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philo
Trad climber
Somewhere halfway over the rainbow
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Nov 23, 2011 - 10:56am PT
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Yep.
Although prayer and assault rifles are a strange mix except among the illegal OCCUPIERS of Palestinian lands.
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Wade Icey
Trad climber
www.alohashirtrescue.com
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Nov 23, 2011 - 11:39am PT
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only if they are inconveniencing society.
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Nov 23, 2011 - 12:42pm PT
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no one is getting dispersed for "protesting." no one has been denied right of assembly.
the line is between encampments and temporary assembly.
if you support the demands of the ows protestors to build tent cities on uc campuses, then you had better be prepared to allow the minute men, the tea partiers, the anti-abortion activists, the neo-nazis, homeless-schizophrenics-for-larouche, and every other whack job splinter group in the global world to build tent camps on uc campuses.
that also means that camps on those campuses like ucla and berkeley with major urban surrounds are going to be magnets for mentally and emotionally disturbed and damaged people, in a country with easy access to guns, explosives, and narcotics.
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philo
Trad climber
Somewhere halfway over the rainbow
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Nov 23, 2011 - 01:02pm PT
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Were they really? WOW! The damn dirty humans. Kill them all. To the showers with them. Seig Heil.
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Nov 23, 2011 - 01:13pm PT
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Wrong as usual klk. Those students who got sprayed were sitting in a walkway, not in an encampment.
i know that they weren't "in" an encampment. the reports i've read and heard (from a handful of folks i knew who were there) claimed that the group that got removed had positioned itself as part of a camp defense line.
those reports could be incorrect. they seemed plausible to me because that had been a co-ordinated strategy on other campuses and was what happened on my own campus. i'd be quite happy to learn that protestors at uc davis didnt make the tactical choices i've seen elsewhere.
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Nov 23, 2011 - 01:33pm PT
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ffective defense line... as illustrated by the cops stepping over the protesters to spray them in the face.
the defense lines are intended to provoke an incident. that is their tactical purpose-- to get the cops-- or even just one cop --to react in a way that will then provide agit-prop that can be used as a polarizing symbol. the strategic purpose is polarization: to provoke "violent state response" in a way that will force onlookers to choose sides without the possibility of any middle ground. that's the way its worked in this thread, of course.
that strategy didnt work too well in the 1960s-- its immediate result was to help elect ronald reagan as governor and then the election of a democratic successor who ran partly on his contempt for the university of california.
so it sounds like the reports i've had are in fact correct, that the folks at uc davis co-ordinated with the other folks.
i am personally agnostic on the question of encampments at davis, which remains something of an isolated farm town / campus service hub. i'm not crazy about the idea of splinter groups all camped out in warring factions on a university quad anywhere, but don't know if it would be manageable at davis. i know that it's not manageable at berkeley or ucla.
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Nov 23, 2011 - 01:56pm PT
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It didn't?
no, southern christian leadership conference did not use that strategy. sclc was a self-consciously centrist organization that adopted a deliberately centrist platform and politics.
sclc's (and mlk's) strategy was later denounced by more radical organizations-- from nation of islam to black panthers -- as assimilationist and accommodationist.
you have in fact seized upon the key moment in 1960s politics-- the moment in which radicals of various kinds decided to break with democratic reformist politics and consensus building in favor of a politics designed to elicit extreme police response and thus polarize the populace. there was some theoretical ground for it at the time-- many of the Left (and it was a reall Left) believed that the world was in a revolutionary moment and that a majority of the populace would side with anti-capitalist and anti-parliamentary sentiment once they saw the state unleash its violence on protestors. the radicals were wonrg. it wasn't a revolutionary moment.
in california, the immediate result of the adoption of radical tactical choices on uc campuses was the election of ronald reagan and the elimination of clark kerr, who as the embodiment of political centrism pissed off the conservatives as much as he pissed off the radicals.
jerry brown rode into the gov's office partly on his open, repeated contempt for the uc and other public institutions. the voters re-affirmed their preferred political direction with prop 13.
the images you've seized upon are actually the textbook (literally) example of centrist and reformist tactics that have been rejected by the radical faction of the folks involved in the 'o9/10 events and the ows on campus movement.
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Degaine
climber
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Nov 23, 2011 - 02:01pm PT
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weschrist wrote:
Or was it just a bunch of miscreants who wanted something for nothing and tea for free?
I'm pretty sure that they wanted their MTV.
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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Nov 23, 2011 - 02:03pm PT
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What a waste of capsaicin.
They shoulda used a fire hose.
Actually they should have just taken photos and names, permanently expelled all participating students forever from the UC CSU system and tagged the non students for future arrest on trespassing warrants.
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Nov 23, 2011 - 02:03pm PT
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klk,
Fact and logic have no place in this debate. The emotional impact of a cop pepper spraying a seemingly peaceful person leads to visceral, not logical or thoughtful, responses.
If for no other reason than that, the cops should have known better. I can think of no better way to fertilize a movement than to make martyrs of its members.
As you correctly state, the legal issue wasn't one of speech or assembly, but one of encampment. The pepper spraying allowed the ows-ers to change the issue in the public's mind.
John
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Douglas Rhiner
Mountain climber
Truckee , CA
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Nov 23, 2011 - 02:12pm PT
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Actually they should have just taken photos and names, permanently expelled all participating students forever from the UC CSU system and tagged the non students for future arrest on trespassing warrants.
Now I know why you post under an avatar.....something those protesters could not do.
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Nov 23, 2011 - 02:41pm PT
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It is unfortunate that the main message of steep tuition hikes was buried, but when nobody has listened for years, I suppose any press is good press.
i don't think so in this case, and that's why i opposed extending OWS to campuses.
OWS worked precisely because the focus of the anger was so vague and the platform non-existent, so it could attract sympathy from angry folks all over the political spectrum. my mom tells me that in the small, rural town she lives in (cali), a hotbed of teaparty and ultra-right wing sentiment, the OWS protests attracted cheers from passing motorists of all stripes.
Lots of folks angry at B of A or at "government." But of course, lots of folks, mostly on the populist right, already hate the University of California and similar institutions.
Setting up a campus protest movement that suggests UC = BofA, or that Yudof = Madoff, is about the last thing we need. We already have an active, mobile and angry populist right that believes the country is being squeezed by jewish capital and 3rd world labor. The last thing we need is to focus that set of images on the UC. Whether OWS paints Yudoff as King George, Bernie Madoff or Pontius Pilate, the end result is going to be the same: Identifying UC with whatever demons the average voter hopes are to blame for everything that makes him angry.
The conscious decision by radical factions to go polar is amazingly risky and dangerous. There are folks who genuinely believe that if the UC doesn't return to the structural system of the early 1960s-- more than half its support coming from the state coffers, tuition literally free --that we might as well destroy it. That just seems insane to me. We don't have the pre-global economy of the 1960s. We don't have an ongoing Cold War to drive granting funding for a LLL. We don't have electoral support for a rational tax code. And we have a plebiscatary system that encourages voters to vote themselves more taxes and lower services each and every year and that is easily available to any whackjob splinter group that can attract outsiide corporate funding to finance a media campaign.
What possible upside is there to the current tactical campaign? That the populist right and the Maoists can join forces to fire Yudof? Who then would want the job? It already pays less than half the national comps. How can anyone with a triple-digit IQ, and a day's free time to familiarize themselves with California's budgeting process and recent political history, believe that we could pay someone half Yudof's salaray and have them come in and somehow magically return UC to a state-funded model?
Wes, btw, this isn't directed at you. It's just been incredibly frustrating to watch this play out over the last few years, the more so because the basic structural elements of the larger political and budgeting problem have been so widely visible and so widely discussed over the last twenty years.
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the Fet
climber
Tu-Tok-A-Nu-La
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Nov 23, 2011 - 03:47pm PT
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Thanks for answering my question Fattrad. I might not agree with you on lots of politics but I respect you for being consistent and having a sense of humor.
Chaz however couldn't answer. Telling. But I'll answer him, yes I'd be fine with Tea Partiers or other people doing legal prayer vigils. It's free speech. I have no problem with people exposing their religious beliefs as much as that want, as long as it doesn't interfere with other peoples rights. Which is what they don't get. Just like smokers who think their rights are denied when they can't expose OTHER people to their smoke.
As much as the righties like to think the OWS will have no impact it will. Their main point is the superwealthy have too much control of our democracy. With the failure of the deficit super committee due to republicans not allowing the expiration of Bush tax cuts for the wealthy independents will see the republicans are in bed with the wealthy and won't compromise. Because of this nothing is getting done, the markets have lost confidence and the economy will continue to suck. Voters will blame republicans instead of dems and in 2012 not only will Obama be re-elected but a lot of congress will turn Dem.
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Nov 23, 2011 - 04:11pm PT
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Are you suggesting that some of the OWS crowd may be as self-righteous and self-absorbed as the teabaggers? Say it ain't so!
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Nov 23, 2011 - 04:18pm PT
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They should have sprayed them with warm water with a little yellow food coloring and yelled , "I bet you think this is just water!"
Fukt with their heads.
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philo
Trad climber
Somewhere halfway over the rainbow
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Nov 23, 2011 - 04:53pm PT
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Fulminated Mercury enemas for the fat piggies.
Wouldn't that just blow their sh#t away.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Nov 23, 2011 - 05:42pm PT
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Why can't students work their way through school??? Has the number of units required for graduation gone up??????
Isn't the answer obvious? These degrees from these institutions simply are not worth working for. At least not for the protestors.
It's much better to rack up the bill, and stick it to the American people when you can't make it work out. Then you tell people that you have the answer to the way economics should work.
Tuition used to be cheap and now it's expensive. I went to UC Berkeley. I think it costs about 10x more per semester than when I was there. Ten TIMES more! How does a student make $20,000 a year and be a full time student at the same time?
Peace
Karl
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philo
Trad climber
Somewhere halfway over the rainbow
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Nov 23, 2011 - 06:07pm PT
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It was hella hard
Have you considered trying to get your money back? Particularly from the English and Communications departments.
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philo
Trad climber
Somewhere halfway over the rainbow
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Nov 23, 2011 - 06:17pm PT
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So Health Care and Higher Education are reserved for the affluent only. Eh FatBoi.
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dirtbag
climber
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Nov 23, 2011 - 06:45pm PT
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Good lord, there are a lot of ignorant f*#ks.
And I'm not talking about Philo, Weschrist, and a few other like minded folks.
The Occupy Davis crowd is facing a bleak economic condition, not faced in a few generations.
All some of the older folks--who btw, had it pretty damned good and easy--can do is lecture them about belt tightening, working harder, blah blah blah. In other words, "I've got mine, f*#k you."
No...FUKK U.
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