some dangers of organizing through .edu email

So there’s been this big flap in Wisconsin over the fact that a university professor had the audacity to point out that the legislation to eliminate public unions wasn’t original to Wisconsin, and in fact is part of the strategic plan of many right wing “advocacy” groups. Republicans responded by filing a FOIA request to access all of historian Bill Cronon’s emails. A fellow blogger, Tenured Radical, posted a few FYI’s that I thought I should repost here about how your .edu email address, university computer, and university office are NOT YOURS and you have no expectation of privacy.

• Your university email account belongs to the university. While Bill Cronon is being persecuted by a bunch of right wing Republicans determined to reduce the American working class to pre-industrial conditions, technically your employer can enter your email account whenever it chooses.  This means that we should all be careful what we say when we write from, or to, an edu address.  In fact, it isn’t such a terrible idea to add your gmail or yahoo account to the signature line of your university account requesting that all personal communication be sent there.
• People (including students) who work in IT can get access to your university email through the web server whenever they want to.  They shouldn’t, and they probably don’t, but they are capable of it.  Don’t put anything in an email that you would not want circulated.  This includes personal matters (sex), conflict with colleagues, and correspondence about personnel cases that reveals any information that you, the department, the referees, or the candidate might consider private.
• The computer you are assigned by the university belongs to the university, and they can search it at any time.  They can also search your office without a warrant. According to FindLaw, unless you are covered by a state law or a union contract that prohibits such searches, “Employers can usually search an employee’s workspace, including their desk, office or lockers. The workspace technically belongs to the employer, and courts have found that employees do not have an expectation of privacy in these areas.  This is also the case for computers. Since the computers and networking equipment typically belong to the employer, the employer is generally entitled to monitor the use of the computer. This includes searching for files saved to the computer itself, as well as monitoring an employee’s actions while using the computer (eg, while surfing the internet).”  Does this mean that we should all be thinking about buying a home computer for all activities we wish to ensure privacy for — downloading pornography, getting divorced, blogging?  Maybe.  And technically, the university could prohibit you from blogging on the computer they provide, although arguably this would be an infringement of academic freedom.
• You can’t be sure you have erased something from a computer or a server. In fact, according to Daniel Engber of Slate, you can be pretty sure that you can’t erase anything permanently, even if you use a utility like Evidence Eliminator.  And even if you could, those emails that you sent are now on someone else’s computer, someone else’s server, and so on.  They are retrievable.
• The Republican Party is owned and operated by vicious thugs who abuse their power to make us all into corporate servants and lackeys for capitalist special interests. This has nothing to do with computers:  I thought I would just throw this in.  But we are reminded that there is a long  history for this sort of activity in the United States:  in the late 1830s, for example, the southern slaveocracy pushed for national legislation to censor abolitionist literature. When they didn’t get it, beginning with South Carolina, they passed state laws that allowed local officials to seize these materials and open the mail of private citizens.  The parallel is obvious, isn’t?  Freedom to have absolute power over labor > constitutional right to free speech.  It’s a good thing the Grimke sisters didn’t have an email account.

 

Kasich out to punish public sector unions in Ohio

Cross-posted from www.osugeso.wordpress.com

*****

An article in the Columbus Dispatch today painted a bleak picture for the future of public sector unions in Ohio. At the core of Kasich’s proposal is an assumption that public unions are obstinate in insisting that they be leveled “special privileges” due to their ability to disrupt everyday governance; due to this obstinacy, according to Kasich, public employees are making too much money, are exploiting taxpayers, and holding the towns and cities, and therefore the state, of Ohio hostage.

A professor at Rutgers University (NJ) was quoted:

“Jeffrey Keefe, associate professor of labor and employment relations at Rutgers University, recently completed a study of public-worker compensation in Ohio and found that hourly wages of state and local workers are 3.3 percent lower than those of comparable private-sector employees. // ’State and local government employees in Ohio are not overcompensated,” Keefe said. “If anything, they’re undercompensated, but basically what I see is that they’re equitably compensated’.”

What Kasich wants to do is eliminate the one primary tool public workers have in negotiating with their employers: their labor power. While most unions, and union members, don’t want to go on strike with any regularity – indeed, it is a tactic that is usually a last resort, following failed negotiations – the strike is integral to the very notion of unions. An employer has a set of powerful tools to exact what they want of an employee: the ability to hire and fire, the wage, the access to benefits, and others. Stripped of the ability to strike, public employees are left to rely upon the goodwill of their employer, which we know from history has never worked in favor of workers and their families.

The notion that an employer can punish a worker who goes on strike is clearly a violation of the spirit of the law, which allows for the formation of unions to protect workers’ interests and to use safe, non-violent tactics to protect their rights. The exceptions within the law – such as those states which outlaw certain types of public employees (police, fire, teachers usually) – from going on strike are meant to be exactly that, exceptions, not the rule. But Kasich has already demonstrated time and again that he has little real concern for the working people of Ohio, favoring his cronies on Wall Street. This effort to destroy public unions is first and foremost an attempt to erode the quality of life of most Ohioans, making his proposals for complete privatization seem like common sense. But privatization, the destruction of working class unions, and the elimination of taxes are not common sense solutions to objective problems; they are ideological choices made to favor the already wealthy and roll back years of gains for working people.

Fight Kasich, Defend Ohio.

 

Pedagogy of a Public Market – Part 3 (final)

This post will conclude the paper I wrote after the initial phase of my research at the Columbus North Market. My research is by no means done, in fact this paper really only serves to highlight a few areas where future research is necessary. I will continue my fieldwork this quarter and continue to report as I go.

*****************************************************************************************************************************************

Neoliberal
Pedagogy in Public Space: “Safe Gathering” vs. “Dangerous Assembly”

The elision of gathering place and conspicuous
consumption is indicative of the new neoliberal paradigm.[1]
The injection of economic thinking into every aspect of life is one facet of neoliberalism,
one supported and inscribed through the shift of our public spaces into
commercial spaces. The historical development of the market shows that there
never really was a time when the two spheres were separate; however, the
redefinition of public space, combined with contemporary policing practices,
physical limitations of an indoor market, and the presence of mostly
prepared-food vendors marks a shift in the market’s relationship with the
citizens of Columbus.

According to Mark Cotè, Richard J.F. Day, and
Greig De Peuter, “The neoliberal project includes what is known as the
globalization of capital, as well as the intensification of societies of
control.”[2]
Problematic in such definitions (and they are common), however, is the
anthropomorphization of neoliberalism. Referring to a neoliberal project grants
agency to an ideology that is better described through the articulation of
numerous practices in mundane places, such as Columbus’ North Market. Observing
the market over a period of weeks in the winter of 2009 highlighted a number of
practices that seem to articulate with established thinking about
neoliberalism. I categorize the practices as drawing a distinction between
“safe gathering” and “dangerous assembly.”

I am defining “dangerous assembly” as any
gathering that disrupts commerce or tarnishes the appearance of the hyperreal.
This assembly is often intentionally disruptive (such as the Reclaim the
Streets movement[3]), directed
at capitalist enterprise (such as Reverend Billy’s Church of Stop Shopping[4]),
and can occur in large-scale or small-scale forms often without clear
leadership which makes it hard to eliminate.

At least since Seattle hosted the World Trade
Organization’s third Ministerial meeting in 1999, which exploded into violence,[5]
cities around the world have been extremely careful in regulating conduct in
public spaces. Coupled with the September 11^th terrorist attacks on
the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, large-scale assembly has become
difficult to organize and execute without inciting preemptive state violence.
The Democratic and Republican National Conventions in both 2004 and 2008 are
further examples of a tightening of control in the wake of Seattle 1999. My
point here, though, is not to illustrate how the North Market is no longer a
place of dissent (by some accounts, it has been a place of political activism),
but rather the trickle-down effect from neoliberal policing practices has meant
that only a certain kind of dissent is
allowable, and “dangerous assembly” is not it.

Instead, “safe gathering” is encouraged, which
I am referring to as the regulated and parsed gathering of small, private
groups of people in public space that does not impede commerce or shine a
critical light on the hyperreal. These practices are acceptable to the
commercial enterprise of the market while still allowing for some (limited)
choice-making activities. By allowing for small groups of people to gather
around tables to talk about whatever they like, an appearance of freedom is
generated that makes “dangerous assembly” practices seem outside the norm. It
becomes an affront to common sense to see people disrupting commerce in any
way. These practices ensure that it appears that there is a balance of commerce
with public engagement, while in reality the clearly commercial enterprise is
never interrupted.

Conclusion

What all of this points to is the preliminary
finding that the North Market does indeed help educate for neoliberal
sensibilities, even while it contains the seeds for its own subversion. This
amounts to what Foucault referred to as heterotopic space. Foucault describes
heterotopic spaces as fitting a number of criteria.[6]
First, the market is a space that has changed over time, most notably from a
site of daily necessity to a space for conspicuous consumption. Second, the
market is a space in which multiple spaces exist. It is simultaneously a space
of commerce, social gathering, law enforcement/policing, marketing (for the
city), and perhaps even a kind of “theme park.” Third, the market is linked to
“slices in time.” It acts as a museum, indefinitely collecting time through
artifacts on display and the historical narrative constructed for public view.
It also acts as festival, through its special events (like Fiery Foods Festival)
in particular. Finally, the market operates in relation to remaining space, in
this instance, the city of Columbus. For this criteria, the market acts as a
“real” space of commerce in relation to the normally messy practice of everyday
life in America. So, while I have focused on the neoliberal pedagogy of the
North Market, there are other stories to be told. Most evident from this
project, then, is the need to continue this line of research. There are still
numerous questions that need to be answered, and observing the market in spring
and summer will give me a more complete picture and most likely change my
findings.

---

[1] As
articulated by Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the
College de France, 1978-1979 (New York:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2008).

[2] Mark Cotè,
Richard J.F. Day, and Greig De Peuter, ed., Utopian Pedagogy: Radical
Experiments Against Neoliberal Globalization
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007).

[3] Giorel
Curran, 21^st Century Dissent: Anarchism, Anti-Globalization and
Environmentalism (New York: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2006). Reclaim the Streets organizes, among other things, seemingly
spontaneous “parties” in the middle of traffic intersections or on major
highways to disrupt traffic and draw attention to the way public space is used.

[4] http://www.revbilly.com/. Reverend Billy is
famous for coordinating direct situationist actions such as performing an
exorcism on the flagship Macy’s store in New York City during the Christmas
shopping season.

[5] It is unclear
as to what the “first” act of violence was and who committed it, but what is
clear is that the peaceful civil disobedience of the majority of the protestors
was met with an excessive (impressive?) display of state violence justified by
the destruction of property by some Black Block Anarchists.

[6] Foucault,
“Of Other Spaces.”

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Pedagogy of a Public Market – Part 2

Pedagogy
of the Market

Linking Past
to Present: “Presenting” the History of the North Market

One of my first observations is the series of
framed signs along the east wall that provide a historical account of the
market’s existence. Beginning in the 1800s, each sign accounts for a period of
time highlighting the role of the North Market in Columbus’ development from
frontier town to Midwestern metropolis. Toward the latter end of the historical
narrative is a discussion of the declining role of the market and its
subsequent revitalization. Integral to this historical revival is the North
Market Development Authority, which leases the market property from the city
and, in turn, leases space to the numerous vendors.

Whereas the market had once been fully public
space, it has, like many other spaces, become privatized in order to maintain
viability.[1]
Generally, it seems as if this privatization has been a good thing – the market
still exists. However, the historical account provided by the market tells the
story of inevitable and beneficent privatization. No conflict is highlighted in
the account; it is presented as a common sense solution to a market that was
once struggling within a changing urban environment. Indeed, the signs appear to
be intended to tie the current iteration of the market to an idealized past
where the market served as a major focal point for public gathering in
Columbus. This “presenting” of the past aids in marketing efforts.

Providing a historical narrative that locates
the contemporary market within a tradition that is highly populist and deeply
nostalgic (two things Americans seemingly cannot live without) helps realize
the North Market as hyperreal space.[2]
Eco points to Disney Land as the ultimate hyperreal space. Where “real” pirates
rub up against “real” American Main Street, Disney is completely imaginary,
while being thoroughly real. He notes, “The American imagination demands the
real thing, and, to attain it, must fabricate the absolute fake.”[3]
It is in these hyperreal spaces where the copy becomes more real than the
original itself. Tying the contemporary market to the markets of the past is an
attempt to provide an air of authenticity, which attracts American consumers.
However, this process also marks out the market as a kind of exceptional space:
one that is rare, valuable for the public good, and historic in such a way as
to obligate citizen consumers to utilize the space in particular ways.

Educating
About Cheese: Buying and Selling at the Market

I am wandering the market without any
particular agenda today. I am still trying to get a sense of how people move
through the space, interact with one another and the merchants. I skirt around
a knot of people talking animatedly to one another near the foot of the
stairway that leads to the balcony seating area. After ducking under an arm
thrown outwards to emphasize some point, – “I’m so sorry, I didn’t see you!” Don’t
worry about it, I survived, I reply with a
laugh – I find myself in front of a counter filled with cheeses. The deli case
I almost ran headfirst into is stickered with numerous signs with typed
descriptions of certain cheeses. The signs note the name of the cheese, provide
the country and region of origin, and describe the taste, texture, and smell.
Often there is a suggestion for what wine or other foods should be served with
the cheese. Intrigued, I approach the counter.

After looking into the case for a few moments a
woman in an apron approaches me from behind the counter. Her nametag reads “Sue.”[4]
She appears to be in her late 50s or early 60s. She is wearing hornrimmed
glasses, her hair reaches her chin and is salt and pepper colored, mostly salt.
She smiles.

“How
can I help you?” Hi, I’m looking to try something new. I like parmesan,
pecorino, and softer cheeses but I don’t remember their names. I don’t really
like bleu cheese or brie. What do you recommend, maybe a goat or sheep cheese?

Sue’s face
brightens, her tone of voice carries enthusiasm. It is clear that she enjoys
talking about her product. She asks a few more questions.

“Do
you like soft cheeses?” Yes.

She reaches into
the case.

“This
is our most popular cheese. It’s a French cheese, made from cow’s milk called
St. Nectaire. Would you like to try it?” I’d love to.

She cuts a thin
slice from it with an enormous knife (I was amazed at her ability to wield it
at all, let alone so deftly), places the cheese onto a piece of wax paper, and
hands it to me. I sniff at the thin slice, then ask,

Do
I eat the rind? “If you like. You don’t
have to.”

I pop the cheese
into my mouth. It is delicious. I ask for a small wedge to take home.  Like a good salesperson Sue asks me if
I would like to try another.

“I
have another cheese in mind for you. You said you like pecorino, was that
Tuscano or Romano?? Pecorino Toscano.  I ate it often when I lived in Florence. “Oh good, you’ll love this, it’s the Romano.

She cuts another
slice with the comically large knife. I order another wedge to take home with
me.

After the buying and selling is over, I inquire
about the signs in the deli case window. Sue informs me that they are a benefit
to the business. Even though every cheese is not described in the window signs,
they are enough to both attract attention (most people will read at least one
or two signs, even if they do not buy anything) and entice people to buy. Sue
shares that 30 to 50 per cent of customers are returning customers, depending
on the season. So, anywhere from 50 to 70 per cent are new customers, and many
of those people, she notes, are drawn in by the signs. When pressed further she
comments on the notion that she, along with many of the vendors at the market,
try to educate their customers about their product. This creates an ethos of
connoisseurship at the market, with a gastronomically educated clientele with
whom the vendors can engage. I suspect this serves at least two purposes.
First, many of the vendors are enthusiasts and like most enthusiasts love to
share their interests with others. Second, it appears that an ethos of
gastronomic connoisseurship facilitates the seeking out of more esoteric
foodstuffs, which seem to be fairly profitable for the vendors.

Unique challenges face the produce vendors,
including Curds and Whey. As the historical account of the North Market shows,
the market experienced a decline in consumer relevance and economic viability
from the end of World War II through the 1970s. In order to counter this
decline, the North Market Development Authority was created. Part of the
group’s success has been tying the market’s operation to the surrounding Arena
and Convention Center district, which meant that a number of the leased spaces
went to prepared-food vendors. Currently, less than half of the stalls are
dedicated to the buying and selling of produce, bulk goods, and other raw
materials, which have historically been the hallmarks of public markets. This
environment makes the “presenting” practices that seem to attract American
consumers all the more important, but it also means the produce vendors have to
work harder and harder to attract, educate, and retain consumers.

Learning
Space: Private Consumption Versus Public Gathering

There are groups of people of varying numbers
sitting at tables around the entire area. A student working with a laptop sits
alone at one table. A group of four men sit at another talking loudly about the
upcoming NFL Superbowl. A group of three middle-aged (around 45-50 by my
estimation) women sit talking and laughing at yet another table. It is a useful
space for eating the numerous food offerings from the first level. As a social
space, however, it is a differentiating space. The physical limitations of the
relatively narrow distance between wall and railing offer limited opportunity
to congregate in large groups. Instead, the space is far friendlier to small
groups, up to about 15 to 20 people if several tables are pushed together.
Beyond that, however, it seems like it would become difficult to hold any sort
of conversation as many in the group would not be able to see or hear others at
the far end of the table.

According to a pamphlet I picked up on my
initial tour of the market, the market has always been a site of gathering.

In 1876, the
market was the only place for people to find all of life’s necessities. Things
haven’t changed much. Throughout its history, the North Market has served most
importantly as a meeting place. Although today’s North Market may look
different from the original Market [sic]
built in 1876, the purpose of the Market remains the same. It’s a place where
people gather together, to shop, eat, mingle, and enjoy themselves.

 

It is clear that
the North Market remains a place where people shop, eat, mingle, and possibly
enjoy themselves. It is less clear, however, that the market retains its
identity as a gathering space in any more meaningful sense. At a micro level,
it is certain that people gather in the market. In my limited observations, I
was able to identify numerous groups of people conducting business, talking,
eating, and consuming. The longer I stayed, though, the more I realized that it
would be difficult to gather on a larger scale.

The physical limitation of the upper floor and
the obviously commercial use of space on the first level would hinder any large
gathering, demonstration or protest, or other coordinated action. In a sense,
the space is designed to keep private the gatherings in this ostensibly public
space. Unarmed security guards and armed police officers patrolled the ground
floor, asking people to keep at least a minimum amount of space open to keep
foot traffic moving. However, at the stalls attracting a larger crowd, the
requests were dropped, as the line was too long to move anywhere else. On the
upper levels, the space facilitated long, narrow groupings, which can easily
dictate the effectiveness of a speaker attempting to address a crowd. These
practices and limitations diffuse gatherings on a large scale.

The main purpose of the North Market is clearly
commercial. With this in mind, it becomes transparent that the market’s
function as a meeting place is elided with the practice of conspicuous
consumption. The produce, meat, and seafood vendors are local, organic,
earth-friendly businesses. The majority of the vendors are local and regional
franchises, with a majority being stand-alone, independent businesses. So,
while the market serves to attract a fairly liberal, eco-friendly,
activist-oriented crowd, a crowd perhaps more likely to value such a
community-oriented space, the value of the North Market as a meeting place is
undermined.

---

[1] Margaret
Kohn, Brave New Neighborhoods: The Privatization of Public Space (New York: Routledge, 2004).

[2] Umberto Eco,
Travels in Hyperreality (Orlando, FL:
Harcourt Brace & Co., 1986).

[3] Ibid., 8.

[4] Even though
I am not disguising the name of the market or the particular vendor I am using
pseudonyms. I do not feel comfortable using real names because I did not secure
permission to do so.

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Pedagogy of a Public Market

I've been working this past quarter on a project studying the North Market in Columbus, OH. For the next few posts, I will excerpt from the paper I wrote for a class. I'd love feedback, as this is an ongoing project.

The following is my introduction and initial scene-setting. Following soon will be my discussion of the pedagogies of the market.

*****************************************************************************************************************************************

“The space in which we live,
which draws us out of ourselves, in which the erosion of our lives, our time
and our history occurs, the space that claws and gnaws at us, is also, in
itself, a heterogeneous space. In other words, we do not live in a kind of
void, inside of which we could place individuals and things. We do not live
inside a void that could be colored with diverse shades of light, we live
inside a set of relations that delineates sites which are irreducible to one
another and absolutely not superimposable on one another.” – Michel Foucault[1]

 

Entering the Field

I
shut my car door, breathe in the winter air, cool and crisp, and look around
me. As I stand in the pay-per-hour parking lot, I take account of my
surroundings. The first things I notice are the numerous cars in the lot. It
appears that it will be crowded inside. I begin making my way toward the front
doors; the canopied entrance is lined with empty picnic tables, clearly
intended for warmer weather. The building has a façade that mixes weathered red
brick with newer materials, giving the impression that an old building (the red
brick) has been renovated for more contemporary use (the glass doors and
external staircase). An enormous sign announces the purpose of the building; it
reads “North Market” in large letters, with the O containing a rooster’s head
surrounded by a radiant sun. I enter the front door and am immediately met with
the hustle and bustle of commerce. I am bumped from behind and realize that I
am standing in the doorway – Oh, I’m sorry, I should get out of the way, I say to the man who had run into me. “Not a
problem, I didn’t see you.”

I
move to the side and wonder what I should do first. I have no known connection
to any of the shoppers, workers, or employees of the North Market Business
Authority (the market management council). I decide to walk the floor and get a
feel for the layout, at the same time exploring the shops and getting a sense
of how people move through the market.

At
first, it is easy to see that this is a converted warehouse, as the stalls have
a haphazard, semi-permanent feel to them.[2]
There are few dividing walls; different proprietors separate from one another
by using deli cases, jar-laden bookcases, or produce containers. The North
Market is clearly not a purpose-built environment with permanent partitions.
However, the benefit is that the space can be broken up as necessary making it
easier to bring in businesses of different sizes and means, as the space can be
tailored to meet specific needs. The meat- and fish-mongers at the north end of
the market take up a greater, more specialized space than do the bakery and
popcorn stalls at the south end; the coffee shops and hot dog stands have
specialized equipment, the bbq and hot sauce vendor is simply an open space
lined with shelves with a cash register on a table. One vendor’s space is no
more than six feet wide by ten feet deep or so, and has the feeling of an
over-stuffed closet at grandma’s house. Everything from Bert’s Bees lip-gloss
to Ohio State University shot glasses line the shelves.

As
I complete my circuit, I determine that the ground floor consists of numerous
vendors arranged around a rectangle. The two main thoroughfares run
north-south, intersected by perpendicular east-west alleys. Almost every inch
of walkway space is lined with display cases, serving counters, cash registers,
or lunch counter-style seating. After finding the restrooms, I realize there is
a staircase leading up to a second level. Not knowing what to expect, or even
if I was entering an open area of the market, I head up. Upstairs is a large
open space; tables and chairs line the walls and the inner railing that overlooks
the ground floor shops. At the north end are the North Market business offices.
At the south end is an enclosed seating space that is, according to a sign,
available to rent for private gatherings but is currently empty. I sit down at
a table to observe for a while.

---

[1] Michel
Foucault, “Of Other Spaces,” http://www.foucault.info/documents/heteroTopia/foucault.heteroTopia.en.html,
1967 (accessed March 12, 2009).

[2] My
observation was later confirmed when visiting the North Market website, http://www.northmarket.com/about-us.
The building currently housing the market was formerly the Advanced Thresher
warehouse, purchased by the city in 1992, leased to the North Market
Development Authority, and opened to the public in 1995.

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On Publics and Speech

For some time I have been alarmed at the inability of most
Americans to access their elected and appointed officials in any sort of
meaningful way to discuss issues of public concern. For example, in 2007 a
young man was dragged out of a question and answer forum at a public university
and tasered because the thought-police felt his question was 1) not enough of a
question and 2) too aggressive. He was asking John Kerry a series of questions
that, while a bit long-winded, were relevant to the public interest. Video
found here.

 

Not too much later, members of the organization Students for
Staff at Miami University (in Ohio) were ridiculed in the student newspaper for
posing a question to former Secretary of State Colin Powell. The student stood
and asked whether Powell would be willing to donate his speaking fee back to
the university in order to create a fund that would benefit staff members
working on less than a livable wage. Certainly not the topic of Powell’s
speech, but a question that could, perhaps, force an influential political
figure to confront issues of poverty. A relevant letter to the editor from The Miami Student can be accessed here.

 

Now it appears that the McCain campaign is asking people to
leave campaign events before they can cause trouble. The basis, it seems, is
that these people look like they might be protesters or could possibly be some
sort of trouble. The irony is, at least one person kicked out of a recent event
in Iowa has actually already voted for McCain. Ironic. Coverage can be found here.

 

I see this as a general trend that coincides with the
closing of America’s public spaces, often packaged in terms of security and
quality of life. The WTO protests in Seattle in 1999 were transformed into
riots only after police intervention once the protests proved effective at
stopping the meeting of the unjust organization. One of the main arguments
cited for police intervention? The protesters had exceeded the specifications
of their permits. Forget the idea of spontaneous public gathering.

 

Flash mobs are a form of resistance that are seemingly
tolerated because they rarely (if ever) evolve into direct political action.
More often than not they strike, linger for a while, then disperse.

 

Graffiti is criminalized as defacement of public and private
property, most often associated with gang activity.

 

Rage Against the Machine is denied access to the stage at
the 2008 Republican National Convention.

Rage Against the Machine RNC – 09.02.08 (Performs Acapella in Crowd)

 

The examples go on and on.

 

At issue is the increasing notion that “the public” is
relegated to the role of elected office and a professional class of politicians.
Private life is anything and everything that has to do with me, mine, family,
sex, school choice, open space, and on and on. Even traditionally public goods
are being privatized in new and unique ways. Township owned parks and
university green spaces are now considered the property of essentially public
corporations owned by the town and/or university. They are no longer open
access, instead they are regulated by a system of permits and security
personnel. Ostensibly these “protections” exist in order to ensure public
safety and/or the civility of discourse. In effect, avenues for genuine
nonviolent political dissent are continually closed off.

 

It is time for new definitions of public and public
participation to emerge in American civic and political life. As Michael Warner
notes in his 2002 book, Publics and Counterpublics, “Publics are queer
creatures. You cannot point to them, count them, or look them in the eye. You
also cannot easily avoid them (p. 7).” He goes on to say, “Yet publics exist only
by virtue of their imagining. They are a kind of fiction that has taken on
life, and very potent life at that (p. 8).” So what are these queer creatures,
these imaginative fictions? I’m not sure, exactly, that a precise definition is
warranted, as it sets up a false binary between public and not-public. But
their multiplicity and textuality seem key. I think they are best thought as
congealed masses of peoples, brought together for both the profound and the
mundane – both changing the world and collecting esoterica. To complicate
things, I turn again to Warner: “The
public is a kind of social totality… [a] public comes into being only in
relation to texts and their circulation” and to paraphrase him, like the public
of this blog (pp. 65-66).

 

Habermas critiqued the public sphere, in The Structural
Transformation of the Public Sphere, in this way: “The bourgeois public sphere
may be conceived above all as the sphere of private people coming together as a
public; they soon claimed the public sphere regulated from above against the
public authorities themselves, to engage them in a debate over the general
rules governing relations in the basically privatized but publicly relevant
sphere of commodity exchange and social labor.” Which again begs the question,
what is the public sphere?

 

Dewey is helpful, here, when he argued for “experts and
citizens engag[ing] together in participatory social inquiry – in information
gathering, exchange, interpretation, and debate” (Oakes & Rogers, 2006, p.
16).

 

Taken together, we can argue that publics (that is, groups
of people organized around particular issues, identifications, politics, and so
on) engage in the public sphere any time a text is circulated – an
unsatisfactory definition with profound implications in our media-text-laden
society. Publics are infinite and everywhere, accompanied by their own public
spheres.

 

To close, let me return to my initial frustrations with
access to public officials. There is no doubt that Kerry, Powell, and McCain
are people who deserve respect (at least for the fact that they are fellow
human beings, if not for politics…) and, at times, privacy. Yet as officials
continue to close off the criticism of multiple publics in countless formerly
public spaces it seems imperative to re-energize both public space and the
public sphere. We must reclaim our spaces and reopen spheres of dialogue. This
means, though, an intrusion on our traditional liberal discourses of individual
and private rights trumping those of community rights. This can be done without
resorting to totalizing discourses of public debate – it may simply mean that
we all must play the game even though we don’t all agree on the rules. In my
mind, this can actually be more fair, more equal, and more productive than we can imagine in
the current moment. 

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