Anyone that has had class in BE4123 knows all about these issues. My favorite point was summer quarter, pointing out the "water damage" in the ceiling tiles and getting a blunt reply of "it's rat pee".
While amusing these "choice excerpts" don't build a compelling case for why Occupy should be able to camp on campus and exacerbate and contribute to ongoing maintenance issues.
So, he's saying that they shouldn't evict Occupy Seattle because there were already rats and needles to be found occasionally on campus? So, because you could occasionally find a rat or needle on campus then we should just give up and allow all of the rats and needles to be on campus full time.
Happy to see this re-posted. Jeb Wyman is one of my favorite people. He was my advisor when I worked for The City Collegian and he fought the administration tooth and nail as they systematically destroyed student journalism at SCCC. It gives me enormous pleasure that he is still writing and kicking.
I'm not saying they shouldn't be evicted. I'm saying the propaganda war is on. And if you want to throw around words like rats and needles in association with OWS, you'd better back it up.
I'm very glad to see this. Firstly, because Jeb Wyman is great. He was my advisor when I worked for The City Collegian and fought tooth and nail with the administration as they destroyed the paper and student journalism at SCCC. Secondly, because I think he understands that the Occupy Seattle camp is an appendage of the school, whether we like looking at it or not.
How about rapes and assaults then since they've been reporter multiple times. Plus OS's own GA minutes talk repeatedly and extensively about widespread hard drug use an violence in the camp.
@13 Of course you would Ian Finklebuctster, you're OS's chief propagandist and their lead Livestream preener. A woman turns up half naked and passed out in one of your OS tents after a man runs off and you stand their with that stupid fauxhawk asking "who farted?".
Here's a run-down on the the situation. Admin argues A is bad, because of x, y & z. Prof posts that their argument is invalid, because x, y & z all existed before A occurred. He also points out that issues t & w were not considered.
And now we have such thoughtful contributions on Slog basically saying, "But... but... A is bad!!!"
Fine. Prove your argument. And don't indulge in lazy thinking or dishonest intellectualism. (that means no repeating the invalidated issues of public hygiene, theft, etc.)
@16 - thanks so much for breaking it down like that! I am firmly pro-occupy and consider myself a supporter, but I'm also pro reasoned logic. The "needles and feces" argument has been used against occupy movements all around the country. It has been shown in several cities that these were entirely false pretenses, which were borrowed directly from different police department's attempts to criminalize homelessness over the last few years.
The larger issue here is that no one wants to take responsibility for hosting an extremely politicized encampment (not even many of the churches that generally house homeless encampments - and there are MANY encampments at many churches) and/or possibly encur the wrath of local police and city government. I can't say that I blame them, having seen what police have been doing in response to occupations on public and private property across the country.
At first, I was kind of surprised that some of the more "progressive" organizations out there haven't offered to host occupations (or at least not kick them off when they arrive, a la Trinity in NYC). But the more I think about it, the more I believe they're buckling to the same pressure that local authorities are feeling across the country. I would start pointing figures, but I don't have the evidence and wouldn't want to commit my own logical fallacy. :)
Why is it either/or? Two things can be equally true. SCCC can have previous issues AND Occupy Seattle can be a bunch of grimy people who harass the public and shit on sidewalks.
Just go read Occupy Seattle's own GA minutes. Pages and
Pages of discussions about drug abuse, drug dealing, fights, sexual abuse. All right there. All in their own voices.
Of course as OS falls apart you'll notice they've stopped putting up the minutes now. I guess with 100 campers sitting around on their asses getting stoned, drunk or misplacing their fetuses, everyone's too busy to bother spreading their message anymore.
Btw Ian Fingklebuttster, how many of the 99% can relate to urban squatting mohawked queer anarchists? How do you sell that in Puyallup to the actual working class?
What is the point of occupying Seattle Central anyway? Wasn't the point to be visible. To be seen. To be an inconvienence for the people who destroyed our economy? What purpose does camping out at an institution of learning even serve? They seem to have jumped the shark in my opinion. Camping out, invited, at a school in a liberal area if a liberal city. They'd be better off at city hall or westlake interrupting holiday shoppers.
I agree homelessness is a problem that should be humanely dealt with. However, I do not believe the solution is allowing people to camp anywhere they want under the false pretense of "political protest".
@22: i kinda doubt they are proposing camping out "anywhere they want" as any solution, but rather it is a means to expose some real conditions brought about by economic inequalities due to ethical/criminal malfeasance.
I laughed out loud when literally no more than two weeks after Occupy moved in, the school administrators were already complaining about extra rats. Really? Two weeks? Their rat census-taking instrumentation must be incredibly well-tuned. I wonder what other amazing technology that school's sitting on. And are they hoarding it in preparation for their plot to take over the world.
If it's not important that they camp wherever they please, then why aren't they camping in front of City Hall, where the mayor has repeatedly told them they would be welcome?
I'm also not sure the camping isn't an end, rather than a means; for many people in the Occupation, the point is to create (and ultimately expand) spaces where the existing sociopolitical order can not exert authority, and is replaced by a working model of a more just society. This is known as "prefigurative politics".
That's not a goal of every participant, of course, but it is for some. And for them, the General Assembly is not just a means of organizing a protest, it is the core of a new kind of civilization.
It seems to me that this new civilization does in fact have some problems with drugs, alcohol, and sanitation that have yet to be adequately addressed. One can correctly point out that these problems are often wildly overstated. This has indeed been done many times, but it has not yet solved any of the actually existing problems.
@25: that was very well reasoned, thank you; yet at the same time it has many of the same hallmarks that are always trotted out when a nascent movement meets status quo expectations of what "proper" civil discourse is.
I don't have the foggiest notion of what you mean by scare-quoted "proper" civil discourse, nor do I have any idea which hallmarks of it you find in my comment. Do you think you could describe them specifically, or is it more a case of something just not smelling right?
I do understand the frame of reference in which Occupy's encampment constitutes speech; I am suggesting that it is also regarded, by its participants, as something other than speech.
@30: as to the scare-quoted "proper" discourse, I find that seemingly ambiguous and new movements are often too easily dismissed mostly because they are by nature square pegs in a round hole political discourse; and note also, it has not historically been a very lucrative venture to speak out for the dispossessed.
The hallmarks, such as they are, were in reference to :
"not a goal of every participant, of course, but it is for some"
i admit, that is on it's face it is fair, but at the same time the subtext still paints it with too broad a brush. imo.
&
"this new civilization does in fact have some problems with drugs, alcohol, and sanitation that have yet to be adequately addressed. One can correctly point out that these problems are often wildly overstated. This has indeed been done many times, but it has not yet solved any of the actually existing problems."
it is good you realize those problems exist in every sort of societal situation, but perhaps instead of "solving"* them, a better approach would be to mitigate them in a realistic and humane way.
*=goddamn, seems i'm addicted to scare-quotes, sorryz.
Jeb Wyman is my hero. I have listened to teachers complain about hypodermic needles in the restroom since I started attending SCCC over a year ago. I have heard those same teachers turn around and bemoan Occupy for bringing those things to campus. You can't have it both ways.
Killpatrick's security guard theater on Thursday night ensures that I will not be enrolling at SCCC after this quarter. If he is that afraid of a gathering of people with ideas, he has absolutely no business as the president of a college, where people gather to share ideas.
The cognitive dissonance is great at this school. The lies they make up do more damage than occupiers ever could.
I once unwittingly moved into a house that was infested with rats. I started seeing them shortly after I moved in. After a couple of weeks they were everywhere and getting increasingly brazen about running around right in front of my roommates and me. Increased access to food can make a rat population go fucking nuts. There may not be *more* of them; they may merely be in public places more.
One other student said sheâd been âharassedâ four times by Occupy people (and theyâd only been on campus 13 school days). She complained, she said, to Dean Evans, who told the poor thing that her hands were tied because âthe school is being held hostage.â
It's nice to know that this fucknut doesn't believe the students at his institution or, indeed, give a shit about their welfare.
When I lived in Seattle, Capitol Hill was something of a locus for traveling homeless street kids, and every weekend would bring out a huge showing of drug/alcohol abuse (not just from the local street kids, but also as supported by the local businesses). On the weekends there would regularly be reports of homophobic attacks, attempted sexual assaults, muggings, and all the bullshit involved with living in one of the mostly densely populated neighborhoods on the West Coast.
It's possible that OS is attracting more of these people, or coalescing them to be more brazen; but I'll bet that all of those annoyances are just easier to complain about now that they can be bundled together and labeled as 'The Occupy Movement'.
I don't know why OS is occupying a community college, but I know that one has long had problems with transparency. At the very least it's pretty disingenuous to pin all the problems of the neighborhood onto the newest group of lefty organizers to set up camp. Maybe SCCC is watching what's happening at CUNY in New York, and are getting nervous about organizers taking a look their own Board of Trustees?
Brilliant! It  should be a great way to help enrollment.
And now we have such thoughtful contributions on Slog basically saying, "But... but... A is bad!!!"
Fine. Prove your argument. And don't indulge in lazy thinking or dishonest intellectualism. (that means no repeating the invalidated issues of public hygiene, theft, etc.)
The larger issue here is that no one wants to take responsibility for hosting an extremely politicized encampment (not even many of the churches that generally house homeless encampments - and there are MANY encampments at many churches) and/or possibly encur the wrath of local police and city government. I can't say that I blame them, having seen what police have been doing in response to occupations on public and private property across the country.
At first, I was kind of surprised that some of the more "progressive" organizations out there haven't offered to host occupations (or at least not kick them off when they arrive, a la Trinity in NYC). But the more I think about it, the more I believe they're buckling to the same pressure that local authorities are feeling across the country. I would start pointing figures, but I don't have the evidence and wouldn't want to commit my own logical fallacy. :)
Pages of discussions about drug abuse, drug dealing, fights, sexual abuse. All right there. All in their own voices.
Of course as OS falls apart you'll notice they've stopped putting up the minutes now. I guess with 100 campers sitting around on their asses getting stoned, drunk or misplacing their fetuses, everyone's too busy to bother spreading their message anymore.
If it's not important that they camp wherever they please, then why aren't they camping in front of City Hall, where the mayor has repeatedly told them they would be welcome?
I'm also not sure the camping isn't an end, rather than a means; for many people in the Occupation, the point is to create (and ultimately expand) spaces where the existing sociopolitical order can not exert authority, and is replaced by a working model of a more just society. This is known as "prefigurative politics".
That's not a goal of every participant, of course, but it is for some. And for them, the General Assembly is not just a means of organizing a protest, it is the core of a new kind of civilization.
It seems to me that this new civilization does in fact have some problems with drugs, alcohol, and sanitation that have yet to be adequately addressed. One can correctly point out that these problems are often wildly overstated. This has indeed been done many times, but it has not yet solved any of the actually existing problems.
I just really don't know how this sentence fits in to the rest. Is he dismissing it as unlikely? Or unconcerning?
I don't have the foggiest notion of what you mean by scare-quoted "proper" civil discourse, nor do I have any idea which hallmarks of it you find in my comment. Do you think you could describe them specifically, or is it more a case of something just not smelling right?
I do understand the frame of reference in which Occupy's encampment constitutes speech; I am suggesting that it is also regarded, by its participants, as something other than speech.
The hallmarks, such as they are, were in reference to :
"not a goal of every participant, of course, but it is for some"
i admit, that is on it's face it is fair, but at the same time the subtext still paints it with too broad a brush. imo.
&
"this new civilization does in fact have some problems with drugs, alcohol, and sanitation that have yet to be adequately addressed. One can correctly point out that these problems are often wildly overstated. This has indeed been done many times, but it has not yet solved any of the actually existing problems."
it is good you realize those problems exist in every sort of societal situation, but perhaps instead of "solving"* them, a better approach would be to mitigate them in a realistic and humane way.
*=goddamn, seems i'm addicted to scare-quotes, sorryz.
Killpatrick's security guard theater on Thursday night ensures that I will not be enrolling at SCCC after this quarter. If he is that afraid of a gathering of people with ideas, he has absolutely no business as the president of a college, where people gather to share ideas.
The cognitive dissonance is great at this school. The lies they make up do more damage than occupiers ever could.
I once unwittingly moved into a house that was infested with rats. I started seeing them shortly after I moved in. After a couple of weeks they were everywhere and getting increasingly brazen about running around right in front of my roommates and me. Increased access to food can make a rat population go fucking nuts. There may not be *more* of them; they may merely be in public places more.
It's nice to know that this fucknut doesn't believe the students at his institution or, indeed, give a shit about their welfare.
It's possible that OS is attracting more of these people, or coalescing them to be more brazen; but I'll bet that all of those annoyances are just easier to complain about now that they can be bundled together and labeled as 'The Occupy Movement'.
I don't know why OS is occupying a community college, but I know that one has long had problems with transparency. At the very least it's pretty disingenuous to pin all the problems of the neighborhood onto the newest group of lefty organizers to set up camp. Maybe SCCC is watching what's happening at CUNY in New York, and are getting nervous about organizers taking a look their own Board of Trustees?