...what is that barking?
Goebbel's Big Lie theory aside (see above), I am wondering why I haven't heard form other provinces on here, I am sure they are as active as in MB. Unless they think like Fidel and are tempered by NDP promises (which I doubt, I still have hope outside of MB).
I think it is because of the four people posting in this thread, three are from Manitoba and the other takes issue with any protest directed against the Manitoba government.
What's this Justice Charter thing? It sounds familiar, but at the risk
of giving Fidel ammunition to call me a stupid neoliberal, I can't
remember what it is.
The Justice Charter was proposed at the four directions walk. They are proposing an assembly in March 2009 to talk about it. One of the planks is the elimination of tuition fees. It does bear a slight resemblence to something coming out of the CP (in both content and choice of font), so I bet a certain person we talked to yesterday was involved.
I don't think 'getting elected' (scare quotes!) is a terrible idea,
depending on where you are getting elected, who's electing you, and how
accountable you are to your base.On the other hand, I'm very wary of pushing for more student
representation on something like the Board of Governors at the U of M
or the Board of Regents at the U of W (can't remember what BU's board
is called). They put student reps on the Board in 1968 (incidentally
referencing the events of May 1968 in the provincial Hansard), and I
think while useful in a lot of ways, it also has a significant
co-opting effect.
Right, I think it would be hard to actually 'get elected'. Some people we know have been trying it for years, and I'm not sure which ridings would be the best targets for some upstart left party. A poor working class central Winnipeg area? North end? Transcona? Radisson (we did elect Marianne two or three times, and we only need 8% to get a third place)?
And I agree that we do need to be constantly worried about co-option, and with representation on the BOG one issue is that votes are so often along student/nonstudent lines, and "they" would never give students a majority on any university governing body.
I just can't believe I'm talking about new parties and student representation on the BOG after what we were talking about on the way to the Mondragon yesterday.
Something like that would have to have some buy-in from the SAWG, it couldn't be something done independently.
Yeah, although I wonder if we would be better off proposing it to the SAWG or going for it through something like ActLeft (hey, AL has gotta be good for something) and asking for SAWG's endorsement and support once the groundwork is laid. Although there are a few people in the SAWG who already have doubts about my sanity, there seems to be a decent sized minority of unreprentant Marxists, CPers, and anarcho-stalinists.
I don't think the CFS machine's activist-education system is terrible; I just don't entirely agree with what they teach and the limited scale of it.
Agreed. For what it is (small scale inside activist training and details of the tuition issue without touching wider issues like neoliberalism), it is pretty good, but I think in times like these we need something a little different.
Just remember, university autonomy is not something to give up lightly.
I'm a bit wary of that kind of stuff, but I see why you would want it.
Not to mention that restricting Uni autonomy to force them to respect
the freeze (and not introduce new ancillary fees) was one thing, but I
have a feeling I would like what the Tories would force the Unis to do
even less than what the NDP does.
Yeah, I agree that autonomy is important and if any government priorities ever trickle down to education or academic research it would be a disaster, but I think that just a couple specific restrictions like that might be a good thing, especially considering the university also gets public funding which shouldn't be used to enrich people like Emoke, Axworthy and Barnard.
Really? 30? I think I'm at that age when I want people to think I'm younger than I really am... damn.
Well, pushing 30 really means 28 or 29, and through facebook-stalking, I have found that I'm really only about one year off. So don't take it too badly. At the very least, you still have the sexy beard, which is much more full and manly than what I've got going on.