[936] in Discussion of MIT-community interests
wally's emails
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Aram Harrow)
Sun Oct 7 23:03:34 2001
Message-ID: <200110080300.XAA04989@no-knife.mit.edu>
Date: Sun, 7 Oct 2001 23:00:48 -0400
Reply-To: "Documentation at http://web.mit.edu/beland/talk/talk.html"
<MIT-Talk@MIT.EDU>, aram@MIT.EDU
From: Aram Harrow <aram@MIT.EDU>
To: MIT-Talk@MIT.EDU
1. shell didn't pay for this. they paid for research. that does NOT
mean that saying "ken saro-wiwa" is now grounds for being fired for
employee on the MIT campus.
as an interesting aside, it's true that the 1st amendment does not
cover this. the implications for democracy in a late capitalist
economy are left as an exercise for the reader.
2. i agree that *doing* something is absolutely imperative. the
varying levels of support range from signing an online petition
http://web.mit.edu/justice/www/petition.html to hand-writing
letters for vest and clay, to trying to unionize administrative
assistants.
3. i disagree that we should roll over and take this. this is a
battle that we very much CAN win, if enough of us demand that
something be done. the upper-level administration has not yet
taken a stance, but if this proceeds to dismissal, then they'll be
extremely vulnerable to negative media coverage on the issue.
imagine the story: "MIT fires employee for protesting human rights
violations by research sponsor shell."
theory has made you too bitter and disaffected. reread zizek.
esp. his critique of cynicism in "the sublime object of ideology."
there's been a clear injustice committed, with ominous implications
for the future, and if we fight now we have a damn good chance of
reversing it.
____________________________________________________________
Aram Harrow : aram@mit.edu : web.mit.edu/aram : 617.271.8543
