It’s telling that the fact that hundreds of thousands of people in Quebec have been striking for over two months has gone virtually unreported in the US. This Real News Network interview helps explain how protests against tuition hikes have evolved into a broad based effort to reverse the neoliberal policies of the incumbent provincial government.
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The people, united, will never be defeated! These young people should be a lesson to all Americans.
In the video, one of the student leaders remarks that the students of Québec were inspired by the student movement in Chile. I wish there was more coverage in the English-language press of this student movement, as well – the best source I found is The Santiago Times.
After six months of marches, school takeovers, and hunger strikes; last December (which is the beginning of summer in Chile) the students seem to have ended their largest school occupations to re-group over the summer. However, with summer over, the protests are starting up again.
In Chile, the government is very unpopular. The intransigence of the government in spite of continued pressure from the popular, courageous, well-organized, and militant student movement shows that it will take an extraordinary, and long-running, effort to defeat neoliberalism.
One major article in the New York Times on the Chilean protest was blatantly sexist, commenting on student protest leader Camila Vallejo, spending a lot of ink on her sexiness rather than simply reporting on her organizing.
It’s quite telling that Montreal is a mere six hour drive from New York City, and this paper has mostly ignored their “Maple Spring.” I guess corporate media doesn’t want Americans to see what major mobilization looks like.
Having a cultural leg on both Quebec and Chile I think I can answer the title question with a simple comment: what perplexes people most in both places is the incredible political passivity of the U.S. populace. I remember one famous local journalist here asking in astonishment, when it was revealed that the reasons for starting the Irak war were just lies: where is the rage here, where are the mobs marching on Washington, on the White House? And this from a man not known for hyperbola. There lies the whole thing, I think: from the U.S. POV it seems as if people elsewhere can achieve the impossible, when in places like Chile–even in the midst of a neoliberal revolution and under a right wing government–folks come out in the streets by the hundreds of thousands to protest against, say, a projected damn which could damage the environement–as it happened with Hydro Aysen–and are able to force the government to backtrack on it. That, for Chileans is business as usual, not great feat or achievement. Even more, during the 60s, 70s, demonstrations reaching the million people were routine over there.
‘what perplexes people most in both places is the incredible political passivity of the U.S. populace’
Seeking truth which demands critical thinking, which is hard, takes motivation and effort. 90% of MSM is controlled by 6 mega corporations. Most of the adults over 40-50y get their info on the evening news and take it granted and have become’politically passive’ America is highly polarized and divided along narrow issues and interests where big picture is lost or hard to grasp!
Status quo controlled by 1% want that way!
Inspirational, the spark to ignite. What will it take to do this in the U.S.? The frustration is already here, but whether because of ambivalence or because too many are trying to lead, thereby diluting the hope of victory, the plutocracy so far is winning. Excepting that there isn’t anything they can do about changing the direction being taken, is what, in my view, is the reason the spark hasn’t been ignited yet.
It’s also worth noting cultural differences. Quebec culture looks to Europe, not the USA for inspiration. Social welfare isn’t a dirty phrase to them. I suspect that in the USA, more and more young Americans perceive socialism as a healthy response to neoliberal markets. OWS has lent credence to alternative modes of governance, and the dangers of crony capitalism, etc. So, I’m hoping that the US is changing.
Exactly.
There may be only six hours between Montreal and New York but they are a world apart. The French speaking Canadians of French descent are totally different creatures than their Anglo-centric, more Americanized countrymen you will find in Toronto. Quebecians are much more like the French in their world view and politics, (deliberately and consciously so) and like their French cousins they view marching and protesting as a birthright and Socialism as a positive and practical thing, not a pejorative to be hurled at political opponents.
Here in the insanely nationalist, brain-washed, right wing USA its actually considered controversial or “Communist” to suggest billionaire financiers should play by the rules or ask they they pay close to the same tax rates as middle class. We definitely should attempt to learn from the Quebec student’s example but the citizens of the United States are nothing like Quebecians. We have many years of Cold War pro-Capitalist brainwashing to overcome first. Mythologies and world-views die really hard slow deaths.
‘Here in the insanely nationalist, brain-washed, right wing USA’
That’s the sort of thing I used to say about the US 12, 15 years ago in the web’s formative years – I got the pariah treatment almost everywhere, having several online encounters with patriot minuteman types who threatened to come over and demonstrate their firearms prowess first hand. I gave them all my name and number, none have so far accepted the mission.
Most of those ubiquitous Freepers and dittoheads who once prowled the progblogs in the halcyon early days of Dubya appear to have packed it in. That’s progress I guess. Such venomous opinions about the empire that denies its an empire are common wisdom, mere observation now. I will try to be optimistic and see that as progress too.
FYI, JerryDenim, it’s not “Quebecians”, it’s “Quebecers” or “Quebeckers”.
Québécois to be more accurate, svp
I also believe that there is a little more political apathy among our youth in the states–from my recent experience in a company with a bunch of 20 somethings, a lot of interest in gaming and comics and a belief that politics are stupid.
Apt observation. This is the “iYouth” — several generations of eunuch (useless) citizens.
I disagree. I’m not 20-something, but those I am acquainted with are much more astute than they are given credit for. They are acutely aware that they’ve been shortchanged and have simply accepted it. From that point of view, why waste time and energy on things you can’t control? Life is what it is; may as well focus instead on the things that still give you pleasure and enjoyment.
Secondly, there is culture involved. In short, it is said that in France, government fears the people; whereas in the US, the people fear the government.
“They are acutely aware that they’ve been shortchanged and have simply accepted it. From that point of view, why waste time and energy on things you can’t control? Life is what it is; may as well focus instead on the things that still give you pleasure and enjoyment.”
That’s apathy. However, the youth in Quebec see the same situation and in large numbers have chosen to fight back knowing that the struggle and ability to control their destiny will be difficult to control.
I will admit that since the 60’s, our police state apparatus in the states has involved immensely in their ability to penetrate and wreck havoc on opposition movements, to use violence and force on protesters and to be willing to engage in legally questionable arrests and detainment of those law abiding protesters which I think has had an effect of creating that so-called fear of the government.
You’d think the European police state systems would have learned how to control their people after the student and union protests of the 60’s, e.g., Paris, May 68.:).
“They are acutely aware that they’ve been shortchanged and have simply accepted it. From that point of view, why waste time and energy on things you can’t control? Life is what it is; may as well focus instead on the things that still give you pleasure and enjoyment.”
Thats not apathy: its pure selfishness. No different in its own low-income way from the billionaires who think only of their own needs and desires and never of the general good.
Because they are organized by the professional international Left. The very same people that gave us the Soviet Gulag and the Great Leap Forward.
Inspiring? What idiots you people are.
There is history, and then there is the prison of ideology. Perhaps you will be free someday.
So the Commies killed 100 million? Is that the meaning of your name?
Well, since banker fascism led to the exploitation of workers and the rise of Communism isn’t a more accurate name “100millionkilledbybankers”?
But since the Great Depression was a (the?) major cause of WWII and since the bankers were the cause of the Great Depression and since WWII killed 50-86 million people isn’t “156-186millionkilledbybankers” more accurate still?
I am not a Leftist but the bankers have organized against the rest of us; turnabout is not only fair play but it appears to be necessary just for protection from those thieving scum.
The Great Depression wasn’t the main cause of the war, it was moreso the treatment of Germany and the losers after the war that caused another to spark up.
The depression sped things along, sure, but it would more than likely have happened regardless as hyperinflation set in almost a decade before the crash and there had already been revolts against the government.
Go read German history. You need to.
The rise of Hitler was the direct result of the deflation of the early 1930s, not the hyperinflation that preceded it. And even if the hyperinflation was the trigger, there is strong evidence that the Bundesbank created that deliberately as a way to get the Versailles treaty renegotiated (designed to reduce Germany to peonage, see Keynes’ the Economic Consequences on that, there were a lot more major nasties in it than just the debt payments).
They indoctrinate and seduce the people into believing their lies and distract the masses from their set up and robbery. That is how they impose their dictatorship. In order to maintain control they declare everyone is the enemy. Study Rome.
We need to be vigilant and reject the fixes for the problems they created. That is the danger we now face. The healthcare plan fix for the unaffordability of healthcare that they allowed and the fixes for the failure of capitalism that they hijacked with the gold backed dollar and the World Tax as the fix for the mortgage fraud that they allowed. All of this will impose the Global dictatorship. The microchip.
We are living in the revived Roman Empire. The Jesuits are the den of vipers who have been revising this plan and reinstituting it throughout history….bread and circuses anyone?
Yes, capitalism is (also) an “internationalist” ideology with a death count in the 10’s of millions and growing yearly with no end in sight…a “prison of ideology”, absolutely.
Yes, everyone is stupid except for you. Its either the Gulag or Pinochet’s Chile. There is nothing inbetween. Why can’t everyone see what a menace these damn Commies are? Thanks for the brilliant comment, and thanks for proving my point about Cold War brainwashing.
I love this false choice that people present all the time: either we let the Banksters do whatever they want or else we are taken over by Stalinists and forced into collective farms or gulags. It’s like there’s no other possible choice between those two scenarios.
You poor sap, stuck in your 1-dimensional left/right world. We are orthogonal to you.
Hey, if you’re so smart and capitalistic, how come you’re not rich like us?
That’s right…Their power is in the lies they can make us believe.
How can we get this professional international left to come organize things in our town? Do they have a newsletter?
Looks like I was a little early calling the death of online dittoheads…
The focus in America is to encourage individualism because it makes the population easier to control.
Our education in Quebec is about 1,000 something a semester I heard in the states its much more. I don’t kno what there complaining for but I’d lik to go downtown soon so I hope this will end
They just might be voicing concern that youreducational system is heading in the same direction as our educational system and if so it will soon also be priced out of reach by all but the 1%.
Dearest Stacy,
Nothing is keeping you from going out downtown in Mtl. I went downtown last night Friday on St-Denis street and the atmosphere was great. The bars still draw far more people than the student demonstrations. True, last night, many provocateurs were out of town in Victoriaville, where the governing Liberal Party is holding a meeting (a dozen injured, several seriously, over 100 arrests). But these provocateurs are a very small group and I am confident they will soon be controlled.
I invite those NC readers who know French to take a look at these 2 videos of one of the spokespersons of the student movement: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdQvqsEYBO4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xz3IbU2Q6PY
The students have all my admiration and I find that they are yet another expression of the broad and independent resistance movement throughout the world against neo-liberalism.
Higher education should be free, like in Sweden, France, Cuba, Venezuela, etc. Free tuition is part of the solution to the 1 trillion dollar student debt problem in the US. Students are already making great sacrifices by studying instead of working full-time. And students can later pay back society through a progressive income tax, like the US had for 30 years from the 1940s to the 1970s (over 90% income tax on the highest income earners).
OWS is failing. it is a joke to most americans. so the OWS next step is to say that most americans are stupid and should be beaten up on their way to work. this
will occur sometime this fall. the blac block will be happy to lead the charge.
and the hard work that has to be done to challenge our predatory financial
institutions will have to be done by better, more organized people.
Well, no. Here’s a aerial of OWS in Manhattan on May 1. If crowd size is a good proxy for involvement, OWS is very far from fail.
Next, black bloc is by no means identical to Occupy (thank gawd). Like so much else, the relation is fluid and dynamic, and will play out this summer. In particular, any Occupy that adopts a policy of non-violence is not black bloc, since the lawyerly “diversity of tactics” so beloved by black bloc proponents is nothing other than a justification for violence (“beaten up on their way to work”).
Finally, it’s not Occupy that uses the trope that anybody who doesn’t support them is stupid. Mainstream Democrats, however, do it constantly. Although some on the left are prone to the offensive “sheeple” trope, in my experience Occupy is much more about teaching and prefiguration than it is about calling people stupid, let alone beating them up. YMMV!
and the hard work that has to be done to challenge our predatory financial institutions will have to be done by better, more organized people.
You mean people like you, or just different people than the ones you don’t like for some reason.
i plan to stop buying champagne and donate the money to elizabeth warren’s
senate effort.
Way to go Andrew…
Easy the English are the most indocinated people on the planet.
Case in point “100milliondead” above, this propogandist beleives their own nonsence fascist propoganda. They think they are part of the club.
Only when the filth on the right will be seen for what they are, will this mess reverse.
The right will make it inevitable.
I have to think the extreme rationales that the shills are using is a sign that the protests are finding true weak spots. Once they go to “YOU’RE ALL GONNA HITLER” we’ll know that success is imminent. Maybe.
Another way to see this university hikes is as a backdoor tax on the rich. The fact that the “Left” is against this just shows how far they have gone from protecting working class people. Because we have to ask ourselves; who goes to university? In Canada only 20% of the population go. If we use the 99% – 1% framework we would have at least 19% from the 99% going to university. So with this way of looking at things, the “Left” is correct to fight for the university educated bourgeois class since the “Left” represents the 99%.
But we get a much different story if we use the more traditional quintile framework of blocks of twenty percent in terms of wealth; with the bottom 20%, the poor: the next 20%, the lower middle (working) classes; the next quintile; the middle classes, the second highest: the upper middle (bourgeoisie), with the top quintile being the wealthy. A proper Left party should orient itself to look after primarily the interests of the lowest three quintiles (although obviously sometimes almost all classes have common interests); and a proper Right party looks after the top three quintiles and the two parties fight it out for the middle class.
I estimate that the majority of university students in Canada come from the top quintile and the vast majority (+/- 80% come from the top two quintiles). What a Left party should be worried about is not whether the wealthy classes need to pay a little more; they should be fighting for an exclusion from this fee for at least the bottom two quintiles, who probably make up at best only 10% of the university students. This is the way it worked in California when, being from a working class background I was able to go to university. This assures class mobility for working class and poor students who want to move up the economic ladder. But a proper Left party should be happy that some of the tax load for universities is being shifted to the wealthy parents of these students and away from the working class.
Another thing to remember is that university graduates in Canada on average earn twice as much as those who only have a high school diploma. Certainly society benefits from this as a whole but do the costs really have to be spread out evenly to all classes? Or, since higher education is primarily an institution for the wealthy, is it really that wrong to make them contribute a little more as long as working class to poor people are excepted?
As for the Communist Party students, the government should propose a special deal for them. I recently visited the DDR museum in Berlin which features expositions on the cultural history of East Germany. They had a display on average salaries and it showed a common brick layer earned about 1200 marks a month while a university educated engineer earned around 1300. If Communist university students want to sign a life pledge to show solidarity with the working classes by agreeing any time their salary goes 5% above the average working class salary then the state gets to confiscate the surplus to fund higher education, then indeed these students should not only get a totally free education, but also get season tickets in the luxury box of their football team. Somehow I don’t think these students would be too keen on that deal.
Overeducated shithead. Sophistry is a disease, you know.
You note that “university graduates in Canada on average earn twice as much as those who only have a high school diploma”. Now, as tuition goes up, access to university becomes more skewed towards those that come from a wealthy background. Hence the fight against tuition increase, which promotes more egalitarian access to university, is a fight for greater social and economic equality.
Which exactly is why I call for keeping (or even raising) the fees (taxes) on the top two quintiles (+/- 80% of students), excluding fees (or even subsidizing) the bottom two quintiles (+/- 10% of students), and having a nice long discussion about where to draw the dividing line in the middle quintile.
Whether the 1-99% or the quintile framework applies depends on the distribution of assets/income.
The quintile framework is most meaningful for the following ideal distribution: the distance between group 1 and 2 is about the same as the distance between group 2 and 3 and so on.
The 1-99% framework is most meaningful for the following ideal distribution: the 1% hogs say 80% of the wealth and the rest is equally divided between the 99%.
We are in neither of these ideal cases now but I bet we’re much closer the the 1-99% case and we’re are fast going towards it. As one old commenter here used to say: “we’re all lumpens now”.
I could totally agree if it were true that the 99% were more or less in a similar situation. But the reality I see is the opposite. In most Western countries the working class quintile is quickly becoming indistinguishable from the poorest while the top two quintiles are doing fine. The middle class quintile is falling towards the lifestyle the working class used to have. To me the 99% meme is just a rationalization of the “Left’s” move towards identifying with the top two quintiles along with their total abandonment of the working classes in such policy areas as out-sourcing and in-sourcing of cheap labor.
I would adjust our esteemed commentator’s statement to the less poetic: “the bottom three quintiles are all lumpens now”.
Your comment assumes all college students from the top 20% have parents willing and able to subsidize their education. This is not true, and the question becomes do you penalize those students because their parents will not subsidize their education? A policy of lower tuition for all will garner much wider support than one that targets only the bottom 60%. Means testing too often leads to cuts in the program because only the poor supposedly suffer.
No, if the children are independent of their parents, in other words the parents are no longer declaring them as dependents on the tax returns, then yes it is the student’s income that matters and it is very likely these students would be in the lower quintiles and thus would not pay the fees. But the vast majority of university students are supported by their wealthy parents.
A simple reframing of this situation from a fee hike for all to a tax increase on the wealthy would certainly create a counter reaction from the top quintiles. In this case, instead of the “Left” defending the wealthy from these tax increases (these are no different than charging road tolls to target the people who actually use the freeways), the Left would defend ONLY the lower quintiles from these tax increases. This way the Right is forced to explain why they are raising taxes on the top quintiles. But as it stands, the Left, who have abjectly failed for the past 30 years to defend the lower 50%, are turning failure into success and are being kicked up stairs to perform their magic on the 99% — freeing up the Right to concentrate only on defending the 1%.
I live in Quebec. Becoming independant is not as straightforward as not declaring your children in your tax report. I had to wait 1 or 2 years (I don’t remember exactly), working full-time before being considered independent.
After one year of study at university, I had to abandon because I was not able to sustain the rythm of studying and working for paying my university fees. And anyway what could I do with a degree in visual arts ?
And that is to me also part of the problem. Are the only important subject that matters higher level research and education the ones that are economically viable or more profitable ? Leaving the market decide on this will bite a chunk of hundreds of years of tradition and dialog with humanity for the sake of economy. Philisophy and critical thinking, to the dump. Arts, beauty and history, to the dump, not useful for making money. And what else ? This is not the world I want to live in.
The youth are finally waking up and realizing they were brainwashed into debt. They could and should be teaching our kids what they are learning in college while they are in high school.
The great disorder comes from a lack of understanding. Is it conceivable there has never actually been a sound theory of economics? Is conceivable that Republicans, like Dems & T Partiers, have adopted Karl Marx’s suggestion that free trade was the fastest way to destroy capitalism? Is it conceivable that Daniel Webster was right that the number one reason we have a our present day Constitution was to stop the economic chaos unleashed by free trade with Great Britian under the Articles of Confederation? Is it perhaps time to start thinking outside of our political ideologies and the classroom? Is it time for a new theory of economics that makes senses of America’s protectionist’s past, instead of promoting printing money or pointless tax cuts on factories long since departed or on workers without jobs? If yes, consider joining the debate at rescuingeconomics.wordpress.com to help build a new theory of economics, before it is too late
Where can a curious citizen learn about this free trade phenomenon? I don’t see any evidence that current case studies are available.
Don’t fight people. Let me explain everything.
Example: Quebec has child care covered by the province. The province charges the families $7/day per child. This is practically free. The reason: The Fed Gov covered it because Quebec threatens to secede each time they want the rest of Canada to pay for anything. This case is no different. The students want to lure in the Fed Gov to come up with the money so we canadians in Ontario and the ones in Alberta would pay for it. It is this simple. Quite simple.
My solution: Since quebec citizens I think are split 50%/50% about being part of Canada or not, I recommend the province be split to Quebec as a sovereign state and the Canadian Quebec. We’ll have piece from then on and I don’t want to freaking pay one single penny (oops, no more pennies), so one single nickle for anybody who does not want to be Canadian and does not not want to work hard.
Your explanation is a little off.
In the 1960s Quebec underwent a “Quiet Revolution.” Up until that time the education of the French population was the responsibilty of the the Roman Catholic church and the quality of schooling can be imagined.
Coupled with this was the fact of the Anglo presence in Quebec. The Anglos were the colonialists and they ran all aspects of society. The Quebecois understood themselves to be the white niggers of North America and as unpleasant as it sounds that is a reasonably accurate description.
The Quiet Revolution involved the Quebecois taking command of their own society. Many of the Anglo enterprises decamped for Toronto. Other enterprises, such as the electrical generations system were nationalized by the province.
One aspect of the Quiet Revolution concerned a complete rebuild of the education system to modernize it and place it under secular control. It also involved a new community college structure, the CGEP, which offered a vocational training track or a pre-university track. The CGEP was free. After 2 years of CGEP you would then transfer into a university. At the time of the Quiet Revolution the promise was made that all post-secondary education would be made free and therefore accessible to all.
The province has never managed to implement this last promise. Instead, there has been the imposition of higher tuition costs. The students object to this failed promise, to the fact that their own parents had the benefit of an educational system which is being denied to them and it is also a fight against neo-liberalism and corporatism.
The fact of Quebec in Canada is what makes Canada distinct. If it were not for Quebec, Canada would have become the 51st state long ago.
As for Chris explaining everything to you she fails to understand that the province of Ontario is suffering from Dutch Disease due to the high value of the CDN $ as a result of tar sands exports. What she fails to recognize is that the mega corporations exploiting the tar sands pay almost nothing for the revenue stream they enjoy. The oil majors invest $10 or $15 billion dollars to build extraction facilities but pay only a 1% royalty until they have achieved full cost recovery. They are also able to charge 7% for the cost of their own capital committed to tar sands development. Nowhere else in the world today can you earn a risk free rate of return of 7%. And no where else in the world can you expect to be the holder of $15 billion of capital plant the costs of which have been fully absorbed by the population yet you now hold title.
If the Quebecois get subsidized day care it is because they negotiated a much better deal than the one obtained by the people of Alberta; and if the people of Ontario fail to understand how they too subsidize the wealth of XOM and Total, well I think this shows the value of a good education.
Your facts are true. Your comments are quite subjective, as are mine. Facts are one thing, interpretation of the facts is another thing.
I still prefer the split. A sovereign half Quebec and a Canadian half Quebec will bring piece of mind.
This is false, all our social measures are paid with our own provincial taxes. This is why we are asking our provincial government and our university directors, not canadian government, to cleanup its mess and open their budget, to be transparent. This was one of the proposition in the negotiation with the students and the provincial government and it was turned over by the provincial government.
In the background of these student protests, in the press here, there are many scandallous allegations of corruption and wasted money. I would say billions of money are lost because of many many years of bad management. This not a question of Canadian independence at all. It is a question of civil and political wake up.
It could be that one answer for the “passivity” of the American people is the prevalance of fraud to which GW points. It takes a certain level of trust to engage in political activity, and kudos to those who Obama betrayed with hopey change and yet who went forward [ha] to Occupy.
Let’s also not forget — and this is not at all to denigrate the Quebecois — that Quebec in total has a population of a little under 8 million and that Montreal is its single large city. The US is an empire of continental scale. The problems are an order of magnitude different.
Americans vote for their pockets. Québécois vote for the pockets of the others.It will last until it won’t last.
Ontario is becoming slowly like that. Alberta is the Canada right now. With strong CAD Ontario’s days are gone.
“The problems are an order of magnitude different.”
You mean, magnitude is one of the problems.
Quebec should become a tax haven like Luxembourg, who can afford to offer funding for students to study abroad.
Where are the alternative newspapers we had in the 60’s? The teach-ins? The general agreement that “the system” is poisonous to humanity and that to be seen as authentic “alternative lifestyles” had to be opposed to the system at least in a general way? Where everyone agreed on a general direction to their participation in the struggle against the war (which was first on the agenda unfortunately; as soon as it wound down, most people stopped participating in resistance)? Nothing beats face-to-face organizing. The “social media” are not face-to-face: with them it is too easy for a person to remain passive.
The ignorance of American history is remarkable amongst the young people whom I know. They have not the least notion of who Americans really are.
Updateé Here are some pictures from the May 22 demo.
http://www.radio-canada.ca/nouvelles/societe/2012/05/22/004-manif-images-vingt-deux-mai.shtml
For the 3rd straight time in 2 months, something like 200,000 people demonstrated in the streets of Montreal a city of about 2,000,000 (March 22, April 22 and May 22). Logically, the next one would be around the Saint Jean-Baptiste, June 24, the national holiday of Québec…