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I stumbled across two classic movies over at Hulu.com yesterday. Both are streamed in high-quality video for free at the site, and are available to watch anytime.
In the last few months it’s been hard to avoid hearing the name of Harvey Milk, the San Francisco activist and community organizer who became the nation’s first-ever openly gay elected official in 1978 — and was assassinated just eleven months later. The Gus Van Sant/Sean Penn biopic Milk has been getting well-deserved rave reviews since it opened in November. But Milk isn’t the first movie made about Harvey, and it may not be the best. The 1984 documentary The Times of Harvey Milk is an astounding achievement, and a great lesson in the history and practice of organizing. Check it out at Hulu if you haven’t seen it already.
The Marx Brothers’ 1932 Horse Feathers is history of a different kind. In it Groucho plays a university president, and the movie’s plot — such as it is — centers around corruption and gambling in college sports. College students were cultural icons in the 1920s and 1930s, and Horse Feathers gives a fascinating glimpse at how the university was perceived in popular culture at the time.
Via Arts and Letters Daily comes an Atlantic essay on the causes and implications of the Greek youth and student riots. Why are they happening? Why now? And what can we expect in 2009?
Excerpts:
“Youth unemployment is high throughout the European Union, but it is particularly high in Greece, hovering between 25 and 30 percent. With few job prospects, rampant poverty in the face of nouveau riche prosperity, a public university system in shambles, a bloated government sector in desperate need of an overhaul, and a weak, defensive conservative government with only a one-seat majority in parliament, it is a ripe period for protests…”
“The first real crack in the military regime came in November 1973, when protests at the Athens Polytechnic led to the downfall of one junta leader and the ascension of another, whose regime was toppled the next year with the reinstitution of democracy. From then on, student protests in Greece have had a particularly poignant legitimacy to them, as well as a distinctly leftist edge, laced with the left’s uniquely effective ability to question authority…”
“Yes, youth alienation in Greece is influenced by a particular local history that I’ve very briefly outlined here. But it is also influenced by sweeping international trends of uneven development, in which the uncontrolled surges and declines of capitalism have left haves and bitter have-nots, who, in Europe, often tend to be young people. And these young people now have the ability to instantaneously organize themselves through text messages and other new media…”
“Pay close attention to Greece; at a time of world-wide economic upheaval, it might eerily presage disturbances elsewhere in 2009.”
Take a look at College Freedom, a blog from John K. Wilson, the author of Patriotic Correctness: Academic Freedom and its Enemies and The Myth of Political Correctness: The Conservative Attack on Higher Education.
On Saturday I linked to an essay on the New School occupation that had been written by an anarchist student who participated in the takeover. This morning I see that there’s a post up at the New School In Exile blog taking issue with some of that student’s claims, particularly regarding the role of the Radical Student Union in the sit-in. Go read ’em both.
The morning also brings a piece on the demonstration from Inside Higher Education, as well as a shorter piece from the Chronicle of Higher Education blog.
Links from the student protest at the New School:
The website and blog of “The New School In Exile,” organizers/participants in the recently ended sit-in and associated actions.
A roundup of media coverage of the protests.
The text of the agreement between the protesters and university president Bob Kerrey.
An essay by one of the protesters on the lessons he learned in the sit-in.
A clip from Brian Lehrer’s talk show on New York public radio, in which he talks with one of the protesters’ media liaisons.
A Flickr slideshow of the protest, and another set of photos. (Several other photosets are up at NYC Indymedia.)
New School president Bob Kerrey’s new blog.
I’ll be keeping an eye out for more resources and links. Feel free to pass additional ones along in comments.
studentactivism.net 
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