Friends! Citizens! Today I have found my true calling. It’s a bit late to change professions but I experienced democratic politics, and I’m in love.
It’s funny that I started the day debating democracy on the blog, and then immediately life tested my declared love for democracy.
What happened is that I was elected to the Faculty Senate. I was very reluctant because I’m busy and had no interest in academic politiquing.
Boy, was I ever wrong.
Being a senator is the bomb. Today we had a very long session of the Senate. The administration is trying to bring forth a very neoliberal measure. Enough of the faculty members are able to see through it, so there was a huge battle in the Senate. I was leading the charge, making enormous efforts to avoid saying the word neoliberalism because I noticed that people don’t like it to be named.
The other day my mother called me a conflict-avoidant, appeasing Jew. I would love it if members of our administration could hear this characterization of me because they’d have fits of hysteria.
So we are arguing, people are running out in tears, insulting each other, impugning each other’s motives and vilifying each other’s characters.
One faculty member tells everybody that he damns us all to hell.
The administration tries to guilt-trip us into approving the measure, saying things like, “we’ve put a lot of work into it, and you don’t seem to appreciate everything we’ve done. How do you think it makes us feel?” Which is exactly what my mother said after calling me a conflict-avoidant, appeasing Jew, so that didn’t have much effect.
Finally, we vote. Yelling increases.
Then, a melancholic professor gets up and says, in a beautiful Louisiana drawl, “Folks, I counted several times, and we don’t have a quorum. We can’t vote.”
Two and a half hours of this, and in the end we couldn’t vote. The administration will be livid.
I love democracy. At this rate, this horrible measure will never pass.
Clarissa's Blog 
OT, did you see this? A news organization partnering with a betting/speculation company. And they don’t think it harms their credibility. “The future of news.”
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There’s truly no nastiness and immorality that these people don’t happily embrace.
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“Financialize everything.” Couldn’t be a more succinct definition of neoliberalism.
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That’s exactly what it is. Markets in everything. Makes me want to vomit.
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Ha, I love it! 🙂
Yesterday you said that you don’t organize your classroom democratically. I don’t either, however as a lover of democracy I sneak in small democratic elements, like letting people choose the order of activities or let them choose between different topics at the end of the semester when everything mandatory has been covered. It is great for the mood in the classroom, I always notice how their eyes are brighter and they sit more upright after they feel like they are heard, even when it’s about small things.
And it is the same in my school. We get to vote about many issues (like how to organize some aspects of the schools or how to implement certain changes, we also elect our principal democratically). And it is great for my own mood to feel like I have a voice, even if it includes some drama (usually no tears though. :)).
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We have this colleague who knows the entire book of rules and regulations by heart. It’s phenomenal. He gets up and says, “according to section SL45/73-b.2 we are supposed to call this vote before we proceed to item 23.5c, etc ” I love it. It’s so civilized.
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” a conflict-avoidant, appeasing Jew”
You should put that into the header….
“Opinions, Art, Debate with a Conflict-avoidant Appeasing Jew”
or
“a Conflict-avoidant Appeasing Jew’s Takes on Art and Politics”
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Totally. 😁😁😁
This is where the level of discourse is in my family. “You are a Jew! – No, you are a Jew.”
It’s just honestly.
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