[877] in Discussion of MIT-community interests
Re: Discuss Mandatory Dining at the UA Town Hall Meeting Tonight
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Peter M Finin)
Thu Oct 4 10:13:09 2001
Message-ID: <200110040356.XAA22945@buzzword-bingo.mit.edu>
Date: Wed, 3 Oct 2001 23:56:46 -0400
Reply-To: "Documentation at http://web.mit.edu/beland/talk/talk.html"
<MIT-Talk@MIT.EDU>, Peter M Finin <pfinin@MIT.EDU>
From: Peter M Finin <pfinin@MIT.EDU>
To: MIT-Talk@MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 03 Oct 2001 23:36:48 EDT."
<v04020a01b7e1877dddf8@[18.208.0.106]>
Benazeer sez:
|> 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.
If we were going with this route, I think we'd want to have someone
tell them before hand. So they'd know that they were getting all of
the abuse because they'd consistently screwed students over.
|> 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)
I think the admins have quite definitively shown that trying to
reason with them is almost certainly a waste of time. And, even if it
does happen to work, they'll just wait another couple months, and try
to screw us over again, through some different method.
The point is to make sure that they suffer as a result of trying to
screw us over. If admins feel that there are consequences to even
attempting to screw students over, maybe we can get them to stop
coming up with these stupid proposals in the first place. If we try
to rationally argue with them on each issue, they'll keep churning out
more shitty proposals, and we won't be able to stop them all.
|> 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.
After 4+ years of protesting stupid administrative decisions, I'm
going to recommend only bothering with "real action".
|> Stage a real, effective boycott of Aramark. Perhaps several days worth.
Don't bother. They won't care at all.
|> Stage a real, effective sit-in. (Talk to some of the living wage folks . .
|> . they know how to cause trouble)
This will work if people are willing to stay even if they could get
in trouble. If the CPs come and tell protesting students to leave,
they need to be willing to tell to CPs to bugger off. They need to be
somewhere where they are causing real inconvenience to the
administration. They need to stay, with no scheduled end time, for
days or weeks if need be.
At this point I'm sufficiently riled I'll do this. How many other
MIT students would say the same?
|> 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.
I don't think anyone will care, even if you got every single
undergrad to participate. And you're unlikely to manage that.
To see any results, we can't just boycott something (unless it was,
say, all undergrad classes), or circulate petitions, or sit in the
hallway. People have tried all of that, and it hasn't done jack. We
need to cause actual harm to MIT (by, say, ruining the acceptance
rate, or costing it alumni donations), or cause real inconvenience to
admins (by, say, denying them access to their offices or homes), or
make them feel like they are universally hated whenever they fuck with
us.
-Peter Finin
