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Occupy supporters inspired by Buckminster Fuller Decades before worldwide movement, former SIU professor sought out solutions, criticized corporate greed LAUREN LEONE Daily Egyptian Nearly 90 years ago, Buckminster Fuller had already begun to lay out most of Occupy Wall Streetâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s core principles. Occupy Wall Street supporters have said they vow to end corruption of democracy and will no longer tolerate greed of the 1 percent of Americans who continue to become wealthy while the other 99 percent becomes poorer, according to Occupy Wall Streetâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s website. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a real understanding (between those in the Occupy movement) that Buckminster Fuller offered a comprehensive solution framework years ago â&#x20AC;Ś solutions to create peace,â&#x20AC;? said Brent Ritzel, president of the Fuller Dome organization. Fuller, who came to SIU in 1959 as a professor in the School of Art and Design, designed
inventions and artifacts such as the famous geodesic â&#x20AC;&#x153;Buckyâ&#x20AC;? dome. The dome represents much more than simply being an artifact, whicha part of why Occupy Carbondale supporters set up camp near it when they began to protest Oct. 15, Ritzel said. Occupy Carbondale supporters sat beneath the Bucky dome Friday and discussed the similarities between Fullerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s philosophies and those of the Occupy movement. â&#x20AC;&#x153;They express that Bucky represented and actually created the comprehensive solution framework for so many of the issues that weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re talking about now,â&#x20AC;? he said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;It was out of a desire, from my understanding, to embrace that legacy.â&#x20AC;? Fuller designed his inventions and artifacts with the term â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;weaponry vs. livingryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; in mind, Ritzel said.
LYNNETTE OOSTMEYER | DAILY EGYPTIAN
A protester holds a sign during an Occupy Chicago march Saturday in Chicago. According to the Occupy Wall Street website, the movement has brought together more than 1,500 people around the world to fight the corrosive power of major banks and multi-national corporations.
Occupy Chicago protesters march Saturday chanting slogans such as â&#x20AC;&#x153;We are the 99 percentâ&#x20AC;? and â&#x20AC;&#x153;This is what democracy looks like.â&#x20AC;? The protesters marched from the Financial District â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s almost a technological approach to dealing with the issue of peace. Letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s think about what we actually do fight about, as humanity, and what we go to war for. So much of it is politics but what we really mean is economics,â&#x20AC;? he said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;He was creating solutions, hoping to shift the world not for the top 1 percent but literally to make the world work for 100 percent of humanity.â&#x20AC;? In Fullerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 1984 book â&#x20AC;&#x153;Grunch of Giants,â&#x20AC;? he discusses the dangers of corporations that control the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s finances along with humanityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most pressing problems and ways to
LYNNETTE OOSTMEYER | DAILY EGYPTIAN
to Grant Park, where they held their general assembly. More than 300 protesters have been arrested in the last two weeks for staying in Grant park after the 11 p.m. curfew.
solve them, said David McConville, president of the Buckminster Fuller Institute in New York City. On the instituteâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s website, McConville said Fuller refers to the corrupt system as the Gross Universal Cash Heist (GRUNCH), a system incapable of recognizing that maximizing monetary gains hinders the long-term requirements for human survival. Although many criticize Occupy Wall Street â&#x20AC;&#x201D; which has evolved into a worldwide movement since it began Sept. 17 in New York City â&#x20AC;&#x201D; for its ambiguity, McConville said
œœW
eâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re fortunate in that the ideas are there. Now itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s our opportunity and our responsibility to understand where he arrived at in the course of his life and actually evolve even further.
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; David McConville president of Buckminster Fuller Institute
movement supporters are not willing to validate the current political and economic systems by making a short list of specific demands. Years earlier, Fuller said in order to bring about change, humanity cannot fight the existing reality but build a new model. David Yepsen, director of the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute, said many people are disgusted by the political system but he believes the way to create change is to become more involved. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Occupy movement is part of a great American tradition of protest,â&#x20AC;? he said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;But after a protest calls media attention to a problem, any movement has to move on to other tactics to affect change.â&#x20AC;? Anti-Vietnam war activists made their mark through political activism and Martin Luther King Jr. mobilized much of his movement for political change, Yepsen said. Please see OCCUPY | 2
University community prepares as strike date approaches SARAH SCHNEIDER Daily Egyptian In the past several months, four unions representing students, faculty and staff at the university have taken many steps toward the strike date set for Thursday. While members of the unions say they want to avoid a strike, they have also said they will walk out if settlements are not reached by 12:01 a.m Thursday. The Illinois Education Association unions â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the Association of Civil
Service Employees, the Faculty Association, Graduate Assistants United and the Non-Tenure Track Faculty Association â&#x20AC;&#x201D; have been bargaining terms of their contract since their previous ones ended in June 2010. The unions are working under a contract implemented by the administration in March. In an email to the campus community Friday, Chancellor Rita Cheng said individuals have held signs saying the days they have been forced to work without contracts. She said the employees represented by the unions
have never been without a contract. In the email, she said the presidents of the four unions issued notices to the university Oct. 18 that said those represented by the unions would officially terminate their contracts Oct. 28. The unions have set up strike headquarters in part of the old Carbondale Community High School on the corner of Oakland Avenue and High Street. The ACSE represents more than 400 civil service employees in 77 positions on campus including
the housing department, parking department, financial aid office and the Bursarâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s office. Civil service employees include accountants, admissions and records officers, bookstore clerks, computer system operations specialists, digital computer operators, office managers, research engineering assistants, lab assistants, technicians, storekeepers and telephone operators. A local publication reported in July that 126 employees paid dues to the union. When the union voted Sept. 27 to authorize a strike date to be set, 80 percent voted yes.
The NTTFA represents nontenure track faculty at the university. This includes instructors on campus, employees at the Southern Region Early Childhood programs, Workforce Education and Development, OffCampus Academic Programs and workers at the Head Start Program. When the union voted to authorize a strike date to be set, NTTFA President Anita Stoner said there were 137 members, 91 of which voted yes and 19 voted no. Please see STRIKE | 2