[873] in Discussion of MIT-community interests
Re: Discuss Mandatory Dining at the UA Town Hall Meeting Tonight
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Dan Riordan)
Thu Oct 4 10:07:36 2001
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Message-ID: <4.3.2.7.2.20011003234516.00c1f150@hesiod>
Date: Wed, 3 Oct 2001 23:53:47 -0400
Reply-To: "Documentation at http://web.mit.edu/beland/talk/talk.html"
<MIT-Talk@MIT.EDU>, Dan Riordan <riordan@MIT.EDU>
From: Dan Riordan <riordan@MIT.EDU>
To: MIT-Talk@MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To: <v04020a01b7e1877dddf8@[18.208.0.106]>
i think everyone basically agrees that aramark sucks, students and admins
alike.
so i don't think they would really care if we boycotted aramark.
one of the main reasons they want to force us to pay ridiculous amounts of
money
for required meal plans is so they can get rid of aramark.
i think a more effective approach would be to focus on the problems with
the mandatory dining plan,
as opposed to the sorry state of current dining at mit.
what about organizing some kind of hunger strike to emphasize the fact that
we as
students will choose exactly what and how we eat (or don't eat) ?
At 11:36 PM 10/3/01 -0400, Benazeer Noorani wrote:
>People, people. The one way to *convince* admins that we are all insolent,
>irresponsible nitwits who need our diapers changed it to prove it to them.
>Calling them names, using obscenity, and in general being annoying with no
>apparent (well, apparent in their eyes) rhyme or reason will *not* convince
>them that we are mature responsible adults who can wipe our own arses.
>
>Things that have a chance of actually succeeding . . .stopping admins in
>the hallways and chewing up their valuable time by asking tough question,
>demanding answers, and politely making it clear that we are incredibly
>ticked off (here we can learn a lesson from southern "belles" and the
>Japanese, who can very politely tell you to go f*** yourself, and almost
>make you enjoy it)
>
>The only way this strategy will work, though, is if it is paired with real
>action. Find the most despicable food you can from Aramark, and leave it in
>the admins office . . .to prove our point that the food is crap.
>
>Stage a real, effective boycott of Aramark. Perhaps several days worth.
>
>Stage a real, effective sit-in. (Talk to some of the living wage folks . .
>. they know how to cause trouble)
>
>People who are willing to take some of their time and energy away from
>classes in order to be effective (let's teach some of our Millenial frosh
>how to be student activists)
>
>I'm willing to organize a boycott of Aramark. I can draft a letter to the
>admins, explainng why we are doing this, contact all of the student groups
>I have contacts with, contact all the ARA managers, and arrange to donate
>all unsold Aramark food to Caspar or some similar place. I propose a
>boycott of all Aramark food on Monday October 15 (this gives me time to get
>my act together and contact everyone) I can only do this if I get at least
>two other *motivated* people to a) help with publicity and b) make
>arrangements to sell non-Aramark food in high traffic areas (lobby of W-20,
>the Dot, etc.) You guys have got until Friday noon to volunteer, and it
>will happen.
>
>At 11:24 PM -0400 10/3/01, Anil K. Varghese wrote:
> >About making the list of admins to heckle... why bother. Just do it to
> >anyone you know to be an admin. It's not worth trying to pick out the few
> >who are good.
> >
> >This direct venting of anger and venom strikes a chord with me. I like the
> >idea of telling admins how much they suck and just letting it all out of my
> >system in a way that satisfies my need to hurt somebody (excepting physical
> >hurt, unless it was a sparring session. Think of it, me and Chuck Vest
> >in the ring. Sure, he's got a few inches on me, but I can take him.)
> >
> >What these admins don't have enough of is feedback. They need more
> feedback.
> >They talk about getting input, which the student government types always
> >manage to provide some of, but we're never giving them the full feedback
> that
> >they need.
> >
> >I know there are plenty of people out there with as much venom as Peter, if
> >not more, for all the crap MIT's been doing. I've got some myself. These
> >admin types have to be human. And that means that there's some basic,
> >internal
> >emotion inside of them that lights up every time a student goes up to one of
> >them and tells them in no uncertain terms how much they dislike them
> >"fuckwads". Guaranteed to make them feel uncomfortable. And they, like
> most
> >people, don't like being uncomfortable.
> >
> >The problem is, like Niko says, traditional input is easy to ignore and only
> >makes the most sensitive of admins uncomfortable. Most of these guys won't
> >flinch at doing something students don't want, if they think it's a good
> idea.
> >Protest e-mails and petitions are way too impersonal to get at an
> admin's gut.
> >But if you call them an "asshole" and say "you suck for doing what you did",
> >(bonus points for doing it in their office or in front of their staff)
> >you'll get past their intellect and start hitting them in their emotions.
> >You gotta get up close and make it personal.
> >
> >You get a couple of dozen people who do this to a lot of those guys in the
> >upper administration and you can have a serious effect. I'm talking about
> >degrading their resolve to do what they're doing, and even having some of
> >the ones with a soul to start questioning themselves.
> >
> >If you're angry at the administration, clench your fists now and resolve
> >yourself to let some admins experience some of that anger. Don't be shy.
> >They need to know. The worst that can happen is that they come to hate
> >students and start going out of their way to screw students over. But
> that's
> >not much of a change from how things are now. If we do it right, we can
> give
> >the more moderate protesters the edge they need to convince admins to change
> >their ways.
> >
> >-Anil Varghese
> >
> >PS Stay tuned for my one-on-one matchup with Vest...
> >
> >
> >
> >} Here are a few ideas:
> >}
> >} We can compose a list of administrators with a history of fucking
> >} students over, and circulate their names and pictures to all
> >} undergrads at MIT, along with a description of what they've done.
> >} Everytime one of us sees these administrators in the hallway, in an
> >} elevator, on the street, in a restaurant in Boston, or wherever, we
> >} need to tell the something like, "Hey, fuckwad, you are a maggot
> >} ridden sack of shit. You are ruining MIT. You are personally
> >} responsible for ruining this school, your worthless, scum-sucking
> >} whore."
> >}
> >} We can invade the offices of whichever adminstrators most deserve
> >} our ire, and refuse to let them in for days on end. This worked
> >} fairly well for the Harvard living wage folks.
> >}
> >} We can surround Chuck Vest's house one afternoon, and refuse to let
> >} him back in for several days. For administrators who don't live so
> >} conveniently close to campus, we can surround their car and refuse to
> >} let them drive home.
> >}
> >} We can take the list of admitted prefrosh, come April (or whenever
> >} they release it), and contact each and every prefrosh on there and try
> >} to convince them that MIT is a horrible school, and that they should
> >} go to Harvard or something.
> >}
> >} We can wait until the next time MIT has a bunch of multi-millionaire
> >} alumns gathered in some classroom to try to squeeze them for
> >} donations, and then burst into the room, en masse, ranting about how
> >} the MIT administration is fucking over the students and running the
> >} school into the ground, and tell them to not donate any money at all.
> >}
> >} -Peter Finin
