29.Sep.2009 Occupation at UCSC

On September 24th, some dear friends and comrades of mine decided that they’d had enough with forming permeable picket lines at the entrance to the UC, and enough with signing petitions to stop funding cuts, and began to demonstrate who the university is made of.

They took over a building in the center of campus and set to work building a social movement that might actually be able to fight back against the privatization of the UC, the end of public California, and the death throes of global capitalism.

What is particularly inspiring to me about this action is that it wasn’t about shutting down a high profile building. It didn’t prevent students from going to class, it barely inconvenienced anyone (despite howls of protest from the half-dozen Econ PhD candidates who normally play nintendo in the glorified lounge they call a ‘Graduate Student Commons’). But it showed what an occupation can look like: dance parties, teach-ins, thousands of interesting conversations in a highly politicized space in the center of a radically (and intentionally) decentralized campus. This puts “occupation” back on the menu of anyone who wants to demonstrate to the UC that their schools aren’t made up of budgets and the hallow shells of half-finished buildings. These schools are made up of students, workers, educators. These schools are made up of people. People occupy space–that’s what we do. Occupy everything.

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