Sometimes the only way to reflect on one's personal growth, negative or positive, is to reconnect with the past.  After spending a week with old friends before the next leg of the journey begins, I learned how different I have become.  I've grown distant from a once close friend and close to a once distant friend.  A friend has become consumed with greed, believing his destiny to be that of a wealthy prince, putting on a front of fortune, and hurting his friends.  The once kind and selfless friend has become consumed in a worldview centered on greed.  I miss the old friend.

I've thought that maybe it was I that changed.  I'm more focused and organized than in the past, but maybe less forgiving.  I also feel the strange pull of Alabama, the arguments that Bama is a great place, but it is not; it is a hard place, a place that says conform or leave, yet, when I leave, all I feel is guilt for "abandoning my people" as an ex-girlfriend once put it.  I can't help my friend; he has to make his own mistakes and learn from them.  I just wish he would understand that he's never going to win millions - no Ferraris and big houses - a shot of long odds.

 I have become really close to another friend - a friend who has decided to take the reigns of his life, and not leave it to chance.  While we are different politically, maybe even opposite, I respect his passion and self-awareness.  Conversations with him are conversations with an adult; with my other friend, it is talking to a stubborn adolescent.

 Bama is in my rearview, to return someday, maybe, the memories - a mixed bag, bipolar - remarkably good, proof of a higher power, and destructively bad often in the same experience.  Regardless, I am ready for something new.  New people, new perspectives, new problems, new energy; I've been here way too long.

 Peace, and I won't forget.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lV8x_-Uk2c

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=am50KvOWaaw&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BWWx4Q1VFg&feature=related 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0fGH86DPag&feature=related 

The media, ablaze with the so-called controversial statements made by Jeremiah Wright, again misses the bigger picture.  While Wright’s statements maycome across as paranoid by the average WASP, the anger latent stems from centuries of oppression and exploitation of black and brown people by the West.  While the CIA might not of biologically engineered the HIV virus to wipe out Africa, effective treatments for AIDS exist, yet unavailable as pharmaceutical companiesgrip their patents and profits.  And ask Rick Ross how he developed his crack enterprise?  At what point did a sincere questioning of American foreign policy become radical and destructive?

 But, I think the problem here is the color line.  Wright’s sermon is in the Black Radical tradition of Martin and Malcolm.  Wrightis not saying anything that isn’t being said at Barbershops, Barbeques, Bars, and Pool Halls, but, it seems, that when those ideas are said in a public forum, specifically a white public forum, they become dangerous and radical.

 I recently was privileged to listen to Dr. Vorris Nunnelyspeak at Auburn University.  Nunnely’s research is on Barbershops as loci and producers of Black knowledge and thought. Nunnely argues that Barbershops fall into the long-standing Blacktradition of “hush-harbors.” Hush-harbors come from the days of slavery, places where Black (usually) men met to discuss issues and produce knowledge and solidarity counter to the dogma of their Great White Fathers.  Thisi s oppression; when the ideas of one culture are not allowed in the publicforum.

 Sadly, this election has shown us how far we have not comein the realm of race.  Obama has todefend himself for something his pastor said, while the mad white men who routinely question Obama’s patriotism because of his middle name spit their vitriol over the radio and television waves and no one gives it so much as a second thought.  I like Reverend Jeremiah Wright.  Preach it brother; the system’s fucked.

In November of 2008, student leaders of progressive organizations at Auburn University met at a local pizza parlor to discuss potential organizing and strategies for the upcoming election year.  The fruits of this meeting were increased progressive presence on campus and the development of the peace, justice, and democracy group, Student Action Network (SAN).  Represented at this summit were Auburn Sustainable Action Project (ASAP), the Auburn Feminist Alliance (AFA), the Auburn Gay-Straight Alliance (ASGA), the Alliance for Peace and Justice, and Environmental Awareness Organization (EAO).  Out of this grew a facebook page to facilitate organizing and connections between many of these groups but specifically, AFA, AGSA, and later the Spectrum Alliance and (SAN).

SAN applied for their charter in January of 2008 (SGA Bill PSSB 08-0320-03), the charter process usually being a mere formality.  The SGA failed to pass the bill during a Senate meeting on March 3, 2008 in which SAN was not invited to answer any lingering questions, drawing the ire of The Auburn Plainsman’s editorial board (Staff 2008a).  A week later, March 10, members of SGA re-voted after testimony by SAN’s president, Mike Mulvaney, supported by the visual presence at the Senate meeting of AFA, AGSA, and the Spectrum Alliance.  During the second session, the president of SAN answered questions about proposed activism and connections with national and international non-profits.  Subsequently, the senate passed the bill by a 20-9 margin.

However, the Auburn University College Republicans (AUCR) hoped to attend the second SGA meeting to challenge the bill, but missed the meeting because of confusion over location.  The AUCR petitioned the SGA to re-open debate and for SGA president Lauren Hayes to veto the bill which resulted in a special session of the senate two weeks later.  Their specific grievances were that SAN was allegedly connected with the ACLU and Amnesty International, and that one of SAN’s proposed events, a die-in, would be offensive to the student body.  The special session, held on March 24, 2008, gave Ms. Hayes the necessary information to decide whether to veto or pass SAN’s charter after which Ms. Hayes signed the bill granting SAN its provisional status, arguing in a letter addressed to the Auburn Family that the widely divergent beliefs and values of the student body deserved recognition and the rights of freedom of speech and assembly.

In a surprising move, The Auburn Plainsman printed two editorials sharply criticizing the actions of AUCR as shameful, labeling them “crazy neo-cons” and calling for the resignation of AUCR’s leaders (Ingram 2008; Staff 2008b) and invoking a new connotation of “Auburn Family” as containing diverse ideas and embracing the contestation of those ideas (Ingram 2008; Staff 2008b).

This paper uses the pragmatics of Deleuze and Guattari and discourse theory to analyze the strategic transformation of the sign “Auburn Family” to the countersignifying regime, which was followed immediately by a symbolic transformation, a transformation to the signifying regime (136).  The signifying regime is marked by signs being emitted by the state apparatus and function to proliferate its dominance (133-137).  The countersignifying regime is marked by the deterritorialization of signs which destabilize the power of the state apparatus effectuated through signs and discourses (Deleuze and Guattari 133-137).  The state produces signifying discourses to connect signs, and, as these discourses proliferate, the interiority of the state narrows while increasing numbers of people and actions occupy the exterior.  This paper argues that, through activism and organization, progressive groups affected a strategic transformation of the sign “Auburn Family,” which was followed by a symbolic transformation affected by SGA President Lauren Hayes.  In effect, this paper diagrams the dance of signs from a static signifying regime, to a dynamic countersignifying regime, and back to the static, but changed, signifying regime.

“Auburn Family” has an ontological status denoting Auburn faculty, staff, alumni, and students, and connoting a broadly conservative politics evidenced by the Auburn Creed, a mantra repeated at public events which constructs the values of “Auburn Men and Women” (Auburn University 2008).  The Auburn Creed, written by former football coach George Petrie, implies conservatism, containing gendered language and references to God.  Members of progressive groups often expressed a sense of exclusion from the student political process referencing the Auburn Creed, the homogeneity of the SGA and the perceived control of the SGA by fraternities and sororities.  The Plainsman editorial board noted that most students “style themselves as conservative” (Staff 2008b), and Alabama has cast its electoral votes for a Republican presidential candidate in every election since 1980 (Berg-Andersson 1999).  AUCR and conservative student leaders have been characterized as “comfortable and firmly entrenched” (Staff 2008b), and the chair of AUCR unabashedly claimed the label of “neo-con.” Together, these show the perceived block of conservative power and influence in student politics and control of these processes by conservative interests.

During the debate, AUCR along with some senators repeatedly argued that SAN did not fit with the values of the “Auburn Family” claiming that anti-war activism was not representative of their constituency and that SAN was promoting violence and would “tarnish Auburn’s reputation.”  Further, they forward an unfounded argument that SAN was connected with the ACLU and Amnesty International, tapping into the conservative politics and attempting to set these organizations on the exterior of accepted “Auburn Family” values.  In addition, AUCR had the sister of a fallen soldier speak against SAN and their proposed activism.    Lastly, they tried to connect SAN with the local radicals including this paper’s author arguing that radical politics is not “representative of the Auburn Family.”  AUCR used signifying discourses to perpetuate the connotation of “Auburn Family” as conservative, attempting to exclude SAN from political recognition effectively arguing that progressive politics were outside the space of “Auburn Family.

On the Wednesday after the debate, Ms. Hayes signed the bill invoking a new connotation of “Auburn Family” implying the contestation of ideas, free speech and diversity, and The Plainsman editorial board criticized the actions of AUCR, also invoking the new connotation of “Auburn Family.”  The debate during the special session of the SGA senate served to deterritorialize “Auburn Family,” and was immediately followed by a reterritorialization of “Auburn Family” in favor of a more progressive politics destabilizing the boundaries of the signifying regime and opening them to broader political ideas.  Further, this paper shows how the signifying regime remains dominant, but during moments of contestation, signs undergo complex transformations bouncing from one regime to another and experiencing, almost simultaneously, deterritorialization and reterritorialization.

References

Auburn University.

2008.    “The Auburn Creed.”  http://www.auburn.edu/main/auburn_creed.html.  

Retrieved March 31, 2008.

Deleuze, G. and Guattari. L.

1998.  A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schitzophrenia.  Minneapolis:

           University of Minnesota Press.

Berg-Andersson, R.E. 

1999.    “1972-1996 Presidential Election State Voting Trends.”

             http://www.thegreenpapers.com/Hx/72-96.html.  Retrieved March 31, 2008.

Hayes, L. 

2008.  No Title.  Student Government Association.  http://www.auburn.edu/sga.

           Retrieved March 31, 2008.

Ingram, D,

2008.  “Of the Students, By the Students, For the Students.”  The Auburn

                        Plainsman.  Vol. 114(24).

Staff. 

2008a.  “Our View: Student Action Network Deserves the Right to be Heard,

              Questioned.”  The Auburn Plainsman.

              http://www.theplainsman.com/opinion/2008/mar

06/our_view_student_action_network_deserves_right_be_questioned_heard_sga_senate  Retrieved March 31 2008.

2008b.  “Cheers to Hayes and SGA Senate, jeers to College Republican Leaders.”

               The Auburn Plainsman.  Vol. 114(24).

"Outsourcing is good for Americans," so says our charmingly stubborn president who seemingly lives in an alternate dimension.  So now, after fifteen years of outsourcing, the economic bubble collapses.  Fueled by lending and investment in the dot.com, and then the wildly free-wheeling lending of the housing bubble, the economy grew, banks made money, people went into debt to attempt a play in the equity game.  People could pay their bills.  Now American families are facing the exact same situation that Asian families faced during the housing-fueled crisis of the 1990s - their houses are worth less than their debt.  The only difference - the U.S. has no industrial capacity with the exception of the military-industrial complex.  Americans make "knowledge" and weapons.  The staples of life - food, clothing, and shelter - are owned by transnational corporations and produced in countries or areas with lax labor laws and environmental regulations.  How does a country with no jobs and no industrial capacity rebound from a financial crisis?  Your guess is as good as mine.  

I would like to thank forty years of conservative governments for this catastrophe; specifically the manipulation of the Bretton Woods Institutions, NAFTA, and the adoption of floating monetary policy.  Trickle-down economics never trickled-down; those at the bottom only got debt, and those at the top, the banks and multinationals rigged the game and lined their wallets constructing a very clever global hacienda system.  Middle class Americans believing they are free but trapped in the slavery the misnomer of "home-ownership."  And apparently, Bernake believes that the answer to our situation is to, wait for it...

give the banks more money.  Game, set, match.  Thanks for playing.

These members voted "nay" to grant provisional status to Student Action Network a budding peace organization on Auburn's campus.

Demyan demyabj@auburn.edu
Green greenm5@auburn.edu
Horton hortotn@auburn.edu
Kelly
Parker
Smith
Stone stonesb@auburn.edu
Vita
Woods

My recent political engagement points to deep and long-standing divisions among marginalized groups as the primary inhibitor to transformative political action, although recent exercises have, if temporarily, made these divisions permeable.  It is unfortunate that identity becomes so fixed and deeply embedded that groups, like blacks, feminists, country-boys, gays, freaks, the areligious, and hyper-religious cannot find a common ground, a consensus on which to build.  While identity is important, it shapes us and gives us a sense of history, to cling to such categories only fortifies the Ego preventing real change.  Political change comes not from policy or government leaders but from the inside and from moving from what we are to what we could be, to possibility.  Decentralize everything, identity, government, society and find liberty, justice, and democracy in the shifting routines of everyday life.  Let go of these things which we hold so dear and defend as our domains of power, and exert these bastions of power, turn the potential energy kinetic through generosity.  Give without thought of reward and selfish individualism falls to the dust bin of history along with the fetishization of things so primordial to neoliberalism.

Our greed disconnects us; prevents us from understanding; inhibits our abilities to connect with others personally.  We fear being labeled, we fear others knowing our idiosyncrasies and prejudices, being called crazy, deviant, so we take our Zoloft, Adderal, Effexor, to make us boring and complicit.  There is nothing to fear; death holds no power over us.  We will die, indeed we are already dead, blips on the radar screen of history, and the human species with its seemingly all-consuming greed teeters on the brink of being a blip in geologic time.  Crucify the Ego, be who you are, be who you want to be even if who you want to be changes hourly.  Live without fear.

P.S. You know there is a problem when theft of "identity" entails access to one's bank account.  My bank account has nothing to do with my identity. 

The radicals are going at it.  The hardline capitalist radicals believe that Paul’s platform will open up the floodgates to for people to be free while the hardline socialist radicals believe that Paul’s platform will take from the poor.  Paul’s platform will take more from the rich than the poor.  The fundamental problem with our system is that there is more money than value.  Through a system of fractionary lending and fiat banking the size of corporations and the size of social services have ballooned to gargantuan levels and given them a dizzying reach - integrating everyone into a system in which neoliberal capitalism is institutionalized globally.  The costs to people and nature of this system are staggering.  The homogenizing power of neoliberal capitalism has marginalized anyone not fitting the description, rational economic man.  Truly, we have more money than sense.

Further, corporations, but specifically banks, receive the net benefit of all economic activity.  The Fed prints money solely on basis of the borrower’s ability to repay, not based on any tangible, naturally limited resource like gold.  This means two things - because money is debt, both money and debt are unlimited.  Mortgages, student loans, and credit cards have turned this country into a nation of financial slaves, deeply endebted to banks allowing them to continue creating new money with no reservations.  If everyone got out of debt, there wouldn’t be more money, there would be no money at all.  This is the driving engine behind ever-expanding neoliberal capitalism – the engine that makes people poorer and destroys our environment.  This funny money gives firms the ability to exist nowhere and stretch everywhere placing downward pressure on working class people by forcing them to compete with other workers across the globe and stripping our land of its fertility by promoting capital-intensive extractive endeavors.  Ron Paul wants to eliminate the Federal Reserve Board and return to the gold standard.  The latter is not the answer, but could provide a window for another one to be developed.  By doing this, the ability of corporations to expand through an ever-increasing money supply and promote destructive practices across the globe is severely limited.  But, this is all common sense.  When one looks at the size of the national debt and the continued explosive growth of the capitalist system, one has to ask, Where does it come from?  The answer quite simply is nowhere.

I think, at this point in history, we must step back from our ideological categories and search creatively for a true step forward.  Neither socialism nor capitalism are evil in and of themselves, but when those ideas become rigidly institutionalized at the nation-state level, freedom and prosperity decline.  This has always been the case; a group of disconnected and power hungry leaders drive nations into the ground by attempting new ways to control the population.  This country is controlled through a combination of debt-peonage and creative forms of surveillance like the IRS or food stamps.  The Fairtax eliminates the IRS in favor of a 25 percent national sales tax on new goods and services (buy used) with a prebate covering the costs of basic needs.  This is a tax on consumption instead of income, meaning it encourages saving (less debt) instead of spending.  This does not eliminate the right of states or localities to tax income.  Mike Gravel also supports this program.

Neoliberal capitalism is neither pure capitalism nor pure socialism, but the rigid institutionalization of Keynesian economics.  Famous economists like Jeffrey Sachs and Thomas Friedman offer that the best ways to deal with the deep-seeded problems of the early 21^st century is to dump more money that we don’t have into poor countries and to open up all economies to more competition and growth.  It’s a suicide pact with the global South.  The best argument for dealing with Southern countries is to leave them alone.  I think we have done enough damage there.

We must understand that the luxuries that we are used too, public education, social services, big houses, trust funds, high-priced cars, stable employment in a cubicle, and many other staples of Northern economies are no longer part of the equation in the future.  Neoliberal capitalism’s ability to exploit people through debt peonage and over-exploitation of natural resources has finally reached the crux of its contradictions.  It has destroyed the two very basis one which it depends, labor and nature.  The artificial economic inflation caused by fiat currency has fed this octopus and will cost today’s youth dearly.  Exponential growth of the economy and government can no longer be the paradigm, and the best answer for this is basically no answer at all.

What is very ironic is that the argument against the Fed is basically a Marxist argument.  When a self proclaimed free market capitalist makes a Marxist argument, there must be something big here. Ron Paul wants shrink the power of the state, and this is why he is the best candidate.  (Mike Gravel wants to do this as well, but he has been excluded from the Democratic debates.)  This puts government closer to you, so that you can have your voice heard.  Paul said that the “biggest problems must be decided the most locally.”  We can answer the questions of racism, poverty, sexism through democratic action at the local level – it is less costly and more effective.  When decisions are made locally, a few voices in one city are a lot louder than a few voices in a nation. 

                                                                        Salut,

                                                                        zac

VOTE FEBRUARY 5 IN ALABAMA PRIMARIES!!!!!!

I believe that this is a practical world and that working together is better than working alone.  Therefore, I believe in work, hard work.

I believe in education, which empowers me to control my own destiny.  I will train my mind and hands to work both skillfully and creatively.

. 

I believe in obedience to laws which protect the rights of all and non-cooperation with those that do not.

I believe in the human touch which cultivates love.

I believe in the endless engagement in and development of democracy, and will work tirelessly and peacefully to defend it.

I believe in the celebration of diversity, and in working honestly and openly to understand the experiences of those different from me.

I recognize the traditions and history of Auburn University, and will work to create new traditions to replace those which are remnants of a more repressive time.

And because Auburn University believes these things, I believe in Auburn and love it.

One of the first things that I noticed about the East Alabama Food Bank and the Community Market was that much of their food came from big box stores like Walmart.  I’m going to focus on Walmart because there is more research on this firm, but it could apply to other big boxes.  

            Walmart is a highly subsidized firm that perpetuates its growth through the continued aid of public money.  In Alabama alone, Walmart has received, over the past 7 years, 19.6 million in subsidies for its retail outlets.  This does not include subsidies for distribution centers which can reach as much as 50 million dollars.  However, the positive role of big box stores in communities is questionable at best.

            While Walmart supplies employment, many of the positions are part-time, low-paying, and with a very slim benefits package when available.  Walmart supplies communities with low-cost goods at the expense of local enterprises.  Walmart’s economy of scale drives the costs of local goods down to the point where local producers and entrepreneurs cannot compete.  It flattens the ability for local economies to create good jobs, diverse commercial outlets, and vibrant economies.

            The advantage of local economies is that dollars spent in local economies are passed between other local residents.  A portion of every dollar that big box stores takes in goes to national offices and banks often not even located in the same state.  The means that a dollar that could have been spent many times locally, is instead spent for its last time at a big box.  This is commonly known as the multiplier effect.

            What this means is that the “donations” that big boxes give to the East Alabama Food Bank and the Community Market are a return of tax money to residents of Alabama.  Further, tax policy allows for donations to be written off on taxes; donations become tax breaks.  Tax breaks are a form of subsidy.  What is cast as benevolent giving when looked at holistically, is actually a subsidy.  This is what I call donation as subsidy – a global economic trend exemplified by CARE’s recent refusal to accept American food aid.

            So, what is the answer.  There are many.  Some municipalities have actively resisted the entrance of big box stores.  Local farmers are developing new business models and engaging in direct marketing.  My selling directly to consumers, farmers cut out the middle men of agribusiness conglomerates and big box stores.  Consumers, hungry for personal business relationships and environmental conscious food, are participating in community supported agriculture.  In Auburn, Randle Farms sold out of CSA shares this year.  Other are developing local money systems which prevent money from leaving the community and encourage local exchange.  In the context of food aid, the Community Garden offers a unique opportunity to create locally-focused, participatory food aid in East Alabama.

Let sleeping beauties lie

For they are not beautiful

Give me awake beauties with pink hair

And tattoos

And something to say

With something to fight for

Sleeping beauties should stay sleeping.