November 2009

For years Pacific Rim, a mining company based in Vancouver, Canada, has been pushing to reopen the El Doardo mine in El Salvador against the will of the people and their government. Now the company is suing the Salvadoran government for $77 million.
On October 21st, the Committee In Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (cispes) hosted Miguel Rivera, an activist from El Salvador, who spoke about the struggle to assert the rights of the people over those of the corporation. Rivera is the founder and current vice president of the Association of Friends of San Isidro (asic).

Rivera is from the town of San Isidro in the region called the Cabañas, where Pacific Rim acquired the El Dorado mine site in 2002 and began an intrusive exploration process to determine the amount of gold and silver in the hills.

In 2004, the company applied to the Salvadoran government to have their exploration license converted to an exploitation license (yes, it’s actually called an exploitation license) but was denied because of widespread opposition to the mining project.

Much to-do has been made of the recently introduced h1n1 vaccine, with self-appointed voices-of-reason squawking from both left and right about the dangers of immunization. Depending on who you listen to, you will have heard that this shot is either an Obama administration conspiracy to control your mind, or a big-pharma conspiracy to riddle your body with mercury, give you Guillane-Barre syndrome, and charge you for the service.

At their meeting on Nov. 13, the United Faculty of Evergreen enacted a proposal to create a scholarship to offsett the recent tuition hike. The proposal was brought forward by Anita Lenges, a professor for the Masters in Education program, and Joe Tougas, Professor of Philosophy. The scholarship, entitled the Evergreen Faculty Union Solidarity Scholarship, is a needs-based scholarship for $850, the exact amount that tuition was raised for resident undergraduates.

On November 11, the Evergreen Board of Trustees met from 9 am until 3 pm. At 2:30, the board opened up for public comment. The public comment time is short and at the end of a six hour meeting. This creates a small window in which students can address concerns to the board.

The Board of Trustees has almost total control over the school’s long-term policy and plans. However, many on the board are not involved with Evergreen, nor do they have a deep understanding about Evergreen culture and student history.

In this period of declining budgets, we are all witnessing a renewed attack on our public services. From declining Social Security and welfare benefits, to a 28% increase in tuition costs, conservative interests are using financial crisis for their familiar goals of defunding public services.

The SEM II lecture room was packed with students, faculty, and Evergreen community members. Every seat was taken; people stood against the walls and sat in the aisles. Everyone waited with excited apprehension for a speaker whose name they did not know.

The Geoduck Union is the Union for the Evergreen student body, working on campus-wide policies that affect the student body, and tackling individual issues students may be having with any part of campus life. The role of the GU is to assert student power and advocate for students.

Formed three years ago, the Geoduck Union is building the foundation for more student power on campus. The Union has facilitated the Nightline bus service, campaigned against rifles for the police, and placed student on campus policy committees. The GU continues to work on many different projects, and is always open to new issues for students to bring to the Union.

On November 4, students piled into a library classroom to voice their apprehensions to the Disappearing Task Force (DTF) in charge of revising the Student Code of Conduct. Many concerns were raised last spring when the first draft of the code was released to the students for public comment. Considering the level of attendance at the most recent meeting, students would like to take part in the review of the code more than once a year.

Here or there, at the virtual offices of the Counter Point Journal (which are often someone’s living room, a study room in the Library, a lounge area on campus, or whenever we run into one another), your humble CxPJ collective propounds stories to report on. As our mandate is to seek out stories of injustice, investigate the agendas of those in power, and to root out the hidden stories that would shock the public if they knew, we find that we never lack potential stories.

Injustice is everywhere. All sorts of parties are engaged in foul play and power plays. Everywhere you look, kindly, upright folk are getting screwed over.

In fall quarter of 2000, Evergreen student Sky Cosby began selling a few radical, underground books on campus. Shortly afterwards, he created a student originated study on opening an independent bookstore and drafting a business plan.

A couple years later, Cosby opened the doors to Last Word Books in downtown Olympia. Every quarter since its opening on May Day of 2002, Last Word Books has sold used books on topics ranging from anarchy and counterculture to administrative law and philosophy. Chances are, if you aren’t a freshman and you’ve been on Red Square more than once, you have seen him or the Last Word stand.
However, when he arrived on campus this fall, ready to set up his table as he had done for almost ten years, Cosby was informed by Conference Services that he was no longer welcome on campus as a vendor and would not be sold a permit. When he asked why, Conference Services said their hands were tied; a moratorium had been instituted over the summer banning book sales. Why did this happen, who was at the bottom of it, and is this the kind of treatment Evergreen alumni can expect from the campus?