Author: Sahar

It’s not too late to go as a delegate: http://www.massdems.org/index2.cfm

And of course you can show up as a non-delegate and still participate in sub-committees and so forth, I hear.

Some people working for Student Events just stopped by North Quad and gave away tons of free pizza, making very sure to mention that they were “Student Events, Students working for fellow students!” They say they’ve been to many other quads as well tonight.

Is this a conscious PR pushback against the F-Board/Student Events funding controversy? I don’t know.

Did I score some free pizza out of the deal? Yes.

In a recent op-ed in the Justice, disgraced former Student Union Secretary Mike Goldman endorsed Senator McCain, saying:

McCain represents the broad middle of the nation. Despite the skepticism of most, including this writer, the Iraq “surge” he committed to has put the United States on the course toward victory

Oh really? So the broad middle of the country wants 100 more years of Iraq war, and thirsts to attack Iran? Remember, McCain is a “critic” of the Bush Administration’s war policy. It’s not bloodthirsty enough.

As for “the surge”. As I remember, it was supposed to secure a temporary space for the Iraqi parliament to pass the legislation and make the political movement it needed. Well, that isn’t happening. And seeing as how the whole point of adding 30,000 troops to Iraq was to achieve those political goals, I have to declare the surge a failure. Especially since we’re destroying the army by overworking our troops to the brink of destruction.

Anecdotal reports say that the BranVan, which shuttled students into Waltham to the polling locations, was overwhelmed by the rush to vote. I know I had to wait an hour and a half before any BranVan would take me to vote.

Alex and I voted together. At the polling location (the Banks school), there was a long line stretching out to the parking lot. My vote went fine: Alex had to get a provisional ballot (though our political friends assure us he’s in their voter databases). We voted by the end of the day: my ballot was number 1000ish. Is this high for Ward 7, Precinct 1?

The coolest part about voting was that my first vote was cast for myself. I got a few fun phone calls from friends confused to see me on the ballot as a member of the Waltham City Democratic Committee.

Voting used Optical Scan ballots. Those are much better than Diebold DREs. Good. Just like tests in grade school.

I made sure to thank the poll workers for volunteering. I also got a spiffy sample ballot (did I mention with my name on it?) commemorating the occasion.

All in all, a fun experience, and it would have been much faster if Alex didn’t need a provisional ballot.

How was your voting experience?

The results of the 2008 presidential primary:

(h/t FutureMajority)
Keep up the good work, everyone.

Today is Super Tuesday. Go out and vote in the Primary.

Remember, you CANNOT vote in Gosman. You have to vote at the Banks School. The BranVan can take you there, starting at 4pm.

Remember, Independent/Undeclared voters can choose to vote in either (but not both) party’s primary.

The Brandeis Democrats have a short guide to voting up.

Tomorrow, we get to vote. My first primary. I’m excited.

But you know what’s even more fun that voting? Voting with your friends.
Why not making voting a social affair?

Therefore, Innermost Parts is pleased to announce Primary08, a voting party. Sign up on facebook!

The Massachusetts primary will be much closer than previously thought. Every vote will count.

We will all meet in Usdan. At 5pm, we march to Gosman, get the BranVan and vote in the primaries.

And then…we’ll see what happens from there.

No matter who you vote for, what matters is that you voted. The Youth Vote will matter. And next election, we’ll like the candidates more because they’ll finally be courting, rather than dismissing us.

5pm.
Usdan, then Gosman. the Banks School
Vote!

Update: Unlike every election before this one, we won’t vote at Gosman this year. Instead, we have to vote at the Banks School.

I get email:

The polling location for students registered at Brandeis is the Banks
School at the Corner of Russell and South Streets, it’s right across the
street from Walgreens. The BranVan will be able to give people rides
there starting at 4pm and the polls close at 8pm.

This looks bad. Why did the polling location switch so suddenly? Now it’s significantly harder for us college students to vote…

I just got off the phone with a friend waiting in line at the Kennedy/Kerry/Deval/Obama rally tonight. While the Brandeis delegation waits in line for until 8pm, they’re phonebanking using their cell phones and voter lists the Obama campaign printed out. Smart! They did in the South Carolina Oprah event too.

In case you missed it, there will be a huge rally tonight at 8pm in the world trade center. (Not the one that burned down, apparently there’s a building called “the world trade center” in Boston as well.)  It will feature the big 3 of Massachussetts politics – Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, and Deval Patrick (all who have endorsed Obama) and Barack having a grand old time. You can stream it online at ma.barackobama.com (I think. I will update if I find a link).

The Massachusetts Democratic Primary is tomorrow. Vote from 7am – 8pm at the Gosman Gym.

Cross-posted to Blue Mass Group

Why I support Barack Obama in his quest for the Presidency:

My endorsement of Barack has little to do with the man himself. As he is fond of saying, it’s not about him. It’s about us. Furthermore, thanks to the work of John Edwards, there’s little daylight between Obama and Hillary in policy terms, since they both raced to join Edwards on the fresh, smart ideological ground he had broken open. In effect, I will cast my vote tomorrow for the Barack Obama *campaign* and the movement it nurtured.

I support the Obama movement because it represents people who I believe should run the Democratic party: high-information activists and passionate “rank and file” Democrats.

I support the Obama coalition: youth, liberals, and African-Americans. I like Barack’s message of community empowerment. A lot of ink has been spilled (what’s the online equivalent of that phrase? A lot of pixels have been displayed?) over the significance of his time as a community organizer. I am in no position to judge how he brings those principles to his campaign, so I’ll ignore that chapter of his life. I will say that Barack’s campaign has distinguished itself from the outset by its reliance on what those in the business call “field”, i.e. boots on the ground, peer contact, etc, rather than advertising. That’s important for several reasons. In The Assault on Reason, Al Gore lays out many reasons why relying on television (and Television advertising) is bad. Long story short, TV ads are increasingly ineffective, they give tons of money to gigantic media corporations who run the ads and donate that money to Republicans. TV ads are one-way messages, and are reduced to sound-bytes and slogans by the constraints of the 30 second spot. Peer-to-peer canvassing and other contact involves a substansive, two-way dialog.

Continue reading “Countdown to the Primary: 1 day”

Got this in the mail:

The caucuses to elect delegates to the 2008 Democratic State Convention will be held this Saturday at the Northeast Elementary School, 70 Putney Lane, at 10:00 A.M.

Registration CLOSES at 10:00 A.M. so it is very important that you be on time!!!

Hope to see you there.

Robert

Robert G. Logan, Chairman
Waltham Democratic City Committee

This sounds really fun. And important. If you are registered to vote in Waltham, want to come down to the Caucus with us? Perhaps a lucky Brandeis student will be able to to the 2008 Democratic State Convention!

The Massachusetts Presidential Primary will be in 7 days.
You can vote at Gosman gym, if you’re registered.

Today’s news: Edwards drops out. Here’s his classy concession speech:link

Well, that tears it. I was leaning Edwards, but with only 2 candidates in the race, I’m jumping on the Obama train.

Inspiring point:

Never before in the history of the United States of America have the voters and delegates of a major political party had to choose their nominee for President from a field that did not include a white male.

We may or may not win this election, but in the greater social and cultural conflict fought out in this country for the last 50 years, we have won. Democrats liked all our candidates when John Edwards was still running for President, and we still like our candidates now that we no longer have a white male to choose. We are not threatened by having to chose between a woman and a man of color. We not only accept this as our current American reality, we embrace it as our future. WE are the party of tolerance. WE are the party of diversity. WE are the party of solidarity. And WE are the party of change.

Update:
Here are two favorable post-mortems on the Edwards campaign. Long story short – he forced Clinton and Obama to veer to the left on issues such as healthcare and the environment.

UPDATE:  Tickets are going fast. We have 1 left.

Gloria Steinem is giving a lecture at Wellesley this February 6th.

You know what would be cool? Going to see her!
You know what you should do? Come see her!

InnermostParts.org is proud to announce a joint venture with DFA-Brandeis: A Trip to Meet Gloria Steinem.

We’re organizing a group of Brandeis students to go to Wellesley. You can sign up on facebook: http://brandeis.facebook.com/event.php?eid=9862697412

Or you can sign up on DFA-link: http://dfalink.com/event.php?id=27315

Rumor has it that it’ll cost $15 per person.

The official speech starts at 7:30 pm, but we’ll have to leave Brandeis at around 6:30.

Gloria Steinem.
Feb. 6th.
7:30ish.

Get excited.

During the MLK event tomorrow, we will be honored by the presence of Senator Carl Levin.

We love Senator Levin. The work he’s done on the Armed Services Committee has been stellar. Some activists on campus are going to hold up signs telling him that.

At the same time, they’ll be holding up signs telling him that we’d love him even more if he joined Senators Dodd and Feingold in their effort to filibuster a dangerous bill that would give amnesty to telecom corporations who helped the White House disobey the 4th Amendment.

I’ll be there with them: I hope you join us.

Campaign slogans are funny things. How important are they? Who knows?

For your reference, here are the slogans of the four Democrats (minus Gravel) left in the Campaign:

• Hillary Clinton:       Turn up the Heat!
• Barack Obama:        Fire it up, ready to go!
• John Edwards:         Tomorrow Begins Today.
• Dennis Kucinich:    Strength Through Peace.

Here’s an exclusive Innermost Parts campaign slogan mashup for the Democratic Presidential Nominating Race, 2008 edition.

“Fire Today, Turn up the Tomorrow! Peace.”

You saw it here, folks

Carl Levin is coming to Brandeis.

Mark your calendars: MLK Day will go down like this:
Freedom Trail tours of activist sites on campus: 5pm
Seating in Shapiro Campus Center: 5:30pm
Senator Carl Levin Speaks: 6:00 pm
Assorted MLK-day presentations onse: 7:pm

That’s pretty cool. According to Progressive Punch, Senator Levin is the 11th-most progressive senator. Delving deeper, it seems that his least progressive stances include the environment, and agricultural corporate subsidies, while his voting record on a variety of issues – social justice, education, and family planning- is stellar. In short, Carl’s a pretty good Senator.

Since he’s a Senator, and the chair of the Armed Services Committee to boot, I am mulling over the idea of asking Senator Levin to support Senator Dodd and Senator Feingold in their filibuster of legislation that would give amnesty to Telecommunication Companies that helped the Bush Administration trample on the Fourth Amendment.

It’ll be an off-topic question at the Panel he’s joining. On the other hand, stopping retroactive immunity is imperative; we have to prove that corporations (and Presidents) can’t break all sorts of laws and then have Congress retroactively forgive them.

Maybe I should carry a banner or sign inside?
If anyone wants to organize or join me in bringing this matter to his attention, please email me at sahar@innermostparts.org

P.S. Looks like someone else wants to lobby Senator Levin as well.

The Justice has an editorial out that calls for more youth participation in politics, specifically focusing on the February 5th primary. That’s good. From my vane point as a progressive Democrat, youth are the key to the long-term health of the party. A presidential primary is among other things a battle for the soul of the Democratic Party. A victorious party nominee traditionally chooses the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, embodies the principles of the party, and hires ideologically aligned people to fill posts in the Cabinet and so forth. Therefore the more we “youth” vote in the primary, the more the national party will share our values and our agenda.

While I don’t disagree with any part of the piece to a large extent, there are a few thoughts I’d like to share:

• Voting in the February 5th primary is important for a reason the editorial neglected to mention:  party elections. The Democratic Primary on February 5th has you vote for Presidential nominee, but also for Delegates for the Democratic National Convention, as well as local party leaders. I know a few people from Brandeis were trying to get on the ballot to be Delegates for Obama and Edwards.
• On February 5th, vote for me. Both Alex and I (as well as three other students) are on the ballot to be members of the Waltham City Democratic Committee.
• Waltham is watching us. There are people who check the participation rate of Brandeis Students. The more we vote (in the General Election but in the Primary as well) the more inclined elected officials, party members, and so on will be to take Brandeis seriously and to spend resources on us.
• In the Iowa caucus, the ‘youth’ (Ages 17-24) turnout rate tripled:
  
• In the New Hampshire Primary, the ‘Youth’ (Ages 18-29) Turnout Rate more than doubled:
  
• The Justice may have said this,
  

  With just over three weeks to go until Super Duper Tuesday, now is the time to get active, and to do so in person. Join the Brandeis Republicans or the Brandeis Democrats, go to Brandeis Students for Barack Obama meetings, canvass with Brandeis for Jonathan Edwards, or start up Brandeis for Huckabee (if you dare)

  but please, instead of starting a Rudy Guiliani fan club, consider joining Democracy for America instead. In fact, there are many ways to participate in the primary season beyond Brandeis Democrats or candidate-centric clubs. You can join SEA and create a youtube ad applauding Edwards for his early embrace of green issues, or you can team up with BLC to spread the word that Clinton’s longtime pollster and advisor is union-busting Mark Penn. Or you could be part of DFA, the Brandeis hub for progressive activists.

Bumped. In fact, today is your last chance. – Sahar
Want to vote in the Massachusetts Presidential Primary? Today is your last chance. Register to vote any day from the 16th 17th on and you can’t vote in the Primary.

You can register to vote through Rock the Vote: Go to RockTheVote.com, fill out your information, print out the form it gives you, and mail it to:

Secretary of the Commonwealth
Elections Division
Boston, MA 02108

It’s that easy!

Remember, if you want to vote in the Presidential Primary in Massachusetts, you have to register today. And Massachusetts is very much up for grabs come the February 5th primary.

…according to one of my professors; this is a disgrace. Meanwhile the IMES department has just 2 full-time faculty members.

That just doesn’t seem right. How can Brandeis trumpet the memory of the takeover of Ford hall when, almost 40 years later,  our faculty remains overwhelmingly, embarrassingly pale?

For the light posting. I’ve had mad late final essay work to do that just ended about 10 minutes ago, and of course we all want to enjoy the break.

Expect sporadic posting until Monday, when IP will revv up to normal posting speed.

Confused?

I didn’t think so.

Now with Facebook!

I found something marvelous today: The Voices Facebook Application

Fill out your name, address, and zipcode, and a message of your choice (pertaining to the issue page you’re using) and you send an email to your congressman and both Senators.

I’m adding it to our links. There is no excuse not to contact congress when you can do it in 50 seconds, or even less, through facebook.

That’s the same time it takes to refresh your secret crush’s profile and decide that you shouldn’t write on her/his wall just yet.
That’s the same time it takes to update your “Compare people” page, or to invite 10 of your friends with a “hotness request”.

Continue reading “Contacting Congress Has Never Been Easier!”

Family Security Matters seems to be some sort of right-wing, “lump all your fear of foreigners and brown people together” organization committed to “keeping American families safe from not just terrorism, but all those different ideas and people they might be forced to encounter. And by “families,” they mean white, Christian, economically privileged families.”

Over at TAPPED, Kate Sheppard reports:

Family Security Matters just released their 2007 list of the 10 most “insipid, scary and yes, downright dangerous” college courses. Big surprise — they’re courses about labor, sexuality, race, and “social justice.” According to FSM, they “express an agenda far beyond any honest or accurate academic cause” and “offer nothing more than to stroke the ego of the professor’s fascination with silly topics.” My alma mater Ithaca College comes in at No. 7 with Chip Gagnon’s “Whiteness and Multiculturalism,” a course exploring the history of racism and the privileges of whiteness in America.

Well, I looked over the list (IP – we read rightwing propaganda so you don’t have to!) and it’s pretty silly. The “most dangerous course in America,” Islam in Global Contexts is chosen because “this course appears to serve as a way to propagandize students into believing Islamofascism just isn’t that bad.” Islamofascism? You mean that a religion has created a state that values corporations more than people? You mean a “term [that] came into vogue only because it was a way for Iraq hawks to gloss over the awkward transition from pursuing Osama bin Laden, who attacked America, to Saddam Hussein, who didn’t?” (Thank you, Paul Krugman)

Here’s the scandal: Not one Brandeis course is on that list. We have a “right-wing hatred” (of us) gap with colleges such as Williams or Columbia. It’s an honor to be accepting enough of gay rights, labor rights, multiculturalism, minorities, and sexuality to be the object of right-wing hatred. Next year, let’s try and make it to the top 10.

The University must have been very relieved to have Clinton speak at Brandeis. The only thing that can trump a former president is another former president.

Continue reading “Quick thought of the day”

In the comment thread of Loki’s “On Campus Protests” Adam Hughes, a commenter, said this:

I think it is important to note that a university is not and should not be a representative democracy. For better or worse, the power hierarchy puts the students below the administration.

This is an important issue that I think we really should address.

No one is proposing that we set up a full-fledged constitutional representative democracy here at Brandeis. However, the spirit of liberal democracy contains much more than the right to vote. Democracy, frankly, is a short-hand for a whole host of values, such as freedom of expression, privacy rights, a civic society, egalitarianism, rule of law, and, most importantly to this discussion, self-determination.

If the administration decided to restructure the Student Activities funding mechanism in a vacuum, it wouldn’t be a big deal. But when the F-Board constitution specifically says that Student Activities receives its funds from F-Board, and the University runs roughshod over that document, I get worried. Most importantly, when the Student Body (as expressed by the Student Union) unequivocally rejects this proposal, and the University doesn’t back down, it unveils many problems.

Simply put, the University has a history of ignoring student wishes and imposing its own agenda. I wouldn’t even necessarily call this a malicious move: it seems to me, at this time, that the University considers students’ opinions as an afterthought, or not at all.
Continue reading “Democracy at Brandeis?”

This is the beginning of something I hope will be a regular feature on Innermost Parts: A roundup of what the various activist clubs are up to, and how you can get involved.

Welcome to the first ever Innermost Parts On-Campus Activism Report: Inaugural Edition.

Drive Out: Poverty, hosted by Positive Foundations(?)
Your used book donations can fight poverty at home and abroad!

Donate your old textbooks in the specially marked boxes in Shapiro Atrium. Next semester, you can buy the textbooks others donated on the cheap. All money goes to the amazing kiva.org and equally amazing Donorschoose.org.

The collection drive started yesterday, and you can donate textbooks until the end of finals week. More information under the fold.

Darfur Refugee Collection Drive Hosted by Impact Aliyah, STAND
Donate supplies or money to Darfur Refugees in Israel

There have been many Sudanese refugees/immigrants seeking asylum in Israel over the last few years, due to the whole Darfur tragedy. Impact Aliyah and STAND are starting a donation drive for “school supplies, food, packable blankets, and anything you think might be useful for the refugees as they enter the colder months in Israel,” but also, of course, money. During winter break, Impact Aliyah participants will distribute everything they collected personally to the refugees as they visit Israel.

This is a really cool partnership between two different groups on campus. Good! You can donate items “in the main entrance to the village, the main entrance to Hass in East, the Bet Midrash, and the library.” If you’d rather straight-up donate money, they will be tabling in Sherman “Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday nights collecting money.”

With the semester winding down, I think that’s it for active progressive campaigns on campus. Be sure to email me or leave a message in the comments if you think I missed anything.

Continue reading “On-Campus Activism Report”

There’s been a lot of discussion about the merits and purpose of the protest, both on and off-line. Here’s how I feel:

Regarding what Loki said here:

First of all, the event was only organized with the consent and oversight of the Administration itself, the very institution whose policies we were supposedly acting out against. What does this say about the commitment to student independence we were supposedly trying to defend?

It’s perfectly legitimate to work within the establishment to effect change. In fact, many times, it’s necessary. And if the school gave us the tools to fulfill our goals (a student union, money, etc) then of course we should take advane of them.

Let’s put it this way. The administration is in a bind. What are they going to do, revoke these deep-rooted privileges (and the ability to buy donuts is a privilege) and rights of student protest, assembly, etc? That would make them look even worse. So the only way to let them off the hook would be to not use those rights and privileges.

I’ve written much more “below the fold” (click on the “read the rest…” link).
Continue reading “My thoughts on the F-Board Protest”