Fwd: Welcome to the land of the politically correct

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 05:27 PM 6/12/01 -0400, Doug wrote:
>Times may have changed, too. How about the Harvard living wage 
>sit-in? The Johns Hopkins students pushing for a living wage for the 
>university laundry workers? And look for a fine piece about labor 
>organizing at Yale by list lurker Kim Phillips-Fein in the 
>forthcoming issue of The Nation.

I can tell similar stories I experienced at UCSC - during a protest against
the Persian Gulf war a proposal was made to join forces with the striking
workers (mostly Latino) in the nearby agribusiness firm Green Giant.
However, the 'lefty' crowd chose to picket a politicians's office and run a
farce titled "artistic interpretations of war."  Several months later,
union reps approached student organizations asking them to cancel a
graduation recpetion at a posh beach restaurant due to management-labor
dispute.  The students refused, the reception was attended by the
oh-so-radical students and the faculty.  Only a few joined the picket line
and derived a mildly sadistic pleasure from lookingd their professors in
the eye, as they were sneaking through the picket line.

A few people here and there (living wage demos at JHU were rather thinly
attended too) does not change the basic fact that the academic 'left' is
for the most part a joke, face-saving rationalizations serving the
psychtherapy crowd or status-seeking careerist.

 
wojtek