Raising sights, widening visions, challenging people, and taking charge of a battle that must be waged to redefine and restructure democratic society

::::::::

Youth and students are lowering their sights, narrowing their vision, fearing the divisiveness of struggle necessary for change, and choosing to close up shop because Bush will be out in January 2009 and that’s only months away. They are updating their Facebooks, tuning the world out with iPods, and watching disillusioning shows commonly referred to as “reality TV.” They’re letting Obama dictate the terms for change and allowing him to control the agenda, an agenda determine by whether it will divide or alienate people regardless of how important it might be to make a moral argument to the general public. Operating with a mentality like this is detrimental to the future of society which needs pioneers who will reshape the world.

Student repression is becoming more and more prevalent. As a side effect of the Bush Regime we have lived under, privatization and authoritarianism are propelling administrators and managers of education to oppose anti-government or anti-establishment thinking that students exhibit on campus. Students are expected to not challenge policies that are blatantly improper, illegitimate, and invalid.

At Columbia College Chicago, a student has been banned by the administration from entering the hub of student organizing on campus and told that if he is caught “waving paper” around he will be in danger of not graduating. He was also told that he was not allowed to organize or attend May Day and so he was absent from the march and rally held in Chicago.

This turn of events, which involves the denial of due process, is a result of his attempt to unionize the student body on campus last summer. Since then, he has led the opposition to a security contracting company on campus that busted up a union, informed students of the fact that the FBI asked an Iranian professor for the names of all “anti-government” students, circulated a Student Bill of Rights, and published a political cartoon in the school newspaper that “offended” somebody. His actions have been met with unwarranted trepidation.

Several other examples exist across the nation: Students for a Democratic Society group banned from Evergreen, Morton West students threatened with expulsion for convening a peaceful protest, and Antioch College shut down.

In addition to this repression, student government associations and student organizations/alliances are filling in the void created by authoritarianism with inherently ignorant events and actions.

At DePaul University, a conservative alliance of students has held the following: an affirmative action bake sale where baked goods were sold to minorities at a lower price, a campaign to get concealed weapons on campus so students can “properly” respond to shootings like the ones that have occurred at Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University, a Take Back the Kitchen event (response to a Take Back the Night event dealing with the rape of women) illuminating the idea that the woman’s place is in the kitchen. The alliance has also put a sombrero on somebody and chased them around as if that person was an illegal immigrant.

Students must take not of how farcical and nauseating it is for campuses to grant freedom to such actions while suppressing much needed actions. They must raise their sights, widen their vision, and become people who challenge what is acceptable and unacceptable.

One way this can be done is by putting together a coalition of students on campus that will mobilize around repudiating the Bush Regime and the systemic corporatism, fascism, and oppression that has leaked into educational institutions across this nation that includes but is not limited to a World Can’t Wait chapter on campus. A calendar of events should be set up to make it impossible for the college community to ignore the need for resistance and opposition. Fundraisers, forums, concerts, movie screenings, book discussions, focus groups, and demonstrations specifically targeting cracks in the Bush Regime façade which must be blown wide open could be part of the calendar of events.

In order for a much needed organization and consolidation of student activism to take place, students must look within themselves and find their heart and soul first though if they wish to achieve success. They must liberate themselves from the kind of dead end thinking that is hindering change and reorganization of the structures in America. Let’s not kid ourselves. Reform will begin when we reform our mentalities and lifestyle.

For some this will mean they will have to go out of their way to become dedicated, diligent hard-working individuals. It will mean recognizing the side effects experienced under a No Child Left Behind Act that placed more emphasis on memorization of trivia instead of learning how to think and approach concepts rationally. It will mean developing ways to not just be a wage slave to a corporation for money needed to get by. Finding ways to sustain life by working to challenge and reshape society is what students should do instead of taking the easy way out.

Students often make the claim that they have no time for meetings, forums, and demonstrations because they have work to do for class. As an art student, I have gone to great lengths to not make that excuse by making the work I do for school somehow be a part of my quest to redefine society.

For my documentary class, I chose to cover an individual who was leading World Can’t Wait on my college campus and introduced me to the organization leading the fight to drive out the Bush Regime.

For a film production class, I pieced together a short film that dealt with the experiences of a protester.

I recognize that not all students attend arts colleges. That does not mean you cannot make the Bush Program the subject of your work.

Incorporating topics that should be at the forefront of all Americans’ minds especially the minds of my generation is one way to meet reality head on and challenge current policies. For Writing and Rhetoric II, an English class, I wrote a paper on the possibility of Americans “taking back America.” In 12th grade, I wrote a paper on how the U.S. needed to withdraw from Iraq.

With stories being told and topics being expounded upon through your class work, you will find yourself giving your peers an education necessary for survival and empowerment in the world we live in today. But let’s not stop here with education.

Book clubs need to be set up on campus. Book lists need to be formulated so that youth and students can become aware of the atrocities and immoral/illegal policies being carried out in our name.

I would not be able to think and formulate an agenda for activism if I had not read the many books that have made me realize the need for engagement. Each book I have read has given me a higher level of clarity and that extra amount of substance necessary to be able to communicate with others on how they can empower themselves and shape society.

Books like A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn, What We Say Goes by Noam Chomsky, The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein, and The End of America by Naomi Wolf have been immeasurably eye opening. While less illuminating, Tragedy & Farce by John Nichols & Robert McChesney, Static: Government Liars, Media Cheerleaders, and the People Who Fight Back by Amy Goodman and David Goodman, and Armed Madhouse by Greg Palast have all given me material necessary to challenge people.

Citizen Power by Senator Mike Gravel is incalculably enlightening as it details how broken, rigged, and outdated our representative government is and show why even good people like Gravel can’t get anything done and take a step back. It shows why students and others must become leaders and reform democracy or create the climate for revolution instead of waiting for a politician to make the world better on his or her own.

These are just a few examples of what I have come across but there are many more books out there that I have read and that I still need to read in order to better understand humanity.

Once students are aware and educated, they need to use that knowledge to target injustices fearlessly and reestablish morality/standards on campus. This can be done by adopting a program for counter-recruitment on campus.

Students must organize to get the military recruiters off campus. Military recruiters are recruiting students for murder, rape, torture, and war and offering up a college education and a paycheck to those in poverty who may need something to get them out of a quick fix now. They are toying with young people’s moral compasses at an age where a human is still developing a sense of right and wrong. Aside from the fact that students being asked to enlist know little about the history of U.S. involvement in the Middle East, it is flat out wrong for recruiters to be allowed to recruit for an illegal war.

Don’t stop at getting military recruiters banned from your educational facilities though. Wage the battle to get facilities off of campus, and insist that your college refuse to allow the military-industrial complex to fund any parts of the college. Find other less insidious corporations to keep your college afloat. Call for the divestment of fund coming from corporations profiteering off war and the Bush program. And if federal funding is used to stymie action, push your college or high school to refuse federal funding in favor of finding funds from elsewhere.

Student organizations or coalitions on campus, along with targeting corporations and military that support the Bush program, must adopt media reform as a second issue. In an age of corporate control and domination, the risk of losing a tool that is democratic and free, the Internet, which is now an integral part of organizing, is too large to not respond to. If corporations are allowed to charge extra money for access to areas of the World Wide Web, allowed to set up a tiered system with “toll booths” on the Internet, or simply allowed to slow down bandwidth on certain sites, we will lose potential support as people find they cannot afford to pay to fully utilize the web.

Moreover, there used to be a time when the media covered labor, civil rights, and antiwar movements if they reached a point where thousands were involved. Now, media chooses to ignore the people and the actions they are taking, which means people are unaware of opportunities to pursue reform (reform that could truly restructure government and better humanity) if they get their news from television or printed newspapers. No longer can we accept that media does not cover us. This acceptance allows the media to be complicit and complicity leads to media cheerleading government to go to war and to the propaganda eking its way into news so illegal and immoral policies can be kept hidden, covered, or justified.

Students and youth need to become citizen journalists and investigators of government and corporations fueling the Bush Program and preventing the reorganization of America. They need to become fearless watchdogs that write stories daily or weekly informing the public of what needs to be known. People have a right to information and we have a duty to spread it far and wide.

Some may not want to write. They can take on the task of raising funds to buy technology or access to technology which can be used to put together radio or television shows. Leaders and regular non-distinguished members of communities can be a part of the shows and offer opinions on what they think the world needs now and how to reform it.

Think about this. Our culture is one that cherishes the opportunity for 15 minutes of fame. What if we used that to pull more people into the movement? Let’s let people know their opinions are valid and upon validation let’s pull them into the struggle for freedom, justice, and equality worldwide.

Truly ambitious people can form documentary or independent filmmaking crews to go cover organizing and the several campaigns being waged. For example, produce documentaries on getting John Yoo fired, disbarred, and tried for war crimes, counter-recruitment, protesting at the Democratic National Convention, and preventing an attack on Iran. Documentaries on any of these campaigns could do wonders for fundraising and would also illuminate what to do and what not to do in the movement. Not to mention, such documentaries would present history in a provocative and stirring way that would move people to act. (It’s a history the media does not wish to detail and our elected leaders wish to prevent from transpiring [for the most part].)

Up to this point, a vast student movement opposed to the war, torture, lies, and Bush Regime has not existed. The antiwar movement particularly has primarily consisted of people from the antiwar movement during Vietnam leading the way. Many older people have been disheartened by the lack of student involvement in opposing the war and the Bush program. They fear that future generations will accept what they so greatly oppose. Therefore, whenever older people stumble upon young people who are engage in fighting the dangerous shifts in this country, they praise youth and students for his/her work.

When youth and students speak out especially through writing published in newspapers as letters to the editor or on alternative news media websites, older Americans respond with emails and phone calls extolling what has been said. I know from experience. These emails and phone calls are opportunities for fundraising and financing of travel to organization events.

I see a lot of young people and wonder about them. I sincerely believe that they are perceptive and want a better country but none of that perception or wanting seems to translate into action towards the establishment of a new world.

How do they use their time? My generation listens to music six times more than previous generation. Six times. There’s only 24 hours in a day. Text messaging. Cell phones. Where are you? Where are you a minute later? Where are you five nanoseconds later? Gossip. Silly talk. Trivial talk---while our future’s being torn from us.

Our twenties will be the most creative decade of our lives. We’ll be wiser and have better judgment and experience in our thirties, forties, fifties, sixties (hopefully), but it’s in our twenties when we need to be the pioneers---when we need to develop the vectors of what we want to do in life and what kind of impact we want to have in this world.

Youth and students must rise up. Our future is unwritten. Which one we and the world gets is up to us.

Authors Bio:
Kevin Gosztola is managing editor of Shadowproof Press. He also produces and co-hosts the weekly podcast, "Unauthorized Disclosure." He was an editor for OpEdNews.com