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Towards the end of the rally, a quiet young man in a black trench coat stepped up to the stage to explain that he is a soldier in the Army, that he just got back from Iraq a few weeks ago, and he didn’t have any speech to make. However, he wanted people to understand that people here don’t really know how bad it is Iraq—both for the US troops and Iraqis. He described endless house-to-house raids, kicking in doors, and terrifying the people. “Many people in my unit had no problems with what we were doing, but I could see we were making more enemies every day.” More including Photos
With a week's worth of speeches, panels, and workshops, this commemoration will be the largest event ever to focus on the broad range of civil liberties under siege in the United States since the adoption of the Patriot Act.
The high point of the weeklong program will evoke the past during a rally in Sproul Plaza with guest speakers standing on top of a police car. Howard Dean, State Senator Jackie Goldberg, and others will honor the seminal victory of the FSM, and evoke students’ powers to take action, vote, and change the world. A dramatic event will also take place to focus attention on the Patriot Act and its infringement of free speech rights today.
Coordinator Michael Rossman, author of "The Wedding Within The War" and "New Age Blues," and close friend of the FSM’s Mario Savio, who died in 1996, says, “We hope to inspire young activists to go beyond what we achieved. In a time when civil liberties are under attack, the way to commemorate a great victory of free speech is to speak freely about issues of the present. Over fifty cities." he adds, "have quietly passed resolutions against the Patriot Act, but we hope to send a signal of freedom across the entire nation.”
Free Speech Movement Website | Program for Events | Other Media Coverage | Photo Collage by Ron Enfield
Photos From The Event: 1 2 3
The walk will conclude with a special appearance at the UC Regents meeting in San Francisco on September 22. The long-term vision of the "Education Rising" campaign is the creation of a "union" for students. This union is to be "based on a structure of deep participatory democracy" and "serve as a political voice for all those who care about education and youth rights." Audio & Photos by Santa Cruz Indymedia | March Details
...the current educational system is an essential component of our capitalist and authoritarian society. It is here that we are regimented and reified (turned into objects) taught to obey authority and submit to the demands of others. It is here that we are instructed on the virtues of either working for somebody else or having somebody work for us. It is here, right now, that we are being prepared for a life of passivity and mediocrity. We are being prepared to accept willingly a life that is not our own, a life that is always controlled by someone or something else. In fact, we are being prepared for complete survival – life reduced to work and consumption. So the time for refusal is now, before we can be successfully assimilated into a society organized by capitalists and state and into a culture that portrays everything as something else. Read more...
All courses are free and open to the public. No enrollment at CCSF is necessary.
The three classes offered are : Patterns in Anarchist Theory, Introduction to Anarchist Organizations, Anarchism Practice and Theory. There will also be many guest speakers throughout the semester. Class Descriptions and More Information
In response to this very real crisis, March4Education organized an 8-day march from Richmond to Sacramento, which included community members, parents, teachers and students during spring break vacation. One of their slogans read “No Vacation for Education,” and they persisted with the hopes of meeting with Governor Arnold Swarzenegger, urging him to listen to the children of Richmond and respond to demands of revitalizing and restructuring funding for public education in California. History, however, repeated itself as the marchers would only be greeted by a cold indifference the administration of the “People’s Governor” has used towards the people they represent and by very few assembly members who opened up their conference room to provide temporary relief from miles of marching in the sun. At that moment it became clear that more drastic tactics were needed to be more effective in representing the urgency of this issue.
Discussions and organizational meetings then began to consider the idea of a Fast, implementing the pressure of a hunger strike with demands (the actual demands can be accessed at http://www.fast4education.org), coupled with the spiritual offering and profound statement made by a non-violent symbolic fast. March4Education then began preparation for the fast which made its first controversial decision by choosing Frank Ogawa Plaza (in downtown Oakland) as their starting point in order to increase visibility and Bay Area-wide supporter access to BART and other methods of transportation. At 12am, on may 10th, 2004, Gabriel Hernandez, David Johnson, Thomas Prather, Wendy Gonzalez, Karina Oliva, Fred Jackson, Jessica Vasquez, Cesar Cruz and Israel Haros-Lopez began their fast4education. Though initially greeted by city and police officials who confiscated their tarp and awning and threatened them with arrest, they remained and were accompanied by a group of fifteen supporters their first night before they packed up to sleep in a downtown office. They returned and this process became a daily ritual.
Photos from Sacramento: Day 11 | Day 24
For More Pictures see Fast 4 Education's website or previous coverage of the Fast 4 Education in Indybay's archives
