by Janet Carle
Lee Vining, CA
With great sadness I watched peacefully protesting students being coated with pepper spray on the quad of the University of California at Davis, my alma mater. Fond memories of biking through the leafy campus clashed with the video pictures. The image of UC Davis may forever be etched in the public consciousness as the college where the cops sprayed the students.
As an alumni, I understand the need of UCD’s administration to maintain order and public safety.
As a retired park ranger and peace officer, I understand the desire of the campus police force to follow orders, exact compliance and maintain an exit strategy.
As a mother of two twenty-something young men (one a UC graduate) searching for their places in the world, I understand the students’ frustration over steadily rising tuition fees, a sagging job market, and dimming hopes for their futures.
And I had just re-watched the film Gandhi the night before.
What, exactly, was the problem, anyway? UCD administrators had ordered the UCD police to remove about 25 tents and a cooking area from the campus quad. Why was this so important?
We’ve heard it all before from other “Occupy” encampments— issues of sanitation, blocking businesses and traffic flow, killing grass and trees, trash, etc.
But it is really all about authority and power.
“Occupation” is something out of the ordinary. It makes some people uncomfortable. It gets on the local news. It brings a visual, visceral discontent out in the open for all to see. It protests a small number of people having money, power— and authority. When peaceful students are pepper sprayed, batons are drawn, people are dragged away under arrest— the protest is spectacularly validated and inflamed.
What if UCD had simply put up some portable toilets, roped off the big trees and flower beds, and respectfully let the students have their say? Limited public funds can be used for toilets and trash pickup as well as police overtime and jail processing.
Perhaps small bits of our common lands should serve as stages for free speech and non-violent protest. Many people are feeling disenfranchised, frustrated and angry. The “occupy” movement has given a voice and a place to this frustration. A venue to vent, to exchange ideas , to look for a better way — it helps us all in the end. Litter can be collected, grass can be re-seeded, sewage can be pumped. But frustration and discontent will not go away when the tents come down.
Gandhi understood this as India struggled against the British Empire.
Remember how that one came out.
Janet Carle
760-647-6431 (home)
760-709-1162 (cell)
PO Box 39
Lee Vining, CA 93541
Not sure which acts do what, but Congress needs to regulate Credit Swap Defaults – i.e., gambling on investments. If the firm is over-leveraged it can mean total failure. In the meantime, someone makes jillions of dollars. That needs to stop. Banks also do not need to play the stock… Read more »
PS: There has always been “a small number of people wielding money, power, and authority”, and maybe the Mono Lake visitor center and the Tufa reserve should be opened for these squatters, and Tuolumne Meadows in the summer. Remember sewage can be pumped and trash picked up. Any people (Indians)… Read more »
employed: This compares in a few important areas. First: the wealthiest individuals in this country are able to subvert the political process through the transfer of funds to political candidates. The “buying” of votes (from Democrats and Republican representatives alike) is widely acknowledged on both sides of the political aisle.… Read more »
dean- I have found most of the OWS positions to be way oversimplified which tells me that there is an althogether lack of knowledge of how and why things work the way they do. Just one example referred to: “banks were bailed out, we got sold out”. Banks were bailed… Read more »
John – Thank you for addressing my commentary in an intelligible manner and bringing forth topics for discussion as opposed to ad hominem attacks. Mortgages, as you suggested, are a private transaction between two parties. The company making the loan has an obligation to perform adequate due-diligence to ensure that… Read more »
Sure. Much of the Glass-Steagall Act (GSA) still remains intact. FDIC is a product of the GSA. The re-enactment of the GSA in effect, took place during the bailouts since in 1933 it acted in the same manner when the banking system was in crisis. The Congressional Research Service in… Read more »
Dean, Why don’t you share your “professional” earnings and savings with your neighbor so they won’t get foreclosed on. Charity should be voluntary, not forced by government legislation. I, on the other hand, do not have enough (on my production workers salary) to share with people who are stupid or… Read more »
Employed: Throughout history people with money HAVE controlled this nation through the control of information. They’ve also controlled the official narrative through national media. There was no “viral” mechanism for ordinary citizens to share information available. We now have Social Media to allow people to speak truth to power. At… Read more »
Thank you for this
like I said.. Our government is OUT of CONTROL
Occupy can’t be 90% or 99% or whatever they claim to be, because they aren’t exactly leaving their little campouts to go to work. So who are all these people who can afford to sit around and do nothing for weeks on end? They sure don’t represent me and most… Read more »
employed…What you say is so true….Being a liberal myself,people I know think that automatically means I am in favor of this so called”movement”….but that is far from the truth.I see a bunch of unemployed people blaming everyone for what they don’t have.And like you say,probably because of bad decisions THEY… Read more »
Employed: I am a college educated, well-compensated, professional. I consider myself to be, at least, in solidarity with the Occupy movement. Most of the people at the Occupy encampments I have visited aren’t asking for free handouts and flowers for everyone. The people I speak with are generally looking for… Read more »
Bobbie Lee Swagger: Students were attacked by the police officers sent there to protect them. Who, exactly, were the police officers protecting in this situation? The “young, vulnerable” people who were sprayed? Per the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals the legal standard for using Pepper Spray is the SAME as… Read more »
Nice try in attempting to equate “Occupy” with the civil rights and Indian independence movements.
You’re sounding a bit like Senator McCarthy. Are we a country where we can respectfully have a disagreement about our ideology or are we a country where all people who disagree with you, or do things differently than you, should be beaten and arrested? It really can’t go both ways.… Read more »
Nah. You can’t have a group of transients, permanent or otherwise, camped out on public property. This is especially so on a college campus with so many young, vulnerable people about. America, sadly, is a dangerous country and schools and cities have an of obligation to (try to) safeguard their… Read more »
the police state is here
THEY are the 10 percent