THE BEACHHEAD

[Our statement from the second day of the occupation]

We in here are undergraduates, graduate students, teachers, workers, and unemployed. We are not leaving.

People ask what we want. WE WANT EVERYTHING. We want the university, this bankrupt institution of a bankrupt society, to grind to a halt. One occupation is not enough.

We need to clear up a little misunderstanding. We are not the general assembly. We will not get what we want through endless discussion, but by taking action. TAKE ACTION.

Listen: we are getting fucked by this crisis. The crisis is not an ‘unlucky’ turn of events. It is the culmination of a long-term trend. Things are not going to simply ‘get better’, and anyway they were never enough.

But know this: the administration is just a cog in the machine; they aren’t going to help us. We’d do best to ignore them just as they are ignoring us.

The administration hopes that we’ll blow off steam. That we’ll go back to ‘business as usual’. WE CAN’T GO BACK.

No one will give us what we want, we have to TAKE IT.

We took this space, not because it is a graduate space, but because it was there for the taking. Have a look around. Other spaces are there for the taking, throughout the campus, the city, and beyond.

This is not about those of us inside this building. This is about what all of us do from here. We’ve show that this can be done. It must be done, again and again and again.

We will not tell you what to do. People in the crowd are already planning actions. Get involved. We will stand in solidarity with you as you stand with us!