Occupy Seattle: SCCC Faculty Member Speaks Out

Occupy Seattle is bracing itself for its eviction from the grounds of Seattle Central Community College today, as the administration of SCCC, after lengthy deliberation, has discovered legal pretext to remove the protester's encampment from the south plaza. Despite Occupy Seattle's attempted injunction against the school to prevent an eviction notice from being delivered today, it appears that the camp may finally be forced to move elsewhere.

As tents come down and tactical moves are considered, a member of the faculty of SCCC has released a scathing refutation of the charges leveled against the movement, congratulating the school administration on its coup de grace:

Now, let’s be honest, our “College of the Year” drops the ball now and then. Not this time, though. Home run! Rats, trash, and needles stuck in the public imagination like pedophilia to Penn State. Big schools like UC Davis are drowning in bad press (hapless pepper-spraying cop), but Seattle Central showed commanding form. With breath-taking efficiency and a cost-effective approach, the Occupy tribe were branded half-human drug addicts and drop outs. And they brought rats, the college said. You might call it propaganda with panache. Touche. 

For sure, rats are a cherished institution at our institution. They’ve been crapping on my desk for years. Rats and the college go back a long ways, a Tom and Jerry kind of thing. Some old-timers might even remember a City Collegian article about rats in the culinary dept. kitchen, nibbling through flour sacks. (Funny, admin stamped out the 42-year-old student paper shortly after. Wonder why!)

Jeb Wyman, an English professor at Seattle Central, insists that it's not just rats that were already present on campus:

Of course, if you spend much time at Seattle Central, you’ll get cozy with needles, too. Since 1994, I’ve parked in the lower level of the garage. On most mornings I detour around a puddle of sour pee (that bracing odor wakes you up!) in the stairwell. I’ve stepped over many a hypodermic needle on those stairs. And over broken gin bottles, stolen purses, beer cans in paper bags, empty plastic baggies. My car has been broken into three times. The garage was once equipped with security cameras, but they were—you can’t make this up!—stolen years ago. 

A few years ago, the campus president locked up all first-floor bathrooms after too many homeless took sink baths and too many overdosed dope addicts were found sprawled in the stalls. 

And in mid-October—that’s, uh, a few weeks before Occupy moved in—our facilities director put out an email blast (with great accompanying pix!) bemoaning that graffiti, vandalism, trash, needles, and “cleaning up the feces, and urine, and vomit left almost daily at our doorsteps” cost the school about $200,000 a year. 

Sorry to gross you out, but I’m just quoting directly. 

The point is, facts and first-class propaganda have nothing to do with each other. Only a fool would deny that. Quite the contrary, our administration knows what they’re doing. We’re not talking amateurs. This is poetry in motion. Salute!

Click on over to the New City Collegian, Seattle Central's guerilla student-run newspaper, for more.