SLS Project is an info space for courses taught in the Anthropology Dept. at Washington U. in St Louis (Prof. Bret Gustafson). Confronting St. Louis and MO politics has made me a bit outspoken. Opinions are my own, not the university, not the students, not the department. On St. Louis: @slsproject On energy politics: @energy_politics
ABOUT OUR PROJECT
Friday, February 27, 2015
UNITE HERE Considers Itself Progressive. So Why Is the Union Standing with Rahm Emanuel? - Working In These Times
UNITE HERE Considers Itself Progressive. So Why Is the Union Standing with Rahm Emanuel? - Working In These Times
Thursday, February 26, 2015
Tuesday, February 24, 2015
The Making of Ferguson: Public Policies at the Root of its Troubles | Economic Policy Institute
Best synthesis of St. Louis' history of segregation, capital flight, and the root causes of racial inequality.
Saturday, February 21, 2015
Tomgram: Engelhardt, Walking Back the American Twenty-First Century? | TomDispatch
Tomgram: Engelhardt, Walking Back the American Twenty-First Century? | TomDispatch
Machine Guns, MRAPs, Surveillance, Drones, Permanent War, and a Permanent Election Campaign
By Tom Engelhardt
BlackHomesMatter: Screening of "The Hill" -- about eminent domain abuse, gentrification, etc. Tomorrow 2-5 PM at 14th St Community Gallery
Pussy Riot: I Can't Breathe
"Published on Feb 18, 2015 Pussy Riot's first song in English is dedicated to Eric Garner and the words he repeated eleven times before his death. This song is for Eric and for all those from Russia to America and around the globe who suffer from state terror - killed, choked, perished because of war and state sponsored violence of all kinds - for political prisoners and those on the streets fighting for change. We stand in solidarity."
Thursday, February 19, 2015
School District Transformation Meeting, today and Saturday
Wednesday, February 18, 2015
What Movements Achieve and Generate, Even after the media goes home: ‘We Must Love Each Other:’ Lessons in Struggle and Justice from Chicago
Ferguson mayor reflects on impact of unrest — and the future of his city
Belmar confirms St. Louis County police wanted National Guard in Ferguson after grand jury decision
Knowledge sharing: The Right to a Living Wage, the life of fast-food workers, and the ShowME15 movement in St. Louis
Honored to have visitors from @Show_Me15 in our class @wustl this morning. Will be tweeting knowledge shared.
— SLSProject (@slsproject) February 17, 2015
Learning about how $7.25 is a poverty wage at McDonald's (and everywhere). Can't afford to live on our own @Show_Me15
— Bret Gustafson (@bretgustafson) February 17, 2015
If you 'call off' because child is sick, they punish you. Hard workers, on time, every day, this happens, they get rid of you @Show_Me15
— SLSProject (@slsproject) February 17, 2015
To go from a union job to a fast food restaurant, it's terrible. No respect for workers. @Show_Me15
— SLSProject (@slsproject) February 17, 2015
If you want us to get off of government support, pay us a living wage. @Show_Me15
— SLSProject (@slsproject) February 17, 2015
Can't afford to raise on a family on minimum wage. We will win the fight in the end. @Show_Me15
— SLSProject (@slsproject) February 17, 2015
I started saying "somebody needs to form a union". Then we heard about 'Fight for 15'. Now we're in it until it's over @Show_Me15
— SLSProject (@slsproject) February 17, 2015
Twenty dollars only buys you a bag and a half of groceries. School supplies? Rent? Every check you get paid to pay out.
@Show_Me15
— SLSProject (@slsproject) February 17, 2015
Take your daughter to the movies? Can't afford the time or the money. Working every day for nothing @Show_Me15
— SLSProject (@slsproject) February 17, 2015
There is power in numbers. We couldn't talk before. Now it's in whispers. Getting louder and louder. @Show_Me15
— SLSProject (@slsproject) February 17, 2015
The company intimidates you, try to make you stray from the course. They don't want you to organize. No days off. @Show_Me15
— SLSProject (@slsproject) February 17, 2015
You have to stay focused. People will try to steer you off course. The thing is, it's 'big business.' @Show_Me15
— SLSProject (@slsproject) February 17, 2015
I've seen both faces at McDonald's: The smiling (Ronald) face. And the back-room evil face. @Show_Me15
— SLSProject (@slsproject) February 17, 2015
People need these jobs. Just want fairness. We are Robin Hood. Shake hands with the king, we are one with the peasants. @Show_Me15
— SLSProject (@slsproject) February 17, 2015
Do you know how much it costs to make a Big Mac? 25 cents. That means you're making $$$ hand over fist. @Show_Me15
— SLSProject (@slsproject) February 17, 2015
We're going to be there and we're going to come in numbers. We're going to shut you down. Quick. @Show_Me15
— SLSProject (@slsproject) February 17, 2015
Not fair. We give blood, sweat, and tears every day, they fire us if we need to take care of our kids. @Show_Me15
— SLSProject (@slsproject) February 17, 2015
This is a global movement of low-wage workers. @Show_Me15
— SLSProject (@slsproject) February 17, 2015
Wage theft. Racial discrimination. Sexual harassment. Wonderful way to run a company. No benefits. Poverty wage @Show_Me15
— SLSProject (@slsproject) February 17, 2015
When you come up to the drive-thru and you wonder why the person in the window has an attitude? That's why. @Show_Me15
— SLSProject (@slsproject) February 17, 2015
Treat people well, they work well. Disrespect people with poverty wages = no respect. Treat people how you want to be treated @Show_Me15
— SLSProject (@slsproject) February 17, 2015
In stores that are organized, managers know that they cannot mistreat workers. Moral economy at work? @Show_Me15
— SLSProject (@slsproject) February 17, 2015
Solidarity on April 15 counts. Students back up workers. Be brave, they are risking poverty wage jobs. What are you risking? @Show_Me15
— SLSProject (@slsproject) February 17, 2015
Can't talk about economic justice without talking about racial justice. @Show_Me15 #Ferguson
— SLSProject (@slsproject) February 17, 2015
Can't afford to do anything on this wage. Go in circles. Stuck in a rut. @Show_Me15
— SLSProject (@slsproject) February 17, 2015
Even if business owners are African American like us, they act like business people. They treat us like we are Third World. @Show_Me15
— SLSProject (@slsproject) February 17, 2015
The only way they'll change is if we form a union and stay knelt down with them. They are very sneaky. @Show_Me15
— SLSProject (@slsproject) February 17, 2015
It's pretty simple. The are cheap. They are penny pinching when they make all this money. It's not fair. @Show_Me15
— SLSProject (@slsproject) February 17, 2015
You need time off. A personal day to defunk yourself from the business. Take a personal day in this job? They'll fire you. @Show_Me15
— SLSProject (@slsproject) February 17, 2015
There's no middle-class any more. Just poor and rich. We just want a modest living. @Show_Me15
— SLSProject (@slsproject) February 17, 2015
They say why are you going to pay a union dues? So we know that somebody has our back. @Show_Me15
— SLSProject (@slsproject) February 17, 2015
Language of low-wage labor: Write you up. Don't call off. No personal days. Daily disciplinary routines. @Show_Me15
— SLSProject (@slsproject) February 17, 2015
They want to keep using you until you're all used up. @Show_Me15
— SLSProject (@slsproject) February 17, 2015
Look at the bigger picture. They are trying to hide things from you. @Show_Me15
— SLSProject (@slsproject) February 17, 2015
When @Show_Me15 first started off. They told us: Don't let them talk to the workers. Made a rule: employees couldn't sit in lobby on break.
— SLSProject (@slsproject) February 17, 2015
Like a dictatorship. No democracy. They wanted to dictate your break. They want to keep you in the dark. Until you organize. @Show_Me15
— SLSProject (@slsproject) February 17, 2015
This. @Show_Me15 pic.twitter.com/8db8dQZXyY
— SLSProject (@slsproject) February 17, 2015
They try to hide everything from you. Want to keep you in the stall, away from the public. Want to keep you away from the truth @Show_Me15
— SLSProject (@slsproject) February 17, 2015
This is not a game. Deep emotions in this struggle. Our families' lives on the line. On the side of what is right against greed @Show_Me15
— SLSProject (@slsproject) February 17, 2015
These workers are brave, risking everything for a chance at a better life. @Show_Me15
— SLSProject (@slsproject) February 17, 2015
Alum of @wustl testimony: Why I am involved? I see people fighting for poverty wage job. Why am I not doing anything? @Show_Me15
— SLSProject (@slsproject) February 17, 2015
We don't have a racial thing going on. We all want the same thing. @Show_Me15
— SLSProject (@slsproject) February 17, 2015
"I've seen racism. I chose not to spread the hate. I try to see where they are coming from. Once we do, we see we are the same"@Show_Me15
— SLSProject (@slsproject) February 17, 2015
Thursday, February 12, 2015
STL’s white refugee syndrome - St. Louis American: Jaco
Why Don’t Americans Know What Really Happened in Vietnam? | The Nation
The past folds into the present. War, structural racism, docile population?
Monday, February 9, 2015
How Radical Change Occurs: An Interview With Historian Eric Foner
“Rights can be won, and rights can be taken away. Achievements are always vulnerable.”
Thursday, February 5, 2015
Code Pink: sustained anti-war movement, takes actions to Congress, calls out Henry Kissinger: Will the Real ‘Low-Life Scum’ Please Stand Up?
Background, for those who don't remember:
KISSINGER AND CHILE: THE DECLASSIFIED RECORD From: National Security Archive
Kissinger pressed Nixon to overthrow the democratically elected Allende government because his "'model' effect can be insidious," documents show
On 40th anniversary of coup, Archive posts top ten documents on Kissinger's role in undermining democracy, supporting military dictatorship in Chile
Kissinger overruled aides on military regime's human rights atrocities; told Pinochet in 1976: "We want to help, not undermine you. You did a great service to the West in overthrowing Allende."
National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 437
Posted – September 11, 2013
Edited by Peter Kornbluh
Tuesday, February 3, 2015
Anthropology needs a movement against itself: the problem of the discipline as a "white public space"
Part I: http://savageminds.org/2014/11/15/anthropology-still-white-public-space-brodkin/
Part II: http://savageminds.org/2014/12/04/anthropology-its-still-white-public-space-an-interview-with-karen-brodkin-part-ii/
See also: Brodkin, Karen; Sandra Morgen, and Janis Hutchison. 2011. Anthropology as White Public Space? American Anthropologist 113(4):545-556.
Advocacy Group Proposes Municipal Court Reforms. How Do They Compare?
"These are not courts as we know them," said MORE's executive director Jeff Ordower. "These are predatory collection agencies on the backs of people of color, and on the backs of the poorest people in the county. And that is why we need to transform and abolish the racist municipal court system in St. Louis County."
Thinking about the political status of the "riot"
Hobsbawm, Eric. 2011. Review of Rudé, The Crowd in History
Lessons from Oakland: racism, acquittals, non-profits, absorption
George Cicciarello-Maher. 2010. Chronicle of a Riot Foretold » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names
Thompson, EP. 1971. The Moral Economy of the English Crowd
Monday, February 2, 2015
Howard Dean Targets Rahm Emanuel
On the conservative democrats allied with big corporations to transform American cities. Relevant to St. Louis.