Beyond the Swindle of the Corporate University: Higher Education in the Service of Democracy

(Image: Jared Rodriguez / t r u t h o u t; Adapted: Earlham College, incurable_hippie)

by: Henry A. Giroux, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed

"In spite of being discredited by the economic recession of 2008, neoliberalism, or market fundamentalism as it is called in some quarters, has once again returned with a vengeance. The Gilded Age has come back with big profits for the rich and increasing impoverishment and misery for the middle and working class. Political illiteracy has cornered the market on populist rage, providing a political bonus for those who are responsible for massive levels of inequality, poverty, and sundry other hardships. As social protections are dismantled, public servants are denigrated and public goods such as schools, bridges, health care services and public transportation deteriorate, the Obama administration unapologetically embraces the values of economic Darwinism and rewards its chief beneficiaries: mega banks and big business. Neoliberalism - reinvigorated by the passing of tax cuts for the ultra rich, the right-wing Republican Party taking over of the House of Representatives and an ongoing successful attack on the welfare state - proceeds, once again, in zombie-like fashion to impose its values, social relations and forms of social death upon all aspects of civic life.(1)

With its relentless attempts to normalize the irrational belief in the ability of markets to solve all social problems, neoliberal market fundamentalism puts in place policies designed to dismantle the few remaining vestiges of the social state and vital public services. More profoundly, it has weakened if not nearly destroyed those institutions that enable the production of a formative culture in which individuals learn to think critically, imagine other ways of being and doing and connect their personal troubles with public concerns. Matters of justice, ethics and equality have once again been exiled to the margins of politics. Never has this assault on the democratic polity been more obvious, if not more dangerous, than at the current moment when a battle is being waged under the rubric of neoliberal austerity measures on the autonomy of academic labor, the classroom as a site of critical pedagogy, the rights of students to high quality education, the democratic vitality of the university as a public sphere and the role played by the liberal arts and humanities in fostering an educational culture that is about the practice of freedom and mutual empowerment.(2)

Memories of the university as a citadel of democratic learning have been replaced by a university eager to define itself largely in economic terms. As the center of gravity shifts away from the humanities and the notion of the university as a public good, university presidents ignore public values while refusing to address major social issues and problems.(3) Instead, such administrators now display corporate affiliations like a badge of honor, sit on corporate boards and pull in huge salaries. A survey conducted by The Chronicle of Higher Education reported that "19 out of 40 presidents from the top 40 research universities sat on at least one company board."(4) Rather than treated as a social investment in the future, students are now viewed by university administrators as a major source of revenue for banks and other financial institutions that provide funds for them to meet escalating tuition payments. For older generations, higher education opened up opportunities for self-definition as well as pursuing a career in the field of one's choosing. It was relatively cheap, rigorous and accessible, even to many working-class youth. But as recent events in both the United States and Britain make clear, this is no longer the case. Instead of embodying the hope of a better life and future, higher education has become prohibitively expensive and exclusionary, now offering primarily a credential and, for most students, a lifetime of debt payments. Preparing the best and the brightest has given way to preparing what might be called Generation Debt.(5)

What is new about the current threat to higher education and the humanities in particular is the increasing pace of the corporatization and militarization of the university, the squelching of academic freedom, the rise of an ever increasing contingent of part-time faculty and the view that students are basically consumers and faculty providers of a salable commodity such as a credential or a set of workplace skills. More strikingly still is the slow death of the university as a center of critique, vital source of civic education and crucial public good. Or, to put it more specifically, the consequence of such dramatic transformations has resulted in the near death of the university as a democratic public sphere. Many faculty are now demoralized as they increasingly lose their rights and power. Moreover, a weak faculty translates into one governed by fear rather than by shared responsibilities, and one that is susceptible to labor-bashing tactics such as increased workloads, the casualization of labor and the growing suppression of dissent. Demoralization often translates less into moral outrage than into cynicism, accommodation and a retreat into a sterile form of professionalism. What is also new is that faculty now find themselves staring into an abyss, either unwilling to address the current attacks on the university or befuddled over how the language of specialization and professionalization has cut them off from not only connecting their work to larger civic issues and social problems, but also developing any meaningful relationships to a larger democratic polity.

As faculty no longer feel compelled to address important political issues and social problems, they are less inclined to communicate with a larger public, uphold public values, or engage in a type of scholarship that is available to a broader audience.(6) Beholden to corporate interests, career building and the insular discourses that accompany specialized scholarship, too many academics have become overly comfortable with the corporatization of the university and the new regimes of neoliberal governance. Chasing after grants, promotions and conventional research outlets, many academics have retreated from larger public debates and refused to address urgent social problems. Assuming the role of the disinterested academic or the clever faculty star on the make, these so-called academic entrepreneurs simply reinforce the public's perception that they have become largely irrelevant. Incapable, if not unwilling, to defend the university as a democratic public sphere and a crucial site for learning how to think critically and act with civic courage, many academics have disappeared into a disciplinary apparatus that views the university not as a place to think, but as a place to prepare students to be competitive in the global marketplace."

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Save PAL's jobs - fight for security of tenure

Credits to ITF for sharing this flyer/campaign banner

Aktibismo sa panahon ng administrasyong Aquino | Rising Sun

Kahit wala pang isang taon si Pangulong Aquino, sapat na ang unang 100 araw niya mula Hulyo 1 hanggang Oktubre 8 para magkaroon ng ideya sa pangkabuuang direksiyon ng kanyang pamamahala. Ang sinasabing “daang matuwid” ay tungo sa globalistang hangarin.

Oo, walang masama sa globalisasyon, kung ikaw ay nabibilang sa nakatataas na uri ng ating lipunan. Pero malinaw sa napakaraming pag-aaral ang negatibong epekto ng globalisasyon sa mahihirap – kawalan ng subsidyo mula sa gobyerno, maliit na suweldo, kawalan ng kaseguruhan sa trabaho, pagbaha ng mga imported na produkto, pagpatay sa agrikultural na produksyon. Napakahaba ng listahan ng masamang kahihinatnan, pero pilit na sinasagot ito ng mga nasa kapangyarihan sa pamamagitan ng isang teknikal na termino – safety nets.

Simple lang naman ang lohika ng safety nets sa konteksto ng globalisasyon. Maaaring masagasaan ang interes ng mga manggagawa, magsasaka at iba pang sektor basta’t siguraduhin lang na mabibigyan sila ng alternatibong kabuhayan. Sa unang tingin, walang masama rito. Pero katulad ng relokasyon sa mga maralitang tagalungsod na biktima ng demolisyon, hindi isinasaalang-alang ang kalagayan ng mga nasagasaan dahil sila ay napupunta sa sitwasyon ng kawalan. - Danny Arao

Aktibismo sa panahon ng administrasyong Aquino | Rising Sun

Aquino Asked, Prioritize Public Health Instead of Fraudulent Loans and War vs Filipinos - Bulatlat

“Whether the Aquino government admits it or not, the massive cases of dengue mirrors a government that puts its people’s health behind debt servicing and military spending. ” – Council for Health and Development.

Aquino Asked, Prioritize Public Health Instead of Fraudulent Loans and War vs Filipinos - Bulatlat

Pagbubukas ng FMAB, Pagbagsak ng Kalidad ng Serbisyo sa PGH

Nitong unang linggo ng Setyembre, dalawang “opening ceremony” ang naganap sa atin sa PGH. Una ay ang pagbubukas ng gate sa harap ng UP Manila Oblation Plaza na agad din namang isinara nitong huling linggo ng buwan dahil sa kakulangan ng kahandaan sa mga implikasyon nito sa pasyente, mga kawani at mismong serbisyong ipinagkakaloob ng ospital. At ang ikalawa, ay ang pormal na pagbubukas ng FMAB kasabay ang pagpapakalat ng mga anunsyo sa paglalako ng kanilang mga pribadong serbisyong medical.

Mapapansin natin na hindi pa bukas ang mga klinika para sa mga doktor. Mistulang pyesta sa dami ng tarpulin na halos mismong PGH na ang nagbebenta ng kanilang serbisyo.

Sa mga nagdaang mga araw, napag- alaman natin na malaki ang ibinaba ng kita ng ating Main Pharmacy bunga na rin ng biglaang paglipat ng main gate sa harap ng Oblation para sa pedestrian. Sa Laboratory, diumano ay marami ng procedures ang hindi nagagawa dahil sa kawalan ng reagent. Pati ang ating CT Scan ay normal procedures na lang ang kayang gawin at ang mga special procedures ay sa ibang clinic o ospital na inire-refer ng ilan nating mga doctor, ang ilan ay direktang sinasabi sa mga pasyente na sa FMAB ipagawa ang kanilang diagnostic procedure.

Nagkataon lang ba ito sa pagbubukas ng FMAB o ito na ang sitwasyon ng PGH sa mga susunod na mga araw?

Sa simple nating pagsusuri,malinaw na ang pagpasok ng isang pribadong ospital (FMAB) sa loob ng compound ng PGH gamit ang mga klinika ng PGH Consultants bilang pantakip sa kanilang pagkamal ng kita. At sa pakipagkutsabahan na rin ng ilang administrador ng PGH at UP Manila ay unti-unting papatayin o papahinain ang mga serbisyo ng PGH katulad ng pharmacy, laboratory, radiology at iba pang diagnostic/treatment units. Maliban dito malaki ang posibilidad na ang mga sumusunod ay mangyayari pa sa darating na panahon bunga ng kasalukuyang sitwasyon.

a) Pagbabawas ng Job Order/ Casual/Contractual na mga kawani (lalo na sa Pharmacy) at pagbabawas o pagkawala ng sabsidyo ng libreng antibiotic para sa mga pasyente sa charity dahil sa kakulangan ng kita sa PGH Pharmacy.
b) Kakulangan ng pondo para sa mga dagdag benepisyo ng mga kawani
k) Paglalagay ng bayad sa mga dating libre at pagdaragdag ng bayarin sa mga dati ng may bayad na mga serbisyong ibinibigay ng PGH
d) Tuluyang pagpasok ng pribatisasyon bilang negosyo imbes na libreng serbisyo sa mga pampublikong ospital katulad ng PGH.

Kami sa All UP Workers Union ay kinukondena ang mga administrador ng PGH at UP Manila na tahasang nakikipagsabwatan sa mga pribadong mamumuhunan tulad ng sa FMAB upang gawing negosyo ang serbisyong dapat sana ay libreng ibinibigay sa mamamayan sa abot ng kanilang kakayanan. Nakakalungkot at nakakagalit isiping kita at tubo na ang motibasyon ng ilan sa ating mga administrador sa kanilang paglilingkod sa PGH at UP.

ANG ATING MGA PANAWAGAN:
• BENEPISYO AT KASEGURUHAN SA TRABAHO, IPAGLABAN!
• SERBISYO SA TAO, WAG GAWING NEGOSYO !
• BADYET PANGKALUSUGAN, DAGDAGAN WAG BAWASAN!
• MGA ABUSADONG OPISYAL, TANGGALIN SA PUWESTO!
• DE KALIDAD at ABOT KAYANG SERBISYONG PANGKALUSUGAN, IALAY SA MAMAMAYAN!

All U.P. Workers Union – Manila
Ika-1 ng Oktubre 2010

Justice for Nurse-rape victim, Justice for All Nurses & Health Workers

Alliance of Health Workers
PRESS STATEMENT
October 1, 2010

Reference: Mr. Jossel I. Ebesate, RN
Secretary-General
Mobile No: 09189276381


We, nurses and health workers from different hospitals and health institutions nationwide, condemn the rape of Florence, a nurse in South Upi, Maguindanao. We call for immediate and swift justice for the nurse rape victim. We call for justice for all nurses and health workers.

It is indeed commendable that she chose to serve in rural area where nurses are needed most. In taking the road less taken, she became a victim of a crime and injustice.

Like Florence, many nurses and health workers endure injustice under the present situation. After painstaking years of studying nursing and passing the licensure examination, many nurses end up as job-orders or contractual, without benefits and with pay below that of a nurse with plantilla. Worse many nurses become volunteers, without salaries and even paying the hospital for the supposed “training” and “experience”. This is not what a licensed nurse should endure.

Nurses and other health workers employed as regular employees receive low salaries, inadequate benefits, if any at all, and suffer from understaffing, inhumane conditions at work, and repression.

Those health workers who chose to stay to serve the people are even illegally arrested for trumped-up charges, just like the case of Morong 43.

This is not what should happen to those who serve the people.

Because of these, nurses and other health workers are not encouraged to stay in the country, much more work in the rural areas.

We see that the government is remiss in two counts. First it failed to ensure the safety of nurses and other health care providers, be in rural or urban areas. Second, and more importantly, the government lends deaf ear to calls to provide adequate jobs, salaries, benefits and better working conditions to all health workers. The Department of Labor’s Nurses Assigned to Rural Areas (NARS) program, which Florence participated in, did not give permanent job and adequate remuneration for nurses. Six months of work, with allowance below that received by a plantilla- holder nurse in a government hospital, is not fair and just.

The Filipino patients in the end suffer from inadequate staff and health services.

We call for swift justice for the nurse rape victim. We hope that impartial investigation and trial will convict the wrong-doers.

We call for justice for all nurses and health workers. We call for adequate jobs, salaries, benefits and better working conditions for all health workers who have heroically decided to stay in the country and serve the Filipino people. We call on the government to release the 43 health workers and protect the welfare, rights and safety of all health care providers. This will redound to better services to the people. #

Smoke and Mirrors

Streetwise
By Carol Pagaduan-Araullo

“Pnoy the Magician” in bright yellow. This was how activists depicted President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino in effigy in last Monday’s annual State-of-the-Nation street demonstration. They were proven prescient in more ways than one as soon as Mr. Aquino started delivering his SONA that turned out to be vintage smoke-and-mirrors demagoguery.

Rather than lead the people to an understanding of the true state of the nation, his seemingly straightforward rhetoric was used instead to conjure illusions and deceive not unlike the way a magician uses optical illusions to create believability while actually performing tricks.

The main trick is to continue to appear as the harbinger of the “change that people can believe in” that worked well enough to get Mr. Aquino elected.

However, despite the effort to make the Aquino regime appear poised to undertake far-reaching reforms in government, in the economy, in resolving armed conflicts and even in turning around public sentiment from pessimism to hopefulness, cynicism to unity and cooperation, Mr. Aquino’s SONA only confirms that there is nothing new, innovative, not to mention any attempt at a radical break from the past, in his prescriptions.

Rather, what we heard are more of the same policies and programs of old dressed up to dazzle and give false hopes.

Once more corruption is presented as the overarching problem. Mr. Aquino’s speech used simple and folksy language to whip up the public’s hatred for corrupt politicians and other government officials by laying out more horror stories from the previous regime: Mrs. Arroyo’s pampering her province with government funds to boost her congressional bid; the over-procurement of imported rice at the cost of billions of pesos which was then left to rot in government warehouses; MWSS top officials wallowing in pelf and privilege while the country suffers a water crisis.

Salacious new details these but nothing surprising. Why not tell us the progress in case build-up on the biggest corruption scandals that plagued the Arroyo administration? Why is the Truth Commission still nowhere in sight, much less near to having Mrs. Arroyo and her partners in crime brought to the bar of justice?

Mr. Aquino stated categorically that his administration would not tolerate murderers and plunderers. He crowed about solving “50% of the cases of extralegal killings” that occurred soon after his assuming office or three out of six reported cases with the identification of suspects.

Assuming this to be true, however, his complete silence on government’s current counterinsurgency or COIN program as the underlying cause of most of the killings as pointed out by independent international human rights bodies places in serious doubt Mr. Aquino’s earnestness in putting a stop to and solving these murders by state security forces.

More specifically, the lack of immediate action to disband the legalized private armies called “civilian volunteer organizations” that the military uses to augment its COIN operations, renders Mr. Aquino’s boast inconsequential in ending criminal impunity. Such a reign of impunity gave rise to the still unresolved Maguindanao massacre on top of the more than a thousand unsolved extrajudicial killings in almost a decade of Oplan Bantay Laya.

It is not surprising that Mr. Aquino’s take on the peace talks reveals his apparently shallow and short-sighted view about armed conflicts and how to resolve them. His insistence on a permanent ceasefire as a precondition to the resumption of the talks with the CPP/NPA/NDF and his insinuation that the NDF has not made any worthwhile proposal on the matter indicates either ignorance of what has previously transpired or a dangerously militarist mindset intent on throwing a monkey wrench on the talks rather than in undertaking the fundamental reforms needed to attain a just and lasting peace.

Stopping corrupt practices, judicious use of government resources, and so-called private-public partnership are touted as the strategy to lift up the economy and miraculously solve all other related problems such as massive unemployment and underemployment, the budget deficit, decrepit social services as well as crumbling public infrastructure.

Mr. Aquino completely and conveniently overlooks genuine land reform not just as a basic social justice measure but a question of breaking free from a backward, semi-feudal agricultural economy.

He is completely mum about neoliberal policies that destroyed whatever was left of manufacturing, further undermined agricultural development and food self-sufficiency and rendered the domestic economy more than ever vulnerable to the vagaries of the international market as shown in the recent regional and global financial crises.

We can safely presume that his macro-economic policy framework will not depart from those of all his predecessors including Mrs. Arroyo.

So much ado about how Mrs. Arroyo wasted public funds for narrow political ends leaving the Aquino government with little left to undertake vital programs and services. But he says not a word about the P300 billion pesos automatically set aside for debt payments considering many of these are onerous debts that date back to the Marcos dictatorship as well as to graft-ridden Arroyo regime.

Ibon Data Bank puts forward concrete doable measures to address the fiscal deficit but apparently Mr. Aquino does not countenance any of them.

These include implementing increases in tariffs and withdrawing huge incentives given to foreign investors. IBON estimates government losses of around P200 billion in potential revenues each year because of tariff reduction. Fiscal incentives to foreign investors have in turn led to huge tax losses estimated by the Finance Department to be around P43 billion.

Mr. Aquino has a fondness for using the metaphor of crossroads to describe his administration’s core values and trajectory. He likens a leader’s choice to taking the straight path of “good governance” or the crooked one so dishonorably exemplified by the Arroyo regime. What all this clever use of metaphors has been concealing all along is the truth that corruption is not the root cause of our nation's poverty and hardship.

It is the wanton exploitation and oppression of our people by foreign powers, mainly the US, with the collaboration of the local ruling elite. Together they appropriate the social wealth produced by our people's labor. Together they impose and implement socio-economic and political programs and policies that deliberately favor foreign capital and their local agents while relegating our economy -- our local industries and agriculture -- to backwardness and dependency.

All this magic may serve to deceive and even entertain our hungry and suffering masses. But they will not forever drive away the pangs of hunger, the homelessness and the scourge of disease. No matter how many SONAs repeat the same deceptive tricks and clever lies, more and more in the streets, in homes, factories, fields and mountains, will see the through the smoke and mirrors, see the truth and find the real path to freedom, democracy, progress and peace. #