

UC Berkeley students take over Wheeler Hall - ivank
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/11/20/BA611ANSAB.DTL

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fgimenez
This was a ridiculous protest. Doe and Moffit (the two main campus libraries)
were shut down, students created do not cross lines, and a bunch of idiots
pulled the fire alarm in all the big buildings. Berkeley students with
technical majors who were too busy working to protest had to evacuate
buildings because protesters kept pulling fire alarms.

If you walked through Barrows or Dwinelle (humanities buildings) they were
empty. Conversely, if you took a stroll through Soda or Cory (CS and EE
respectively) they were packed with students finishing final projects.

I once had a professor who stated that no matter what, Californians will
always vote for less taxes and more services, which is exactly what is going
on now. I don't understand how they can chant "End Budget Cuts, Don't Raise
our Fees!" in the same sentence without the cognitive dissonance making itself
blindingly obvious.

I took a stroll to see the actual protest today. It was a bunch of kids who
wanted to feel like they were part of something; a large group of people who
wanted to scream and cheer as if this was a football game. Students were
trying to shout over each other to lead cheers to get their own little slice
of revolution. In the end, they presented no solutions besides "Cut Executive
Pay" and have contributed nothing to either cause they were fighting for.

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dasht
Hi. To try to calmly explain a bit, "End Budget Cuts, Don't Raise Our Fees!"
is not the self-contradictory statement you make it out to be. On the one
hand, although state revenues are down, state spending priorities are all
messed up (e.g., we spend way too much jailing people for non-violent drug
offenses for stuff like pot, constantly increasing state spending on the
prison system - while cutting support for education). On the other hand, the
UC system's spending priorities are also screwed up with may more than is
rationale going to capital investment. It is true that the Regents lack
authority to correct these problems and, to the extent the protest moves only
the Regents, it is indeed a waste of time. However, if the protests are
regarded more as simply putting a foot down against the log-jam of a larger
political situation - it's quite sane.

Also, "presenting solutions" is really not the protesters' obligation in a
situation like this. Forcing a crisis that elevates as far as possible and
draws attention are reasonable ends in and of themselves. These kinds of
action are how, historically, political debates shift focus. Solutions are not
hard to come by. There is no shortage of them. The state needs escape from
prop 13, from ballot initiative spending mandates, from its high incarceration
rate, and so forth. Implementing those solutions requires action by voters,
the legislature, the regents, and so forth.

You have to start somewhere and that's what your peers did today.

Incidentally, the violence score appears to be roughly: Protesters - shoving
some crowd control barriers; Cops - clubbing with batons, indiscriminate use
of pepper spray, and allegedly at least one rubber bullet fired.

~~~
fgimenez
Look, I understand that any good movement needs eyes, but it's infuriating
when you hear people state "nobody knows what we're doing, we're just running
around and chanting." It's just plain irresponsible when people who have
nothing to do with this protest, and moreover people who condemn the protest,
are forced to suffer from the opinions of a very vocal group. The situation is
akin to that Mitch Hedberg joke "I'm against picketing but I don't know how to
show it." A large portion of students really do not believe in this cause. And
an even larger portion, myself included, is willing to sympathize only a valid
argument is given; an argument that has yet to surface.

Does California need reform? A resounding YES! But nobody here at Berkeley
seemed to care until their tuitions were raised. Prop 13 is 31 years old (no
palindrome intended) but it's only _now_ that people think it was a bad idea.
Hell, 6 years ago Arnold almost had his campaign derailed because Warren
Buffet dared to question California's sacred initiative. Of course prop 13 is
awful, the prison system is crowded, and California's finances are a mess, yet
none of my peers deemed it prudent to protest in Sacramento.

~~~
dasht
You left out that not only are the prisons crowded but, more importantly, the
incarceration rate (as a percentage of population) is absurdly high by
_global_ standards.

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philwelch
I wonder: where were these student protests over the past several years while
California was pissing away so much money they went broke and had to raise
undergraduate fees? Are they willing to barricade themselves into a lecture
hall for the cause of fiscal responsibility, or will they just clamor for more
and more benefits that the state treasury can't afford?

~~~
kyro
What really got me going were the protesters with signs saying education
should be offered for no cost. And I'd say the majority of them just jumped
onto the fastest moving bandwagon and protested because it was the cool
progressive thing to do. They make me glad to hear the prices have jumped. And
yes, I do feel it. My sibling and cousins attend UC campuses.

~~~
perokreco
Free education is a legitimate, and IMO highly noble goal.

~~~
philwelch
While I agree, the middle of a fiscal crisis is not the right time to
barricade yourself in a lecture hall for that cause.

~~~
jrockway
Is it the right time to give banks trillions of dollars that they are just
going to gamble away again?

~~~
philwelch
Is that why the _California state government_ has to raise university tuition,
or are you just practicing what-aboutery?
([http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-
har...](http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-
hari-how-to-spot-a-lame-lame-argument-1667373.html))

~~~
jrockway
If the state of California got a multi-trillion dollar bailout, I bet they
would not have had to raise tuition.

~~~
philwelch
You have a lot of confidence in the ability of the state of California to be
responsible with their money.

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rwl
I honestly don't know what to think about all of this. I am a new graduate
student at Berkeley, and my perspective is undoubtedly a little apathetic
because of this: my department pays my tuition, I haven't been here long
enough to experience any substantial cuts in services I use, and the (private)
institution I attended as an undergraduate had tuition rates that were around
$15k _per semester_ by the time I left. Things look pretty darn good to me at
Berkeley right now, and frankly I was a bit annoyed when, upon arriving at
campus yesterday, I realized that someone had intentionally pulled a bunch of
fire alarms, forcing me and my colleagues to wait outside in the pouring rain.

I can certainly sympathize with the feeling that the university broke a
promise to students and staff, and that this is worthy of anger. I think
providing a free, or nearly free, top notch public education is a worthy goal.
It does seem stupid that basic services and staff are being cut but new
construction projects are going forward. But I am not yet convinced that these
protests were the right way to bring attention to these issues, and I feel
that the harm, inconvenience, and cost that they visited on others was
somewhat self-defeating.

I wish I had a better solution to offer, but at the moment all I can think of
is a meta-solution: there are a lot of smart people at Berkeley -- why not
pose the problem to them, in great detail, and invite them to come up with
creative ways to raise money or reduce spending? A lot of what the protesters
object to, I think, is the feeling that decisions are being imposed on them.
Why not instead let us (every individual department, say) make the decisions
about what to cut ourselves, with the stipulation that if we don't reduce
costs enough, fees will go up accordingly?

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tsally
An hour ago they reported on their Twitter account that the SWAT team was
coming in: <http://twitter.com/ucbprotest/status/5906053463>

Looks just they just had another status update, so I'm not sure what happened
with that.

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cloudkj
Looks like it ended:
[http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2009/11/20_wheel...](http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2009/11/20_wheeler2.shtml)

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foulmouthboy
Their primary demand is to rehire a bunch of custodians who got laid off?
These kids need a couple of courses on "Look out for number one".

~~~
anigbrowl
They could take a lesson from the UC regents. Mark Yudoff, who's the president
of the UC system, takes home $600,000, although I have a hard time believing
that he's busier than, say, the president of the USA who is only paid 2/3 of
that amount.

The Cal State football coach gets an annual salary of _$2.8 million_ , and the
university is spending $430 million on improving their football stadium. I
kind of sympathize with Berkeley students who wonder how there is so much
money for this but janitors and security staff are losing their jobs. I
suppose sports brings in the alumni $$$ or something, but frankly I fail to
see why universities are involved with a sport famous for the number of
players who suffer permanent brain damage.

~~~
natrius
The value of the presidency of the United States is far more than the salary.
College football usually pays for itself and then some.

~~~
jrockway
I am not disagreeing, but if you had some numbers, I would be interested in
taking a look.

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dangrover
I'm actually applying to transfer to UC Berkeley now. $10,302/year is a
freakin' _steal_ compared to what I've been paying.

~~~
anigbrowl
Have you been here for over a year? If not, you might be in for some sticker
shock. A year and a day of continuous residence in CA is required to qualify
for in-state tuition fees.

~~~
dangrover
Yeah,I've been living here for almost a year with the intention of getting in-
state rates

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leeskye
Nice. The same hall/building where Startup School was.

