EXPOSES

VS.

FFUUNN!!

FACTS OF MUCH USE!

WHOS SLEEPING WITH WHO (jk)

Tart critix!

disorientation guide

An Introduction “Welcome to Brandeis” im sure you’ve heard that a mi l l ion t imes and you’re st i l l not sure whether i t means anything. “How’s col lege so far” you’l l be hear ing that one a mi l l ion t imes too. It ’s hard to verbal ize what is a very confusing and di f f icul t, but always new exper ience. And honest ly, a lot of people: tour guides, OLs, your professors are there to be opt imist ic and won’t be f rank wi th about how ser ious and t rying i t can be. It ’s something you’re going to have to face up to on your own, we’re not gonna l ie. But we’ve wr i t ten this zine in par t to make i t easier.

AND A Warning But we’ve also wr i t ten this for opposi te reasons: to throw you head f i rst into real i ty. And that is where we come to who “We are” We shouldn’t exist. We, the capi tal ‘L’ Lef t at Brandeis. Yet, we hold onto that romant ic idea that an educat ion is a means to l iberat ion, despi te wherever else stale class-conscious road maps might lead us. We see an educat ion as more than just grades 13-16, resume bui lding, networking, and play t ime. We want col lege to be more than just the place where middle-class youths play at rebel l ion and learn management ski l ls. We are f ierce, brave, and ser ious. Yes, we are pr ivi leged – let us use this insight to tear apar t the wor ld that raises us up whi le lower ing our fel lows to a l i fe of corporate feudal ism. Whi le you may r idicule us in publ ic, abhor us, throw us in the t rash, we are a f r iend who wi l l not reject you, a map which wi l l not fal ter when i t becomes unfashionable, a secret conf idant one can go into the night wi th. This zine, the f i rst at Brandeis for many years, is brought to you through the ef for ts of the dis-or ientat ion commi t tee. We come f rom di f ferent backgrounds - ideological, exper ient ial, and otherwise - to br ing you a shi t-ton of words to disor ient you f rom a cul ture at war wi th the planet and the populace. To that end, this zine contains polemic weapons, recipes for l iberat ion, dreams of future wor lds, and resources for the thi rsty. It ain’t our f inest work, but we’re not apologizing.

- The Disorientation Committee

Contents 2 . . . . This page 3 . . . . War on the Middle Class 5 . . . . Bullshit Majors 6 . . . . The past 60 years 7 . . . . for fucks sake know your enemy 9 . . . . Traveling 10 . . . . Radical Privilege Check 12 . . . . Mental Health at deis 13 . . . . Why 6.5 billion < G20?

15 . . . . Revolutionaries Got to Eat 17 . . . . General Advice Pt One 18 . . . . Environmentalists: step up the game 21 . . . . A Brandeis Drug FAQ 22 . . . . General Advice Pt Two 23 . . . . Radical Possibilities of the university 25 . . . . Hours 26 . . . . We Are Fucking Doomed

War on the Middle Class!! By Diogenes of Sinope

There are a variety of demeaning euphemisms for those people who, through no fault of their own, have committed the ghastly crime of not being wealthy. The poor (and by extension racial minorities, immigrants, and others) get labeled irresponsible, lazy freeloaders and criminals, whose mere existence is borderline illegal, if not downright unpatriotic. Under the noble tutelage of a broken education system and the mass media echo room, we’re successfully programmed with the nonsensical belief that these ‘little chiselers’ are the source of our problems – a convenient distraction from the horrific crimes of the big chiselers telling us this.

However, if we wanted to compile a longer and tawdrier list of the absurdities that we kowtow to, nothing could truly equal the masturbatory delusions of grandeur that the American middle class has constructed around itself. Braying to all who will listen that it is the very purpose of human history, the middle class has the unmitigated audacity to claim itself as the midwife of some half­dozen Enlightenment values – liberty, democracy, tolerance, equality – that time and again it has strangled in the cradle. Under the purview of this ignoble illusion all that is solid melts into the air; all experiences and realities that lie outside of its dictates are passed over for a bland fiction, as lukewarm and sickly sweet as spent jism.

Small wonder that Americans are unusually fond of this fantasy.

Middle­class ideology, though occasionally mocked, identified with dead suburban landscapes and stultifying mores, nonetheless exercises a pernicious force behind even ‘liberal’ forces and idea. For American society to almost wholly identify itself as middle class, an enormous amount of implicit and explicit violence must be waged in its name, both at home and abroad.

We can see this when wars of aggression in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as extensive economic exploitation throughout the planet, are honeyed up as “spreading democracy”. Believe it or not, structuring other societies for the horrendous inequality that America made famous does not create just or peaceful communities. The middle class foists itself on lands and peoples it considers empty and valueless, and subsequently is truly blind to their well­being. Thus for decades despotic regimes can ritualistically exploit their people, even murder several human rights workers, assisted in no small part by generous aid and weapons packages – but if a democratic government seeks to curtail American corporations, watch the fuck out!

Identification of the middle class as the norm, as the indisputable baseline for society, profoundly distorts and undermines a substantive political process. The most obvious effect is the stigmatization and legalized exclusion of poor and minority voices. Thus when white middle­class individuals represent their interests, it is seen as

democracy­in­action, the pinnacle of political participation, allowing a great wave of self­congratulation to sweep o’er the land. Conversely, when oppressed people organize for change, their access to the halls of power is not only obstructed but denounced, such that candidates who meet with them are accused of “passing out entitlements”, alleged freebies understood to come out of middle­class checkbooks. ACORN, the largest organization of working people in the United States, makes such a great whipping boy that the right has taken to invoking them constantly as a bogeyman. Of course, while the middle class gnashes its teeth about uppity poor people, they easily overlook the collusion between politicians and elite industrial players – after all, only the poor engage in class warfare.

But the middle­class mindset is simultaneously destructive for those who buy into

it. One stands immobile between capital and labor, not just unwilling to pick sides but positively joyous in one’s complacency. Personal and social security are assumed but ultimately foundationless, and so anxiety becomes the constant background noise to one’s existence. Having broken itself off from the working class so forcefully, the middle class fetishizes affluence and the affluent, and as such defends a cutthroat social structure in exchange for a vanishingly small chance of joining their ranks.

And yet beyond this pipe dream capitalism offers precious little protection against

falling into the grips of poverty. So precariously perched, but so dutifully committed to its ideology, the middle class plugs its ears and soothes itself with mantras of self­adoration, repeating over and over how they have earned their position, that it is their work ethic alone that provides them with comfort and privilege. Naturally, faith in material possessions as the measure of merit leads the middle class to deny, whitewash, even justify the harsh and pervasive realities of racism, sexism, and other forms of oppression. Absurdly, the conservative “tea parties” and rallies against the Obama administration, funded by far­right groups and populated with stolid middle­class stock, are being covered as legitimate political expression, and not the death cry: “My privilege! Please don’t erode my precious privilege!”

Attacking middle­class ideology strikes me as a particularly important cause. After

all, truly elite power players are few in number, whereas the bearers of the middle class standard far exceed them, and enable their misdeeds for little conceivable benefit. For these imperial henchmen to be stripped from their masters they must be shocked out of their self­congratulatory stupor, rudely awakened from a plasticine reverie to their absurd and treacherous collaboration. If we catch them with their hand down their pants, only to expose that there was nothing there to begin with – then so be it!

Bullshit Brandeis Majors (And the Less­Bullshit Ones) Don’t fall for this bullshit! Instead, try this… Sociology – In terms of political self‑indulgence, SOC is the major offender, presumably devoted to world‑changing efforts but more often collapsing into mindless faux‑leftist discussion of feelings. The spaciest courses lack even the veneer of academic rigor, and your average soc paper or class will generally be “theory or model” + “random pop culture item/social phenomenon” = “whatever your professor said.” Gordie Fellman’s Marx & Freud, despite the title’s seeming depth, is especially noteworthy for its superficiality and inability to engage in original thinking; some call it the Bataan Death March of ex‑hippie wank sessions. *

Anthropology – Instead of layering absurd and implausible social theories on whatever’s handy, ANTH actually seeks to explicate the intimate workings of human societies past and present. Unlike SOC’s trite & cliché appropriation of all things Buddhist, ANTH respects and seeks experience of non‑Western cultures in a way that decenters American myopicism. Richard Parmentier in particular is a bad ass motherfucker. *(One of our authors loves Soc, but still agrees with everything written there.)

International & Global Studies – Besides serving as a crutch for the non‑profit industrial complex (pg8), IGS is a virtually incoherent field for palliating Western guilt over exploitation of the Global South; academia’s own colonization program.

History (of Ideas) – Great mental exercise for thinking theoretically. Hulliung, despite some problematic sexism, is plugged into radical modes of thought.

Economics / Business – Justifying exploitation and calling it a field of study? The sheer audacity of the capitalist system knows no bounds!

Health: Science, Society & Policy – A bit of econ, but with the important context that makes it human.

Creative Writing – Have any great writers emerged from a creative writing program? Seminars rarely, if ever, achieve anything more than giving the biggest mouths (and the worst writers) the chance to bloviate on how their clumsy, trite stories and poems are soooo Nietzschean. On the other hand, if you’d like to start a heroin addiction, people in this major will think you’re soooo edgy and let you nod off in class.

English – While not exceptionally radical, the department is very open to Marxist, postmodern, and other revolutionary theories. Although readings are plentiful, seeing your professor artfully put down that obnoxious blabbermouth is totally worth it.

American Studies – Really? Like we don’t know enough about America that we have to narcissistically give ourselves degrees in it? Just smoke a bowl and read Gravity’s Rainbow.

Women’s & Gender Studies / African and African‑American Studies – Learning lessons from the 60s – pay attention SOC!.

Yiddish – You will not get laid with this degree. Art History – You will get so much ass it hurts.

What’s the Student Union, Anyway?

Arguably, the Brandeis Student Union Government represents an agent for democratic change in decisions that affect students. The power of the Student Union changes on a yearly basis, depending on the perceived popularity of the President and the strength of his or her backbone. Besides their undeniable mandate from their constituents, the Student Union’s main power is funding. Every

year when you pay your tuition bill you also pay $324 in taxes to the Student Union and $70 to Student Events, the Student Activities Fee (SAF); this yields a yearly budget of over $1,000,000. Your Student Union representatives control this massive budget and distribute the funds to clubs, organizations and other various uses, skimming approximately $50,000 off the top to fund the budget of the

Student Union itself. Nearly every club, publication, and activity on campus benefits from student union money.

The Union is a government with four branches of power. The least pertinent branch is the Union Judiciary. The primary function of the Union Judiciary is to settle election disputes; they do this getting the parties involved to dress up in suits, pretend to be lawyers and argue their case before five people with no qualifications to hear ‘law’ other than maybe some experience in Mock Trial (funded,

incidentally, with $13,000 of union money).

The second least useful branch is the Student Union Senate. Most large universities keep their Senates to under fifteen members, but Brandeis allows twenty­two resume­padders to debate for hours over issues of little importance. Their power is to charter and recognize clubs ­­ that is, they decide which clubs are ‘worthy’ of receiving Student Union funds. They don’t decide the amount given, simply whether or not they are eligible. The Senate also directs a budget of roughly $10,000 to Senators’ passion projects. The only

requirement is that it must be a ‘Union Government’ project. This has caused problems in the past.

The third branch, E­Board, is highly mysterious. The student body elects four of the members­­–President, Vice­President, Treasurer and Secretary. But the other members are appointed by the President. The President may appoint as many members as he

chooses. They operate in secret and most of their functions are unknown to the student body. F­Board is the most critical to most students as they decide just how much money each clubs gets. They are even more mysterious than E­Board.

In the past 60 years there ’s been a whole lot of both Globa lizat ion and Neolibera lism.

It's a confusing fucking thing which means a lot of things, so here we're just going to ta lk about

GLOBALIZATION…

(not liberal as in 'democrat') NEOLIBERALISM…

By Unstuck A polit ica l-economic-military system that involves the world bank, the imf, the wto, secret military supported

coups, “ free (to starve) trade ,” a globa l trade system that is perpetuat ing that world hunger you a lways hear about . How to begin to approach the subject matter?

Pretend you run a sma ll farm in a deve loping country . You hear about this free trade agreement or these structura l adjustment programs going down. A year later, the farmland in your country has been mono-cropped, industria lized, taken over by fore ign corporat ions, and is putt ing you and a lot of old laborers out of business. Sure , it's much more eff icient (so much more efficient that there are now thousands of unemployed farmhands) but is it rea lly he lping the community? Especia lly with a ll those pest icides and soil damage? Maybe this transit ion was rather fast? A lit t le unprepared?

There was the promise that this awesome agreement or adjustment program would create jobs (perhaps to offset the many jobs it destroyed – maybe they were jobs doing what now seems like make-work, but at least they pa id bills, a t least one had money , a t least one could afford food) and indeed it has: More export jobs. These are in the middle of the city . To survive , your family must leave the home it ’s inhabited for hundreds of years (but can no longer find work in) to the city , which they find flooded with the unemployed. The companies could pay more , but every company is pay ing rock bottom wages to workers in third world free trade countries, so to stay “compet it ive” the company a lso has to pay them low wages. Low wages are the order of the day in the country: workers are desperate for some jobs, and so is the country's government: if they set the labor standards too high, the company will just migrate to a more flexible country – so countries without lots of assets for corporat ions must se ll themse lves very very low to compensate for a ll the jobs they've lost through the efficiencies of the globa l economy . That's the ir “compet it ive advantage” - the ir ability to work for pennies when the coffers of Nike , The Gap and such hold billions. The chamber of commerce types in larger industria lized countries puff themse lves up about how they are creat ing jobs in your country (which to the day haven't come close to making up for a ll the jobs immediate ly lost through the border opening, bringing running water to new areas of the city (while poisoning and buy ing up vast tracts of previously inhabited rura l farmland). The wonders of the compet it ive free market is at it aga in as mult i-billion dollar internat iona l corporat ions pulverize sma ll loca l businesses into sand. And only some of the displaced get to work for what is now the only business in town. The government must stand idly by – it must part icipate in the neo-libera l internat iona l economy . It knows who its people's new master is.

But there ’s st ill hunger, and there are a couple new rea lly good jobs, but of the few jobs that are created most of them are not that great . Why? People cannot buy food because they have no money . People cannot get money because despite the ir work ethic or creat ivity , they cannot get a job because of the high efficiency of a globa l product ion cha in which doesn’t need them (at some point the quest ion must be asked “can we rea lly count this as efficient?”) With so many people compet ing for so few jobs and the laws the way they are , workers have lit t le to no leverage . The rising t ide was supposed to ra ise a ll boats but instead its capsized the sma ll ones.

There are some serious problems at play with the current system. I encourage before you get a ll in a huff about it , or be lieve everything I say here , or be lieve a ll the bullshit your economics teacher will load you with about how the neoclassica l mode l of economics is a dogma to take with you to the grave , you read up a lit t le bit on it , on not just the abstract numbers and theories of neolibera lism, but the actua l experiences of workers on the ground be ing affected by this policy . I may not have an answer, there may not be one clear answer. It's not as simple as black and white , communism or capita lism. But our current trade system is a ll about corporate profits, and its a whole lot of broken. It's something to think about .

for fucks sake know your enemy by jesus h christ Factory Farms

There are few greater hells on earth than the factory farm and the accompanying dis-assembly line of the industrial slaughter house. Factory farms (also known by the industry label “confined animal feeding operations”) operate by tightly packing thousands of animals indoors, restricting their mobility, and denying their natural social behaviors to produce the highest amount of flesh and product at the lowest cost and as quickly as possible. Their large nature makes them more able to secure the attention and favor of regulatory bodies, and this, along with their intense economies of scale have combined to destroy the ‘family farm’ further emptying our rural areas, while their systemic inhumane treatment of animals creates psychological issues for the workers on the front lines. This high density of animals has the effect of increasing infectious disease (hear of swine flu?) and other maladies, which necessitates antibiotics as other labor-intensive treatment is often forgone. The growth hormones and selective breeding used to increase production speed have the effect of crippling animals whose bones often cannot take the weight of the unnatural load of flesh. The vast, concentrated quantities of excrement require processing, and with limited regulation, it is often poured onto fields as “fertilizer” when it in reality it over-saturates the fields and runs heavily into the watershed. Automation necessitates that the animals are grain fed as opposed to grass fed, thereby increasing the load on the crop supply and the accompanying ecological destruction. Note: if you consume eggs or milk from factory farms, you contribute to the slaughter of animals as well, for when a chicken or cow’s production slacks they are killed; further, calves (for whom the milk is intended) are weaned off at an early age (so that we can drink their milk) and male calves are confined to cages for months until there are slaughtered for veal, a product which would not be economical to produce if not subsidized by milk consumption. “~ Complexes” and the Military-Industrial Complex

“~ Complexes” are used to describe configurations of politics, capital, and government that are self-perpetuating and that vastly affect the course of economic, political, and social development. And, along with altering the landscape of power, they change people’s perception of themselves in the world as people become accustomed to new situations and circumstances – with forms come norms. The military-industrial complex (MIC) is arguably the most prominent, powerful, and dastardly of these, and provides a useful model for their functioning.

The warfare industry, by creating political action committees (PACs), foundations, think tanks, industry groups, and so on, craft policies, do media work, and otherwise craft favorable social conditions. They provide support for politicians favorable towards enacting policies that increase military spending, which in turn provides greater profit and power for the warfare industry. This combined with the relative autonomy of the Pentagon, and the numerous personal connections between the warfare industry, politicians, and the military (how many politicians and war-industry heads are retired service-members?), strengthens the cycle further. This results in semi-state entities, motivated by profit rather than a sensible military policy (if such a thing can be conceived). However, this isn’t to say that only the warfare industry is culpable, nor that all employees of the warfare industry are equally conscious of their role as they work for their day’s wage. The autonomy of the various military and intelligence branches allow for them to argue for more funding and self-perpetuation. A recent interesting twist on this is as ‘terrorists’ (indeterminate, anywhere) are The Enemy, we get a militarization of the homeland! All together, this ensures that we have a permanent war economy where the U.S. government funds over half of the military expenditure on the planet!

Further, the research funded through military contract largely remains in the hands of the private industries (universities are no stranger to this). The effects of this are pervasive, and profits gained in the civilian market further strengthen the means of the warfare industry. Consider Raytheon, a company headquartered in Waltham and world’s largest producer of guided missiles. After WWII Raytheon’s research into radar technology produced methods for creating microwaves, which led to the commercial development of microwave ovens. A side point of this is that the same companies that manufacture weapons also market civilian uses for these technologies, and so the same company that makes your lethal toxin also makes your toxic pesticide. Prison-Industrial Complex

Like the above MIC, the PIC now operates as a sector of society that is largely self perpetuating. During the last 50 years, the simultaneous rise of “tough on crime” politics and public officials screaming for privatization has resulted in the creation of a prison industry. As an industry this includes private prison service contractors, police, public prosecutors, construction firms specializing in prisons, surveillance technology companies, prison guards unions, and local gov’t that seeks money for federal prisons. Motivated on the premise of increasing profit and armed with the ability to manipulate social conditions favorable to its growth, the prison industry is unable to focus on providing meaningful rehabilitation. Consider mandatory minimum incarceration sentences for nonviolent crimes, California’s Three Strikes policy, and the War on Drugs, as policies either created or furthered through the efforts of the PIC. While affecting only a small percentage of the budget, the increased presence in our communities, felt as either the absence of a loved one or the possibility of arrest, cannot be dismissed. This has resulted in the U.S. having the highest rate of incarceration in the world; despite having only 5% of the population, the U.S. holds 25% of the world’s prisoners.

Our prison population has risen so rapidly that many of our prisons are grossly overcrowded and industry’s response is modular prison cells, streamlining production and installation. Finally, the similarity between MIC and PIC is striking as both are ideologically premised upon the idea that the only means by which peace is achieved are through total annihilation of any possible enemy. Fire to the prisons. Non-Profit-Industrial Complex

To be sure, this one strikes dear to the heart of the establishment Left, as ensconced in non-profit structures: think tanks, foundations, 501(c)(3)s, and so on. While in the above complexes, the non-state actors advocate reform to benefit themselves, the reform action of the NPIC results in the exclusion of mass movements outside of the non-profit structure, thereby ensuring the continued dominance of the NPIC. Despite the mass-movement legacy of the 60s and 70s, the non-profit model, the 501(c)(3), has became the dominant model for social change organizing, largely due to the rise of foundations, changes in tax codes, and the ‘ease’ of getting grant money. As above, forms create norms, and so possibilities outside of the non-profit structure are not pursued. The dependence upon grant money (largely funded through philanthrocapitalists who have attained their wealth by through social inequity) means that some strategies, positions, and tactics will not be tenable as the threat of grant-pulling is constant. Further, this style of organization directs activist energies into career-based modes of organizing instead of more volatile mass-based organizations – additionally, who gets excited about grant proposals – and encourages social movements to adopt hierarchical and capitalist structures instead of challenging them. While the PIC overtly represses dissent, the NPIC manages dissent and brings it into a state sanctioned apparatus. While we know a lot of people at Brandeis lurv the NPIC, may we acknowledge that there are some problems in running dissent, advocating for social justice, and providing social goods as a business?

Propaganda Model of the Media

The myth of the liberal or anti-establishment media is unfortunate. We’ve reached a point where, simultaneously, the media establishment has lauded itself into somnambulance, endlessly congratulating itself on its watchdog role, while horrific crimes and social problems are either distorted into victim-blaming or ignored altogether. Media independence is wholly illusory; rather, to gain a better perspective on how the objective news is produced, we can conceive of a series of filters between real events and how they’re reported. The biggest filter, of course, is concentrated media ownership: the major news outlets in print and on air are owned by multinational corporations, and therefore spin the news to promote their economic agenda. The widespread reliance of news media on advertising as a source of funding adds additional economic interests laundering news content. Another filter is an ingrained pro-establishment bias. Government, military, and business institutions are perceived as major newsmakers because they maintain truly astounding media operations, and in order to ensure access to these sources of news reporters do all they can to mollify them. If these bodies are dissatisfied, they (as well as ideological think-tanks and non-profits, often corporate-funded) produce great reams of ‘flak’ or negative responses to news articles; not only does this set up an often false dichotomy, that both sides have a legitimate case, it also results in censored, neutered stories and reduced future coverage. Together, these filters serve to channel news reporting into acceptable, generally harmless pathways, which reduces if not eliminates possible challenges to elite powers.

Ed. By INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex

By Michael Edwards Just Another Empire

By G. William Domhoff Who Rules America: Power, Politics, and Social Change

By Eric Marcus Meat Market

by Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of Mass Media

(By las­j) You've probably already learned a lot of this even if you’ve just been here for a week; maybe we can brighten the corners if you missed something

Branvan

.

here is the Waltham Branvan’s path. The campus van goes to the circle stops. The Waltham van goes to all stops in the order below and a couple more if you ask specifically. The vehicles look identical, you can ask the driver whether it’s Waltham or campus van Campus runs every 15 min. from 8am to midnight; Waltham every half hour from 4p to 2a. Waltham gets full and often runs late at busy times like friday nights and early at slow times. Both vans drop off and pick up only at specific stops. If you are not at one of these stops, the BranVan will likely not stop for you. If the driver doesn't know ahead of time to stop somewhere, he might not even drive by the stop. For a pick up on either van: Call ahead to reserve up to 4 seats (@ 781­73(6­4999)) and wait at the stop you told them you'd be at.

Be polite to the driver & the coordinator – if the van is full and the driver doesn't let you on, it's because they don't want to get fired.

Btw, Waltham van does the charles river run after going through Waltham.

A North / Rabb steps 0 min J Epstein CampusVan: Mods Main and Moody B Heller School K commuter Rail CampusVan: East Train station C H­Lot 1 min L Grad/Charles Rvr The 99 12 Asian Grill 20 D Spingold 2 M J­Lot 10 Walgreens Lizzy’s E Admissions N 567 South Bank of America Moody & Maple F The Main Gate 3 Gosman Hannafords, CVS 15 Moody and High 25

Traveling To Boston

The Brandeis Boston shuttle

(1 or 2 crystal buses) runs every 1.5 hrs Thurs­Sun evenings. Free, close to your dorm, and runs the latest. After leaving campus it detours to Harvard square (25 min.) before traveling and stopping at the Mass Ave./Beacon St. crossroads (45 min. after start). To board, stand around at Rabb or H­lot on time and the bus will stop for you, unless it’s already full and you’re at H­Lot (rarely happens). The bus leaves 6pm on thursday, and leaves last at 1:30am. Likewise, on Friday and Saturday, first departure is 3:30, last one is 2am. Sunday, first departure is 12:30, last one is 9:30pm.(times for shuttle listed out fully at [ http://tinyurl.com/krmxlh ] )

#70/#70a T Bus,is 2nd

best in price ($1.50), not as easy to get to as shuttle or rail, and takes about as long as the shuttle, it runs every twenty minutes during most of the day, every day.

Inbound: Catch the 70 weekdays at Main St. bus stops (going toward Moody), or everyday at Waltham square’s bus stop. Many buses begin even closer: take the forest path north of H­lot or the one through J­lot, walk down Harland or Thornton road, respectively, take a right onto cedarwood, and the bus stop is at the first big intersection. The 70­bus goes to Cambridge Central Square, which is on Mass Ave. You can walk/take the #1 bus

south on Mass Ave. to get into Boston proper. Or enter the subway (red line) from there. The bus stop for the outbound 70 is a bit hidden (go from central sq. down magazine st. and take a left on green st. and there’s the bus stop). The last outbound 70 is at midnight each night. Schedule should be printed ahead of time, find it @ [ http://tinyurl.com/625vcq ]… select the right day of week. commuter rail is more expensive ($4.75 1­way), but cheaper than a taxi, and runs straight into downtown. Goes thru to Porter Square (from which you can take the red line quickly to many places), and ends at North Station (from where you can take the green and orange lines). The schedule: [ http://tinyurl.com/m8e8vo ]. The commuter rail stop (Brandeis/Roberts) is basically on the way to the Charles River Apartments (grad), take campus Van to it or take a right as you’re leaving Brandeis’ main entrance and you’ll see a railroad pretty soon. The inbound platform is across the railroad. The rail runs every 1 to 3 hours during daytime.

YO! Radical Privilege Check By Lulu Luxembourg Hopefully, if you chose to devote your time and mental energy to pick your way through this disorientation guide you’ve got radical inclinations. So, unlike the gleefully ignorant bourgeois consumers who are just here to inherit their dad’s dealerships, you’re on the right path to leaving school with the burning desire and ability to overthrow capitalism, sabotage patriarchy, upend racism, and in general subvert the dominant paradigm. But wait! Don’t pat yourself on the back just yet! Just because you eat vegan or have an Obama sticker on your laptop doesn’t make you a radical. Being vaguely in line with progressive ideas is all well and good, but to be radical by definition requires us to strike at the root of injustice. And you can’t start hacking away at the roots until you take a cold, hard look at yourself to see how you fit into just those systems of domination. One useful way to start this self‑examination is through the prism of privilege. Privilege refers to the unearned, often‑invisible powers and gifts bestowed upon those of the dominant sectors of society – for this reason, we can speak of white privilege, male privilege, able‑bodied privilege, and so on. For individuals from these dominant groups, privilege confers considerable resources to them that dispossessed individuals are denied – resources that dominant individuals come to see as ‘naturally’ theirs, denying the possibility that they have them largely because others are denied. Like what, you may ask?

! White privilege means, among other things, that when people discuss “our civilization” or our “national heritage”, they’re referring almost exclusively to whites.

! Male privilege means, among other things, that men can drive poorly, fail a math test, or overdraw on their checking account, and their actions will be seen as entirely their own.

! Heterosexist privilege means, among other things, that heterosexuals never need to fear that they will be insulted, assaulted, or even killed simply because of their sexual orientation.

! Christian privilege means, among other things, that Christians can expect to have their specific values and religious traditions exalted as ‘normal’, even within such secular activities as a political election.

! Able‑bodied privilege means, among other things, that the able‑bodied (or temporarily abled) never need to worry that public accommodations and services won’t be accessible to them.

! Class privilege means, among other things, that upper and middle‑class individuals have access to a whole range of institutions which bolster their economic position. This goes beyond education – superior knowledge of elite cultural norms and social networks gives upper‑class individuals a huge boost in the job market, implicitly excluding people of more moderate means.

…and so on. Notice that, even in this very limited selection of examples, privilege bestows benefits on the dominant group by excluding, alienating, and even visiting violence upon oppressed individuals. A more in‑depth look at what privilege entails can be found at www.amptoons.com/blog/files/mcintosh.html. Privilege forms the backbone of any oppressive system which seeks to position itself as ‘normal’. This makes privilege very problematic from a liberal perspective – liberals rarely, if ever, acknowledge the reality of privilege, instead (for instance) pointing out the numerous ways they oppose racism and befriend people of color. (lconservatives are, of course, beyond hope). While opposition to oppressive systems is important, without a sincere acknowledgement of the ways that even well‑meaning progressives are entangled in them, it’s impossible to confront them. And without this confrontation, we find progressive organizations and movements led almost exclusively by upper‑class white men, a situation which shuts out minority voices and needs. What privilege also allows us to do is firmly upend the common understanding of what oppression constitutes. Far too often, people assume that it is equivalent to prejudice or bias, ignoring the structural components that more ingrained, more widespread, and do the worst damage. This is problematic because we’ve reached a point where discrimination or oppression is only recognized as such when difference is highlighted, such as the use of racial slurs or homophobic violence. Not

recognizing how these are part and parcel with wider systems of oppression, and not the whole shebang, enables the power structure to continue dominating people and prevents our ability to dismantle them. While I’ve only listed a few examples of privilege, it’s vital to keep in mind the immense violence that an ingrained system of privilege wreaks. If you want to fight dominant systems, it’s imperative that we recognize how systems of privilege enable and maintain the social divisions which allow oppressive –isms to do their dastardly work. Racism, sexism, homophobia, and other oppressive hierarchies aren’t just mean words that can be fixed in the course of an after‑school TV special. Unless you can acknowledge that oppression structures the lives and realities of oppressed individuals, in ways that can be invisible to dominant individuals, you can’t make serious on any threats of liberation. Privilege checking is a critical self‑examination that, while necessary from time to time, should never devolve into a soupy morass of guilt and lethargy. If you can see how you benefit or are harmed by an oppressive system, simply by your membership in a category, that’s your cue to do something about it! Some more Privilege 101s: http://www.prisonactivist.org/archive/cws/sharon.html http://academic.udayton.edu/race/01race/Whiteness00.htm http://www.amptoons.com/blog/archives/2006/09/26/a‑list‑of‑privilege‑lists/ http://academic.udayton.edu/RACE/05intersection/

Bonus Section!

On places to explore

By Edward Callahan Like all myths, Brandeis has forgotten chapters; relics that lie around waiting for someone to recognize that there are spaces outside of the trodden path. Here are some of the best ones deserving of illumination.

! The Fall home to that boozy trap for freshman girls known as the “The Disco Tent,” Sachar woods offers tried and untried paths, trees for the needy, quiet, a brook, a farmland that has been fallow for a half century, and other treasures.

! The water tower by Rabb didn’t always have a fence around it (with barbed wire? fuck that fence!). Even so, I recommend checking it out at night – the view from top of the hill overlooking the city lights below is matched by none, save that from the tops of the buildings on campus.

! Tops of buildings. The new science center is the tallest. Shapiro Campus Center looks terrible from high above. ! The old pumping station. Note: not Brandeis property so the cops might not be as nice. ;D ! Can you find: the small unused room in a humanities building with gorgeous graf on the walls? ! Go with friends when on illicit exploration of the night-time science complex, It is possible to enter the closed

science library at night without detection. Though I don't know why you'd want to. Unless, y'know, you were trying to prove something.

! The railroad tracks. What’s more romantic? ! Mt. Feake Cemetery! Graves + Charles River + Trees = beautiful place after dark. Not Brandeis property. ! At one time, the castle was the university, and no space inside was left empty. But, as maintenance looks less

attractive than building anew, the interior rotted away and walkways became fewer. What you’re missing: turrets, tunnels underneath, roofs above. They’re still there, just lying in wait.

Figure it out. Be prepared. Stay safe.

Why 6.5 billion < 20 Aka we’re going to G20 and want you to come along

By Theograph I definitely like Unstuck’s piece on neoliberalism, but I think it’s important to get more particular on what the problems really are, you know why? This month, the G20 is a-happening. The G20 functions as the collusion of governments of the wealthiest 20 countries of the world against all the poor ones, and well, and the people in general (instead favoring corporate interests). The G20 functions as the tool by which Neoliberal policy, sometimes thought by those enacting it to be a positive boon upon the world, sometimes enacted with no such delusions, is coordinated and projected upon the world. In 1999 the WTO meeting in Seattle was shut down by massive protests a la . 10 years later, we face our governments working against us and others in the name of the almighty dollar (or Chinese Yuan if you will), and those entities who hold the most of it. The time has come to fight this and fight for a better vision of the world –one where everyone has a shot at a good job, a good wage. See the other side of this page to get involved. But before you protest anything, you need to be prepared to argue clearly and vocally for your viewpoint. Let’s get you started. We could have a good world. Honest. We could. We have a really efficient global production chain. It’s just that it views worker and community needs as an unnecessary cost to be cut. This is a shame, because all of the basic needs of humanity are provided by global environmentally irresponsible production practices. Efficiency has risen to the level where, if the infrastructural investments were provided for, even with the current burgeoning population, everyone could be fed, everyone could be clothed and everyone could have some rudimentary medical care and water. But free trade policy has been destroying all the jobs, hasn’t been replacing them enough, and hurting the people who do get new jobs. To participate in the global economy and not get left in the dust as to having things like computers, free trade agreements demand they cede to draconian demands which end up washing out all the jobs in what is, relative to the history of that country’s development in a blink of an eye. You end up with a bunch of people without jobs who can’t eat and can’t get a job because they aren’t needed for jobs producing anything that a relatively rich person in another country (like nearly anyone in America) might want to buy. That person already has clothes, a car, the basics. But what more valuables do they need? How to get them to buy more things? In the current system, the solution is consumerism, and that isn’t working. The neoclassical model says jobs are going to be created, but that ain’t working. Rampant consumerism has been neoliberal capitalism's answer so far: get the rich to buy things they don't need and wouldn’t otherwise buy. Constant advertisements. The constant manufactory of insecurity and assumption that the earth provides us an infinite resource to make more things and then needlessly dispose of them: a constant engine of consumption and discard and needless consumption again is neoliberal capitalism's answer to the problems created by its own centralization of production: create artificial production needs to account for the efficiency. And even with the many problems that has, it still hasn’t created the promised jobs (there are hundreds of good books and websites to learn more about how and why this system has failed to live up to its promises and alternatives, I’d recommend checking out foodfirst.org for starters) Neoliberal policy, in conjunction with the massive unemployment it creates, also makes the jobs workers do have worse. It's not just the unemployed who can't afford food now –with the advent of a those who do successfully find factory jobs also experience a decrease in their standard of living relative to their standard of living before the advent of free trade. Another reason for workers' lack of access to even the most basic goods: the free trade zones and free trade agreements serve to demolish their negotiating power. Even worse for it is the massive wave of national or localized unemployment these deals by higher ups cause. Because in the same way that countries must sell themselves low in order to attract any of the few jobs, at all, workers’ ability to organize against the conditions they’re in, or even find a better job, is compromised by the massive amount of jobless workers they have to work against and the law not being on their side. Workers are thrown into a position where the employers have all the power over them, and the employers sure make the worst use of it. First-world governments would have you believe that workers in the third world receive a low wage because their work isn't worth very much. But factory workers utilizing new technologies are, in many cases, paid less than farmers using older technologies Shouldn't the efficiency gains in production trickle down to the workers? How does it make sense to ask workers to learn new skills in order to manipulate new technologies and then pay them less than you would if they hadn't made the effort of attending job trainings and moving house to obtain factory jobs? Furthermore, in some maquilas, workers' economic output per capita is tens or hundreds of times higher than the wage they're paid--that is to say, they generate 100 times more money for the corporation they work for than they receive as a wage. Talk about exploitation. Talk about a rip off. Tired of humanity being fucked with by big businesses? Fight back. Workers aren't earning so little because corporations can't afford to pay them--they earn poverty-level incomes because corporations as a group have chosen not to pay them. If workers in the third world had more negotiating clout with their employers (which is to say, they had governments willing to fight on their side), they might be able to demand a higher wage. But the governments of the richest countries have shown themselves to not be working on our side. They’ve made their bed. Now is not the time to let them sleep in it. Come to G20 with me and others across the nation and let’s shake things up.

Hi. Yeah.

Yeah. Oh, I'm in Pittsburgh trying to shut down the

globally exploitative neoliberal system. Where are you?

COME TO PITTSBURGH G20 SEPT 22-25TH

Contact Brandeis’ G20 resistance at brandeisVSg20@gmail.com for info about the brandeis contingent or head out on your own/with your own group. The cheapest way to get there is either car pooling / bus (which

might be booked). keep your eyes peeled in the coming days. Check out resistg20.org and otherwise arm yourself with information

E V E N R E V O L U T I O N A R I E S G O T T O E A T Whi le some may decry the idea of personal choices earning the label of pol i t ical acts, terming i t l i fe-styl ist, the choices that we make in l i fe are inherent ly pol i t ical as they affect states of the wor ld. For example, even i f you eat a diet wi th ingredients sources f rom at most one hundred mi les away, you st i l l emi t more greenhouse gasses than i f you eat vegan once a week.

Vegan Veganism descr ibes the phi losophy of those who have chosen to eschew as many animal products and animal-exploi tat ive pract ices f rom thei r l i fe as possible. Thus they exclude: dai ry, f ish, eggs, vivisect ion (animal test ing), honey, leather, hunt ing, wool, and fur. Why? Because there is no qual i ty that separates humans f rom nonhuman animals that is a wor thy basis for moral decision making, and you wouldn’t simi lar ly exploi t your neighbor just because they’re less intel l igent than you. Because of factory farms. Because indust r ial animal agr icul ture as a sector cont r ibutes 34 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, and is otherwise dest roying the planet through dest ruct ion of ecosystems. Because a plant based diet has been shown to be heal thier than the Standard Amer ican Diet. However, this does not mean that al l vegans love PETA or agree on al l of the par t iculars.

Post­Veg This author can f ind no respect for the “post-vegetar ian” as an ideologue. Cer tainly there are many val id cr i t icisms of vegs, par t icular ly wi th regard to considerat ions of non-indust r ial and local agr icul ture. However, the idea that as we must ki l l to survive, we may as wel l ki l l animals is r idiculous. Whi le we may never know the sent ience of plants, i f we raise animals to eat, we par take in thei r ki l l ing of plants. If we take this ethic ser iously, we might as wel l ki l l your parents for ‘f ree’-range human(e) meat !

Fregan Freeganism takes many of the considerat ions of veganism, whi le also adding a cr i t ical analysis of par t icipat ing in a capi tal ist system. If you consume products that were otherwise going to end up in a landf i l l , you do not cont r ibute to thei r product ion. Common pract ices: dumpster diving, shopl i f t ing, and f inding f ree food. In a suburban area such as Wal tham, the supermarkets and restaurants throw away otherwise heal thy food because a sel l -by date has passed or people won’t buy i t because there’s a more appeal ing copy r ight next to i t. Despi te l iving in a wor ld where many go hungry (even on Amer ican st reets), the pract ice dest roying surplus edible food also keeps pr ices high. Unfor tunately, because you can create consumers out of an act ive dumpster ing populat ion i f you take away the dumpsters, some businesses poison thei r t rash. If you dumpster, know which businesses use poison, watch out for smel ly food, and general ly avoid animal products (as they spoi l faster than veggies). Fun Fact : In Br i ton, dumpster ing is known as skipping. However, some are f reegan wi thout dumpster ing: be sneaky.

Fruitarian Responding to the cr i t icisms of veggies, f rui tar ians subsist by at tempt ing to eat as few things that need to die for thei r plate, including plants. Frui ts, considered as nuts, grains, f rui ts, f leshy veggies, and legumes: general ly any par t that may be removed f rom the plant wi thout ki l l ing the whole are fai r game. Some may not eat the seeds, prefer r ing to plant them.

Steal this recipe Al r ight class, this recipe is vegan. Good cookies get a C. Freegan cookies get a B. Freegan cookies that you share wi th everyone else get an A. Figure i t out. two cups f lour mix f lour, baking powder, sal t, two tsps baking powder and chips in a bowl one hal f tsp sal t in another bowl, mix the rest cinnamon to taste! br ing i t al l together vegan chocolate chips make bal ls, place on cookie sheet one cup brown sugar bake for nine mins at three f i f ty one hal f cup oi l one teaspoon vani l la one quar ter cup water

GEN'L ADVICE – The social scene by Debord and Weber and Shruggin’ Shaun Competition My first year here, people were so competitive. Everyone was trying to make the best friends, go to the best parties (though no one knew what the best parties were), do the coolest things (but everyone disagrees what that is). In a small college, it's easy to maintain the illusion that there really is a game going on, with winners and losers. There's too many students here with too many interests; social hierarchies don't really work. If someone tries to establish that they're too cool for you, you can always just walk away and hang out with someone else. Your time is better spent just going for your interests or whatever catches your eye rather than trying to win some imaginary game. What was it that glossy magazine adbusters says about individualism? “Rethink the cool”? friends During your freshman year, you'll make a lot of sorta-friends with people you might not normally expect, just to bring some stability to your life. This is natural and fine. A lot of people with whom you feel you have nothing in common grow to be really close friends as college goes on. Some you'll invariably drift away from. Make the best of it by keeping an open mind, learning a lot, and involving people who look bored of sitting around in their dorm. Making friends a couple different ways helps you out. Do more than just hang out with the people on your hall, or the people in your chem class. Take initiative and branch out in several directions. Learn to say hi to strangers, make groups on your own. It'll expand your horizons, it'll give you options, it will give you more flexibility in your personal life, and if you get too caught up with drama with one group of friends, you can back off for a while without being totally isolated. On relationships... Quality time is a wonderful thing that you have all of adulthood for. Now is your only chance to be a college student and to try all the things that are much easier to try during college (sports, music, crazy adventures). Friends, studies and activities are all nice things, and if you get all caught up in a relationship, it's easy to lose touch with those things.

Long- distance relationships The general water cooler talk you've heard is that 80 or 90% of the long-distance high school relationships eventually fell apart (often without anyone 'new' on the side) – many times the person involved felt they really had something going and were really trying to make it work. Well, it's true. Why does this happen? I've heard this explanation “a LDR carries all the rules and responsibilities of a relationship but only 10% of the fun.” No physicality, no eating dinner together, no getting to look into their eyes, doing work together, playing with their hair. But that's the best parts. This is not to brush dust on the earnestness of your affection for your long-distance S.O. Or say your relationship can't work – I know maybe one or two people who are still in a relationship from High School. But consider being open to other relationships, especially during these turbulent years… change is a positive and natural thing, not an admittance of failure. drugs! If you do them or don’t do them, respect and take care of yourself, know your shit, don’t get in over your head, and keep a loving eye on the people around you. If you do hallucinogens, you’ll likely have a shitty trip if you do them when: you’re feeling depressed, just because you can, to prove you can, or are in uncomfortable settings. Recognize that $ and obligations can turn friendships sour, which is stupid. Would drugs be as popular in a consumer society if you didn’t have to pay for ‘em? Find out. For a good resource in general on drugs, check out http://www.erowid.org/

E N V I RONMENTAL I STS : S t e p u p t h e g am e !

By Sandia

Just a couple things to think about…

RECYCLING.

Recycling's a bit of a scam, ain't it? Cause like, it seems like we've forgotten about those other two 'R's, reduce and re­use, right? You need all three. For example, you can recycle a coke bottle, but you're still left with the problem that coke makes so many coke bottles. They're always going to make many more cans than they sell, and unless you get 100% of people recycling, make more than can will recycled (even if all the cans get sold!). Because they're making so many many coke bottles, they're still going to make millions of pounds of new petroleum­based plastics. And the production process of billions of coke bottles, even if all of them are from recycled material, is still hugely destructive. That bottle's got to be shipped to the recycling plant, melted down, shipped to a manufacturing plant, re­manufactured into a product, and shipped back to the consumer's area. Gas, coal­based electricity, by­products, pollutants. Trying to get a handle on processing our garbage is nice, but I think all the nice processes in the world can't keep up with the river of garbage we're making. We don't need to be taking in and disposing of so much *stuff* all the time. Why is the only 'R' we remember recycling? Because the idea is super profitable to giant companies. Companies promote ‘green consumer behavior’ like crazy. Recycling makes us think we can buy as much as we want as often as we want without problems. We are told on every billboard, tv thirty­second spot, magazine ad­page, and all over the web the doubletalk that one saves the environment by buying more things. Often marketers don't even need to pay to convince us, environmentalist types will market the “green” products themselves, becoming more corporate cheerleader for the slightly­less­evil than someone who is really working towards understanding and changing the problems affecting our planet. Try not to fall into the trap of making so many “practical” compromises that you actually volunteer for the devil. Breaking the consumption cycle and figuring out how to get more out of things we already have short­circuits the over­production of tens of thousands of things we find ourselves better off without. Less need, less want, less brand­slave, more independence. DIY is where it’s at.

CONSCIOUS CONSUMERISM : It doesn’t work! Why? A. It's prohibitively expensive. Corporations can take advantage of economies of scale courtesy of their massive power. For example, to get a specialized product (organic food) from a specialized dealer (organic food processors) who works with specialized producers (farmland tenants and their employees) and only be able to sell that product to a specialized audience (people who will pay extra for organic food, as because of the other specializations, they can't afford to sell it to people who won't) will cost a lot more money per item sold than selling a food which is produced in mass (GMO corn) to be sold to the masses from any of several huge dealers who work with or are gigantic producers of the same good. B. Guess who controls the farms, food processors, and grocery stores: not you! Even if you're putting a bunch of that old­fashioned consumer pressure on stores, it's really up to them to change. Who owns the farmland, the trucks, the stores, the processing plants? As long as they have the cost advantage (see #A) Cargill has a guaranteed revenue stream and can simply choose to not sell organic and simultaneously keep the prices of organic high. That's consolidation and anti­competitive trusts for ya. C. Conscious consumerism is not concerted enough Back when boycotts worked, they worked because they were concerted, visible efforts, which got lots of people involved at the same time around a single issue.

Conscious consumerism is the opposite. It's a bunch of people vaguely and uncoordinatedly making haphazard, spur­of­the­moment and pseudo­logical decisions about what and what not should be bought when. Power in numbers is not exercised effectively Even if a store­owner wanted to please his conscious customers, (that is, assuming we're talking about a store where the owner has a level of control over the merchandise, which these days is probably not the majority), he would have no idea where to begin. A drop in sales might mean any number of things. People may have stopped liking the product, may object to animal experimentation, they might object to the worker practices, and so on. They can't tell whether the environmentalists will come back tomorrow and buy that soap after all. You may think you're influencing them through your purchasing decision, but they don't really have any numbers on what might be best to carry – they have to work with guesses (the only reliable difference is that you are providing funding to a different company). For conscious consumerism to be powerful, it requires more clarity, coordination, and communication than that. D. Nobody knows what's cool anymore

Rules are usually a bad thing, but there are some places that they can be undoubtedly good: health codes, pollution laws. Toxic waste restrictions… While there should definitely be more leniencies for small businesses, etc., there shouldn't be any mercy for corporate giants. There are some places that they can be undeniably good: health codes, pollution laws, toxic waste restrictions… whether the rules are enforced by direct community action, or by a govt that may or may not work for the people. A lot of environmentalists seem to love the government, seeing it as the only counterweight to corporate power – as if you can only choose between distant unaccountable masters. May we remember that we can shut down coal plants as a community in many ways if we decide that that is what we want to do. In either case we should have rules in place and they should be good and change­able rules. Free enterprise types will argue “oh, why have rules: if there's a problem, the free market and capitalism will solve it. If people don't want BGH in their milk, they just won't buy it. Why regulate? Why make choices for them?” There are times where the choice to be made is relatively obvious, but that the choice requires information which most consumers cannot easily get. They already find themselves without the ability to make the decisions they might like to make. The free market can't work as it should here; this is where rules have to step in. If toxicologists and other chemists calculate a healthy standard for pesticide limits, why not use it? Or when a bunch of scientists are publishing papers showing that the artificial hormone a company is injecting into their cows stays in that cow's milk, and the milk then greatly increases the rate of human cancer, and that earlier government and industry studies had purposely covered up that important data, perhaps it would be more appropriate to have an FDA that wasn't chilling with Monsanto. Times like that, government regulation are appropriate. Honestly, if some consumers really wanted cancer­milk, maybe it should be legal to operate a small­time cancer­milk farm, just like it's legal to use small amounts of drugs in many countries. But if we take it as a given that most people don't like getting cancer, why should it be legal to sell cancer­milk to people without telling them it'll give them cancer, or without providing an affordable alternative? Another problem with the Austrian school folk: it's not just a consumer decision at the counter, because you don't get the full story at the counter about a product’s environmental record. Perfect theoretical capitalism and the free market depend on the open flow of information and peoples' ability to make informed choices about what they're buying. A lot of people don't have the time or capacity to find the information and adhere to all its sticking points: this is exactly why regulation is necessary. If I’m working a ten hour day, with a bad job, I won’t always have money to pay for the right products (see letter A) or live in the proximity to a store that sells them. Beyond that it's a pain in the ass for me to keep track of all the things it's okay or not okay to buy this week and why. To do it right requires several hours of unpaid work each week searching about which farming company has been the most evil recently and researching the conduct of every other corporation you buy from. Do you want to have to do that all the time? For each and every of the hundreds of companies you buy products from? Which one has a record of sexual harassment, which one has the longest list of workers rights abuses, which one uses the most deadly chemical byproducts in its industry. Why should I have to learn every detail about farm processing and which is a healthy thing to use on corn and which is not? I just want to eat my corn, right? How can you each and every person be expected to keep track of all this stuff? It's not just a pain in the ass, it's impossible. Again, here's a situation where I would consider conscious consumerism not only unnecessary, but insulting and inappropriate. There should be better laws against putting poisons in our air, water, food, and household goods, we shouldn't have to have every American jump backwards through a hoop before the companies and the rich kids that run them agree to do something for us.

LIFESTYLE ACTIVISM

And that’s really my biggest complaint. My real problem is that in today's environmentalist movement, the solution is to go up to consumers and hold them accountable for industry failure: demanding that individual people change, often at that person's great individual expense.

Today's environmentalist groups are overly dependent on this “lifestyle activism” – making individual, personal sacrifices for one's cause: using less water, growing one’s own food, printing zines on expensive recycled paper, not using a car, only buying organic food. Some problems have always manifested when depending on this strategy. First, lifestyle activism often begins in a position of naïveté as to whether this inconvenience is practicable by the majority of people within our society as it is. Not only that, the impact in the light of larger structural environmental destruction is questionable – often with things like the environmental movement, it serves as little more than a “fashion statement” of how committed you think you are. There are times when lifestyle activism has valid justifications that don’t involve delusions about its effectiveness. A. We can’t expect these giant companies and organizations to change if we aren’t also willing to make sacrifices first – it makes us look naïve when we can't even bring ourselves to abstain in the product of a system we denounce? B. Well, I do it because to me it represents a commitment on my part towards working towards (fixing this problem) so every time I (eat vegan/buy organic/bike to work) it reminds me that I need to do what I can to make the earth a livable place. Both are a step down from “this will save the world.” It won't. Lifestyle activism won't. Especially because it's so often bogged down with all this other baggage, including the privilege of the people who can have the time and money to learn about and participate in it. Like, a whole culture of superiority over and disdain for the mainstream develops around it which twists and turns the vocabulary and ideas until it seems like you'd only want to get involved if you wanted to live exactly like that. You need to go to people where they are; you need to shape your goals and criticisms in a way they can understand and connect to, but that's hard to do when you're expecting that to get involved they have to take on all these new jargon words and cultural things (like “GMO” “crop density” “precautionary principal” “terminator seeds” “native plants” or “bourgeois” “lumpen” “alienation” “surplus value” ­ communists do the same thing, is what I'm getting at). I guess when it comes down to it, I'm really just tired of a bunch of idiots demanding that EVERY SINGLE INDIVIDUAL must be less wasteful before we force a corporation to be less wasteful. Where do they get this attitude that corporate interests constitute some special thing inviolate of criticism? You know what's destroying our planet? Not the tupperware I bought to wrap my lunch in. ExxonMobil is destroying our fucking planet. If my tupperware is a grain of sand in the eye of mother earth, ExxonMobil isn't just throwing the sand, he's also running at her with a friggin' hatchet with plans to tear her purse from her cold dead body. The real problem always comes down to that, as a society, the majority of us have little to no influence over the means of production. We are not allowed to decide that from now on all farms are going to be organic, or that there will be no more of this 'dumping poisons into waterways' bullshit, or that these old growth trees will not be cut down, because we do not have the legal say in those things. Those decisions are controlled by profit thieves and criminals: factory bosses, corporate­types and property owners. Our masters, if you will. Up until now, many have stayed complacent in the cultural belief that those who have been so irresponsible with our resources deserve continued monolithic control. If we can point out who has been slaughtering the planet, why just stand there in horror? Why resign to changing our light­bulbs as some expression of futility?

A Brandeis Drug FAQ by Alexis de Toquesville

What’s available? Brandeis fits into a very snug section of the drug-use-on-campus continuum. The neo-hippies and semi-beatniks are just wealthy enough to smoke weed on a regular basis, yet not wealthy enough to need the existential thrill rides that Harvard students get from cocaine, heroin, and crack. About the strongest drugs you’ll encounter at Brandeis are magic mushrooms and possibly LSD, but most of your time will be spent with pot. How much is it? My experience with Brandeis has been that the going rate is about $60 per 1/8th ounce for weed, and about the same for mushrooms. Occasionally, dealers have been known to sell pot brownies for about $5-10 each. Where should I smoke? Smoking indoors is generally discouraged; besides being illegal, it’s a fire hazard and a nuisance to one’s neighbors. To smoke inside, you’ll need to ensure that the fire alarm won’t go off – although tying a plastic bag around it is effective, doing so is illegal and should be removed immediately. Another possibility is to use a ‘spoof’, a cardboard paper towel roll stuffed with dryer sheets. Presumably, if you exhale into one of these, the smoke is dissipated and rendered less noxious, although a more common result is a room with a weird pot-laundry aroma. Where can I smoke outside? Ah, a much better question! There are in fact a number of relatively secluded spots around the Brandeis campus that are ideal for undercover drug use: • The North woods are right next to the North Quad parking lot. What makes this useful is the big slope downwards from the parking lot, rendering you invisible to passing security, and the distance from the houses on South St., which are mostly full of Brandeis students getting high anyway. • If you can get into it, the Pirate Lounge is the little shed between East, the Castle, and North Quad. So long as you’re fairly quiet, and aren’t seen going in, you’re assured a rustic setting for your smoking den. • Between the science buildings on one side, and Brown/Pearlman on the other, there is a long no-man’s land of rocks and trees. Besides being very fun to climb on, this area offers some very good views of Boston at night – but be careful not to go up there after it rains! • The unique design of the Chapels, besides highlighting Brandeis’ commitment to tolerance etc. etc., offers several nooks and crannies that are great to light up in. • Sachar Woods is obviously a great place to go, but if you’re not used to it the area can be forbidding, especially at night. The two best ways to get there are 1) on the Loop Road between the Chapels and Massell Quad, there’s a blue light next to an opening in the fence. Take a left through there, go through the playground, and walk into the woods. 2) At the front of the International Business School, there’s a series of stairs which will take you onto the roof. Take a left, and you can walk right into the woods. • And, if you’re really daring, you can go to the garden behind Jehuda’s office in Irving and smoke there at night. What do I do if I get caught? Among other things, be calm, courteous, and don’t run away. Unless they specifically ask you for your stuff, don’t give it up – it’s possible they may not have seen it! While BranPo are not the regular police, some resources on dealing with police encounters are available at flexyourrights.org. Who can I buy from? Sorry, pal – with that you’re on your own.

GEN'L ADVICE 2 - College life by Emma G. grades While we’d hope that our grades were actually representative of our grasp of the material, we must recognize that they are the result of a variety of functions, or at the least useful as pedagogical necessities. Last year, a physics professor from Ottawa was fired after he gave everyone in his class a passing grade. It was not his job, as he explained later, to rank their skills for future employers, or train them to be “information transfer machines,” regurgitating facts on demand. Released from the pressure to ace the test, they would become “scientists, not automatons,” he reasoned. – from the Globe and Mail If you're in the sciences and trying to get into a good med or prestigious grad program, I can understand why grades are still a legit issue of concern. Outside of that, I wanna say, they're not: Most employers and grad schools ignore your grades. At Brandeis, you can fail a course or withdraw halfway through (the better option) and you'll be fine. In most cases, it's just a waste to stress about getting that A. Let it go, cause there is no one you need to impress. Not your parents, not anyone. It's your life. Feel free to do things you want to do or you feel are useful for you. “Dropping out” is ok! It's not you, it's campus parties Big campus parties aren't representative of college parties as a whole – there are many different types. As a rule, the official giant Brandeis-approved parties like Pachanga or the trisk halloween dance are loud all over and dark all over. You can't see or hear each other that well and are surrounded by people and standing or dancing the entire time. There's nowhere to talk or chill or take a break which isn't a big pain to get to. This doesn't make them bad, this just makes them good for some things, and not others. People usually go to these kinds of parties to hang out and dance with people they already know, and not to meet new people. Consider them as social performances or spectacles where people often go to prove their command over the lexicon of cool, to be seen, and pass through rituals of age. Procrastination Seriously, it’s ok to procrastinate. Just, stop complaining about it. Consider ‘unwanted’ procrastination as a reactive indicator of the amount of stupid shit that our society ‘forces’ us to do. Did we evolve to spend our days huddled over a bright light and typing, sitting and listening in class, and otherwise not enjoying ourselves? Also, instead of procrastinating over the internet, do actually fun and meaningful things and refer to the sections on grades and competition. Brawkward... During my freshmen year, I heard everyone complain about how awkward Brandeis was. I heard this from like every direction. The speaker was clearly the only normal one while everyone else was awkward. Establishing social hierarchies and dominance? You bet! People often come here from very different and disagreeing social backgrounds and when you jam them together, you get a lot of learning and interesting results but also a lot of under-the-water tension, confusion, and conflict. So it can be awkward. But college is what you make of it. If you want to sit in your room and listen to techno and study all day, I guess you'll spend college sitting in your room and listening to techno and studying unless someone drags you out of it. If you want to spend your time with mary jane on the roof talking about existentialism, that's what it'll be spent doing. If you want to spend your time playing video games, or drinking and chilling with your frat brothers, running a show on the radio station, or over-stretching yourself on a zillion new things, that's what you'll do with it. I once heard someone say “There aren't any good parties here? Then make the good parties!” and I think that's true: college is what you make out of it.

T h e R a d i c a l P o s s i b i l i t i e s o f t h e U n i v e r s i t y

In the United States, college is known more as a playground on which students play-act their revolutionary fantasies than as a staging-ground for truly revolutionary gestures. Yet in other countries—France, Algeria, Cuba—students have been at the vanguard of revolutions. Why this colossal difference?

One of the explanations has to do with the socioeconomic mix of people that the American university system engenders. Unlike its state-funded counterparts, the American university system is, in its idealized Harvard- or Princeton-esque form, the province of polo-clad scions of the privileged classes rather than an incubator for the talents of the most marginal members of the nation.

But even within an environment where class privilege is such a given that students indulge in ignorance and binge drinking and then obtain high-paying jobs with i-banking and consulting firms, the structural features of the university system provide possibilities for radicalism. For starters, the university is the closest most of us will ever get to communal living: shared meals and bathrooms, shared outdoor spaces, and public spaces over which we have at least limited ownership. What can we do to radicalize our shared space?

! Universities are supposed to be about the “life of the mind”: while we’re enrolled in college, the

theory goes, our basic needs are taken care of by others so that we can dedicate ourselves to intellectual pursuits, learning from each other and from our professors. So why, in the modern university, do we confine teaching and learning to classroom buildings and devote only a small portion of our waking hours each week to these activities? Be honest—how much do you actually learn outside of scheduled class time? For that matter, how much do you actually learn in your classes? For this to change, we need to recognize students as teachers and teachers as students. Teach in your classes, teach or attend a Communiversity course, teach on the Great Lawn. Teach skills, teach a language, “teach” philosophy or poetry.

! Universities aren’t only universities—they’re also part of the university-industrial complex that takes research funding from the Department of Defense, conducts research to make both weapons and genetically modified organisms more potent, invests its earnings in companies that practice corporate terror both in the U.S. and abroad, and funnels its best students toward uncreative and unfulfilling jobs in the private and public sectors. This means that: 1) if you feel like you just have to protests something, there are myriad options only a short walk away! 2) You can make change, or at least stir up some publicity in favor of change, by targeting a participant in oppression over whom you have direct influence and the subjectivity to demand change. As a paying student who participates in the daily life of and creation of the university community, you should be able to exercise a right to full participation. Right now, students aren’t afforded this right. But that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be.

! There’s a proletariat here, and it isn’t the students. Changing class relations begins with changing the way you relate to others. Don’t just treat the custodial, gardening, and dining staff respectfully. Befriend them, learn from them, teach them what you know, and support them in their campaigns for justice.

! Brandeis University has two student newspapers, a TV station, a radio station, and about 10 million journals/lit magazines/reviews. Finally, a chance to control the media and its message!

! There are about 4,000 students at Brandeis. Find a way to mobilize them: to buy organic food, oppose budgets cuts, or canvas for a political candidate.

! Some of the older folk that teach or work at Brandeis did some pretty radical things Back in The Day. Talk to them. You might learn something, and they might want to become involved in your own radical activities.

! There’s a lot of money floating around at any university—you just need to convince someone to give it to you. Use the Community Engaged Learning program as an opportunity to funnel some money and manpower to Waltham-area struggles for justice and as a way to bring somewhat-unwilling classmates along for the ride. Use money available to student groups to bring radical films and speakers to campus. Use internship and research grants to fund individual forays into above- and under-ground pathways to change.

! Direct your own education! Choose classes that teach you sills for life and revolution. Within these classes, don’t just follow the syllabus. Every discussion, reading, and assignment should be a chance to deepen and expand your thinking and to further explore your own ideas.

! Consciously create community. Make sure the community you’re participating in matches the ideal of the community you want to be participating in. Every day, push it closer toward that ideal.

Surviving the Dining Hall Experience

! Get whichever meal plan maxes out your points. $10 in points? Pathetic. That won’t even cover the number of times you go over the per‐meal dollar allotment (does anyone know what these amounts are?). Plus, after 2 weeks of pizza, Asian chicken wraps, and suspicious sushi, you’ll be craving frozen Amy’s meals from the POD store.

! Make friends with seniors. If they have kitchens, that’s good, obviously. But even if they don’t, they can make you alcoholic milkshakes for dinner whenever you want.

! Use the communal cooking spaces on campus. If you’re sketched out by the shared pots and spoiled milk in the Polaris kitchen, make the investment of $15 and buy your own cooking utensils. You can buy them at Hannaford’s, which you can get to with the Bran van. If there’s a group of people watching Gray’s Anatomy in Polaris, you can cook in the Castle or Village.

! Join a cooking co‐op (the Veg*ns may be starting one this year), or start one with friends. Even if you don’t eat co‐op style every day, it’s a nice once‐weekly change from the dining halls.

! Join a club that likes to cook or provide people with free food. ! Get free food whenever it’s offered (there used to be a directory of

free food. Anyone remember it?) ! If all else fails, eat out.

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We Are Fucking Doomed OR

Sustainable Capitalism? Who the fuck would want to sustain capitalism?

OR The Audacity of Hopelessness

Our so-cal led green consciousness doesn’t do shi t to get to the root of protect ing the planet in any meaningful way. Can we be consumers in a capi tal ist society and somehow leave a l ivable planet to our offspring? No mat ter how much Tom Fr iedman (‘75) may praise market solut ions to ecological catastrophes in wai t ing, capi tal ism is inherent ly unsustainable. Honest ly, even if we somehow make a carbon neutral economy, we wi l l st i l l be ki l l ing the planet on a massive scale and most of the world’s populat ion wi l l be relegated to a l i fe of wage slavery. The wor ld’s f isheries wi l l st i l l be over exploi ted. Our rural areas wi l l cont inue to be eviscerated for their resources, fur ther poisoning the landscape. Species ext inct ion wi l l cont inue to be a fact of l i fe, so too wi th ecocide, patr iarchy, homophobia, racism , etc. unt i l every last acre is a feed lot , shopping mal l , or highway; every proletar iat earns one mi l l ionth the income of the every exec; every free animal is a slowly dying escapee of a factory farm; and assimi lat ion into straight whi te l iberal middle-class society wi l l be complete. Or , maybe i t won’t happen l ike that . Maybe we’l l f ind a series of technological f ixes to al low for an atomized society such as ours to cont inue indef ini tely, wi th the al ienat ion and isolat ion overcome through retreat into the l imi ted real i t ies of fami ly, video games, sex, the internet , ‘ar t , subcul tural mi l ieu, i rrelevant intel lectual ism, drugs, minor reformism, myst icism, and patr iot ism . Wi th such distract ions, who the fuck needs actual freedom, radical equal i ty, respect , or wi ld spaces? Or , perhaps we don’t honest ly face an existent ial threat . If the work of the compassionate is t r iage, and we’re concerned wi th the l imi ts by which we wi l l cal l our planet unconsciousness and dead, perhaps that which we consider the moment of death for our planet wi l l pass. Unnot iced. And those that take up the struggle af ter us wi l l place i t yet later . Dr ink up. We wi l l never wake, even as the end of the world passes overhead. Consider ing ourselves to be at odds wi th those that are destroying the planet and our communi t ies, to date we have won few victor ies. At our best , we may have only stopped the bleeding for moments at a t ime, staying the blade just another minute. So you say we need a revolut ion? Do you honest ly think that we wi l l be able to pul l ourselves out of the mess that we’re in? Looking around us, are the condi t ions at al l r ipe for any revol t? Perhaps i t ’s best that we simply Drop out . But , we know that we could never go that way. We’d st i l l be persecuted, our fr iends would st i l l be inmates, and the dominant cul ture would push out any wi ld space we exploi t . We may ki l l some of them , but they shal l destroy al l of us. Essent ial ly, we are doomed. Take this understanding to hear t and may the feel ing i t gives you, chi l l you to the core.