Students

Milton Freidman (1912-2006) labeled it the “Miracle of Chile,” as his “Chicago Boys,” a considerable group of Chilean economists who studied at the University of Chicago, established his neoliberal principles under the tutelage of General Augusto Pinochet from 1974-90.
The infamous general overthrew Salvador Allende’s socialist Chilean government in a coup d’état in 1973 with help from classified CIA support as well as cloak-and-dagger cheerleading from distant corners of the world, Milton Friedman in Chicago and Henry Kissinger in Washington, D.C.

Within twenty-four hours of protestors setting fire to the National Palace door in Mexico City, Mexico, I phoned a close friend. I cannot say much about him other than he is from Mexico City, lives there, and that he works with elected officials who respond directly to the head of state. I asked him what the back story was regarding recent polemics surrounding the protests and missing/murdered 43 students. He told me that nobody knows the official story, but that the popular perception of the tragedy undergirds the current commotion.

This week, we look at the fierce militant protests against Columbus Day by the indigenous Mapuche nation in so called Chile. Also the uncompromising resistance of Normalista students who have nearly brought the Mexican government to its knees, as they demand the safe return of their 43 kidnapped comrades. In Kobane we learn how an anarchist inspired Kurdish liberation movement has kicked out ISIS out of their liberated zone, and it was done with the efforts of the women’s brigade of the YPJ.

To understand Denis Rancourt and his book, Hierarchy and Free Expression in the Fight Against Racism, you have to know the difference between critical thinking and independent thinking.

I read and heard about Hong Kong’s students putting themselves at risk demonstrating for democracy, and my first instinct was sympathy, sympathy for their passionate idealism, but sympathy in another sense too, for their sad illusions. I ask myself, and it is not a trivial question, what is it exactly that they believe they fight for? Democracy has become such a totemic word, we all are trained to revere it, unquestioningly, almost the way 16th century people were expected to behave in the presence of the Host during Communion.

Now that Malala Yousafzai has won her hard-earned and well-deserved Nobel Peace Prize, she and her amazing, tragic story is back in the spotlight. Per usual, nevertheless, the corporate media has taken this positive development and exploited it, in the service of US imperialism.

How did the student debt regime come to be?
The question was posed as the first debtors’ assembly of the fall semester got underway on Southern Illinois University campus.
The following analysis is derived from the talk that took place at the beginning of the assembly held September 17, on the third anniversary of the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Florida State University is poised to appoint former ALEC Legislator of the Year John Thrasher as new president after “sham” presidential search and Koch funding scandal.
For months now, a battle has been raging at Florida State University to stop what student and faculty say is “[a] hostile political takeover of the presidential search process at FSU.”

Here in Kabul, one of my finest friends is Zekerullah, who has gone back to school in the 8th grade although he is an18-year old young man who has already had to learn far too many of life’s harsh lessons.

Resistance to the global corporate education reform movement gained momentum last month as nearly 200 educators, students, and community allies from Mexico, Canada, and the US gathered in Chicago for the 11th Trinational Conference in Defense of Public Education.