Next Page in Pro-Gun Playbook at KU: Death Threats

This article was originally published on Raging Chicken Press earlier today. You can read the full article here and check out our continuing coverage of KU’s new gun policy. 

This past week, Kutztown students, faculty and staff were first learning of the university’s new weapons policy which opens the campus to guns. The new policy, according to the Morning Call, will give “Kutztown more gun freedom than most of the state-owned universities, even more than the sample policy suggested by the state’s attorneys,” despite statements to the contrary by the university’s president, Javier Cevallos. It didn’t take long before the radical, pro-gun playbook showed its ugly face. Shortly after he first heard about the policy under consideration at an April meeting of Kutztown’s Administrative Council, the president of the faculty union, Dr. Paul Quinn, began receiving anonymous death threats.  Faculty first learned of these threats at a May 9th meeting of the union’s Representative Council and the Morning Call reported on the threats this past Friday.

I spoke with Quinn over the weekend about what happened.

Quinn, a physics professor, said after his classes on Thursday, May 2,  he walked into his office to find that someone slipped a folded note under his office door. “At first, I didn’t think anything of it,” he said. “I opened the note and it said, ‘Drop the gun issue or else.'”

Quinn said that after he read the note he immediately made several calls, including one to the Executive Director of Kutztown’s Human Resources department. She told Quinn to go to the police immediately. “I alerted my Chair and my Chair said yes, go.” Quinn and a union representative met with  Kutztown University’s Director of Police Services and Acting Chief of Police, John Dillon shortly afterwards.  “The only time I could get there was around two o’clock,” Quinn explained. “I had an office hour from 1:30 to 3:00. So, I normally would have been in my office. I went at two o’clock to deliver that note to Public Safety. When I got back an hour and a half later, there was a second note under the door. The second note said, ‘What scares you more, guns or death?’”

“What this means,” Quinn said, “is that someone was watching.”

Up until a union Representative Council meeting on Thursday, May 9, the only official word about the university’s new gun policy from the union came from a May 3 email from Quinn to faculty. The email included links to the university’s old policy and the new policy. Quinn wrote,

Fellow Faculty,

Here is some information for you to be aware of.  The administration has decided to change the current weapons policy on campus.  The link to the new policy is included below.  Administrative Council discussed it at their last meeting, and now it has been posted on the website.  I am sending you this email so that you are aware of this change.  I have attached the previous policy so that you can see what the comparisons are for yourself.  This change seems to be occurring at other Universities in the state system, one of which is Millersville, however, not all have adopted the change at this point.  Please be aware that you should NOT be discussing this in your classes unless it is related to the material covered in your course.  Feel free to talk about it OUTSIDE of your classes, but discussion in classes can lead to discipline.  We will be discussing this change at Representative Council next week.  Have a good weekend.

The fact that Quinn received death threats on the day before he wrote this email to faculty suggested that a person or group of people think that Quinn is leading an opposition to the university’s gun policy. “What’s weird is that I have not taken a position on this new policy,” Quinn said.

According to Quinn, the first he or faculty members on the university’s safety committee had heard of the new policy was at the last Administrative Council meeting on April 19. “After a five-minute discussion, they wanted to vote on it,” Quinn recounted. Quinn said that he did not have time to digest the impact of the policy, so he abstained from voting. “I didn’t vote yes or no.” Quinn said he wanted a chance to better understand the issue. “It was my understanding — and the understanding of other faculty members on Administrative Council — that the university administration still had to work with PASSHE on the policy and it probably wouldn’t be effective until the fall, which is why I thought I had time to discuss and get input.”

Quinn contacted other faculty members who have experience in law and public policy — some who were also avid gun owners — to ask their opinions. Quinn was given several resources to help him look into the issue. When Quinn asked Kutztown President Javier Cevallos if the new policy was public, Cevallos said it was. “So, this policy was not secret, I planned on bringing it up at Meet and Discuss and at Rep Council,” Quinn said.

Quinn presented the new policy at the union’s next Executive Committee meeting. “I talked about it with Exec and Exec was furious” that this was the first they had heard that the university administration was writing a new weapons policy. “So we decided that we would contact a lawyer to get a white paper opinion from someone who was not APSCUF or PASSHE,” Quinn explained. “Somehow, that information must have gotten out.” And then came the death threats.

Quinn said their have been additional notes and other forms of intimidation, but he is not at liberty to discuss them as they are now part of an official police investigation. Quinn, however, is not intimidated. After he told his chair of the first note, his chair was very concerned. “He said I needed to go home,” Quinn recalls. “I said, ‘bullshit. I am not going home’.”

To read the rest of the article, CLICK HERE

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“Contract Now!”: APSCUF protest at PASSHE Board of Governors meeting in Harrisburg

Yesterday, over 500 faculty members from across the 14 universities that make up the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PASSHE) converged on the PASSHE Board of Governors meeting at the Dixon Center in Harrisburg. Here’s a couple video snap shots of the action. To check out all the photos I took, you can visit this photo album.

“Contract Now!”

APSCUF President Steve Hicks and Vice President Ken Mash Close Out the Day of Picketing

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WFMZ Coverage of Strike Authorization Vote

Last night on the 10pm newscast, WFMZ ran APSCUF’s strike authorization vote as the lead story. It was a pretty good story and from what I am told, WFMZ actually beat the Associated Press to the story. Pretty cool.

STATE COLLEGE, PA

Delegates from the Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties unanimously approved a strike authorization vote Saturday, according to its members.

Delegates from each campus, including Kutztown University and East Stroudsburg University met in State College Saturday for the decision.  The vote will now head to the full membership of the APSCUF.

The vote comes amid stalled contract negotiations….

Check out the full story here

While the story was pretty objective, I posted a couple of my concerns about the story as it ran on the APSCUF-KU 411 facebook page. Here ya go:

Pretty good coverage from WFMZ. While the story as a whole was pretty objective, there are a couple issues of concern:

1) On the 10pm live newscast (not in the text on the linked page) mentions the issue of a 35% cut in the pay for temporary faculty as an “other issue.” That does not reflect the position of our negotiating team or our discussions at yesterday’s Legislative Assembly. The attack on temporary faculty is a CENTRAL issue of contention. PASSHE’s proposal would und

ercut the quality of education and the ability of PASSHE universities to attract high quality faculty. (see Amy Lynch-Biniek’s article on this issue: http://goo.gl/ryycn ).

2) Again, on the 10pm live newscast, but also on the linked page, health care and retiree benefits are simply listed as “issues.” This can leave the impression by viewers/readers that we are asking for MORE benefits – a concern that is born out in the comments on WFMZ web page. APSCUF is no asking for more and the details of what PASSHE has been doing with our health care over the past decade or so is down right despicable, if not criminal. Over $100 million dollars “stolen,” in the words of our lead negotiator, from our health care plans. And, PASSHE wants to TAKE AWAY retiree benefits. That’s the issue. I really hope some crack reporters will get into these issues seriously at some point. It’s like a murder-mystery once you see the details.

All-in-all, though, thanks to WFMZ for the solid coverage. They were one of the first news outlets on the story. I heard tell that they actually be the AP on this one!

We do have our work cut out for us.

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Budget Cut Protest @ Shippensburg

Check out the Shippensburg’s student newspaper’s article and video on the recent APSCUF-SU protest against Corbett’s cuts:

APSCUF Rally Draws Crowds Against Cuts

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Corbett’s Ax Strikes Again: Another Reason to Support Independent, Progressive, Activist Media

Raging Chicken Press Ready to do Battle, But We Need Your Help

Earlier today PA Governor Tom Corbett, announced a 20% cut to PA’s 14 campus State System of Higher Ed. Cuts to the state-related institutions (Penn State, Temple, Pitt, and Lincoln) are looking at close to 30% cut. That’s after a 25% cut to PASSHE last year.

That’s not all. $320 million cut to the Department of Public Welfare, cutting 650 state jobs, and continued million dollar handouts to corporations — NOT small businesses. The attack is here AGAIN.

Raging Chicken Press was founded to cover activists’ responses to these kind of attacks to working people and the commons. We are here to amplify, agitate, and activate. But we need your help to build this progressive media movement.

I know people are strapped and uncertain about the future. But I’d like to ask you to consider contributing whatever you can to our fundraising drive. Even small donations of $5, $10, $25 helps sustain independent, progressive, activist media. Together we can turn the tide against these attacks by Corbett and his fellow slash and burn corporate-sponsored politicians across the country.

Please consider donating. We are fighting for our future. Click the link below to learn more.

https://www.wepay.com/donations/raging_chicken_press_fund

Bread and Roses,
Kevin Mahoney
Founder & Editor, Raging Chicken Press

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Calling all progressive musicians and song writers: Raging Chicken Press song contest

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!

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It begins

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Ideas for Occupy KU

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.

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October issue of Raging Chicken Press on the way…and some thoughts on Occupy movement

Hey all,

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!

Kevin Mahoney

Editor Zero, Raging Chicken Press

 

 

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Returning to the XChange

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.

For now, I have to go teach.

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Call for Submissions: “Back to School” issues of Raging Chicken Press

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.

As this call for submissions goes out, 45,000 Verizon workers enter the twelfth day of their strike, right-wing PA Republicans are holding hearings on anti-union “right to work” legislation, Corbett and PA Republicans are handing over large stretches of public land to the natural gas industry. The list goes on and on.

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

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First Issue of Raging Chicken Press is Out!

The wait is over.  The first full issue of Raging Chicken Press is 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:

• Kevin Mahoney, “Kutztown University, Shock Doctrine, and Snake Oil Tales”
• Wendy Lee, “An Open Letter to Governor Corbett”
• Seth Kahn, “[Self] Pep Talk”
• J. Rizzo Mertz, “Plan to Renew Pennsylvania: A New Hope”
• Aaron Barlow, “No More Teachers?”
• Christina Steffy, “Don’t Want to Accept Responsibility? Blame Teachers!”
• Lee Camp, “You’re Not Alone OR Fighting Back is Bad for Ratings”

If you like Raging Chicken Press, sign up for an email subscription on the right-hand side of the site.  If you’d like to go the extra step and help support our work, check out this post with info on how to offer your support.

Welcome to Raging Chicken Press! 3-2-1…here we go!

 

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hold the champagne for better days

Over the past couple of days an article from the Morning Call, “House GOP: Lessen Education Cuts,” has been making the rounds on PASSHE faculty and students email lists, facebook pages, and twitter.  The article has gotten some ground because of the title and lead paragraph:

Republicans who control the state House will introduce a counter-offer to Gov. Tom Corbett’s budget proposal that largely undoes his deeper cuts to public and higher education in part by spending less on public welfare programs.

For schools and universities facing 50%+ cuts in their state appropriations, this is good news, right?  If you read on, the situation looks even better.  The new Republican budget proposal (details of the budget proposal should be released tomorrow) seems to underscore an emerging narrative that Pennsylvania Republicans legislators are, indeed, reasonable.  I mean, it certainly looks like their bucking the more draconian cuts favored by the Governor.  Just look at the support the Republican legislators are throwing to education :

• Increase funding for higher education line items by $380 million, with schools in the state System of Higher Education getting a $195 million increase. State-related Temple, Lincoln and Penn State universities and the University of Pittsburgh would receive 75 percent of their current allocations. Funding for higher education programs was slashed by 50 percent in the administration’s budget proposal.

• Increase overall state funding for kindergarten through 12th grade education by $210 million. This would ensure every district receives at least as much money as it did in 2008-09, a spokesman said. Under Corbett’s plan, not all would.

• Appropriate $100 million for Accountability Block Grants, which districts use to fund after-school tutoring and other programs. State support for those grants was eliminated in the administration’s budget proposal.

• Set aside $43 million to help school districts meet their Social Security payments.

Good stuff, no?  Well, that depends.  Note that the $380 million “increase” to higher education and the $195 million “increase” to PASSHE are not actually “increases” in state appropriations.  The Morning Call article simply reproduces the language of the Republican proposal.  If you do the math, Corbett’s budget reduces state appropriations to PASSHE from $503 million to $233 million.  The total cuts are actually a bit more than this when you factor in several additional cuts in fees and line items for PASSHE.  But, for ease of argument, let’s use these numbers.

The House Republican plan “increases” PASSHE’s funds by $195.  Really what they are proposing is a $75 million cut to PASSHE.  That is, if you add $195 million to Corbett’s $233 million dollar proposal, you get $428 million.  That’s still about a 15% cut of base appropriations…again, not considering the additional cuts to PASSHE in Corbett’s budget.  Those cuts remain which makes the PA House Republican proposal closer to a 20% cut.  Now, is that better than a 54% cut?  No doubt.  But this is “good” only if you accept the premise for the necessity of the cuts to begin with.  We have to keep in mind that Corbett and the House Republicans have refused to address the state  REVENUE problem by taxing drilling in the Marcellus shale region or by closing the Delaware Corporate Tax Loophole.

And what about the newly released reports that PA has exceeded official projections by $506 million dollars?  Put another way, now that PA has $506 million more than it expected, surely the Governor and the House Republicans will use that money to lessen their proposed budget cuts, right?  Not a chance.  Bloomberg Businessweek reports that Corbett is arguing against using any of the $506 surplus lessen budget cuts:

Gov. Tom Corbett on Tuesday poured cold water on optimism from some legislators that a growing state cash surplus could be used to ease spending cuts he is proposing to such areas as education, saying it might be wiser to hold the money in reserve or use it to pay down debt.

The House Republicans are singing the same tune.

What this should tell us is that Corbett and the House Republicans are committed to cutting public education and privatizing what’s left of the Commons–even if they have to tap the brakes to slow down how fast they do it.  By refusing to consider the revenue side of the budget equation (e.g. taxing Marcellus shale drilling, closing the Delaware loophole) and standing behind his unilateral decision to hand out $200 million in corporate tax breaks earlier this year, Corbett is waging a war against all things public.

By going after education, Corbett may have slightly miscalculated the strong response from Pennsylvania citizens.  However, he may have inadvertently given himself a distraction that would allow his House Republican troops to wage the class war.

The Morning Call article reporting on the “reasonable” House Republicans standing behind Pennsylvania public education may have given faculty, teachers, students and education advocates reason to breathe a sigh of relief.  However, as Luzerne County’s CitizensVoice reports:

The GOP proposal will offer up to $500 million of cuts in public welfare spending in order to spare public schools and state-supported universities from deep cuts proposed by Gov. Tom Corbett.

That’s right.  The House Republican budget robs Peter to pay Paul.  It restores some funding to schools and universities by stripping funding for public welfare spending.  Education funded on the backs of poor and working class Pennsylvanians.  I am sure there are some Republican strategists who hope that teachers and students are going to take the money and run.  It’s a classic divide and conquer strategy.  And, face it, it’s easier road to go after those who don’t have lobbyists speaking on their behalf.  The House Republican budget is set up, if not designed, to ask those of us in education to make a devil’s bargain: to take care of ourselves and toss the least of our brothers and sisters to the wolves.

Last week’s Rally for a Responsible Budget in Harrisburg was sponsored by the CLEAR Coalition, a coalition of labor unions ranging from higher education faculty to fire fighters.  The House Republican budget proposal seeks to pit the education sector against the service sector, faculty against fire fighters, teachers against technicians.  Furthermore, the House Republican budget proposal dangles a carrot in front of educators, hoping that we will confirm the image they have painted for us in the media: that we are a greedy bunch who only care about taking care of their own interests.  If we take the bait, then we deserve what we get.

In my mind, the CLEAR Coalition represented a strong start to an alliance that has the potential to raise all boats and reclaim our Commonwealth.  When I signed my name to join the CLEAR Coalition, I was making a pledge to my brothers and sisters from PA AFL-CIO, AFSCME, AFT, APSCUF, PPFFA, PSEA, SEIU, and UFCW to be there.  That’s no small pledge.  To recall the slogan of the IWW that is as good today as ever: An Injury to One, Is and Injury to All.

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Pics from May 3rd “Rally for a Responsible Budget,” Harrisburg, PA | Raging Chicken Press

Check out the link below if you are interested in some pictures from yesterday’s “Rally for a Responsible Budget” in Harrisburg.

Pics from May 3rd “Rally for a Responsible Budget,” Harrisburg, PA

May 4, 2011By ktmahoney

Of the three major rallies in Harrisburg I’ve attended since Gov. Corbett proposed draconian cuts to the state budget, the “Rally for a Responsible Budget” organized by the CLEAR Coalition was by far the largest.  The energy in the air was electric.  Chants of “We are one!” and “Enough is Enough!” echoed through the city as thousands and thousands of union activists filled the Capitol steps and the surrounding lawns.  It was a day that had me tweeting: “Today is another reason I thank god every day for the labor movement  #paunion #pabudget #offthecouch#enough.”  And it’s true.  There is nothing more life-affirming that being with thousands of other people who, day after day, choose dignity over despair, solidarity over isolation, and action over retreat.

via Pics from May 3rd “Rally for a Responsible Budget,” Harrisburg, PA | Raging Chicken Press.

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Pennsylvania is running more than $500M ahead of tax projections | PennLive.com

HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania’s tax collections continued to roll in ahead of projections last month.

Ten months into the 2010-’11 fiscal year, the state Department of Revenue reported on Monday the state is running $505.9 million, or 2.3 percent, above projections.

That brings the year-to-date collections to $22.5 billion to support the state’s $28 billion budget.

In April, the state’s biggest revenue month, the revenue department collected $3.3 billion, which was $273.2 million, or 9 percent, more than estimated.

All three of the state’s biggest revenue streams — the sales tax, personal income tax and corporate tax — all produced more revenue than was estimated for the month.

The current year’s budget anticipated 3 percent revenue growth after coming up short by $1.2 billion last year and $3 billion the year before.

Related topics: pennsylvania budget

via Pennsylvania is running more than $500M ahead of tax projections | PennLive.com.

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democracy is coming…

I think my friends over at the Rick Smith Show were on the ball this morning with their music selections.  Here’s what Rick posted to his facebook page today under the heading: “some morning pre-PA budget listening.”

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Video/Photo Montage from March 28th Rally in Harrisburg

The first major Harrisburg rally in opposition to Gov. Corbett’s budget cuts took place on March 28th.  The rally was spearheaded by students from Shippensburg University and supported by APSCUF.  APSCUF-KU sent four buses filled with students and faculty. Here is APSCUF’s video/photo montage of the event:

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You Pay, Corporations Don’t

Great video from the CLEAR Coalition explaining the Delaware loophole and how it allows corporations to operate in PA without paying their fair share.

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USAS | Rutgers students occupy President’s office – take action now!

As of 10:00 am this morning, students at Rutgers University are now occupying the university president’s office in opposition to huge tuition increases and mistreatment of workers.  Check out the full story and Rutgers students’ call for support!

Support the Rutgers sit-in!

Along with dozens of Rutgers students, I’m currently occupying President McCormick’s office, and we’re sitting in until our University President finally takes a stand with students by speaking out against the devastating tuition hikes and shows respect for our workers.

via USAS | Rutgers students occupy President’s office – take action now!.

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one more appeal to GET ON THE BUS tomorrow for Harrisburg

Earlier today I made one last appeal to faculty to GET ON THE BUS for tomorrow’s NAACP rally in Harrisburg.  The theme of the rally is “Save Public Education in PA.  This will be the first rally  in the current budget battles that faculty from higher education will join their K-12 colleagues and students from all levels of public education in PA  on the Capitol steps.  There are still seats available.  Students, faculty, and community members are welcome.  If you want to join, send an email to apscufku@kutztown.edu asap!  If you like to procrastinate, you can just show up in the parking lot behind Beekey tomorrow morning!  Bus leaves at 8am.

Here’s my email to faculty:

Dear colleagues,

I want to make at least one last call for faculty to join the NAACP rally in Harrisburg tomorrow.  The theme of the rally is “Save Public Education in PA.”  The rally will consist of a march of public school children on the Capitol, speakers representing all aspects of education – K-12 and Higher Ed.  Our work has already made a difference as several key Republican legislators have been calling for a reduction — if not elimination of Corbett’s education cuts.

APSCUF-KU still has seats left on tomorrow’s bus to Harrisburg.  If you can make it, please join us.  We keep on hearing the call for “shared sacrifice.”  Let our sacrifice be our time in making our voices heard publicly in the State Capital!  In a time when the dominant argument among politicians and the media attempt to keep us afraid and NOT raise our voices (keep your head down and be good), we need to resist such cynicism.  After all, we’ve been working our tails off all along and that hasn’t been a sufficient argument to prevent us being the focus of budget cutting and public attacks.

As I’ve said on a number of occasions now, Pennsylvanians have taken it on the chin over and over and over again.  Solid industries have given way to casinos.  As faculty and educators, we are in a relatively privileged position. If WE are not willing to speak out, who will?  Should we punt the ball to out of work Steelworkers?  Should we punt the ball to our students?  I don’t think so.  We need to lead by example.  We often seek to instill in our students a critical consciousness and a willingness to be active citizens.  What does it say to our students if we are not willing to fight for our profession and their education?  What does it say that we’re willing to miss a day (or days) of class for a professional conference but not a rally to defend public education?

But, it’s not too late.  APSCUF-KU still has seats on the bus. We are leaving bright and early tomorrow morning @ 8am from the parking lot behind Beekey.  We hope you will join us.  And if you can’t make it, we hope that you will support your colleagues who can.

Reserve your seat on the bus: contact APSCUF-KU secretary, Karen Epting, at 610-683-4277 or email her at apscufku@kutztown.edu.

**DRIVING YOURSELF?**

If you can’t make the bus and are considering driving yourself, you can find parking at the River Street garage or surrounding streets. For information on location and cost of River Street garage go to http://www.harrisburgparking.org/

I hope to see you there!

Best,
Kevin Mahoney

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