http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=8275--------------------Sorry, line wrap was turned off.Thanks Marv Gandall. This video is important to watch. It interviews a threestudent panel on the giant student strike. They explain how they did it.First they overhauled student union governance and remade their studentunions into general assemblies and abandoned representative governance.The consequence was to involve many more students than than usual in studentunion actions and proposed actions. The idea of a general student strikewent from campus to campus as each student union morphed into generalassemblies. These actions spread direct democracy like a prairie fire and Ibelieve it. That way they could call on many more students to walk out andstay out.The absurd ASUC at UCB in yore was evident. It was useless as a politicaltool because it was carefully managed by the administration intoameaningless social body. It issued positions which were mostly okay but didnothing about it. It started to get radicalized during FSM but itseffectiveness was structurally made impotent. One of the ways that was donewas to have part of the student fees (before tuitition) given to ASUC asoperating costs. If ASUC was taken over and radicalized, the money woulddisappear.Another method of neutralizing the ASUC was through access to its buildingat a prime campus location at Bancroft and Telegraph. It is universityproperty therefore under the administration's control. One of the Deanscould just call the campus cops to close the building on the pretext ofillegal use of the building. I can't remember how many times we got thrownout or blocked at the entrance. It has a fairly large lobby with an overheadbalcony. This was used as a forum for impromptude meetings. If these gotstarted before the cops could close the building, then they had a realproblem getting us out. The other problem with representative governance wasthat the faternities and sororities got their student representativeselect ed with block voting.So then, if the students of yore had simply dropped student representatives,and changed to direct democracy it might have accomplished a lot more.Hats off to the students of Quebec. Great idea. Hope it spreads down here.CG