Help lead the movement for positive change at UNM

Editor,

I believe that the time is ripe to organize and get the type of university that we want. We need to act fast, though. Otherwise, this whole mess will blow right by, and we will not get a chance to speak.

I am not currently a student, but I will be eventually, and I want to help participate in the creation of the new University. I think we should start pulling out all the stops and put all our demands on the table. I think that we should all start talking amongst our different groups about what our specific demands/issues are and then meet in larger coalitions and work together for these things.

If you think I am going too far or being too radical, then tell that to the Republic Windows and Doors factory workers who recently took over their factory and won huge demands, and the factory still remains open. Or tell that to the CUNY students who won major demands by taking over a university building in December. I believe that in the last election we voted for change. Barack Obama told us that he was not that change, but "that we must push him to be that change." I, for one, am working on a campaign that can be found at StirItUpCampus.org. This is an exciting campaign that pushes for fair, sustainable and healthy food on our campus. It is not enough to become green consumers and buy green or even organic, as is the hip thing today. We must push for human rights and justice for students and workers.

This leads me to another exciting nationwide event called National Student Labor Week of Action, which can be found at Jwj.org/projects/slap/week/index.html. We can use this model of a week of worker and student action at UNM. From the janitor to the professor to the food service worker to the student and all citizens of New Mexico, we have common interest in a democratic, accountable, sustainable, environmentally sustainable, affordable, justice-affirming University. If cuts are to be made, they should be in the weapons research department and in the ROTC programs and in certain people's salaries.

We should put together a reclaiming week to show the bosses and politicians that we are not going to suffer through a major depression because of their greed or mistakes. Instead, we'll show them we are going to enter into a real era of change.

Mike Butler

Daily Lobo reader