ok, i know that the status quo is frightened of the idea of free food.

and i know that carleton university admin represents the neo-liberal status quo, if not something quite a bit to the right of it. this is the same university that recently named a building after preston manning and has been propping up a student union that wants to shut down it's public interest research group chapter. it wants to market itself as a Conservative Party university.

but connecting these two things into such a brazenly anti-communitarian action is really something else. it's a bunch of kids growing carrots. chill out...

https://www.facebook.com/carletongsa/posts/698143683538835

i realize they don't see it as kids growing carrots, they see it as COMMUNISTS!!!!!111 growing carrots. and they're not wrong, really. but there's a more disturbing undercurrent.

first, the hypocrisy. this is the same administration that will support a "free speech wall". as is usually the case with authority, "free speech" means "sanctioned free speech". and "free food" with a (anarcho-)communist message isn't sanctioned free speech.

there's this tendency to blame the whole thing on an exclusive contract that the school has signed with a big catering company. it seems like a rational explanation. it creates the right boogeyman. but if you spend any time on campus, you'll notice that christian groups (and specifically christian groups) don't have any problems getting an exception to the exclusive contract.

...meaning that you're only allowed to hand out free food at carleton under the condition that the school approves your message, and the message the school approves is essentially thatcherism: free market economics and churches for social work.

it seems like it's not just an explicitly anti-leftist thing. i mean, it's clear that the school doesn't want leftists in the tunnels handing out food, and that's part of it. but it's also clear that if you want to try to do any kind of socially sort of thing that's not specifically connected to christianity, you're going to get harassed. it's a very exclusive message they're pushing, to try not just to decrease the role of leftism but also to increase the role of religion.

it would be scary if it wasn't right out of engels. vulgar marxism to it's absolute extreme.

what these kids might have to start doing is co-opting the church groups. in some sense, that's multi-tasking.