/capitalist/industrial/racist/sexist/voting-sheeple machine and building the infrastructure to separate from and fight this thing. Don't be fooled, the war you are protesting is only a battle in a much larger war - one you are fighting even if you do not know it. Being born and living in this hemisphere/nation already puts you on the winning(but losing) side, which means when the time comes, if you are not struggling against it whole-heartedly, you are on the wrong side, the oppressor side, the empire side, the side of the already dead in the water, the sleep walking side. Pacifism is a pathological disorder that is based in egoism and selfishness and privilege and death. It is insanity to think that by stopping a "war," everything is going to be OK. Take the time to listen to the mindless rhetoric of the election/farce cycle, hear the newspeak, see how all these douche-bags stroke you, woo you, then f@#k you. They're in bed with the fortune 500, the IMF/World Bank, OPEC, the arms industry, the WTO, etc. The nation state, government, war, your job all serve one function...to enslave. Petitioning the government, which is what this protest was, is consent for their authority over you, it is a message to all "Others" that you are unwilling to give up, walk away from your privilege that was built on centuries of subjugation and sits on the shoulders of billions as a yoke that they cannot escape.