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The Protest's Balls Grew Three Sizes Today

We've talked about the "strike" ad nauseum, but it became something different today: a good ol' fashioned Berkeley protest. Students have occupied Wheeler Hall, fights broke out between protesters and police, sirens have been wailing all day, and news choppers fill the sky. After two days of a namby pamby strike with confusing motives and limited purpose, someone finally let the wild rumpus start. (Sorry, DE.)

I don't know if this makes me a hypocrite, a bandwagoner, lazy, or an idiot--and I'm sure I'll be called worse in the comments--but the protesters won me over today. Why? I guess because they finally proved that they have some balls.

I've never really disagreed with their cause. They're mad about tuition going up 32%? Of course they are. Me too! They're also angry about 900 layoffs happening alongside lavish building projects and huge salaries for the upper crust? Fair enough. We could go back and forth all day over whether these cost-saving measures are necessary evils or whether the allying of these causes makes any sense, but you can't really blame these people for being pissed. And I never did.

I took issue with the PR. A "strike" that is scheduled to last a couple of days? Weak. Calling it a "strike" at all when students are being encouraged to skip classes they already paid for? That's called a walkout. Striking within the UC system when the various insanities of California state government are really at fault? Pointless. None of it made a lot of sense to me or apparently a lot of other people, so the strikers' rhetoric failed to catch on. Oh, sure, the early adopters in ELQ and elsewhere got a little riled up, but Joe Schmo (yeah, I'll be Joe Schmo) was left confused and a little annoyed.

Today they kicked it up a notch, and all that changed. A strike doesn't make a lot of sense when you have already paid for the service, but a fiery protest in the middle of a rainstorm? I can follow that. Channeling that righteous anger into the spontaneous occupation of a building instead of posting flyers specifying protest dates and times? Now you're talkin'. And making enough noise to reach not just Sacramento but the National media? Now that sounds like a movement!

I guess you shouldn't change your position on an issue based on how loud someone is yelling, but sometimes it's enough to make you listen. The action today, responsible or not, made a helluva lot of noise--much more than the wishy washy strike originally planned. The people who decide these issues will hear that noise, and maybe they'll think twice before cutting funding to public education. Good.

As I finish writing this, it looks like the protest has ended with the arrest of 41 protesters. However you feel about their cause, you have to admire their conviction. Before today, it was hard to take them seriously. Tonight, it's impossible not to.

Full post as published by Nuts & Boalts on November 20, 2009 (boomark / email).