Empty Pockets for Management: Budget Crisis Fictions

Some of you may recall a couple of posts I wrote a ways back about the budget crisis myths that the Kutztown University administration had been circulating as truths. For years, President Javier Cevallos claimed that KU continued to face budget crises, even though the numbers didn’t quite add up (check out APSCUF-KU’s “Show Us the Money!” presentation from spring 2011).

KU managers have also continued to claim that they have not received any raises in years. Sure, we know President Cevallos got his nice increase, but the official line has been that managers as a whole didn’t receive raises. Welcome to the wonderful world of half-truth and myth.

At this past weeks’ meet and discuss, APSCUF-KU received a document showing managers salaries for the past several years. AND???  Well, turns out TECHNICALLY managers have not receive raises. TECHNICALLY managers from contract specialists to executive directors to chiefs of staff have received JOB RE-CLASSIFICATIONS that have given managers increases of nearly $17,000 in a single year. Some individual managers have received over $20,000 increases due to job reclassification since 2007.

So, you see? Managers didn’t received any raises. It was magic, magic I tell you! In the real world, we ask to see the proof. Here’s what reality shows us:

Manager RAISES since 2007

Got that warm and fuzzy feeling yet?

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PASSHE brings divide-and-conquer strategy to negotiations

This past Saturday, APSCUF posted the following negotiations update on its blog:

APSCUF and PASSHE negotiators met Friday, September 14, at the Dixon Center in Harrisburg.  The Chancellor’s team passed a proposal on retrenchment language and made suggestions for future bargaining sessions. APSCUF caucused and responded to their proposal in writing. The two sides reconvened and failed to come to agreement on the language, but agreed to session definitions for the next two times: on Oct. 5th APSCUF will present on curriculum, class size, and distance education and on Oct. 22nd the Chancellor’s team will discuss temporary workload and concessions on retiree health care.   There was neither discussion of nor progress made on the Chancellor’s team’s demand for concessions on distance education, active and retiree health care, and temporary faculty workload.

There is so much packed into this statement, but I want to focus on one issue in particular: temporary faculty workload. It seems that PASSHE negotiators have learned their lesson from our last contract fight. During our last round of contract negotiations, temporary faculty issues were front and center. The issue that got the most attention was the raising of the cap on part-time, temporary members from 7% to 25%. Pretty significant, no? I am sure that some members of our negotiating team that worked on that contract would take issue with my characterization. For example, our negotiators argued that our previous contract had NO CAP on the TOTAL number of temporary faculty members. So, for example, as long as a State System university kept the numbers of part-time temporary faculty members below 7%, that university theoretically could have a faculty that was 60% temporary – as long as 53% of that faculty were full-time temporary faculty. I concede the point. It’s true, the 25% would be the first time the total number of temporary faculty would be capped and 25% is still significantly below the national average, which is between 40 and 60% depending on the study and institution. However, by refusing to distinguish between part-time and full-time temporary faculty, a State university could now turn 25% of the faculty into part-time adjuncts – effectively stripping away any pretense to job security and effectively eliminating their health insurance.

When it came time to sign the final agreement, the State System threw in the fact that the one-time cash payment faculty would receive in year one of the contract (instead of a cost-of-living adjustment) would NOT be given to temporary faculty members. There are several versions of how that happened – and, frankly, I don’t know which version is the most accurate. Suffice it to say that, for many temporary faculty members, that felt like the second slap in the face for that contract. First, the university can now turn your job into piece-work. And, just to make sure you don’t think you are a crucial part of the work of the university, we’re not going to give you what your tenure-track or tenured colleagues are getting, no matter how long you’ve been here.

On my campus, temporary faculty were up in arms. Several were so disgusted, they wanted to leave the union. Many more just retreated to their offices feeling they are totally on their own – best to just “shut up and teach” (a phrase that a temporary faculty member expressed to me at the time) and hope they have a job next semester. From the perspective of the State System administration and Chancellor Cavanaugh: Mission Accomplished. Divide-and-Conquer.

Well, we’re now facing round two in Chancellor Cavanaugh’s Divide-and-Conquer strategy. This time around he’s leading his team to cement a two-tiered faculty system by going after temporary faculty workload. PASSHE already requires faculty to teach a 4-4 load – that is, four classes per semester. By any reasonable measure, we already have a heavy teaching load. The Chancellor is proposing that we up the load to 5-5 for temporary faculty members. He is attempting to hold out the carrot that in exchange for a heavier teaching load, temporary faculty will no longer be evaluated on their teaching, service, and scholarship – they will only be evaluated on their teaching. The Chancellor is trying to drive a permanent wedge between temporary faculty and their tenure-track and tenured colleagues. The Chancellor drove the first spike in during the last negotiations and now he is seeking to bring the hammer down once again, turning a crack into a fissure. The move is an attempt to get tenured and tenure-track to be narrowly self-interested and say, “well, at least I don’t have to teach a 5-5 load.” The move seeks to play on the fear that if we don’t accept such a two-tier system, then everyone will suffer. The move holds tenure-track and tenured wages, medical insurance, and workload hostage, threatening to destroy them all if permanent faculty don’t offer up their temporary colleagues up for sacrifice. This is the world we are living in now folks.

But let me open the workload issue up a little more. While it’s true that full-time temporary faculty would see their workload increase by 25% (without any increase in compensation), the consequences of moving to a 5-5 load are much more serious. Take my department, for example. We have a total of 41 faculty members, eight (8) of which are temporary faculty members. Only one of those faculty members are part-time. If you turn those positions into full-time-equivalent (FTE) positions, we have 8.5 faculty positions teaching a total of 30 classes. If the State System turns a 4-4 FTE position into a 5-5 FTE position, our department will not have 6 FTE temporary faculty positions instead of 8.5. And since there is no such thing as a half-person in the real world, you are talking about two people losing their jobs – not exactly a model of job creation in a down economy.

But, it gets worse. Let’s say that a particular university takes a slightly different approach. Let’s say that a university administration – perhaps even at the direction of the Chancellor – tells all departments to keep all faculty schedules as they are and not increase the temporary faculty load to 5-5. Such a university president might even come out and try to sound all benevolent by saying “we don’t want our temporary faculty to be overburdened…we want them to be able to really focus on their classes.” Sound good? Well, guess what? While my department might be able to keep the number of temporary faculty constant (that is, to keep seven temporary faculty on a 4-4 load and one temporary faculty member on a 2-2 load), ALL of those faculty are NOW CONSIDERED PART-TIME. That is, they will lose their FULL-TIME status and with that, they will LOSE THEIR FULL HEALTH CARE BENEFITS. That’s right, instead of just cutting 1.5 FTE faculty positions, a university could cut health insurance for ALL TEMPORARY FACULTY MEMBERS by doing NOTHING. 

So, while Chancellor Cavanaugh may want us all to focus on different workloads for temporary and permanent faculty, his proposal is an attempt to pull the rug out from under ALL temporary faculty members and rip away even the smallest scrap of job security.

Frankly, the only reason we are able to keep the high-quality temporary faculty we have now is because they are paid on scale with tenure-track faculty (well, almost, they do not receive steps as they should) and they receive the same benefits. The temporary faculty members in my department, for example, can stand shoulder-to-shoulder with their tenure-track and tenured colleagues. The only reason the vast majority of these highly qualified temporary faculty members do not have tenure-track jobs is because of the job market. And we all know that story. If you constrict the job market, the competition for any single job increases. That’s a pattern that has held steady for the past several decades. Competition for academic jobs is already intense. The Chancellor’s plan not only rips away job security for temporary faculty members, it further constricts the academic job market across the state for ALL higher education faculty. Earlier this year we saw the Chancellor call upon university presidents and faculty to unite and help stave of Governor Corbett’s 20% cut in higher education. He played the role of a PASSHE advocate, a uniter. Well, just a few short months later, we learn that same Chancellor is wielding his Divide-and-Conquer hammer, going after the same people who have helped deliver the high-quality education he touted before the Pennsylvania House and Senate.

The message I have for my APSCUF brothers and sisters comes from a sign that has been carried through the streets of Chicago this past week: “Enough is Enough.” Ya Basta! We have to see the Chancellor’s proposal for what it is: to divide us so he can weaken and conquer us all. We have to begin to think of our current contract fight in the same terms the striking Chicago teachers see theirs: as a fight for the future of public education. If you think of this contract fight only in terms of “getting mine,” we will all lose in the long-term. We cannot afford to lop off limb after limb and think we can be effective for the long haul. I for one will not sell out my temporary faculty colleagues for the same reason I will not sell out my tenured colleagues: we are in this together. This is a fight for the integrity Pennsylvania’s State System of Higher Education. And it is a fight for our futures and our children’s future.

Enough is enough!

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Raging Chicken Press Publishes First “Early Edition” and Keeps Stirring the Pot

With the increasing numbers of submissions to Raging Chicken Press, we’ve been thinking of expanding our publishing schedule from once a month to twice a month. If you’ve been following the going-ons in our little corner of activist media, you know that I’ve been batting around the idea of doing an “Early Edition” at the beginning of each month. Well, here’s our first crack at it. As you’ll see, this “Early Edition” has fewer contributions, but if we continue to get the kind of submissions we’ve been getting, we might just try publishing full editions twice a month. Frankly, the only thing that is holding us back from doing so at this point is the work load. And, yes, that sentence is a segue to a call for aspiring activist journalists, videographers, editors, podcasters, and social network enthusiasts to c’mon out and join us Raging Chickens. At this point, we’re all volunteers and we can use whatever skills you bring to the table. Interested? Drop me a line at ragingchickenpress@gmail.com.

Here’s the contents for the May Early Edition:

• Rick Smith Files | Darrin Kelley, International Association of Fire Fighters, Local 1, Pittsburgh: “We’re Done, We’re Fed Up, We’re Not Going to be Pushed Around and Stepped On”
• Dory Hippauf, “Money Runs Through It”
• Walter Brasch, “Fracking: Pennsylvania Gags Physicians (Part 1)”
• “My Body of Water.” An I AM PICTURES and I HEART H2O production for Demascus Citizens and Citizens for Water
• Scott Cannon, “Marcellus Reality Tour Part 3: EPA Comes to Dimock”

If you’re still thinking about contributing to the May issue of Raging Chicken Press, remember the deadline for submissions is this Thursday, May 10th. It looks like we’re in good shape to go ahead and publish the May issue on the 15th.

The Never-Ending Fundraising Drive

There are 52 days left in this round of our fundraising drive. The good news is that as of this writing we’ve raised $515.00! A little side-note to all of you who contributed so far, you’re thank you gifts will be on their way very soon. After several unexpected setbacks, I got a package this week with stickers, mugs, t-shirts, and more to send out to all of you awesome Raging Chicken supporters.

The less good news is that we’ve only raised about 2% of our goal. It’s been a learning experience for sure. I could not be happier with the amazing work we’ve been able to do with next to no resources (other than those that come out of my pocket). However, we’re growing fast and are hitting the limits of what we can afford to do. For example, one of our writers is doing some pretty amazing investigative research on fracking out in Western Pennsylvania. He’s been able to do some great work over the phone and email, but we’d like to be able to send him out there for a few days with a video camera and recorder to talk to the affected families. Imagine if Raging Chicken Press had the resources to cover some of the costs of this kind of investigative research. Pretty cool. My goal from the beginning of this project was to appeal first to the progressive community directly for support. The idea was that the more that this project is funded by individual members of the progressive community, the more we can ensure it will always be for the progressive community in a very concrete way. We recognize that not every progressive out there has the time or ability do the kind of work we are doing here. But we can build a networked community of contributors and donors to help strengthen our movements.

It’s clear that I’m going to have to rethink how to best fund this project for the long haul. I am wide open for ideas and help! Let me know if you’ve got some ideas for raising funds. I’ve been looking at some grants, starting a membership program, and approaching some regional, progressive organizations directly. We’ll see what comes of it all.

Shop Progressive and Support Raging Chicken Press

Another very easy AND FREE way you can help support what we do is to use the links on the right-hand sidebar to do all your Amazon.com, fair-trade coffee, and book shopping. Use the search boxes or click through and shop as your normally would. You will have the same experience as if you went to the sites directly. The only difference is that part of your purchase, generally 4-8%, will go directly to Raging Chicken Press. Even better, bookmark the links and use that bookmark every time you shop.

Here’s three links that you can start using right now to help support what we do:

• Amazon.com
• Shop Indie Bookstores
• Equal Exchange Fair Trade Coffee and Gifts

I want to put in a special plug for the Shop Indie Bookstores link. Here at Raging Chicken Press, we are now using this site for buying all of our subscriber give-away books. The Shop Indie Bookstores link not only allows you to buy from Independent, non-chain bookstores, you can choose to shop local. That’s key. For example, we’ve bought several books directly from the Doylestown Bookstore using the Shop Indie Bookstores link. Why does that matter? Well, here’s the persuasive case made by Indiebound.org:

When you shop at an independently owned business, your entire community benefits:

The Economy

• Spend $100 at a local and $68 of that stays in your community. Spend the same $100 at a national chain, and your community only sees $43.
• Local businesses create higher-paying jobs for our neighbors.
• More of your taxes are reinvested in your community–where they belong.

The Environment

• Buying local means less packaging, less transportation, and a smaller carbon footprint.
• Shopping in a local business district means less infrastructure, less maintenance, and more money to beautify your community.

The Community

• Local retailers are your friends and neighbors—support them and they’ll support you.
• Local businesses donate to charities at more than twice the rate of national chains.
• More independents means more choice, more diversity, and a truly unique community.

We’re certainly convinced. So, next time you’re thinking about ordering a book online, picking up a good read for a gift, ordering textbooks for school, or downloading an eBook (yes, Indies do eBooks too!), consider going Indie and going local. And, to ge the most bang for your buck, use our Shop Indie Bookstores link and support Raging Chicken Press while you support your local community.

A Note on the May Issue

I think you’re going to really dig the full May issue. We’ve got some great interviews and articles that remind us that the month of May begins with May Day–International Workers’ Day. The Occupy Movement organized actions around the country, which seemed to be the opening shots of an American Summer. We plan on being there as actions over the summer heat up. Let us know what you will be doing to fight back.

Bread and Roses,

Kevin Mahoney
Editor Zero, Raging Chicken Press

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If you missed it…the March issue of Raging Chicken Press is rocketing around the interwebs!

On St. Patrick’s Day the March issue of Raging Chicken Press hit the networks. If you missed the release, you can still check it out! As you’ll see, the March issue is fracking heavy (pun intended).

• Wendy Lee, “Why Fracking Epitomizes the Crisis in American Democracy: Profiteering and the “Good American”
• Sean Kitchen, “What are You Waiting for Frack-Sylvania? It’s Time to Occupy Our Environment and Take Back Our Commonwealth”
• Drew Simonovich, “Lt. Governor Cawley Visits KU: Budget Cuts, Fracking, Free Speech”
• The Rick Smith Files | Class War Fight Back
• Andrea Egizi, “Occupy the Corporations”
• Scott Cannon, “Marcellus Shale Reality Tour, Part 1”
• Coalition for a Healthy County, “The Fracking News”
• Dave Kalis, “An Open Letter to PA College Students”
• Lee Camp, “Anti-Occupy Law Passed by Congress and White House Nearly Unanimously,” MOC #124

So, check it out; I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. And while you’re checking out the issue, why don’t you consider to contributing to the April issue? The deadline for the April issue is Wednesday, April 11th. I want to make a special call for articles on the PA budget. While the March issue is pretty packed with great stuff, I feel there is a notable lack of coverage of the budget. PA Governor Corbett has proposed a budget that will bring many long-standing public institutions in PA to the brink of destruction. So, you’ve got about a month! I hope you’ll consider submitting. Got something to get off your chest? Peace to speak? Ax to grind? You might just have found an ally.

Bread and Roses,

Kevin Mahoney
Editor Zero, Raging Chicken Press

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December Issue of Raging Chicken Press is (Finally) Here!

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!

Here’s a breakdown of the December issue:

• Kevin Mahoney | Raging Chicken Press Interview with Noam Chomsky (yes, that Noam Chomsky)
• Wendy Lee | “Fracking is a Variety of Environmental Rape Abetted by the Law: Governor Corbett’s Pennsylvania, Inc.”
• Dustin Slaughter | “Occupy 2.0: ‘Defending the Everyday Aims of Life’ While Persisting in a Police State”
• 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)
• Sean Kitchen | “Battlefield USA: From Occupy Wall Street to Guantanamo Bay”
• Kati Sipp | “Some Thoughts on Getting Arrested…”
• Aaron Barlow | “Diane Ravitch on the Failure of High Stakes Testing in Two Parts”
• Sean Kitchen | “The Free University: Brought to You by Occupy Kutztown”
• Caitlin Turner | “Occupy Everything”
• Lee Camp | “You Can’t Pepper Spray a Mental Awakening”
• Lee Camp | “Is Occupy Wall Street Having an Effect?”
• “Rob” | “Sean Hannity Show: #OWS are ‘Morons, Idiots, Stupid'”

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.

That’s it for now. Hope you dig the issue!

Bread and Roses,

Editor Zero, Kevin Mahoney

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November Issue of Raging Chicken Press: Right Here, Right Now

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:

• “Occupy Philadelphia Faces a Crossroads,” by Dustin Slaughter
• “The 99%: A Return to E Pluribus Unum?,” by Glenn Richardson
• “What the Occupations Have Taught Me: Lose the Fear,” by Dustin Slaughter]
• Rick Smith Files | Interview with Erik Loomis: “How General Strikes and Direct Action Build Solidarity”
• Rick Smith Files | Interview with Desire Grover: “PA GOP and Corporations Stealing Our Children’s Future”
• “Occupy Well Street: Frack the Keystone XL,” by Wendy Lee
• “Occupy Allentown,” video from the field
• “How Far We’ve Come: Eroding CUNY’s Mission One Test at a Time,” by Aaron Barlow
• “Kim Kardashian, Occupy Wall Street, and Credit Default Swaps,” Lee Camp | MOC #93
• Musical Interlude | Fuel for Resistance

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.

That’s it for now. Happy reading!

Kevin Mahoney

Editor Zero, 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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Got Something to Say? Deadline for November Issue of Raging Chicken Press Approaching

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!

Kevin Mahoney | Editor Zero, Raging Chicken Press

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Building Progressive Networks–Looking Ahead for Raging Chicken Press

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!

 

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It begins

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Occupy Kutztown Off to a Strong Start!

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.”

I hope to see you today at Occupy Kutztown.

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October Issue of Raging Chicken Press is Here!

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.

Here’s the rundown of this month’s issue:

• Dustin Slaughter, “Scrambling to Cover the Occupy Movement: A Front Lines Journal”
• Rick Smith Files: “Interview with Bruce Levine: Why We Need to Get Some Balls, Solidarity, and ORGANIZE!”
• Rick Smith Files: “Interview with Tony Helfer, President UFCW Local 23: Victory at Kroger, Building Solidarity, and the Need to Keep Pushing Back”
• Glenn Richardson, “Corrupted Capitalism and Despoiled Democracy: The GOP Attack on Voting Rights and Worker Rights”
• Michelle Sayles, “Leaks” (cartoon)
• Wendy Lee, “Fracking, Floods, and Fools”
• Aaron Barlow, “The ‘He Said/She Said’ of Education”
• Lee Camp, “The Truth About Occupy Wall Street: MOC #80” (video)
• Amy Goodman/Democracy Now, “Naomi Klein: Protesters are Seeking Change in the Streets Because it Won’t Come from the Ballot Box”
• Countdown with Keith Olbermann, “Cornell West and Tavis Smiley Discuss Occupy Movement”

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!

Bread and Roses,

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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Second Issue of Raging Chicken Press is Up!

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!

This issue of Raging Chicken Press features:

• “History Demands Nonviolent Resistance from Us,” by Dustin Slaughter
• “‘Accountability’ Isn’t Enough [Some Angry Language],” by Seth Kahn
• “Those Fracking Letters to the Editor,” by Wendy Lee
• “One Big Company Town: Frack the Future,” by Kevin Mahoney
• “Book Review: Naomi Schaeffer Riley, The Faculty Lounges,” by Amanda Lynch Morris
• “A Letter to America and Her People,” by J. Rizzo Mertz
• “This Video is for Rich People Only | MOC #65,” by Lee Camp
• “No Need for Conspiracy Theories: The Inside Story on Why Cenk Uyger Left MSNBC,” by Kevin Mahoney
• “Don’t Frack Your Mother,” graphic by Michelle Sayles

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.

So, let us know what you think!

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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Thumbs up, thumbs down | PoconoRecord.com

Here, here to the Pocono Record for being out in front in the critique:

THUMBS DOWN to Pennsylvania’s higher education Chancellor John Cavanaugh for defending average 3 percent merit raises for university administrators, arguing that they hadn’t had a raise in more than two years. Plenty of people in the private sector haven’t had raises, either, and they are not pulling down multi-hundred-thousand-dollar salaries like some education officials. While Pennsylvania is struggling to resolve a $4 billion-plus budget deficit on the backs of taxpayers, Cavanaugh and his minions show a real tin ear.

via Thumbs up, thumbs down | PoconoRecord.com.

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Raging Chicken hits the streets

For those XChange readers interested in working to build a progressive, independent, “glocal” media site, here’s an opportunity:

Click on the image above for the pre-launch post.

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PA Proposals for AFSCME Negotiations: WAGE ROLLBACKS

Yesterday I posted a copy of the Commonwealth proposals for AFSCME negotiations.  There was a VERY IMPORTANT page missing.  Page one of the proposals deals with salaries and wages.  For some reason that page failed to scan the first time around.  I now have the complete document uploaded here.

Why was that page so important?  Well, primarily because the Commonwealth is proposing to ROLLBACK worker wages by 4%.

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APRIL 26th RALLY IN HARRISBURG

The next big rally to defend higher education, public schools, workers’ rights, and the future of Pennsylvania is coming up!  This time the rally is being supported by public and private sector unions, the PA NAACP, several student organizations around the state, and many more.  I will be posting a full list of rally supporters when it becomes available.

I the meantime, I’ve designed a flyer for the event.  Anyone interested in sponsoring the event can use this flyer freely or adapt it to their use.  I’ve left a blank space at the bottom so people can add local contact information.  Clicking on the image below will give you access to the jpeg file.  Below the image is a link for a PDF version.

April 26th Harrisburg Rally Flyer

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