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There is some very serious sh*t going down at the University of Arizona. Faculty have been ordered back to the classroom in August and prohibited from wearing masks in the context of rising numbers of covid cases in Arizona. https://www.foxnews.com/media/university-of-arizona-plan-to-reopen-coronavirus
Their furlough days have been converted into a straight-up pay cut, preventing them from applying for unemployment to make up for lost wages. The administration has hired a bunch of Trumpian political operatives, Cavalry, to coordinate the reopening.
While there is no difference morally between what is happening to U of A professors and the orders that put meat-supply workers, people in prison, or all Puerto Ricans in harm's way, it is a new phase of the struggle.
Even mostly white middle class intellectuals are being sacrificed, heaped on the fire of this virus like cordwood. There has long been a political sensibility on the right in AZ that public education is socialism and higher education is leftist propaganda indoctrinating the young
The Republican Party has abandoned any pretense of governing for the common good, and is blatantly exercising coercive power over life and death to force people to serve its taped-together coalition: Wall Street, gun-toting white nationalists, and Gileadean Christian evangelicals
Academics around the country need some leadership from faculty at U of A and ASU to understand how to be in solidarity with them.
For the first time, I woke up today wondering if our government could fall. I have studied history long enough to understand that killing intellectuals is usually the first phase of a collapse.
Here's Cavalry's promotion material. http://www.cavalryllc.com/?fbclid=IwAR23rfbyMB5eX8xcngovOzzvy8jkBdAT-RBahieZzSA51rlZEpxyeOs2qEM
