Did you hear that they might actually get their shit together to classify pizza as a vegetable for the purpose of school lunch menus? They say it's just too expensive to provide healthy foods and besides, food companies that make frozen pizzas, the salt industry and potato growers are sad at the prospect of losing so much business. Ah, there's the propulsion for forward momentum. Of course, it's not parents. Despite the fact that the lunch program was modified based on recommendations by the Institute of Medicine, as an attempt to curb childhood obesity and skyrocketing future health care costs, Republican Congressional members say that the government shouldn't tell kids what to eat. Unless, I guess, it's telling kids to eat frozen pizza and french fries in support of the food lobby. Then it's a-okay.
And people wonder why protestors won't break camp and head on home. Speaking of.
Have you watched the paramilitary forces of the UC campuses brutalize its students? At UC Berkeley, students who linked arms took the brunt of baton-weilding policy in their bellies, ribs and spines before many were arrested. A former U.S. poet laureate was bashed. And the UCB chancellor said "linking arms is not non-violent civil disobedience." Um.
And then, this past weekend, it was time for the junta of UC Davis to give their arsenal an airing. The students of UC Davis-- truly my alma mater-- sat quietly on a path running through the student-occupied quad and refused to move when the cops demanded. They refused quietly. They refused non-violently (as per the standard definition and not Chancellor Birgeneau's inexplicable misconstruction of it-- would he even get into Cal?). And because they didn't move, and perhaps because they didn't threaten enough to warrant the frustrated presence of the police force, the cops vented their pepper spray directly into the somber, scared faces of the students. From three feet away. Students gagged, coughed, coughed blood. But they didn't fight. They sat. And others, who were not in need of medical attention, kept the peace where the cops could not. After a mic check, the UCD protestors informed the cops that they could go in a chant. And the cops, proving themselves to have an ounce of common sense, went. This was the most impressive demonstration of peaceful protest I've ever seen. The protestors released the cops and the power of calm prevailed over force. Hold your tears or maybe let them flow.
The First Amendment is always messy and often expensive. Violent police response in the manner we're seeing will only accrue benefit to the protestors. Leadership, whether on campuses or in cities, has failed to recognize that the media savviness of these camps is far beyond government understanding. Videos of peaceful protests join our second lives on Facebook among pictures of friends and family. The old red herrings of black-hooded anarchists have rotted to nothing but a stink, which is all they ever were. The protestors hold each other up intelligently and amorphously; they have books and self-control. And, in a resounding censure of government, they don't talk politics. It's their silence on this particular issue that peals loudly against the current status quo. The system as it stands is too dysfunctional to even contemplate the changes that would be required to alleviate its problems. And the leadership is forced into a corner of befuddlement. Confusion among those who hold power makes them vulnerable; they act stupidly. See Mayor of Oakland and the dumbs chancellors of UCB and UCD.
For those who squealed with delight at the pepper-spray that saturated the scarves and hoods of the UCD students because you thought "that's good, they were breaking rules," I'll wage a gentle disagreement. When you consider rule-breaking, also consider the surfeit of rules codified to the benefit of those who hold power already. "Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it," said Thoreau. There is always a rule or law to be broken, without even an intent. Standing for too long becomes disorderly conduct. Not moving quickly enough becomes failing to obey the order of an officer or, worse, obstruction of government action. So the rule becomes convenient for the imposition of power. The First Amendment states that freedom of expression may not be abridged but you can't stand there, sit there, stay there after a certain hour. Only fools would grant priority to these rules over the peaceful objections of those who suffer.
Finally, Go Ags. Continue to be great.
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