i'm curious how much you are working with undergrads. it really seems like the way to have gone. not only are they the Tuition Bearing Beings and populace the unis compete for but there are lots of them and there is no way the admin are going to arrest them -- and then there are there parents who might be influenced by them. ahhhh hell, who knows? i'm curious how much effort was put into working with the u-grads on this one. george said something about solidarity with theprofs, but you know, i think the better move back in Nov would have been teach-ins for the u-grads.
oh ken, i don't know what to say. these are such complex frightening moments...i remember being scared shitless in high school having organized a sit down strike in support of striking teachers--who don't really strike, but picket on their breaks--because they were w/o contract. a history prof i liked started raving about how we were all apathetic and what happened to the sixties and so i said, what they hay. no idea what i was doing nor the consequences. i was actually surprised that i was in trouble. it wasn't exactly like it was a well-kept secret. teachers were silently encouraging the planning.... fortunately, it turned out to be such a massive joke--most of the students took it as an opp to skip class--that i didn't get nailed to the wall. i was naive. but i remember protesting a nuke dump siting. we blocked the paths of siting inspectors trying to get to the site on some formal, ceremonious visit. i was prepared at this point for an arrest, but i think i was way more scared of the state troopers and their rifles and the possibility of a confrontation between pissed off farmers on their tractors with their rifles who were helping create the blockade and those gray-blue state troopers who are so friggin BIG. and i just bailed on the gulf war protests when the possibilty of arrest was broached, since i knew that it mean a surefire family row.
carpe fuck 'em
oh geez, here's an idea: a fucking festival. it's too cold your way for a true fucking festival, but give them a spectacle, a simulcra. give them a massive traversal of the fantasy. don't give 'em what they want and expect, which is righteous, angry students. give them celebration, give them jouissance, fake it if you must, but seriously invite every artist musician performer in toronoto and have them just hold events all over hell. whoop it up and Pah tay like it's 1999. play frisbee. build snow castles. havea chili cook off or whatever you have that's similar in toronto. give them nothing they expect. disrupt it
kelley