I love this article and I don’t know an answer either

Close all those sweatshops!

Let the people working there go back to quietly starving.

Thank you. Unfortunately, we are groomed to be incredibly apathetic. Most students care more about the upcoming hockey game than the prospects of WWIII with Iran. And you’d be surprised how many students couldn’t name our current Chancellor or Governor.

I came to Madison with these expectations of a vibrant culture of radicalism and activism, as did many, and what we see here now is disheartening. Years of Cold War politics and teaching have all but killed the left and political advocacy, and what’s left is completely marginalized by the press and the political system. Look at how much the term “revolution” and other rhetoric is reappropriated by TV commercials and MTV.

Much of the activism has also become institutionalized to the point where they can’t push for anything too “out there.” Yet at the same time, they are able to set agendas and frame everything outside of the system as radical. Look at how the BH Editorial Board talks about SLAC and CAN, for example. The “left” in this country continually moderates itself, and anyone that refuses to cross over to the right is automatically called names like “leftist,” “Marxist,” “socialist,” etc. The Democratic Party is a professional at this, thinking itself heir to everyone to the left of Bush and deserving of their votes, while refusing to truly set a working-class agenda. Again reference their reaction to Nader’s weak polling in 2000—the Greens (who would never support the DP anyway) somehow ruined it for them. The idea of leftism in this country is a complete joke. Even “radical leftists” like Feingold or Kucinich would be considered moderate left, at best, in most other countries. More importantly, the DP’s play to the pseudo-left, and talk of social justice values, has convinced many that the Party, and only the party, can bring about social change. Even the DP treats activism and radicalism as a phase—something that we all do and then grow out of when we become adults.

But I digress—what can campus activism look like, or what did it look like? Unfortunately, all activism that happens now is trapped in the shadows of the 60’s—we use the same tactics and strategies, and it is assumed that we’re just trying to travel back in time (ignoring of course the history of student activism on campus long before Vietnam or the Civil Rights Movement). But what was demanded world-wide in 1968 was impressive. While it was diverse country to country and city to city, there was a common theme of democratizing our lives. This meant control over curriculum, professors, even who would become Chancellor. Such radicalism is now reduced to committees, where the administration can best marginalize dissent.

But look at other countries. In Mexico City, there were significant protests against the appointment of the new Rector (aka Chancellor) at the National University, to the extent that bonfires were lit in the streets and key buildings were barricaded and defended. Like Madison, UNAM is considered more “liberal”—only their Philosophy department has an auditorium named for Che Guevara, and their Econ building has portraits of Ho Chi Minh. The Econ student assembly rejects the teaching of the neoliberal doctrines that are taught unchallenged here, and the department led the charge against Rector Jose Narro, who they considered to be too rightist. The student body doesn’t have institutionalized groups like Wispirg or UWRCF, but committees to free student political prisoners who have been held in jail without trial since the student strikes in 1999. During any sort of protest, students occupy their faculty’s building and use it as a home base and billboard, spraypainting slogans and hanging giant red and black banners from the roofs. In short, UNAM makes UW activism look weak and pathetic, but at the same time, it’s a completely different culture. The university is expected to serve the students, instead of the zombie-like attitude with which we approach classes and the campus community. Then again, all of our society has become completely individualized. Think about it, how many of us even know what our neighbors look like, much less their name, or even their majors? And even the majors that have student groups, how much power do they have to shape which and how courses are taught? Instead, we view our education as job training—something necessary, which we can’t question.

A final problem has to be the demographics of the University. While it is relatively “liberal”, it is very upper-class. This means a fundamental disconnect between human suffering elsewhere and our own comfort. Thus we choose to ignore that life isn’t so great, and instead focus on video games, football, and the middle school drama that consumes our lives. Labor has also died in this country thanks to Reagan, Bush, and Clinton, which has further hurt the mentality of collective action and mobilization. Lastly, I think we’ve become inundated through Internet and TV with images of social problems all around the globe—so many, in fact, that we begin to feel helpless to solve any of it.

I think that’s the gist of what’s going on. Solutions? I don’t know either. There is no intellectual production within the left or activist circles, nor is the left really given a voice without being marginalized before and after. When was the last time someone handed you a genuine pamphlet? Or when was the last time you made an effort to investigate a social issue? Something needs to change on campus—hell, something needs to change in the nation as a whole. But this university is a good place to start that change.

“Let the people working there go back to quietly starving.”

this is assuming the workers are grateful for having the sweatshop jobs. You forget however the Adidas workers tried to unionize, obviously dissatisfied with the working conditions, only to be fired.

your logic is flawed