From manski at greens.org Mon Oct 23 09:14:03 2006 From: manski at greens.org (Ben Manski) Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2006 09:14:03 -0500 Subject: [Corporations] Enough is enough! VIRTUAL MARCH & PHONE-IN for Higher Education Message-ID: <453CCE2B.1080704@greens.org> HIGHER EDUCATION FOR ALL! Week of Action - October 23-27, 2006 http://www.DemocratizingEducation.org << urgent - please participate - please forward >> VIRTUAL MARCH & PHONE-IN Calling everyone: Email and phone-in right now . . . Tell the corporate sector and politicians to end the education cuts! Every community college, tech school, and university in the USA is experiencing the same thing. Major cuts in public funding. Massive tuition increases. Ballooning student debt. Collapsing educational quality and staff support. Young people dying in Iraq for the price of an education. The word for this situation is crisis. Right now, college administrators, state legislatures, governors, and federal officials are preparing for the next round of cuts in funding, quality, and access. If you are unwilling to allow the crisis to worsen - if you're willing to do something to make it better - take action. Here's how . . . 1. VIRTUAL MARCH ON CORPORATE LOBBYISTS - All Week, October 23-27 - Go to http://www.DemocratizingEducation.org - Use the web-email form to send a letter to corporate lobbyists, politicians, and administrators. Tell them to stop the drive to reduce public funding for higher education. Tell them to support full public financing of our colleges, schools, and universities. 2. PHONE-IN - Friday, October 27 - On Friday, go back to the website. Use the phone list to call the lobbyists and government officials. Give them the same message in person. Be direct, clear, polite, and firm. 3. GET INVOLVED with the Democratizing Education Network (DEN) - We are a network of students, youth, faculty, staff, and community members working to reverse the corporatization of higher education. We're planning another round of coordinated actions for the coming months. Get involved. Read more about us on the website! . . . Democratizing Education Network (DEN) http://www.DemocratizingEducation.org . . . "A university should not be an adjunct of business, nor of the military, nor of government. Its curriculum should teach change, not the status quo. Then ... it might possibly keep us all from being victims of the corporate state." ~ US Supreme Court Justice William Douglas From manski at greens.org Thu Oct 26 08:50:08 2006 From: manski at greens.org (Ben Manski) Date: Thu, 26 Oct 2006 08:50:08 -0500 Subject: [Corporations] [DEN] Participate Now: Take less than a minute to support higher education for all! Message-ID: <4540BD10.6040502@greens.org> Action Alert: If you have not already participated in today's Virtual March on Corporate Lobbyists, _THIS IS THE MOMENT_ to take action for higher education for all. * 1. Go to http://www.DemocratizingEducation.org and participate in the Virtual March.* It will take you 30 seconds. *2. Spread the word about the march by forwarding this notice to everyone you know. * Our latest press release is included below for more information: For Immediate Release: CHARGING COAST TO COAST IN ITS THIRD DAY NATIONWIDE VIRTUAL MARCH ON CORPORATE LOBBYISTS GETTING A MAJOR RESPONSE WEEK OF ACTION: OCT. 23 THROUGH OCT. 27 * http://www.DemocratizingEducation.org * NATION, October 26, 2006 ~ A Virtual March for higher education is sweeping the country this week, gaining backing from Howard Zinn and numerous state and federal candidates and getting the attention of corporate officials. ?We are very much in need of a democratization of the institutions of education. One of the ways to make it more democratic is making it affordable for everybody.? Says Howard Zinn in a video posted on the Democratizing Education Networks? website. ?Corporate leaders pay a lot of attention to the control of: education, curricula, faculty, and the problem that students, faculty and workers face is to really be able to dislodge the control that rich corporations have over the educational process. We shouldn?t have a situation where money gets you an education and lack of money prevents you from getting an education, so we ought to use as a model European countries where tuition is free.? Says Zinn. In the first two days, hundred of students, faculty and staff participated in the Virtual March by sending an email to congressional leaders and corporate lobbyists alike demanding free higher education. Participants hailed from over 80 campuses and most states. Erik Forman, from Macalester University, participated in the Virtual March, telling the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce, ?We?ve tried lobbying, writing to politicians, and marching in the streets, but none of those have been ?effective?. As I see it, key players in business, politicians, and administrators of the economy have left us with few means of recourse, as all of the standard, ?legitimate? means are easily ignored. Precisely the strategy of this action is to force you to look at us every time you open your inbox to send some important e-mail, casually message with your family members, or whatever.? When the President of Minnesota?s Chamber of Commerce found his email box filled with DEN?s message, he lashed out, ?Do me a favor and let whoever is asking you to e-mail this message to take me off of the mass e-mail list ... receiving multiple e-mails with the same message is not remotely effective.? Forman indicates that this was the first reply he or any of his fellow students have ever gotten from corporate lobbyists regarding their role in driving education policy. The Virtual March received a jolt yesterday as the New York Times published an article highlighting the ongoing hikes in college tuition fees, ?in the past five years, tuition and fees at public institutions rose more than at any other time in the past 30, increasing by 35 percent to $5,836 this academic year. Tuition and fees at private four-year colleges increased by 11 percent over the same period, though the average price of attending a private institution is $22,218.? Republican, Green and Democratic gubernatorial and senatorial candidates in Wisconsin, Minnesota, California, Nebraska, Iowa and other states are making free higher education a part of their platform. Kevin Zeese, Maryland US senatorial candidate, strongly supports DEN?s efforts, ?We must make post-high school education free doing so will cost less than $50 billion annually ? half the cost of keeping troops in Europe and Asia, 1/5th the cost of more than $300 billion in annual corporate welfare.? On Friday, the Week of Action will culminate with a national phone-in. Virtual March participants and others will phone corporate lobbyists and political leaders and tell them to stop the atttack on public higher education. This week?s virtual marchers aren?t merely against further cuts in higher education funding. They are promoting an alternative. In 2001, it cost 32 billion US to pay for the full cost of tuition and fees for all students enrolled in 2 and 4-year degree-granting institutions of public higher education. The Democratizing Education Network (DEN) supports, among other things, eliminating tuition at public institutions by fully supporting them with public financing. Funding for quality free higher education is available, DEN activists say, pointing to the 2 billion US poured weekly into the occupation of Iraq, as well as to the declining share of taxes shouldered by corporations and the wealthy. # # # To find out more about the Virtual March on Corporate Lobbyists and for more information please visit the Democratizing Education Network?s website: http://www.DemocratizingEducation.org -- Ben Manski Co-Secretary, Four Lakes Green Party of Dane County http://www.FourLakesGreenParty.org "We, the generation that faces the next century, can add the solemn injunction 'If we don't do the impossible, we shall be faced with the unthinkable'." ~ Petra Kelly See also: Wisconsin Green Party http://www.WisconsinGreenParty.org Green Party of the United States http://www.GP.org Liberty Tree http://www.LibertyTreeFDR.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/corporations_corporations.org/attachments/20061026/8486ec22/attachment.html From manski at greens.org Fri Oct 27 09:59:42 2006 From: manski at greens.org (Ben Manski) Date: Fri, 27 Oct 2006 09:59:42 -0500 Subject: [Corporations] Final Release for Today's Phone-In Message-ID: <45421EDE.6020704@greens.org> To participate in today's phone in, go to http://www.DemocratizingEducation.org For Immediate Release: HIGHER EDUCATION WEEK OF ACTION CULMINATES IN PHONE-IN TO CORPORATE LOBBYISTS WEEK OF ACTION: OCT. 23 THROUGH OCT. 27 Contact: Sarah Grace Turner SarahGraceTurner at yahoo.com 202-294-4731 www.DemocratizingEducation.org NATION, October 27, 2006 ~ A weeklong nationwide protest against attacks on higher education culminates today in a coordinated Phone-In to corporate lobbyists. Today, hundreds of protesters phone the national and state offices of the Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers and tell them to reverse course and start lobbying for more public funding for higher education. Political leaders in Congress and in state office will receive phone calls as well. The Phone-In comes on the heels of a nationwide web-based Virtual March, in which participants wrote letters expressing similar demands. As the protests entered their fifth day, over 100 campuses in 36 states had participated. Students, faculty, and staff were also joined by concerned community members. This week?s protesters aren?t merely against further cuts in higher education funding. They are promoting an alternative. In 2001, it cost 32 billion US to pay for the full cost of tuition and fees for all students enrolled in 2 and 4-year degree-granting institutions of public higher education. The Democratizing Education Network (DEN) supports, among other things, eliminating tuition at public institutions by fully supporting them with public financing. Funding for quality free higher education is available, DEN activists say, pointing to the 2 billion US poured weekly into the occupation of Iraq, as well as to the declining share of taxes shouldered by corporations and the wealthy. # # # To find out more about the Virtual March and Phone-In on Corporate Lobbyists and for more information please visit the Democratizing Education Network?s website: http://www.DemocratizingEducation.org -- Ben Manski Co-Secretary, Four Lakes Green Party of Dane County http://www.FourLakesGreenParty.org "We, the generation that faces the next century, can add the solemn injunction 'If we don't do the impossible, we shall be faced with the unthinkable'." ~ Petra Kelly See also: Wisconsin Green Party http://www.WisconsinGreenParty.org Green Party of the United States http://www.GP.org Liberty Tree http://www.LibertyTreeFDR.org