lotu5 on Wed, 23 Aug 2006 02:39:51 +0200 (CEST) |
[Date Prev] [Date Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]
Re: <nettime> actors wanted |
Actually, here's the letter that never got sent. At least you lucky nettime readers will get to read it. // As students, faculty and staff at UCSD, we are appalled by UCSD's decision to host the August 22nd terrorism preparedness exercise. While thousands of people in New Orleans and millions of people in Lebanon need real disaster relief right now, time and money is being wasted on this so called "anti-terror" simulation. We do not want our university to "play the part of the front line in the war on terrorism", a fictitious war that has only served to increase the profits of oil and defense corporations while causing so many lost lives, a war that has served to legitimize human rights abuses, the erosion of civil liberties, the undermining of the constitution for the purposes of expanding executive power far beyond what democracy allows, and the implementation of a police state in the United States. In addition, we do not want our campus to be any further militarized. With fighter jets roaring overhead everyday and recruiters at every career fair, the UCSD campus already has a constant military presence. Bringing the police and fire departments and the SWAT and HAZMAT teams on campus will only serve to worsen the climate on campus. We want this to be a place of learning, not a boot camp! In this country, we are in a McCarthy-esque climate where academic freedoms are being infringed on daily. Bringing this kind of anti-terrorism activity into our school only serves to further a climate of suspicion and fear. These exercises are not intended to protect us but to increase the climate of fear so that we do not speak up against more government abuses. We request that the UCSD administration make a clear public statement about how much this "anti-terror" exercise is costing this school, who requested that it be here and why. We also request a statement about how the decision was made for our University to be the front line in the war on terror when neither the faculty or the student body were consulted on this decision. Sincerely, The Undersigned > Could a terrorism theme park be not far away? /jc <...> # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net