Wow. It has been quite an amazing month and the December issue of Raging Chicken Press reflects the kind of month it has been. It’s also pretty clear that we are already bursting at the seams, ready to expand our site into new areas. I am going to spare you my end of year reflections until next week sometime. Suffice it to say that we’ve got big plans for 2012!
Rick Smith Files | “Privatization in Three Parts” (Featuring interviews with labor attorney, Irwin Aronson; State Rep. Scott Conklin; and Marcie Boyer, nurse and member of SEIU District 1199P in PA in State Prison system)
As you can see, it’s quite an issue. A great way to close out 2011. Raging Chicken Press will be taking a little break over the holidays. Our next issue will be published the first week of February. While we will not be publishing a full issue until then, I will be using the opportunity to fill you in on our plans for 2012.
One reminder: it’s still possible to be eligible to be selected from our subscriber list to receive this months “Must Read.” This month’s book takes its inspiration from our Chomsky interview: Noam Chomsky’s, Profit Over People: Neoliberalism and Global Order as well as Hopes and Prospects (that’s right, another double give-away). To be eligible, all you need to do is enter your email address in the subscription box on the right-hand side of our main page and click “Subscribe” by Monday, December 19th. That’s it and it’s free. I’ll announce our lucky subscriber next week.
A few moments ago I sent my comments/suggestions on last week’s Strategic Plan Open Forum to the task force’s co-chairs as requested. Last week’s open forum was the university community’s final opportunity to comment on the strategic plan that will guide the university’s direction for the next several years.
For the past several weeks, I have been meeting with a group of students, faculty, and staff who have been thinking concretely about how to bring change to the university and build strong networks with the surrounding community. Our group, Occupy Kutztown, meets every Tuesday at 11am in Bear’s Den coffee house in the student union building (meeting will restart at the beginning of the spring semester). The three suggestions I sent to the Strategic Plan Task Force attempt to get the university to enact policies of material support to the community. Here is the full memo I sent:
To: Co-Chairs, Strategic Planning Task Force
From: Kevin Mahoney
Re: Comments/Suggestions for Strategic Plan
Date: December 7, 2011
I am writing to follow up on last week’s Strategic Plan open forum. As you may recall, I made a few suggestions about the implementation of the Strategic Plan that I believe would provide KU with some concrete goals toward implementation. These suggestions are focused on reinforcing the spirit of the mission and goals of the university in ways that also help build strong connections with our surrounding communities.
I want to express my thanks to the Strategic Plan Task Force for their great work. I believe that this strategic plan represents the first coherent vision for the long-term success of the university I have seen since joining the faculty in 2002. As the outside consultant, Dr. Stephen Reno, stated
as a result of this process, you all have a wider responsibility for this campus. So, you should be looking at this plan and asking yourself, “what’s my part in it? What piece of it can I pick up and take up and work on?”
These suggestions represent the kind of work that I and others envision as the parts of the process that we are willing to “pick up, take up, and work on.” So, as requested, I am sending you these comments/suggestions to you to include in your deliberations.
The three suggestions I have relate directly to Objective 2.1 Develop, Promote, and Sustain Strong Community Partnerships, in particular (but not limited to), Initiative 2.1.2. The goal of Initiative 2.1.2 is to “Establish and strengthen reciprocal relationships with regional businesses and community groups.” The two desired outcomes are: 1) identify and establish relationships with businesses and community groups aligned with KU programs; and, 2) Expand our networks of approved internship sites.
The current economic climate continues to strain communities and families that surround the university and from where most of our students come. It would seem both appropriate and strategically smart for the university to act proactively to support our communities materially. These three suggestions could have a significant material impact in our communities and strengthen our ties with our communities.
Bank Locally
Currently, Kutztown University does its banking with Wells Fargo. Wells Fargo was one of the “big banks” that contributed to our current economic crisis and continues to be plagued by ethical and legal violations. I propose that Kutztown University moves its money out of “big banks” and into a community based bank. Fleetwood Bank, for example, is a local, community based bank that would be an ideal candidate. By banking locally, we are supporting the local economy and maximizing the local impact of our banking practices.
PA Sourcing of Office Supplies and Related Materials
While Pennsylvania has been spared the worst of the current economic crisis, jobs are still quite difficulty to come by and PA families are struggling. As a state institution that is owned by the taxpaying citizens of the Commonwealth, it would make sense that we should maximize our economic support for PA industries. I propose that Kutztown University enact a policy of buying at least 50% of all office supplies and related materials from PA industries with a unionize workforce.
Sourcing Food Locally
Similar to #2, I propose that Kutztown University enact a policy of sourcing at least 50% of the food served on campus from local farms. Given the sheer size of Kutztown University, we would provide significant direct support for local economies. Furthermore, given the increasing number of food related crises connected to large-scale, global food sourcing (arsenic in apple juice, E. coli in meat and pre-packaged salads and vegetables) buying food locally is also a health issue.
I fully recognize that none of these proposals could be enacted over-night. I also recognize that enacting these proposals would require both work and a different way of thinking about how we fulfill our mission. As President Cevallos said at the open forum, these proposals lead us into “long and complicated” discussions and there would be “difficulties.” The group of people that I am working with on these issues are more than willing with work out the “difficulties.”
I believe that we can “think big” with this strategic plan and create a set of practices that can build strong relationships with the community through material choices the university makes as to how to spend and invest its money. As President Cevallos said, budgets and the use of resources are “choices.” The three choices I outline above are choices that can help demonstrate to the community that we can not only talk the talk of community engagement, we can walk the walk, too.
Thank you in advance for you consideration. Feel free to contact me via email @ mahoney@kutztown.edu or by phone. I would be happy to meet to discuss any of these issues further.
Sincerely,
Kevin Mahoney
Assoc. Prof., English
Along similar lines, our group has been discussion ways to build progressive networks on campus and to provide a site for activist education. We decided to begin a “Free University” @ KU that will run for nine weeks during the spring semester. More details will be coming. In the meantime, here is a copy of the “syllabus.”
This morning President Cevallos hosted an open forum to discuss the latest draft of the university’s strategic plan. Here is the original description of the forum:
The Strategic Plan Task Force invites the campus community to an Open Forum from 11 – 11:50 a.m. on Thursday, December 1, in AF, room 203, to discuss proposed revisions to the Strategic Plan. Faculty, students, and staff are encouraged to join in a conversation with our strategic planning consultant, Dr. Stephen Reno, members of Cabinet, and the Strategic Plan Task Force.
F. Javier Cevallos, president
My intention was to have full video of the entire forum, but two things went wrong. First, about 5 minutes into the video there is a glitch that separated the video from the audio by a few seconds, making viewing the video incredibly annoying. Second, the last 10 minutes of the forum got cut off because my SD card was full. Live and learn. I am particularly disappointed the my last exchange with President Cevallos concerning KU’s $29.1 million is unrestricted net assets (if you want the background story, check out my post from April on the XChange or my article, “Kutztown University, Shock Doctrine, and Snake Oil Tales,” from the first issue of Raging Chicken Press).
What I’ve done is convert the video to all audio. Ideally, I’ll pull out some shorter clips that will be easier to circulate. However, I thought I would post the raw audio for anyone who is interested. Click on the link below to listen to the MP3 file. You can also right click, download it to your computer, and listen to it through whatever media player you use.
You can consider the MP3 file to be licensed under the XChange’s general Creative Commons license. You are welcome to use the file as you wish within the terms of the license.
In the wee hours of this morning, Nov. 29, Raging Chicken Press achieved a milestone of sorts: 10,000 all-time views. We could not be more thankful for the generous support we have seen and the willingness of readers to pass the word, send links to articles to their family and friends, comment on articles, and subscribe. We hope you will be even more pleased with Raging Chicken Press in the upcoming months.
As you may have already read, the December issue will feature a video interview with Noam Chomsky. We also intend on introducing more audio components to the site including interviews and commentary in the coming months. In January, we will welcome our first Raging Chicken Press intern, Drew Simonovich - what we hope to be the first of many to come. In addition to our monthly issues, Raging Chicken Press has also been able to donate to Dustin Slaughter’s David and Goliath Project in support of his coverage of the Occupy Movement. We have dropped off supplies to Occupy Allentown. We donated money to help fund the launch of the “Occupy Wall Street Journal” back in October. We have also deepened our connections to other activist/progressive projects such as the Rick Smith Show, Occupy Kutztown, and Lee Camp’s amazing “Moments of Clarity.” Just last week we announced our first “subscriber give-away” winner of the Raging Chicken Press “Must Read” of the month. The subscriber give-away will be a regular monthly feature (so subscribe!!!!). The December and January issues will feature several new contributors – both solicited and unsolicited which promises to further diversify the progressive voices we seek to amplify and support.
The next big challenge ahead will be fundraising. We’ve been able to earn a little bit of money from our on-line store and from a few donations from supporters. Revenue from those sources will allow Raging Chicken Press to cover its web-hosting and domain name fees and purchase some equipment such as a tripod and USB drives. However, if we are going to take on all that we want to take on, we are going to need to raise money more aggressively. At this point, it is most likely that we are going to make a strong push in the beginning of 2012 through Kickstarter. If we are able to raise the funds we need, we will be able to fund paid internships for the next couple of years, issue the first paperback edition of the “Best of Raging Chicken Press” in the summer of 2012, launch a small-scale progressive publishing house in cooperation with a local, union-shop printer, and begin to host monthly or bi-monthly progressive meet-ups to facilitate activist networking.
To think that just seven month ago Raging Chicken Press was simply a “cool idea” and now we have just crossed the 10,000 all-time viewer mark after only five issues is pretty remarkable. Once again, I want to thank everyone who has helped make this project possible…from our regular contributors, to our “Raging Chicken Army” who send out links to their networks when each issue is released, to the notes of support and critique we receive from readers. Raging Chicken Press is off to a blazing start thanks to you.
Yes, the long wait is over. The November issue of Raging Chicken Press is up. I am hoping that you will think it was worth the wait. As you might imagine, the Occupy/99% movement takes the lion-share of the space this month. In fact, so much has happened and happened so quickly, that we had to drop a one article that had become outdated and we added in a “part two” to Dustin Slaughter’s piece on Occupy Philly because events moved fast this past week.
As a testament to how fast events are moving, we have not had a chance to begin to digest last night’s forcible eviction of the Occupy Wall Street encampment in NYC, the court order that allowed OWS activists to return to their encampment, and the hundreds of arrests that seemed to continue into the night. In addition, the Mayor of Oakland let it slip that she had a conference call with mayors from 18 U.S. cities with Occupy encampments to coordinate crackdowns and evictions. There is now doubt that we’re entering a new stage of the Occupy/99% movement…what that stage is, however, is undecided at this time. Raging Chicken Press looks forward to covering the continual development of this amazing movement.
This months issue features the following contributions:
We’d also like to remind you that you have to the end of this week for your chance to win Raging Chicken Press’s “Must Read” book of the month. All you need to do is subscribe to Raging Chicken Press by entering your email address in the box to the right and click “subscribe.”
Finally, for all you musicians and singer-songwriters out there, check out our first ever song contest for your chance to win Raging Chicken Press gear and our “Must Read” book of the month.
Like to write music? Progressive? This might be for you:
The November issue of Raging Chicken Press will be out soon (hopefully by Monday–we’ve been a bit sick here). I know, the waiting game sucks. Well, Raging Chicken Press has got something for at least some of you to do while you are waiting for the next issue.
Raging Chicken Press announces its first ever song contest! More specifically, song parody contest. Frankly, if I had the musical talent, I would have been on this over the summer. But, we all have to accept our short-comings. So, I thought this would be a cool project to push out to fans and friends of Raging Chicken Press.
Have you ever seen Disney’s version of Robin Hood? Well, I loved it as a kid and now my three-year old son loves it too. As I was watching it over the summer, I began to see the possibility of repurposing some of the songs on the soundtrack for our current struggles against right-wing attacks on collective bargaining, public education, social services, and our democracy. I began to think about casting our “beloved” governor, Tom Corbett as “Prince John” the “phony King of England.” In particular, I was thinking about the song “The Phony King of England.” Listen to this song and replace “John” and “England” with “Tom” and “Pennsylvania” and you’ll get the idea:
Got it? If you check out Chris Priest’s repurposing of Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire” (see below) you’ll get the sense of what we’re thinking about here at Raging Chicken Press.
So, we’re going to try a little experiment: We are calling on readers and friends of Raging Chicken Press to submit parodies of the song “Phony King of England” to Raging Chicken Press. All entries will be posted to Raging Chicken Press and readers will have a chance to vote on the best version. The top three entries (if we get that many) will receive their choice of t-shirt from the Raging Chicken Press store. The winning song will also receive Raging Chicken Press’s “Must Read” book of the month.
Here’s the rules:
Song must be a rewritten version of the “Phony King of England” that appears in the video above
Song should replace “John” with “Tom” and Tom should refer to PA Governor, Tom Corbett. Likewise, “England” should be replaced with “Pennsylvania”
All entries must be recorded in MP3 or .wav format.
All final recordings must be loaded up to YouTube. Ideally, the final video should include images to political protest against Tom Corbett and the PA Republican’s austerity budget and other attacks upon working families and the Commons.
Once songs are uploaded to YouTube, an email should be sent to ragingchickenpress@gmail.com including a link to the video, the name(s) of the song writer(s), and contact information including email and mailing address.
All entries should be submitted by November 29th.
Entries will be posted to Raging Chicken Press as they are received. Voting for best parody song will begin on November 30, 2011 and the winner(s) will be announced in December issue.
Any questions? Send email inquiries to Kevin Mahoney, Editor Zero, Raging Chicken Press @ ragingchickenpress@gmail.com. Looking forward to seeing what you come up with!
A reminder that the deadline for the November issue of Raging Chicken Press is approaching quickly.
November marks a kind of unofficial start of the 2012 elections. There is more at stake than election of a president. Across the nation and increasingly here in Pennsylvania, state legislatures are rolling back workers rights, gutting funding for public schools and services, signing over huge tax breaks to corporations while slashing jobs, and making exercising your right to vote more difficult than ever before. PA Governor Corbett’s proposed electoral college change would effectively hand the bulk of PA’s electoral votes to the Republican candidate in an end-around the will of the people (see Richardson’s article in the October issue). We are looking for people who are willing to put on their wonk hats and expose the radical right’s agenda. This becomes even more important as millions and millions of dollars is pouring into PA from right-wing front groups such as ALEC and the American Federation of Children.
We welcome all submissions that seek to give voice to progressive, activist communities of resistance. Become a Raging Chicken.
If you are interested in submitting your work, you can do so by sending an email to ragingchickenpress@gmail.com. Please take a few minutes to review our Submission Guidelines to familiarize yourself with the kind of work we publish and the purpose of our publication.
Deadline for the November issue is Monday, October 31st [extended from 10/28...Halloween seemed more appropriate!].
As always, the earlier you get us your submission the better. We look forward to hearing from you!
With work on the November issue of Raging Chicken Press already underway, I wanted to take the opportunity to share with you some of the plans we have for Raging Chicken Press in the upcoming months. The current form of Raging Chicken Press – a monthly, independent, progressive web-based publication – only scratches the surface of what is possible to do at this moment. In many ways, I view the publication of Raging Chicken Press as the launching pad for a much more ambitious project for networking progressive media, advocacy and direct action training, and materially supporting social movements. The Occupy/99% Movement, to echo the Zapatistas, has opened a crack in history that opens new possibilities, new imaginations of our collective futures. And we have seen an explosion of DIY efforts to renew and rebuild what we might call a social movement infrastructure–the kind of infrastructure that can help sustain our movements in the years and decades to come. I’d like to think that we can learn from the right-wing in this country did: they spent decades investing in an infrastructure of media, think tanks, and publications. From Wisconsin, to Ohio, to Pennsylvania, we are seeing how those investments have paid off. The commons is being systematically disassembled. But, finally, we are seeing the birth of a movement with the power to roll back the right-wing attack.
Raging Chicken Press plans on being around for the long haul. And to do that, we are taking steps to make our work sustainable. The Raging Chicken Store, while a small operation, has earned Raging Chicken Press enough to pay for our hosting costs and associated services. This coming February. Raging Chicken Press will be at the PA Progressive Summit in Philadelphia. Next summer, Raging Chicken Press will be attending Netroots Nation in Providence, RI to learn from the experience of other media activists and to deepen our political networks. This spring, Raging Chicken Press will take on its first intern. We are working to provide at least three paid internships a year beginning summer 2012. In short, a lot is going on.
Our most ambitious project will be related to raising funds to help Raging Chicken Press on a sound financial footing. In the next couple of weeks, Raging Chicken Press will be putting out a fundraising appeal through Kickstarter.com. Rather than being forced to rely upon advertising or smaller fundraisers, we will attempting to raise $20,000 through this amazing, community based fundraising tool. While some readers have already begun to donate to Raging Chicken Press though our PayPal donation button on our site and we thank those donors immensely. However, we recognize that our expenses will soon out pace what we are able to raise through small donations and the Raging Chicken Press store.
I can’t begin to thank all the people who have written me to say how excited they are about Raging Chicken Press. With this kind of support we will be able to build a strong independent, progressive voice for PA and beyond. For now, keep reading and consider contributing to the November issue of Raging Chicken Press!
Over the past several years I’ve been thinking a lot about the kind of projects faculty and students could organize around that would have meaningful impacts on the university and the community. During my first two years at KU, I was the faculty adviser for a group of amazing students who wanted to found a chapter of United Students Against Sweatshops. In less than a year, the students researched the history of USAS, of KU’s licensing agreements, and the range of tactics students could use to persuade the university to join the Workers Rights Consortium–an independent group that monitors textile factories around the world and organizes against sweatshop labor. The short story is that the students convinced the university to join the WRC and for a period of several years, you could be assured that if you were donning the KU logo on your clothing, that you were not supporting sweatshop labor. One year, President Cevallos even mentioned the university’s WRC membership in his opening address — even though he never acknowledged that it was STUDENTS who responsible for the university signing on. I just checked the WRC web site only to find that Kutztown is no longer a member of the WRC. It just goes to show, once the spotlight is turned in a different direction, the university will ditch any stated commitment to human rights.
Anyway, the fact is that students’ activist made a tangible, concrete change in the university. If that student organization had continued after a couple of the key organizers graduated, we might still be able to say our KU apparel was not made in sweatshops. In the light of the current recession and budget-cut mania, I’ve been thinking about the kind of things we could do locally that would have real, tangible effects and that would provide some degree of mutual aid to our communities. Ever since the Occupy Movement exploded on the scene, I’ve been having conversations here and there about just this issue. And today’s Occupy Kutztown rally was an encouraging place to begin a conversation about organizing locally and retaking a piece of the commons. With that in mind, here are some projects you will be hearing more about on the XChange in the coming weeks and months. Here are some concrete things we can demand our university does:
For starters, 50% of all food served in the dining halls and other locations on campus should be locally sourced from family farms
75% of all university supplies should be manufactured in Pennsylvania, when possible, at union shops. This includes office supplies such as paper and pens as well as larger items such as desks and walkway lighting.
All new building projects should be build using union contractors from Pennsylvania.
Space should be set aside on campus for a farmers’ market
All university banking accounts should be moved out of “big banks” and relocated to community based banks in the area.
These are just some places to start. The basic idea is that changing these policies at the university would have positive, concrete effects in our communities. They will help sustain and create jobs. I can’t wait to begin organizing around these issues. It just feels good to start having this kind of conversation.
I could not have asked for a better way to start my day. As I drove in to work this morning, I swung by the local Wells Fargo Bank on the corner of Whiteoak and Main Street to see if the Occupy Kutztown action had gotten underway. Despite the rain and cooler weather, there were already at least a couple dozen people in brightly colored rain ponchos, homemade signs, and an energy that seemed to light up that little corner of Kutztown. I honked my horn, put down my passenger-side window and yelled “I’ll see you all in a little bit!!!”
What a way to start the day.
After I get done with my first round of office hours this morning, I am going to head down to Occupy Kutztown and and my voice to the protest as well as gather some stories and photos for Raging Chicken Press. I wish I could be there all day.
I am hoping that my colleagues, union members, union leaders, and students will take some time out of their days to join Occupy Kutztown in front of the Wells Fargo Bank on the corner of Whiteoak and Main. After today’s action, the question will be where do we go from here? I have a host of ideas for what we can do locally to nurture this emerging social movement. After all, the Wall Street created economic crisis is not limited to a few blocks in New York City as we are well aware.
Bruce Levine, author of Get Up Stand uP has given me some ideas about the need to rebuild solidarity and our self-respect. Levine appeared on the Rick Smith Show back in April and I just transcribed the interview and published it in the October issue of Raging Chicken Press. Levine uses the example of the Populist Movement in the 1880s to get at the kind of organizing that needs to take place today to get back our self-respect and confidence. Here’s a bit of what got me thinking:
But what they did—Populist organizers—was real smart. They realized, hey, our guys are getting ripped off by the banks and they’re getting ripped off by the railroads—that was the oligarchy of the time that was screwing them—the grain elevator operators. Why? Because they had to go into debt to plant their crops and when they finally got around to getting their crops sold, they couldn’t get enough money to pay off their debts, and so they were going deeper and deeper into debt, and losing their farms and all that. So, the great organization of that era was called, the short term for it was the Alliance, and what they did was they did some thinking about it. How could we come up with some kind of economic, self-help here that we could pull off that doesn’t take a lot of money, that could reduce these folks’ pain economically. And what they did was they just came up with the first, gigantic scale, working peoples’ cooperative where they basically cut out the middle-man. These farmers got together and they pulled their crop, cut out the middle-man, got great prices for their crop and word spread—they didn’t need twitter, they didn’t need facebook—word spread in a hurry that this was a great deal, this Alliance. They weren’t just an organization preaching at us, they were taking away our pain, giving us back our self-respect, giving us confidence.
The Occupy Kutztown action opens the possibility for a collective discussion about how we–right here where we live and work–can retake the reigns of the future by looking at alternatives to the mantra of “budget cuts” and manufactured “fiscal crisis.” We shall see how the Kutztown community responds to the question posed by Eminem — a question that has been ringing in my ears for the past several weeks:
Look…If you had…one shot, one opportunity to seize everything you ever wanted…in one moment, would you capture it? Or, just let it slip?
The opportunity of a generation is here. An opportunity to begin to retake the initiative, to right decades of wrongs, and to gain back our confidence to do more that throw our hands up in the air and say, “there is nothing I can do.”
In case readers of the XChange missed the launch of the October issue of Raging Chicken Press, here you go!
It’s amazing what can happen in a month. When people gather together and say “Enough!” another world seems possible once again. Since the September issue of Raging Chicken Press the #OccupyWallStreet movement has exploded to more than 1,173 cities nation-wide. That’s not a typo. One thousand, one hundred and seventy-three cities. By the time you read this, the number will have probably increased once again. Does the Occupy movement mark the emergence of a new social movement that can meet the challenges of the 21st Century? Will we see the birth of a mass-based movement that will finally stop the corporate profiteers in their tracks? What we know at this point is that laboratories of democracy are popping up across the nation and for the first time in decades, everyday people are relearning deliberation and democratic praxis.
This issue of Raging Chicken Press was initially billed as Part II of our Back to School issues. It seems that school has moved out of the classrooms and into the street. The Occupy movement has taken a more central place in this issue. In completely unpredictable ways, the Occupy movement has emerged in answer to several questions posed by writers from our last issue. Given the rapid development of the Occupy movement, we will be focusing much of our November issue on the movements and the traditions of radical democracy with which they are in dialogue.
The October issue of Raging Chicken Press introduces a new feature: The Rick Smith Files. Beginning this month, each issue will feature at least one interview or segment from the Rick Smith Show. We believe that the work Rick Smith and his crew are doing is critical to helping build new social movements. Thanks especially to Rick and Brett for jumping with us into this experiment in networked media.
This issue also features several videos from other sources that help contextualize the Occupy movement and begin to respond to some critiques–especially those critiques coming from the left. We hope you’ll take the time to watch them as we think they represent important contributions to how “we” make sense of what’s going on.
I want to thank all our contributors for their excellent work on this issue. I also want to put in a special plug for Dustin Slaughter’s David and Goliath Project Media Fund. Dustin has been traveling up and down the East Coast–from Philly to Boston to New York to DC–covering the growing Occupy movement. Any contribution you can make to the Fund will help make it possible for Dustin to continue his work and will help fund the documentary film about the Occupy movement he is working on. You can donate here: David and Goliath Project Media Fund.
You will probably be hearing from me a little bit more over the next couple of weeks as I get ready to take Raging Chicken Press to the next level. In the meantime, please don’t forget to take a peek at the Raging Chicken Press Store. We have all sorts of political swag for your progressive soul–t-shirts, bumper stickers, posters, and more. All purchases help fund this project. I’ve been surprised at the number of people from out of state-Wisconsin, Boston, Chicago, Florida, and even Maine–who have picked up some gear at our store. I can’t thank you enough. Every little bit helps build independent, progressive media for PA and beyond.
Oh! For readers in Kutztown or the surrounding area, I just got word that students are organizing an Occupy Kutztown event on the corner of Whiteoak and Main (in front of Wells Fargo) at 11 on Wednesday, Oct. 12. If you can come out, please do. Look for me and let me know what you think of Raging Chicken Press!
That’s right folks! The cornfield and picturesque campus were no match for the Occupy movement. It’s here.
Here’s the details:
When? Tomorrow! Wed. October 12 beginning at 11am
Where? Wells Fargo Bank on the corner of Whiteoak and Main, Kutztown
What? A rally of the 99% . Here’s the official call to Occupy Kutztown:
INVITE EVERYONE!We are the 99%. Stand up to Wall Street, stand up to the Banks. Stand up to the 1% of the population that have been destroying the American Dream.Since we can’t leave campus because of class, why not bring it to Kutztown. Meet outside the Wells Fargo on main street. A company that took 25 billion dollars from the American Tax Payers. They continue to take people’s homes. They support the 1%. Who do you support?
just thought I would pass on the info. Next Raging Chicken Press out this coming Monday.
K
We are living during an incredible moment in history. Finally, after years of taking it on the chin, sucking it up, and keeping heads down a movement is emerging, giving oxygen to the deep embers of rage that decades of class war have left in the hearts of Americans. The financial collapse, the trillions of public dollars to bail out Wall Street criminals, and the relentless destruction of the fabled American middle class have finally led to a visceral, collective, and material cry of ENOUGH! The Occupy Wall Street movement was initially dismissed through cliché talking points by Mainstream commentators. Since Occupy Wall Street began on Sept. 17th the numbers of people joining in this collective act of resistance has only grown. And spread. Occupy groups have sprung up in over 274 U.S. cities.
What will the Occupy movement become? Will it be the spark that will transform into the kind of social movement capable of wrestling the power away from a handful of billionaires and their political cronies in Washington? We shall see and Raging Chicken Press will not only be there to cover what’s going on, we will be taking part in helping build this movement. We are well aware of a range of critiques that have emerged about the composition of the Occupy movement, its insistence upon consensus as an organizational principle, the claim of representing the “99%,” the fact that the movement did not begin occupying Wall Street with concrete set of demands, the list goes on. This movement cannot shy away from such critiques. However, Raging Chicken Press believes that the Occupy movement has opened a crack in history that offers the concrete possibility for collective deliberation–a democratic process for constructing communities of resistance that move beyond the politics of factionalism and ideological purism–especially on the left. The stakes are too high. The future will belong to those willing to get their hands–and their ideologies–dirty in this workshop of resistance.
The October issue of Raging Chicken Press will be out on Monday, October 10th. Raging Chicken Press has been lucky to have one of our contributing bloggers, Dustin Slaughter of the David and Goliath Project, on the ground in NYC, Boston, and Philly. The problem we have faced in covering the emergence of the Occupy movement has been that events are moving along so quickly. This issue will feature several of Dustin’s reports as a kind of time-elapsed journal.
In the October issue, we will also introduce a new series: The Rick Smith Files. If you haven’t listened to the Rick Smith Show yet, click here and get started right away. It’s activist fuel. Beginning with the October issue, Raging Chicken Press will feature transcriptions of at least one of Rick Smith’s interviews with activists, labor leaders, policy analysts, and authors who have made it their business to stand up and fight back.
As for the rest of the issue, I’m going to keep you guessing for now.
I want to encourage all readers of Raging Chicken Press to become an email subscriber. As an email subscriber, you will receive an email when new content is added. Subscribing is easy. On the right-hand sidebar you will find our subscription widget. Just enter your email and click subscribe. It’s really that easy.
I hope to see some of you at the Occupy Philly action this weekend. The action begins tomorrow, Thursday at 9am @ City Hall. Look for the Raging Chicken t-shirt!
It’s been a while since I’ve posted exclusively to the XChange and a lot has changed. A couple of weeks before the beginning of the fall 2011 semester, my daughter Scout was born. In addition to the sheer joy of welcoming her into our family, lack of sleep has been a constant companion. Readers of the XChange also know that I stepped down as Vice President this past year in anticipation of the birth of my daughter. This fall marks the first time since 2002 – the year I started teaching at Kutztown – that I have not been an elected representative for our local chapter of APSCUF. It’s a bit odd, I have to say.
While I know I made the right decision to focus on my family this year, I am also keenly aware of how easy it is to fall out of the loop. Doing union work, especially at the Executive Committee level, means that you are intimately involved with micro-battles every single day. The administration’s decision to cut programs and retrench faculty last year meant that the bulk of my days were dominated with the practical and emotional weight of fighting an administration that had no intention of looking for alternatives to their slash and burn approach to the “budget crisis.” I’ve been astounded how “easy” my job feels now – a 4-4 teaching load, and ONLY a 4-4 teaching load, actually feels like a break. How messed up is that?
Stepping down from APSCUF leadership for a bit has allowed me to do quite a bit of thinking about where I want to put my efforts and how to best build some kind of sustained resistance to the budget cuts and assaults on public, higher education. Last year I oscillated between intense frustration and cynicism because I could not understand why faculty and staff at Kutztown University and the other PASSHE Universities were not flooding the streets of Harrisburg and their communities to defend their institutions and the promise of public higher education. I still don’t get it, but I think my experience this semester is helping me understand better how it’s just so much easier — at least in the short term and before the pink slip shows up in your mailbox — to just focus on teaching and let someone else worry about the future of public higher education.
Much of my “free time” is now spent on building my independent, progressive media site, Raging Chicken Press. October will be our fourth issue. I’ve been kicking around the idea of an autonomous or semi-autonomous organization/institute/center for quite some time. At least two of my conference papers over the past five years have suggested the need to develop extra-curricular institutions for advocacy rhetoric and training citizens for participation in 21st century democracy. In my writing and research, I’ve grown more and more pessimistic about the ability to do the kind of progressive, democratic work that many in my field feel lies at the core of literacy education within the terms of the curriculum. That does not mean that I think there is not room for courses that can contribute to progressive, democratic projects. I only mean to suggest the university and most faculty do not see their work as being primarily concerned with public education’s charge to train the next generation of democratic citizens.
For better or for worse, faculty and curricula tend to be primarily focused on job preparation and more traditional disciplinary concerns. There was a time that I thought it was a worthy struggle, a worthy expenditure of energy, to attempt to shift the curriculum more toward citizen training. And that still may be worthwhile. However, given the intensity of the attacks on the public sector, workers’ rights, collective bargaining, voting rights, environmental protections, and women’s rights and the rather timid response from faculty, staff, and students in Pennsylvania’s state and state related universities, I have felt an urgency to find more direct means to network and build citizen-based movements in the State.
Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that faculty, staff, and our unions were silent. I personally made four trips to Harrisburg, organized two bus trips with faculty and students to Harrisburg for rallies, and APSCUF and the other education unions were doing some great work responding to Governor Corbett’s slash and burn budget. All that is good. However, to my knowledge, there has been no recognizable, sustained organization effort to push back the budget cuts. When it comes right down to it, people still lost their jobs, students still had a hefty tuition increase, and PASSHE Universities still saw almost 20% of their budgets gutted. These are all losses by any measure. We should be learning from colleagues in Wisconsin, Ohio, New York and others who have organized mass mobilizations–and occupations of their state capitals. These states have now almost nine months of organizing under their belts and are building strong coalitions moving into the 2012 election. Hats off to them.
It has been striking to me that Kutztown University didn’t see a version of #OccupyWallStreet this past year, especially given the administration’s smoke-and-mirrors “budget crisis.” As readers of the XChange know, APSCUF-KU has been contending for a long time that the University was not being straight with it’s numbers. President Cevallos was persistent in his claims that Kutztown faced perpetual shortfalls. However, as I wrote in a post here on the XChange and in the first issue of Raging Chicken Press, we found out that Kutztown University has been sitting on $29.1 million that could have been used to save programs and jobs. Put another way, stripping faculty of their tenure, jobs, and programs was a conscious calculated choice, not an unfortunate, unavoidable consequence of a force of nature as the administration would like us all to believe.
But, as a community, our defense of our retrenched colleagues and efforts at building an organized resistance has been lackluster. I say “as a community,” not “as a union” purposely. Anyone on Kutztown’s campus who’s been paying even partial attention is well aware of charges that the “union didn’t do enough” or that “the union should have done X instead of Y.” What baffles me is why people are more willing to criticize their union or stick their heads in the sand instead of organizing. I’m not suggesting members should not criticize their union. As a matter of fact, I think member involvement and critical participation is essential to any effective union. Rather, I am saying criticism does not stand in for action. I mean, think about it. If I was criticizing my union while I was joining together with my colleagues to resist the administration’s attacks that’s one thing. Any community worth its salt comes to the aid of other members of the community out of a commitment to that community. It does not wait to be told what to do. It does not wait for others to do it for them. It just acts. Because it’s the right thing to do.
I know this is very ranty and scattered…it will take me a little while to get my XChange groove back. I’ve still got a lot to say about where we go from here and fights we are going to face down the road.
Hey all…yes, it’s been quiet on the XChange. I am hoping to be back here on a weekly basis blogging about all things KU and APSCUF. As many of you know, this year will bring a different role for the XChange. This summer I stepped down from my position as APSCUF vice president in order to make time for a new addition to our family. Our daughter was born in August and she is already building alliances with her brother. Love to see it.
In the next couple of days I am going to be posting about some issues that I’ve been thinking a lot about these past few weeks. The first has to do with Kutztown University’s out-of-whack priorities, which place buildings over people. I also am going to be posting a whole lot of data related to the Kutztown University Foundation. You may recall my post from a while back, “Emails from Nowhere and the KU Foundation.” In that post, I discuss some information regarding misdeeds at the KU Foundation that was passed to me anonymously. Since then, I was able to get a whole load of data about the Foundation thanks to the work of a former APSCUF staffer. I’ll be posting that data here.
In the meantime, I want to also let readers of the XChange know that I just posted the third issue of Raging Chicken Press! Here’s the announcement I sent out a little while ago:
Well, it’s finally here: the September issue of Raging Chicken Press! As many readers already know, this month’s edition was delayed a few days because of the start of the school year and the fact that my wife and I welcomed our second child into our family in August. The September issue is the first part of our two-part “Back to School” series. While the September issue took a little longer, I think you’ll dig it! We’d also like to welcome The David and Goliath Project as an affiliate blog!
This issue features more multimedia contributions, several on-the-ground reports from new contributors, and features and important Call to Action to Occupy Wall Street on September 17th - that’s right, this coming weekend! Here’s a look at what you’ll find in this issue:
We are always looking for contributions from activist-writers, photographers, videographers, artists, and agitators of all sorts. We are now accepting submissions for our October issue.
Deadline for the October issue is 9/28/2011.
If you are interested in submitting your work, you can do so by sending an email to ragingchickenpress@gmail.com. Please take a few minutes to review our Submission Guidelines in order to familiarize yourself with the kind of work we publish and the purpose of our publication.
As always, the earlier you get us your submission the better. We look forward to hearing from you!
Bread and Roses,
Kevin Mahoney
Editor Zero, Raging Chicken Press
I hope your semester is off to a fine start! Here’s to the contract fight that I am sure we’re in for!
As most readers of the XChange know, I’ve spent a good deal of time this summer working on my latest project, Raging Chicken Press. I am happy to say that the July and August issues have been quite a success and we’ve gotten some excellent feedback and responses. We are now looking to the beginning of the school year. Here is the Call for Submissions for our September and October “Back to School” issues. I hope readers of the XChange will consider contributing, or will pass the word to friends who would be interested in doing so. Here’s the call:
Raging Chicken Press is now accepting submission for the September and October issues. We are dubbing these two issues the “Back to School” issues for a couple of reasons. First, this will be the first academic year since Corbett and his Republican cabal gutted public education from kindergarten through college. Students returning to school this fall face increased challenges as class sizes increase, favorite teachers were given walking papers, and extracurricular activities have been slashed. In short, this fall will be the first year of the Corbett model of education: fend for yourselves.
But we are calling these issues the “Back to School” issues for another reason. Here at Raging Chicken Press, we believe that it’s time for progressives, activists, and organizers to rethink effective political action. The right-wing wave that began in Wisconsin and has swept through Republican dominated states during the first part of 2011, shows the bankrupt nature mainstream political action. As Dustin Slaughter argued in the August issue,
We often cling to the misconception that real change comes from parliamentary measures and the ballot box. But in so doing, we each shoulder a forgetting that meaningful reform, be it in labor struggles or the civil rights movements of our past, were not accomplished through legislation. Reforms were, and will always be, achieved by direct action. In spite of itself direct action has at times turned violent (as the struggle for labor rights illustrated), but just as often it manifests its message in non-violent civil disobedience: sit-ins, marches, boycotts. The machinery of government is slow, and it suggests through its impotence the need for responsive measures. The groundwork for peaceful, radical reform techniques has already been paved for us in historical stone. We as a people now need to find the courage to throw ourselves at “the machine.”
We couldn’t agree more. In a sense, it is critical that we go “Back to School” to remind us that meaningful change and effective resistance requires us to take a stand, draw lines, and fight back. Rational discourse can only be effective when bolstered by organized “communities of resistance,” as Rachel Riedner and Kevin Mahoney argued in Democracies to Come: Rhetorical Action, Neoliberalism, and Communities of Resistance. But going “Back to School” does not mean retreating to libraries; it means relearning the lessons of struggle through involvement in concrete struggles happening right now.
If you are interested in submitting your work for one of these issues, you can do so by sending an email to ragingchickenpress@gmail.com. Please take a few minutes to review our Submission Guidelines to familiarize yourself with the kind of work we publish and the purpose of our publication.
Deadline for the September issue is 8/31/2011.
Deadline for the October issue is 9/28/2011.
As always, the earlier you get us your submission the better. We look forward to hearing from you!
Bread and Roses,
Kevin Mahoney
Editor Zero, Raging Chicken Press
Hey all…I’ve been storing up a whole lot of stuff for the XChange. Ever since Cevallos sent his “update” to the faculty I have wanted to get cranking on the XChange again. But, I had to get this little project together before I turned back to the XChange. So, here it is:
The second issue of Raging Chicken Press is now up! In my experience, the second issue of a new publication is always difficulty to get out. A lot of energy gets spent mobilizing for the launch of the inaugural issue and just when you think you’ve got a little breathing room, deadlines for the next issue are just around the corner. I am quite pleased at how well this issue came together. Not only did we get some stellar submissions, all the contributions this time round are interconnected. I hope that you like our second issue as much as the first!
I hope this issue will generate as much excitement as our last issue. I’m also already looking forward to our September issue which will be a “Back to School” issue. The call for submissions for the September issue will be out very, very soon.
We’ll also be rolling out some exciting new things for the fall. Beginning in September, Raging Chicken Press will be holding monthly “meet-ups” the week after an issue is published — locations to be announced, so stay tuned. These meet-ups will allow Raging Chicken Press contributors, fans, family, and friends to have a chance to talk and network. From the beginning, Raging Chicken Press has sought to contribute to building progressive, social movements not just write about them.
In the coming months I will also increase my calls to help support the work of Raging Chicken Press. As you know, you can help contribute to our work by using the links on the right side of our site to give donations, pick up some Raging Chicken Press gear, or simply shop at Amazon.com or Powells.com. I hope we can keep Raging Chicken Press a community supported independent, progressive media site.
The wait is over. The first full issue of Raging Chicken Pressis set to launch. We’re going to call this one the July post-Corbett-PA-GOP-draconian-budget-signing issue. Catchy, huh?
Our first issue includes the following contributions:
Bread and Roses,
? Well, I loved it as a kid and now my three-year old son loves it too. As I was watching it over the summer, I began to see the possibility of repurposing some of the songs on the soundtrack for our current struggles against right-wing attacks on collective bargaining, public education, social services, and our democracy. I began to think about casting our “beloved” governor, 
![I, BrokenSphere [GFDL (www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC-BY-SA-3.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) or CC-BY-SA-2.5-2.0-1.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5-2.0-1.0)], via Wikimedia Commons](http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Yellow_school_sign.JPG "School Crossing Sign")
Amy Lynch-Biniek
mslibrarygoddess
