Graduation Is Hard
Meanwhile, in Mexico City:
A Student Strike Becomes an Occupation, for 17 Years.
Savour that mental image.
It remains unclear exactly who occupies the building and how many members compose the occupying force. Insular and mercurial, they refused repeated requests for interviews. “We’re against the mass media,” explained one occupier, who declined to give his name, saying it was a policy of the occupation not to grant interviews without consent of “the general assembly.” He was standing in what was once the lobby of the auditorium, its walls now covered with insurrectionist stickers, graffiti, posters and murals. “I don’t want to be assimilated into the mass media,” he said.
Oh, there’s more:
Since the late 1960s, the building has been commonly known as the Che Guevara Auditorium. “This has been the most politically symbolic space that the university has had in its entire history,” said Imanol Ordorika Sacristán, head of the National Autonomous University of Mexico’s office of institutional evaluation.
And,
For many years the occupation operated as a collective of various radical groups, though its composition mutated, sometimes violently… In 2013, for instance, self-proclaimed anarchists drove other groups out of the building, according to local news accounts. Three months later, however, a band of rivals stormed the auditorium and ejected the anarchists. Later the anarchists — armed with metal rods, fire extinguishers and sticks embedded with nails — violently retook control of the building. The university administration issued a denunciation of the violence and ordered “the immediate surrender” of the auditorium, to no avail.
After several such coups and counter-coups, no-one seems entirely clear what, exactly, the protestors are currently protesting against. However, the building has been unilaterally declared an “autonomous, self-managed workspace,” a leaderless “horizontal organisation,” and is a lively venue for T-shirt salesmen, pamphleteers, and marijuana vendors. And to highlight the occupiers’ immense political gravitas,
A sound system outside the auditorium blasts hard-core punk music.
It’s good to know that the lefty collective utopia can be built with tools as simple as appropriation of property, ongoing theft of resources and occasional violence.
Remarkably spineless performance by the university authorities. Perhaps they should try turning the utilities off…
I grudgingly respect this part, considering how many journalists are opportunist clickbaiting scum.
Now I know why Democrats want to import all these Dreamers in America and how the University system is surrendering to cultural Marxism. It appears Mexico was ahead of us.
Che Guevara auditorium LOL
Aside from just turning utilities off there is nothing a good bulldozer and wrecking ball couldn’t fix.
Are the lights in Che Guevara auditorium still on? why? ect…
After several such coups and counter-coups, no-one seems entirely clear what, exactly, the protestors are currently protesting against.
At least it’s reassuring to know that *our* student ‘radicals’ are no dumber than any others.
Board it up and fill it with concrete, Chernobyl-style.
It’s good to know that the lefty collective utopia can be built with tools as simple as appropriation of property, ongoing theft of resources and occasional violence.
Well, it is tradition. And yet we’re the bourgeois parasites, apparently.
Should this be filed under “Performance Art?” I don’t mean to go all intersectional on you, but hey, I see a fresh new avenue of funding for these hucksters.
Should this be filed under “Performance Art?”
I suppose you could pitch it as a “durational performance.” Though I prefer to think of it as an ever-relevant warning about human stupidity.
“I don’t want to be assimilated into the
mass media,adult world”FTFY
Way down here, you need a reason to move.
O/T, but here is the Rev. Jules Gomes on the resignation of Tim Farron as Liberal Democrat leader:
“What Farron failed to recognise was that although he is a liberal, his party and mainstream culture is no longer tolerantly liberal, but tyrannically leftist. There is a yawning chasm between liberals and leftists. Liberals love Western culture. Leftists hate the West. Liberals hail the Enlightenment as the Age of Reason. Leftists dismiss reason as a tool of power and oppression. Liberals believe in argument. Leftists resort to shouting, sloganeering and name-calling. Liberals believe in liberal education. Leftists believe in cultural Marxist indoctrination. Liberals are wary of all forms of religious extremism. Leftists stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Islamic extremists. Liberals fought for the emancipation of women. Leftists welcome the hijab, niqab and purdah in the name of multiculturalism. Liberals opposed Marxist totalitarianism. Leftism aims at creating a totalitarian society. Liberals fight for justice. Leftists fight for social justice that aims at cementing a hierarchy of victimhood”.
Thing is, after 17 years, you’d think there’d be more to show for all this furiously political mental activity. So far as I can make out, the only achievements seem to be some unattractive graffiti, running up other people’s utility bills, and quite a lot of marijuana smoking.
Despite this radical onslaught, capitalism has yet to fall and the world still turns.
Should an outside force begin an assault on the building, he warned, the occupiers had a defense plan ready. And he would be alongside them, he vowed — fighting, if necessary, to the death.
OK, Mexico has police and an Army, call their bluff. My money is on a few flash bangs and they head for the hills, I don’t think even this lot is stupid enough to realize they wouldn’t fare too well in a Mexican prison.
. . .they wouldn’t fare too well in a Mexican prison.
Actually, they’re currently lodged in one, albeit one which is self-created.
So far as I can make out, the only achievements seem to be some unattractive graffiti, running up other people’s utility bills, and quite a lot of marijuana smoking.
Don’t forget the stickers.
So far as I can make out, the only achievements seem to be some unattractive graffiti, running up other people’s utility bills, and quite a lot of marijuana smoking.
They’ve managed to extend their adolescence by 17 years.
Thing is, after 17 years, you’d think there’d be more to show for all this furiously political mental activity.
They haven’t broken *nearly* enough eggs (or egg-heads) to make an omelet. The Soviets and Chinese between them broke what, 100,000,000, and still don’t have much in the way of an omelet to show for it.
They’ve managed to extend their adolescence by 17 years.
I sense a pattern emerging.
To quote Bill Burr, “They’re LIVIN’ THE DREAM!”, whyever would they want to stop?
Barring, of course, an emerging sense of self respect that might inform them of the infantile, parasitic, and life-wasting behaviour in which they’re engaged.
Does a tree falling alone in the forest make a sound?
Does an occupation that people have forgotten even exists mean bugger all?
Yet another Monty Python skit comes to life.
Well, the authorities are allowing it to continue – so it must be something that the crime syndicates want.
Posters, graffiti, marijuana. Isn’t this what once used to be called a squat?
Well, there’s part of the problem right there. Would I be wrong to assume that at least some of the current occupiers/squatters are future university administrators?
Every university should have such a building. Keeping all of the idiots in one place where they can’t do much harm is a great idea.
Yet another Monty Python skit comes to life.
They’re an autonomous collective, at the autonomous university – but with the added excitement of coups and counter-coups.
its walls now covered with insurrectionist stickers,
They’re adhering to smooth, dry surfaces. We must flee.
I have figured out my virtual pet. No thanks to you lot, I must say. I mean. Really. I can’t even.
So Mexico and Canada are at least as nutty as the states? Who infected whom?
If you believe that madman Moldbug, Massachusetts infected the states and the states infected the world and the distribution pattern is kinda thrown off by the fact that the states have had the infection longest but also the strongest antibodies.
@Craig Mc
“Board it up and fill it with concrete, Chernobyl-style.”
Presumably, with the “occupiers” still inside…
I have figured out my virtual pet. No thanks to you lot, I must say.
Just because you want to be eaten first doesn’t mean that we should help.
Tangentially related to things collegiate:
My youngest just brought in a missive from an institution of post-secondary education, one of the many we’ve received subsequent to his scores coming in on college board exams. He was smiling as he handed it to me noting the first line following the salutation.
“Congratulations!You are now an official member of the Pitzer prospective student community!”
The lad’s comment to me? “I intend to ignore this, but I thought you might like to respond.”
Thus, I dropped by to pick up a “Junior Guild of Evil” membership card and amulet.
My dear Mr. Cranium, he has not even eaten any of his worshippers yet; he is certainly not going to eat his mom. My children are well-mannered. Though I suppose a stint at Evergreen State College would take care of that.
🐙😄🌝. (Goodnight!)
Meanwhile, at Evergreen
Leftists dismiss reason as a tool of power and oppression.
In the real world, reason is man’s tool of survival.
Farnsworth M Muldoon: OK, Mexico has police and an Army, call their bluff.
IIRC, the Autonomous University is exempt from the jurisdiction of the civil police. I think that rule was put into place to prevent politicians from having academic critics arrested.
Law enforcement on the campus is by the University’s own police force, and the University authorities won’t give the order.
As to the Army, I’d guess Mexico has a posse comitatus rule that prohibits using the Army except in cases of actual armed insurrection, or perhaps it would be considered an even graver violation of autonomy.
Microbillionaire,
If you believe that madman Moldbug, Massachusetts infected the states and the states infected the world…
The current “conventional wisdom” is that California is responsible for all of it – even though it was conservative politically for decades before the 1970s. Hell, we elected Ronald Reagan governor – twice!
The recent mass migration to the once-Golden State (as opposed to the 1849 gold rush) began as a trickle during the Great Depression, then took off during – and after – the Second World War. Massachusetts (and New York – well, the borough of Manhattan at any rate) discovered it in the 60’s and the rest is dire pop culture history.
A modest proposal:
Rename it the Grenfell Auditorium…..
wait to see if they get the hint.
Too soon?
Without being an expert on buildings, other than its best they have doors and windows and a roof, I assume that after 17 years the place has to have some maintenance. Do the occupiers let repiairpeople in to attend to personhole covers, etc, or are they blocked at the door?
Eventually, if it does collapse round the occupiers, is this the fault of capitalism for not making better safe spaces? In which case, I can see their anger.
A specific item of evidence for Moldbug’s thesis of the US as origin is that you can occasionally hear talking heads in Britain verbally stumbling over “African-American” as they try to describe a local black person who’s never been to America. That verbal tic, at least, is easily traceable. But the greater condition of things is really quite murky.