I just find it funny that Crews is a first year student, and already seems to know so much about the university. It's been three months, not a year.

jpeditor:

You, my friend, are the (gender-neutral) MAN.

contrabalance:

( : >)+

If you don't care for the politics of the administration, YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE APPLIED TO OR SHOULD TRANSFER OUT OF THE SCHOOL.

Or better, grow a pair, and start your own CHEniversity.

Unlike the communist and jihadist tyrannies you support, (as evidenced by your inane "class war" comments and your arafat noose/scarf), in America we still have CHOICES on where we can spend our money and get an education.

And here's a hot tip: continue to step up your efforts to deny us our freedoms, and you WILL get (and brutally lose) the uncivil war you are clamoring for.

Chris Crews wrote:

"...street access to 13th Avenue."

So, it's true! He really is dumb!

Chris Crews, you wrote:

And finally, what's with the personal attacks on me, as opposed to real issues? All I can say is that I do make my own soap, I'm not a communist or socialist ... guess that makes my some sort of nut job liberal in your limited typography of personalities, huh?

‘We are currently waging a class war, and the elite minority will refuse to give up their power to rule us.’

‘Those of us struggling in the United States to oppose an exploitative system grounded in capitalist theories and assumptions are not alone.’

‘We need to stop thinking of ourselves as protestors and begin thinking of ourselves as political revolutionaries waging a systematic and calculated series of assaults against the organs of a fundamentally flawed capitalist system.

We must begin to create alternative systems to capitalism for economic transaction, ones which are structured around a goal of providing necessary goods and services to the people...

Shall I go on? Okay, one more, just for fun:

In short, we looked like a bunch of angry kids throwing a temper tantrum, which is far from the truth!

I understand your gripes with what you believe he's doing to the academic environment of the school, and I applaud you for doing something about an issue that affects you personally, but have absolutely no idea how, as someone studying politics, you don't recognize the importance of dialogue and refused to speak with Kerrey.

And fyi, I don't think wars in Vietnam or Iraq war were/are justified, but nice assumption. I'm just saying that the stuff that goes down during times of war is never as black and white as we'd like it to be...harsh reality. Maybe I'm a little more sympathetic to vets because I actually know a lot of them.

I will be a grad student at the new school paying my own way so I am not offended by the rich kid stereotypes but I am confused as to how a student's so called 'entitlement' disallows them from participating in a protest such as this. To assume that an individual's upbringing determines the validity of their opinions and actions is depressing. Think about your own life. Do you follow in the footsteps of your parents and the particular class you were raised in?

On a separate note, I am sort of admire people like crews for trying to do something in real life (even if it lacked a crystal clear message) instead of sitting in a starbucks and blogging in anonymity on his macbook, like the rest of us.

Many people also seem to have a misunderstanding about the Kerrey situation.

1. Our concerns include his involvement in the massacre of numerous civilians (mostly women and children) in Thanh Phong as part of covert US activities in 1969, his continued support of what many of us see as a continued illegal and immoral invasion of Iraq, and most recently and most immediately, his inability and lack of qualifications to be a President of any university, much less the New School. And more to the point, people defending Kerrey assume:

1. that what he did should not be considered a war crime, and;

2. that US involvement in Vietnam was even legitimate to begin with.

I do not hold either of these views, so yes, that makes me unsympathetic to his defense on both of those accounts. That doesn't change the brutality of war, but neither does it justify it as ok. People seem to be confusing the two in comments here.

2. I wonder how many of the posters here would suggest we deal with Kerrey and senior administration when they have no interest in listening to our voices, or giving us any form of meaningful input. Should we just shut up and be happy? Seems like you offer a critique with no solution, while discounting the point of the protests, leaving us in a no-win situation where all we can do is accept our problems as unchangeable and intractable...

And finally, what's with the personal attacks on me, as opposed to real issues? All I can say is that I do make my own soap, I'm not a communist or socialist and sorry, I just happen to have naturally frizzy hair...guess that makes my some sort of nut job liberal in your limited typography of personalities, huh?

chris

A few comments, since I did this interview.

1. I pay my own school tuition for the Ph.D. I am working on earning here, as I paid for the MA I did before that, so drop the snide comments about rich kids at school. I worked hard to get into this school, and to suggest otherwise is to be ignorant of the reality behind my comments.

2. There are serious and long-standing problems both with President Kerrey, VP James Murtha, and Board of Trustee member Robert Millard. These include their lack of academic background and abilities, which are manifestly clear to anyone actually involved with the school who have to interact with them in any manner. The faculty vote of no confidence and the firing of 5 Provosts in less than 7 years under Kerrey are just the tip of the iceberg.

3. To suggest that this is some attempt to re-live the 60's is to misunderstand completely our motivations, and shows a sad lack of real interest in understanding the reality that led to this occupation. We were, and will continue to address, real and substantive issues of academic resources and decision making that have a direct and daily impact on our ability to conduct research and do quality scholarship. Many of the comments here completely ignore that. It's a bt frustrating listening to people laugh and snipe at us for being rich kids complaining about trivial issues, as if somehow commenters have some moral high ground on which to analyze our goals and motivations.

4. Many of the students involved in this action were actually from NSSR, not Parsons, but collectively we had students from Lang, Parsons, Milano, Mannes, General Studies and NSSR and were both graduate and undergradaute students. The issues we were addressing cut across all of the schools, so I think everyone had a stake in the outcome of these issues.

5. I was willing to put my time and my efforts into this because I want a university that I can feel proud of, and which has a serious committment to being academically engaged in issue of the day. Many schools cannot claim that role, and the New School in particular has been a beacon in this issue, especially during WWII, but in the last few decades has been losing that original vision. Many of those involved in this believe in that original vision and want to revive that spirit of engaged and critical scholarship within the New School. While I was in this occupation I was still working on final papers while doing extensive media outreach, showing that you can be both engaged and focused at the same time. I fail to see why people simply assume we were having a huge party inside and not still working as students?

Finally, I can't help but find it a bit amusing to read some of these comments. How many of you who had enough time to make snide remarks or leave short insults are involved in making your workplace, your community or you home a better, more just place to live? If you don't care enough to get involved in making this world a better place, why don't you just zip it. I fail to see where your high-horse moralizing has any real credibility beyond similar people who have nothing better to do than flame blogs like the Gothamist...

chris

#33: ...and the truly disturbing flipside, is that if it's el Ché, Mao, or any one of the many psychopaths who fronted the CCCP, they call them heroes, freedom fighters, &c., ad nauseam.

Really horrific, but hey, the worst evils are perpetrated in willful ignorance. More and more, I come to believe these are the types that fervently supported Hitler until the bitter end. I say this without waxing hyperbolic.

"whine"

You can tell he's one of those radical douchebag who hates everything capitalistic, but yet would bitch and shine if his daddy cuts off his weekly checks. I am sure he would believe anything he reads on the internet if it has a picture of Che next to it.

#28 - He probably doesn't wash his hair because he doesn't want to contribute to the bottomlines of giant corporations such as Proctor and Gamble but too lazy to make his own soaps from organic products.

"So what’s so bad about Kerrey? Besides his involvement in the massacre of Vietnamese villagers in Thang Phong as part of Operation Pheonix?"

I love when young people today act like they understand what it was like to be a soldier in Vietnam. It's easier to take the moral high ground when you're years removed from the stresses of the incident and not a young man being shot at.

Tell it to veterans I know who have told me terrible and heartbreaking stories about kids the Viet Cong used. There was a Vietnamese kid who used to come into their camp and they'd give him toys and food...then one day the Viet Cong strapped explosives to him and he blew himself up in their camp.

And as far as refusing to have a discussion with Kerrey, are you freaking kidding me? What kind of person studying politics cuts off dialogue?

Reporedly, Kerrey was under police protection as he was ‘chased down the street by an angry mob of students.’

What do you think this is, the bolshevik revolution?

I eagerly await the forced famines, censorships and bureaucracies. And the eventual orgy of indie docs commemorating this stunt.

I heard yesterday some students "followed" (of course!) Kerry on his way out of the school right down to 11th street... that's messed up, the man has a prosthetic leg..

AND the winner is: rasputinsghost!

As someone afilliated with NS, I'm embarrassed at this impotent circle-jerk of delusional kitsch. The disparaging comments here are precisely correct. This isn't some video game, kids. When Daddy dies, maybe then you'll learn how a business is run and a budget is balanced.

Hooray, a non-victory was achieved in the most masturbatory media stunt since the last David Blaine bit.

After more than two weeks of concerted actions on campus, students in the occupation were finally able to win significant victories in the ongoing struggle to improve the New School. Those victories include: an agreement not to press charges or impose academic punishments for students involved in the protest, the implementation of a Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) committee within the university, more autonomy and power for Student Senate to communicate with the student body, more representation on the Board of Trustees for students and faculty, and finally the creation of more student study space on campus.

In other words, you got thrown a couple of meaningless bones. Sounds like Kerrey is still president, too. Congrats, my bourgeois comrades.

Carla @ #14--Your post should read: "As a Lang alumna..."

Also: Chris Crews, please wash your hair.

Thank God that the comments here are showing that it is RIDICULOUS for Gothamist to be covering this garbage.

I love how he complains that the school was created for critical thinking and learning, but then acts twatty when someone he doesnt like refuses to give into HIS close-mindedness and quit.

I said it in the last post. Graduate students should be more mature than this bullshit