Noam Chomsky Rally

So you drive a train Jesse? :lol:

There are a lot of engineers with political leanings. It always seems odd to me. Where did that particular prejudice start?

Actually, I was referring to the more UBC-specific engineers prejudice. And to be fair, UBC "engineers" aren't even junior engineers or engineers-in-training. We're just students. But along with placing Volkswagons in rather inconspicuous locations, the engineers have a lot of other reputations. There is a small group of maybe 5 percent of the engineering students who are very vocal about being engineers, wear red engineering jackets, and have basically hijacked the Engineers' Undergrad Society. It's basically a frat, but with student-fee-based funding for their drinking. Actually, in a lot of ways they're like one of our many semi-fascist governments in their funding methods and favouratism. Anyways, the engineers have a lot of traditions. One of them is to "tank" people. Tanking is when you strip someone down to their undergarments and toss them in a fountain. Except now the Red Jackets have built a tanking pond beside their clubhouse in order to tank people. Officially it's only engineers who can be 'tanked'. There's a whole ritual that includes a mock trial in which guilty is always the verdict for such crimes as unusually high marks, or missing a party to do homework. Very frat-esque, it's just a bit of hazing. However, a few years ago they were doing it to random non-engineers around campus. Girls walking home from the bar late at night would get thrown in the fountain. Arts students were always looking over their shoulders. Forestry students even more so. Anyways, that, and some article in the engineers' newspaper got their funding cut one year when the University cracked down. And now I think there are about 5000 engineering students at UBC who have the reputation earned by about 50 present students and countless others before them. Sorry to make that so long! Also, in a university setting there tends to be more progressive thinking, and engineering and commerce students tend to be the exceptions to this. Big generalization, of course, seeing as I tend to see myself as more progressive than most students at UBC.

Kory, well said in regards to UBC engineers :lol:

Yeah, I definitely skimmed over some parts... like the tradition of hiring a prostitute (or otherwise acquiring a woman willing to show her all publicly) to ride a white horse around campus in the nude as a tribute to Lady Godiva. Lady Godiva, of course, did just that because of a sarcastic agreement made by her husband, and her actions forced him to lower taxes for the good of the people. (Of course, this was back when taxes meant something different - they went to a person rather than the state). Umm.. or the part where they got their frat house kicked off campus, and according to the engineers, it was because they allowed *mock gasp* a black member in their frat! I've never heard the other side of the story though.

I don't drive a train, I'm an EIT who gets paid to sit in a featureless box for 8 hours a day. It's a living. [QUOTE BY= Kory Yamashita] Actually, I was referring to the more UBC-specific engineers prejudice. And to be fair, UBC "engineers" aren't even junior engineers or engineers-in-training. We're just students. [/QUOTE] Actually even among the "red jackets" (some of whom I have talked with at length), it's an even smaller percentage who are the cause of the negative reputation. Lots of people are in it for the student politics aspect(CFES, for example); UBC has one of the most effective Engineering Students' Societies in the country. It's good to be aware of the biases within biases...

Here's a link to the speech at the rally. It's incredibly slow though, too bad I couldn't find a faster site. <a href="http://www.radio4all.net/proginfo.php?id=8860">Chomsky on International Day of Action from Radio4all.net</a>

I'm downloading it now. If I get permission to post a copy, I will do so (and will post a story about it on the front page).

Posted! Now I get to watch my server melt down too!

I like when things are distributed freely for non-profit use.

I was at the Noam Chomsky speech today at the Orpheum in Vancouver, his topic was on Isreal and Palestine. I found it to be interesting (though it was 9am and I was exhausted from writing a paper last night

) If you have read or heard any Chomsky before it was pretty similar; monotone voice, a condescending attitude, and some interesting sometimes controversial views.

The most interesting thing I found to be was the Q&A period. In my opinion the only questions that were well formed were the first one and most of the second one. The remaining quesitons, for the most part, were complete rants with a loaded question tacked on in the end. The best part was when a ranting speaker continued on and on to the point of agitating the audience; Chomsky said "Are you going anywhere with this?", but the guy kept on speaking and ranting. Other "questions" were in effect political stands against Chomsky and what he beleives, these people were attempting to debate in an inappropriate setting.

Maybe now Im ranting... :lol:

Anyway, the lecture is supposed to be posted at necessaryvoices.org eventually.

Any thoughts out there from others who went?

Haha... pretty much had the same early morning thing goin on. But even Chomsky was slow at the beginning. Though by the end, the guy next to me was talking about the Chomsky Stand Up Comedy Act. I agree... those later questions were just excuses to rant. And most of the ranting was all prose and no point. Chomsky even pointed that out "YOU don't even believe it"... I kinda got into the spirit of the debate for a bit and wished that the questioners' mikes weren't muted. But on the other hand, I'd rather hear Chomsky debate someone intelligent. The questions were mostly just cheap low-blow shots whereas Chomsky's arguments were more full and comprehensive and sought solutions rather than division. Apparently there were some protestors at last night's NDP sponsored event. Maybe they thought they'd get shouted down less in question period. When they WERE shouted down, I had trouble telling if it was people trying to silence their views, or people pissed off that they were ranting instead of asking questions. Noam sure handled that accusation that he's Anti-Semite well, eh Poz? His response was well structured, witty, mocking, and he used a clever little twist at the end to come back to his point. I really like the way he built that argument. But then again, he IS a linguistics major, n'est ce pas?

Thanks so much for posting the speech! It was great to hear it since I couldn't be there. I'm reading "Hegemony or Survival" now, a lot of his speech was similar.

His response to the anti-semite allegations was absolutely priceless. Its funny you said he is a linguistics prof because I said that exact phrase to my buddy after his anti-semite response. I was particularily joyed by AMS President-elect Amina Rai's response to the infamous letter. I have been very skeptical lately what exactly the purpose of the AMS is but her response gave me a slight hope that we may actually have someone intelligent in there!!!

Actually Poz, I think with the veritable takeover of the AMS by SPAN (I hope I'm not getting political acronyms mixed up) is a sign of good things to come. But it might be too late to change Martha Piper's (UBC president) reckless spending of our tuition hikes. Really, why ARE we paying for a mall on University Boulevard with apartments over it? That's ALL just to attract rich non-student residents to campus. Yknow, I heard the federal liberals are courting Piper. She's rumoured to be a favourite of Paul Martin. Go figure!!! It's too bad all the questions at Chomsky's Israel/Palestine lecture were so biased. I would have liked to ask him for some support for his allegation that Freedom of Speech is more limited in Canada than the states. I think he may be right in a limited scope, but I would have liked to hear his justification for it. Oh well. I guess Mel Hurtig on April 7th is the next one to see, eh?

Don't even get me started on Piper and the whole administration for that matter, like Brian Sullivan. UBC is a no longer a public academic institution but a business thaat is being run. I live in Fairview and we have been receiving countless glossy ads in the mail for the new developments on campus. I personally love how they advertise .5 million dollar homes to students that are living in expensive dumps (we had rats last semester in our place!!).

As far as the whole SPAN sweep goes I am really glad slates are banned from now on, I actually wrote a letter to the ubyssey advocating such a course of action before it was passed.

I agree that the people asking questions were really biased, though that is to be expected with this particular topic. I know where Chomsky is coming from when he says we have less freedom of speech in Canada than the US. On the SURFACE they do have better freedom of speech, this is for things like books and other things that can be reviewed before hand. As far as actual freedom of speech goes he is completley wrong and I really wanted to challenge him on that aspect especially.

I cant wait to see Mel Hurtig in April. I got a poster from the organizer and I am going to put some up on campus in a week or so. I am also going to send it out to a couple of campus email lists. Want to help a bit?

[QUOTE BY= Reverend Blair] There are a lot of engineers with political leanings. It always seems odd to me. Where did that particular prejudice start?[/QUOTE] It's our nature. Standard engineering practice in designing something is to figure out what you need, double it and add 10%. Because of that part of our nature, we are skeptics. We therefore naturally distrust government, especially when we see the ineffeciency inherent in that process; we like things streamlined, neat and tidy. We also have an inherent distrust of people who distrust technology, because we rely on it so much and understand it better than most. Governments never understand technology, and in recent years have done much to limit how people can use technology. The only cure to right the wrongs is to become politically active.