The California Board of Regents: Just another corporate board

This short bios below give a small glimpse of the class content of the UC board of regents.  It's ironic that article 1X section 9 of the California Constitution says: "The university shall be entirely independent of all political and sectarian influence and kept free therefrom in the appointment of its Regents and in the administration of its affairs."

The regent's webpage also states that "Article IX, Section 9 was drafted in 1878 after a decade of political conflict demonstrated the importance of sheltering the university from shifting political winds."

More than any other country, here in the US we are chided for "talking politics" or for bringing politics in to debate.  Politicians savage each other in public for "playing politics" and for waging "class warfare". These short bios of a couple of the UC regents make it perfectly clear which class interests are represented on the UC board.  They are waging class wrfare in the most savage way against workign people.  They are takign our homes, denying us productive work, as well as education.

Richard Blum, a UC regent, moneylender and speculator married to Diane Feinstein is making a killing through his business interests related to Iraq and China.  Naturally his wife says this has no influence on her political decisions. He sat on the board of Tudor Saliba, the huge construction company working on the San Francisco Airport construction that was affected during the Carpenter's Wildcat strike in California in 1999.  He sat on the Board of Tudor Saliba, alongside carpenter's leader Doug McCarron, a useful combination that helped defeat that strike and expel for life from the Union, a local carpenter's official who was one of the leaders of it.  Some of us picketed Dianne Feinstein's home at the time but like all rich people, they are well protected and it was very difficult to get close by.

There is massive media propaganda in the US to aimed at convincing us we are all in this together, that there are no class differences.  The board of regents, the state legislature is dominated by class interests, the capitalist class.  We can see from the composition of the regents that they represent these particular class interests. Instead of obscuring this fact we should always make it clear that we recognize it and our struggle is to change it; to change the class composition of such a public board and indeed, the class rule in society.  We need to be open about that, that we not only want to shift the political winds, we want to bring a storm in its wake.  Privatizing the education system is a business decision, it is a a natural process in a market economy, it is not the actions of bad people or greedy people.  Our goal must be to bring  an end to the dictatorship of capital over our public life, our productive life and our institutions.

The Committee on Compliance and Audit meets today at the time and place below.  There is a public comment period.

Date: October 28, 2009
Time: 2:20 p.m.1
Locations: 1111 Franklin Street, Room 12322, Oakland
1130 K Street, Sacramento
3104 Mosher Alumni House, Santa Barbara Campus
3750 University Avenue, Suite 610, Riverside

Here's the bios from the regents website: http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/regents/

These people don't have any particular personal interests in how the University is run do they?  These are the people that will protect their class interests and raise the fees next month.

Russell Gould, the current Chair of the Board of Regents, has had a varied career in both the public and private sectors. He has served as a Senior Vice President of Wachovia Bank

Sherry Lansing is the Founder of The Sherry Lansing Foundation and former Chairman and CEO of Paramount Pictures Motion Picture Group, a position she held for twelve years. Prior to that, she headed her own production company.

Richard C. Blum is Chairman of Blum Capital Partners, L.P. and Co-Chairman of Newbridge Capital, LLC. Mr. Blum earned his B.A. and M.B.A degrees from the University of California, Berkeley. He was the recipient of UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business Alumnus of the Year Award in 1994 and is a member of the Advisory Board of the School. Mr. Blum serves as a director on a number of boards, including Playtex Products, Glenborough Realty Trust and is Chairman of CB Richard Ellis. He also serves as Co-Chairman of the World Conference on Religion and Peace and is Founder and Chairman of the American Himalayan Foundation and is a board member of the World Wildlife Fund and the Wilderness Society. He is also a trustee and a member of the executive committee of The Carter Center, founded by former President Jimmy Carter. Mr. Blum was appointed as a Regent in 2002 by Governor Davis to a 12-year term.