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Sussex University Students in new occupation!

ISM UK / Organise 2013 | 07.02.2013 16:13 | Free Spaces | Public sector cuts | Social Struggles | South Coast

Sussex students, famed for chasing off Tory MP's and facing attacks by fully armoured riot police, their batons, pepper spray, police dogs and electric tasers ( http://defendsussex.wordpress.com/2010/03/05/what-actually-happened/) have from today re-occupied Bramber conference centre at the University.

Photo by Alice Bell
Photo by Alice Bell


Solidarity demo outside Bramber at 5 p.m

More information about the campaign and past struggles can be found here:
 http://defendsussex.wordpress.com/

ISM UK / Organise 2013

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support info as follows...

07.02.2013 16:41

messages of support can be sent through the website:
 http://sussexagainstprivatization.wordpress.com

or the Facebook group:
 https://www.facebook.com/groups/319782311448226/

and new details for the solidarity demo planned tonight:
5.30pm through at Library Square.

(A)nother student


Good for you

08.02.2013 00:48

Fantastic work

G-Force


Burn down the univeristies?

08.02.2013 12:48

Oh god.

Are we actually supposed to support these present and future managers?

When I was in England a while ago I was talking to someone (a good anarchist, who I respect) about the present state of things. He was bemoaning the fact that uni graduates were having to stack shelves at clothing shops because the economy had taken a bad turn and possibly because bad planning has meant that there are too many graduates now... (The university industry is very big now, and there seem to be too many graduates in the UK).

I said that that was surely just tough, and no more than these graduates deserved for their ambition to become managers and experts in society - society's intellectual leaders. This comment drew a blank.

I look at the smiling faces of the students and professors in the photo on this thread:
 http://libcom.org/news/against-privatisation-statement-sussex-university-occupation-08022013
- and while I am sure that none of them are better or worse than myself or anyone else - all I really see is a bunch of people who will one day decide things for masses of other people, on behalf of the establishment ... unless we entertain Gramscian (Leninist) notions about so called 'worker-intellectuals', and the part they play in movement building.

The sooner they are consigned to fill shelves the better - especially if they have any truly radical intuitions.

Further:
The Sussex Uni Occupation protesters state:

“We reassert that Education is a public good…”

While it is perfectly natural that many students and professors etc would make this statement, is it one that we go along with?

Given the history of ‘Education’ (the capital E is important) do we really think that public education has been anything more than an exercise in creating a flexible working population? On the other hand we may think that Education is a conduit for radical alternatives to the present society, and should be the place in which ‘worker-intellectuals’ are formed… but the problem with this concept is that it is Leninist.

We have no choice about ‘public education’. We cannot escape it. If we think we can use it for ‘revolutionary’ purposes, then this is a Leninist notion.

T