Critiquing the reformist impulse inside.

A more radical gesture
While students gathered strength in their stand-off with the cops on Monday night (un-arresting their friends from police choke holds, smashing one of the oppressive spotlights, slashing the tires of cop cars and corporate media vans) the self-appointed leaders of the movement took it upon themselves to negotiate a “deal� with the attacking forces. Blinded by their need to enlist others into the gambit of issues, in which they are caught helplessly in the tangle, they offered up the media and the university an easy hors d’ouvre for their spectacular rearrangement of the situation. Suddenly, the story is cut and dry and over before it began, nothing unforgivable could have occurred before a “deal�, and nothing worth being interested in will happen afterwards. The media tells stories through the lens of the snooty suit reporters who walk in our midst insulting us, and the real content of student defiance is conveniently not fit for their preferred communication style. The truth is that neither those arrested nor those holding the tent following the arrests had any interest in giving up the desired position at the base.

Quickly one should refuse any tepid re-hashing of what could have been or could be re-made. This injury should be publicized fully so that the negotiators are left to dwell with how little they contribute to the movement they are so desperate to represent (perhaps then one or two of them will come to take some action of their own which would be of use to us.) What remains for us at this campus before bringing an end to the notion of the institution of higher learning itself is that individuals see self-organization as a form of direct action which denies others our representation. No longer sitting through long meetings discussing how best to perfect our media image, marching not another foot to demonstrate the lengths we are willing to go. Our attacks against the spectacle are waged both in the clarity of our intentions and the precision of their targets. Small groups are thus the preferred method for dealing with the surrounding construct: they form around affinities for self-determined action.

Imagine the propaganda machine of 1984 that enslaves the populace into barbarity being denied demolition for the cause of its potential “use�. Technology is created in the interest of ruling powers. The mediums of television, militarized sciences, and alienating campuses are inherently controlling, and talk of their reform must imply their complete destruction. It is becoming painfully obvious to those who attempt to resist, such as at Monday’s standoff, that changing one facet of this monstrous system only brings the remaining septet of heads reeling to their defense. In these situations we see all reformism uniting against any revolutionary potential, such as activists siding with the cops to appease them, and engaging in such despicable acts as to allow the misrepresentation that anyone outside of their agreements is even more illegal. The activists themselves perform police activity, keeping people on the sidewalk, taking down “controversial� banners as laughably tame as a pirate flag!

This perhaps inflates the notion that the police are the enemy in themselves. Another illusion strengthened by the attention and fear the organizers serve up for them. Many of us are already beyond this and are taking actions to prove that we know who our enemies are. The chancellor’s word games leading up to the conflict prove the illusory nature to the struggle: should we recognize quite simply that the UC has our submission as a primary interest, we’d quickly run the whole lot of them out and have an orgy in their offices. The entire charade was revealed by their presence of the bureaucracy at the base of campus. Although they could have called off the police at any time, here as in all areas of life, authority cannot stand to be disregarded and can only function so long as we give them legitimacy.

Bureaucrats such as Denton love the consuming rhetoric of rights, equality, and tolerance, for under such overwhelming confusion they easily maintain the power structure which causes and prevents from changing the segregated, impoverished existence we suffer. Take what you want, and don’t think twice about where your desires take you. When you are alive you know that you have a place in the world you want, and it is up to each of us to creatively bring that change about. From now on, one thing is most clear, at nightfall we take our lives back through actions, until our days are the living of the dreams that have been shunned for so long.