#ProtestU is Global—@AmerQuarterly on angry Latin American #students

 Student frustration over the neoliberal assault on higher education is not just a U.S. or even North American (e.g. tri-national COCAL) phenomenon..According to New Americas Quarterly, "Latin America's students are angry—and getting angrier." The International Students Movement connects students on both sides of the pond. Casualized academic labor is moving in this direction too but still has a long way to way to go. 

Millions of students have taken to the streets across Latin America in recent years in protests that reflect an unprecedentedly broad mobilization of popular opinion.

Monday rambles: NFM pit crew & other notes, COCAL. protests

As you may have noticed, board member and blogger (here and on Cringing Liberal Elite) Alan Trevithick has joined our NFM Facebook pit crew. Now to find the perfect NASCAR gear for him. Matt and Maria are on too but may not be as active. No gear for them.

Tomorrow is a NFM board meeting / conference call 11am EDT. If  anyone has last minute questions, email or post them as comments. Mostly, it's a catch up meeting, reports, structural/admin items. Tomorrow there will board news to announce. Now there is Foundation news: 501(3c) status approved. Member Forums will launch soon on the main site. We are also working on a membership drive. Since it's still in the formative stage, we'll asked for your opinions, ideas and reactions. Then expect to be reading a lot about that here and on our social media network. You may even come to think of the drive as needing a leash law. Why a membership drive? Easy. The stronger our membership base the more we can accomplish.

Joe Berry's COCAL Updates, late May

To subscribe to regular Updates, email joeberry@igc.org.  More about Joe Berry.  Updates are also archived at chicagococal.org. Follow COCAL International on Facebook 

Updates in brief and links

Around the Adjunctiverse

'Junct Tour is home again! Catch up with road trip posts on 2255 Films, Chris LaBree's blog, the Homeless Adjunct and 'Junct Tour Event page.

Josh Boldt has a post about media aggregation on the Adjunct Project plus new Forum and Job Board 

Carol Leitner, former Westchester CC adjunct sues, says she was fired for expressing opinions (which included support for Arizona's controversial 2010 immigration law, and student complaints.)

Rowan AFT adjunct union endorses no-merger with Rutgers-Camden resolution

The Culture Of Dissent

The question: will #OccupyEverything influence #CEW2011. Will all that is blowing in the wind play out in &/or influence the community (such as it is) of adjunct, contingent faculty and other NT knowledge workers? If so, how? If not, why? Awaiting your comments. 


The Culture Of Dissent is re-posted from Firedog Lake where Billy Glad blogs at Annals Of The Hiests like Occupy Wall Street — fast becoming Occupy Your Street (Any Street) — and October 2011, coming soon to Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C. The protestors have rejected politics. They are wide awake. They no longer believe a political solution to America’s problems is possible. They are determined to win or lose in the streets, and they are committed to the notion that culture trumps politics. (Think of the beginnings of the Civil Rights Movement and the anti-war, anti-draft movement that ended the Vietnam War and the Johnson Presidency at the price of undermining The Great Society and opening the door of the Oval Office for Richard Nixon.) The way, we used to say, the cookie crumbles. [cont'd.]

Occupation Updates: Breaks in the Media Blackout

NFM has been following, sharing links on FB but not covering Occupy Wall Street in the same depth as either Defend Education and 'Junct Rebellion. Our readers, however, are following events and sharing similar dismay over the conspicuous absence of US mainstream media. This makes a welcome update - and, for others less keenly interested, a cautionary reminder against being too dismissive of a grassroots reaction. Having trouble viewing this? View it on the FAIR website Activism Update: Some Breaks in the Blackout of Wall Street Protests, 9/29/11 After a FAIR Action Alert (9/23/11) criticized the virtual media blackout of the Occupy Wall Street protests, corporate news coverage has increased--sparked largely by the escalating police brutality at the ongoing demonstration. (See FAIR Blog, 9/23/11, for a sample of the messages sent by FAIR activists to the network nightly news shows.)