[Corporations] [DEN] Participate Now: Take less than a minute to support higher education for all!

Thu Oct 26 08:50:08 CDT 2006

Action Alert:

If you have not already participated in today's Virtual March on 
Corporate Lobbyists, _THIS IS THE MOMENT_ to take action for higher 
education for all. 
*
  1.  Go to http://www.DemocratizingEducation.org and participate in the 
Virtual March.*  It will take you 30 seconds.

  *2. Spread the word about the march by forwarding this notice to 
everyone you know. * Our latest press release is included below for more 
information:

For Immediate Release:

CHARGING COAST TO COAST IN ITS THIRD DAY
NATIONWIDE VIRTUAL MARCH ON CORPORATE LOBBYISTS
GETTING A MAJOR RESPONSE

WEEK OF ACTION: OCT. 23 THROUGH OCT. 27

* http://www.DemocratizingEducation.org *

NATION, October 26, 2006 ~ A Virtual March for higher education is 
sweeping the country this week, gaining backing from Howard Zinn and 
numerous state and federal candidates and getting the attention of 
corporate officials.

“We are very much in need of a democratization of the institutions of 
education. One of the ways to make it more democratic is making it 
affordable for everybody.” Says Howard Zinn in a video posted on the 
Democratizing Education Networks’ website.

“Corporate leaders pay a lot of attention to the control of: education, 
curricula, faculty, and the problem that students, faculty and workers 
face is to really be able to dislodge the control that rich corporations 
have over the educational process. We shouldn’t have a situation where 
money gets you an education and lack of money prevents you from getting 
an education, so we ought to use as a model European countries where 
tuition is free.” Says Zinn.

In the first two days, hundred of students, faculty and staff 
participated in the Virtual March by sending an email to congressional 
leaders and corporate lobbyists alike demanding free higher education. 
Participants hailed from over 80 campuses and most states.

Erik Forman, from Macalester University, participated in the Virtual 
March, telling the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce, “We’ve tried lobbying, 
writing to politicians, and marching in the streets, but none of those 
have been ‘effective’. As I see it, key players in business, 
politicians, and administrators of the economy have left us with few 
means of recourse, as all of the standard, ‘legitimate’ means are easily 
ignored. Precisely the strategy of this action is to force you to look 
at us every time you open your inbox to send some important e-mail, 
casually message with your family members, or whatever.”

When the President of Minnesota’s Chamber of Commerce found his email 
box filled with DEN’s message, he lashed out, “Do me a favor and let 
whoever is asking you to e-mail this message to take me off of the mass 
e-mail list ... receiving multiple e-mails with the same message is not 
remotely effective.” Forman indicates that this was the first reply he 
or any of his fellow students have ever gotten from corporate lobbyists 
regarding their role in driving education policy.

The Virtual March received a jolt yesterday as the New York Times 
published an article highlighting the ongoing hikes in college tuition 
fees, “in the past five years, tuition and fees at public institutions 
rose more than at any other time in the past 30, increasing by 35 
percent to $5,836 this academic year. Tuition and fees at private 
four-year colleges increased by 11 percent over the same period, though 
the average price of attending a private institution is $22,218.”

Republican, Green and Democratic gubernatorial and senatorial candidates 
in Wisconsin, Minnesota, California, Nebraska, Iowa and other states are 
making free higher education a part of their platform. Kevin Zeese, 
Maryland US senatorial candidate, strongly supports DEN’s efforts, “We 
must make post-high school education free doing so will cost less than 
$50 billion annually – half the cost of keeping troops in Europe and 
Asia, 1/5th the cost of more than $300 billion in annual corporate 
welfare.”

On Friday, the Week of Action will culminate with a national phone-in. 
Virtual March participants and others will phone corporate lobbyists and 
political leaders and tell them to stop the atttack on public higher 
education.

This week’s virtual marchers aren’t merely against further cuts in 
higher education funding. They are promoting an alternative. In 2001, it 
cost 32 billion US to pay for the full cost of tuition and fees for all 
students enrolled in 2 and 4-year degree-granting institutions of public 
higher education. The Democratizing Education Network (DEN) supports, 
among other things, eliminating tuition at public institutions by fully 
supporting them with public financing. Funding for quality free higher 
education is available, DEN activists say, pointing to the 2 billion US 
poured weekly into the occupation of Iraq, as well as to the declining 
share of taxes shouldered by corporations and the wealthy.

# # #

To find out more about the Virtual March on Corporate Lobbyists and for 
more information please visit the Democratizing Education Network’s 
website:
http://www.DemocratizingEducation.org

-- 

Ben Manski

Co-Secretary, Four Lakes Green Party of Dane County
http://www.FourLakesGreenParty.org

"We, the generation that faces the next century, can add the solemn injunction 'If we don't do the impossible, we shall be faced with the unthinkable'."  ~ Petra Kelly