Too little, too late. (an open letter to the students of the UC)

agreed--and it's not just students (8.00 / 1)

this pattern is drearily familiar (Prop 8 protests, anyone?)

In Ventura, people who never got involved in Measure A's campaign are begging the City Council to save the Wright Library and other services that Measure A would have saved.  Sorry, people--where were you when you could have made a difference?

Aggrievement and collective shouting is fun, and makes people feel good.  Actually doing something is, you know, work.

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by: David Atkins (thereisnospoon) @ Thu Nov 19, 2009 at 15:11:43 PM CST

asdf (0.00 / 0)

The truth is, most people are completely tuned out of state politics until it hits them at home. There's almost no coverage on local news stations across the state, and with the possible exception of the Bee, it's not a high priority among the state's newspapers, and that's the only mainstream place people might get their news about it.

The disaster already occurred and stands ready to repeat itself. People were a little annoyed for a while when some people got IOUs and some aren't stoked on the higher class sizes this year, but for the most part, your average work-a-day Calfornian thinks they got away mostly unscathed from all of this. Sure, the DMV is closed an extra day--they're annoying anyway--and the state park rangers hover over like mosquitoes to collect any conceivable fee...

...the truth is, the Legislature, as has been its habit for as long as I can remember, just keeps punting. It's time for them to make a goal line stand this time.

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by: Attorney At Arms @ Thu Nov 19, 2009 at 15:38:51 PM CST

[ Parent ]

The Kids These Days! (1.00 / 1)

You know, what they should do is bend over and take it like every other resident of California.

After they are done being put in their place by both the government and the "smarter" "progressives" (and of course finish donwloading things like Brittney Spears or whatever the kids listen to these days) they can join the more righteous cause that you deem to be appropriate. And when they ask "hey, how come you guys didn't stop that 2/3rds requirement that came about before we were evern born?" you can patronizingly tell them that questions like that won't help with the fundraising letters enlightened "organizers" need to get out.

Thanks Dante for setting everyone straight!  

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by: dskc @ Thu Nov 19, 2009 at 15:51:24 PM CST

That requirement (0.00 / 0)

came about before I was born, in case you can't do math.

I'm specifically asking them NOT to bend over and take it.  I'm asking them specifically to do something about it before they no longer have a choice.

There's a lot of accountability to go around on a lot of these issues.  But I'm glad you signed up for an account just to post this.

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by: Dante Atkins @ Thu Nov 19, 2009 at 16:07:57 PM CST

[ Parent ]

So? (0.00 / 0)

Yes, i signed up just to post this. I usually just read the site, but that's how much this entry ticked me off, and I am not a UC student.

Down the line you bemoan students only caring when they are the ones getting hit. Yet it seems that really only applies to everyone except UC students. I mean, what did you think when the anti-sweatshop work was happening, or pro labor movements in general? Did you find it selfish? Politically silly that they were fighting things that didn't directly impact them?

I think your sentiments are correct, and I hope that folks are working to harness the energy of UC students today towards more systemic change in California tomorrow.

But it's open letters like these that make people hate "progressives", especially professional "progressives." And it turns young people away by making progressive movements seem dominated by a small group of professional activists who denigrate those causes you don't agree with. It's the same stupid shit the left has been doing since the 1930's. What's the point? Unless all you want it to be able to say, when nothing actually changes at UC, that you were right?  

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by: dskc @ Thu Nov 19, 2009 at 16:32:59 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Also (1.00 / 1)

came about before I was born, in case you can't do math

I don't know you, nor do I know how old you are. All i know is that you started college 10 years ago. So don't be an ass.

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by: dskc @ Thu Nov 19, 2009 at 16:38:32 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Kind of patronizing, don't you think? (0.00 / 0)

Look.  I'm just as frustrated as you are with these ineffective protests and downright harebrained ideas of what passes for effective leadership among students.

But why don't you go onto university campuses and actually try and track some of these people down and recruit them into the activities that would actually be a productive use of their time?  This blog is a nice way to start, but most students probably aren't reading it.  Go find these so called student leaders and help them direct people to a more appropriate option.  So far most of the people I've talked to here are angry, don't know enough about the actual issues and are ripe for someone who actually knows what's going on to help them understand how to cause actual change.

It'd be great if you or someone else on your campaign would harness the power of the angry students who'd like to do something but don't know where to turn.  Most of them do really have good intentions and might be willing to put the work in necessary to help organize field operations in their surrounding communities.  At the very least they can get other students to sign petitions that need signing, I already directed one student to the list of circulating initiatives and told him to find a campaign to join, but there's really no outreach to students here to help them realize they have ways to help do something important.

Unfortunately I'd love to say I'd help you do this, but you'll have to start with someone else as I've already found my own effective battle to fight.  (We're working hard to land more federal research money.  Which doesn't put as much money into UC's core budget as we'd like, but will still be an improvement.)

I touch computers in naughty places.

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by: djcapelis @ Thu Nov 19, 2009 at 15:57:03 PM CST

Slightly patronizing (0.00 / 0)

and I try inasmuch as I am able.  We in the Young Democrat clubs both locally and statewide do our absolute best to increase awareness of these issues.

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by: Dante Atkins @ Thu Nov 19, 2009 at 16:04:23 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Too cranky. (5.00 / 1)

Dante, please, don't be ridiculous. Having spent some considerable time organizing UC students, I can tell you that dunning them for not participating in previous efforts when they do actually show up is a pretty ineffective organizing tactic. Believe it or not, this is not something they want to hear and it does not encourage people to stay involved.

How 'bout instead of whining about it in an "open letter" on a blog that is read primarily by people who are already very politically engaged, you, the professional organizer, get out there and actually organize them around these causes?  They are, after all, 18-22 year old kids.  I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for them to take on the 2/3rds budget requirement on their own.

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by: OAKsteader @ Thu Nov 19, 2009 at 16:07:57 PM CST

neither would I (0.00 / 0)

but it's upsetting to see any signs of life occurring only when they're the ones about to get hit.

A little harsh?  That's likely.  But it's the same thing with so many other issues, and then once the immediate crisis is done, it all falls through the woodwork.

It's not like I'm an older activist.  I'm 27.  I remember distinctly what that life is like.

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by: Dante Atkins @ Thu Nov 19, 2009 at 16:13:42 PM CST

[ Parent ]

What did you expect? (8.00 / 1)

Students are nothing but grassroots.  They don't have any other options and the need for studying eventually annihilates taking more than little bits of time at a time to do much.

Students need better coordination and need help to do it.  If you want students to be an effective partner then someone needs to invest time and actual money into providing these folks with the coordination tools and resources they need to be effective.

These days "grassroots campaigns" usually have full-time support.  Whether it comes from Fox News or professional organizers or people who simply don't have jobs and so have time to invest in politics.  So far I've seen very little actual investment into college level grassroots organizations.

The young democrats organization isn't reaching the right people.  Find the people who are actually angry and help them, don't just get the students who are already politically involved.  The people involved in young democrats often spend more time making sure everyone who expresses interest in this organization is hooked up with someone in a statewide or establishment organization when you need to be doing the opposite.  You need to be teaching these people to be your resources on the field, you need to be teaching them how to hook up with other students, not hooking them up with people off their campuses.  At least, that's the best advice I can think of to give you, maybe you already do this, I really don't know what you do.  Maybe it just seems like this is the mistake you're making.

At the very least it seems you should go to CDP and make a case for increased actual money flowing to this cause.

I touch computers in naughty places.

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by: djcapelis @ Thu Nov 19, 2009 at 16:59:59 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Definitely (0.00 / 0)

agreed on that point.

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by: Dante Atkins @ Thu Nov 19, 2009 at 17:51:42 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Thirded, but... (6.50 / 2)

I'd also say that students could represent a powerful political force if mobilized well. What do most students have? Time.

Sure, they study a lot (hopefully), but there are ample opportunities on breaks for them to provide HUGE grassroots resources. Not to mention, that the various higher ed systems themselves touch every nearly community in the state. Imagine if just some small percentage of students took the Summer, or the Fall semester, off to work to get fiscal reform done?

I agree with the general comment sentiment: the tone here is less productive than it could be.

But I also think it sparks the crucial question: how can students, as a grassroots organizing resource, be used to fight the forces that will line up against comprehensive political/fiscal reform come November?

And on that question, I'd like an answer soon.

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by: daveg @ Fri Nov 20, 2009 at 13:00:54 PM CST

[ Parent ]

At the risk of sounding like Grampa Simpson... (0.00 / 0)

At  the risk of sounding like Grampa Simpson...kids these days.

Here's the thing: The fee increase thing is nothing new - UC has been moving all admin costs onto students for 20 years. I remember attending UCSC in 1990 and guess what - there were protests then too! There were all sorts of attempts to organize (sans Internet) and the problem was once people left school, they just didn't care.

The public has no sympathy for college students - to them college is a nice "Extra", and not something worth paying for to ensure California remains a tech superpower in a changing world.

Politicians don't care either - they're too busy cobbling together some bullshit budget deal every year, students (sans any faculty support of course) would lobby their legislators, be treated like shit, and then it'd be over and at best you'd get some bullshit promise of "more financial aid."

The point is this - this stuff has been going on for a long time, and frankly Democrats in the legislature, Democrats in general have been AWOL. Oh sure there's some freakin' resolution people passed at some committee meeting, and oh yeah we had some platform plank.

The problem is that consistently, whenever anyone has had a chance to fix things, they didn't. So while we can cluck our tongues at the current crop of students protesting "after the fact", the fact is that much of the damage was already being done before these folks were even in junior high. So I'm not willing to give them shit for being "too little too late" - instead I'd rather take a look at those of us who were around, and ask what the fuck did we do?

BTW, for fun why not watch this video from 1992. Old Jerry Brown pretty much predicted all of this back then but he was considered a "kook"...

http://www.dailymotion.com/vid...


--
www.gregdewar.com

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by: gregdewar.com @ Thu Nov 19, 2009 at 17:25:52 PM CST

if that jerry brown was running for governor (0.00 / 0)

i would walk across fire and broken glass for him.

surf putah, your friendly neighborhood central valley samizdat

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by: wu ming @ Fri Nov 20, 2009 at 08:52:51 AM CST

[ Parent ]

You're the Free Mumia sign at an anti-war rally (5.00 / 1)

Funny, I don't remember a post excoriating battered women and allied advocacy organizations for not fighting Prop 8. Or wondering where gay folks were when welfare was dismantled. Why do YOU get to decide which issues are important to people? And why do you think shaming those who still get involved -- sometimes in the face of enormous pressure not to -- is a winning strategy?

One thing to remember is that these students are still students. They're still in the process of learning. Many of them are just now gaining exposure to ideas and forms of action beyond what they grew up with. The vast majority of people do not operate with an organizer's attitude. Not everyone wakes up to reality, and those of us that do wake up do so at different rates and with different triggers. We should be glad that people are getting involved at all -- students tuned in to what's going on are much more easily brought into the fold moving forward than those who shrug it all off. Unfortunately, the message you're trying to get across in this "open letter" is entirely lost because its form is so nasty, so supercilious. But that's life in the circular firing squad.

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by: anchisesdown @ Thu Nov 19, 2009 at 19:48:07 PM CST

I didn't read it that way at all (0.00 / 0)

What I saw Dante saying was, as a recent UCLA grad to current students who are rightly livid with inchoate and poorly focused rage, is that they are just the latest victims of a much deeper problem, and that if they want to resolve that problem, they need to get focused on tackling the larger, underlying issues at work here.

That wasn't done during the early 1990s fee fight. It wasn't done when I was at UC Berkeley in the late '90s because most people thought everything was just fine. And it wasn't done during the early 2000s fee fight either.

Dante's saying that the answer can't just be "stop the fee hikes" but that it has to become more radical, and more tightly organized.

I thought he put it stark terms, but it wasn't dismissive.

You can check out any time you like but you can never leave

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by: Robert Cruickshank @ Thu Nov 19, 2009 at 21:06:20 PM CST

[ Parent ]

It clearly was (0.00 / 0)

dismissive and if it is any indication of what the young democratic clubs are like no wonder the party has been doing so poorly in articulating a real alternative.  As other comments have pointed out students are active in all sorts of ways and the ones that I have met who are involved in this are well aware of linkages between their issues and other issues.  But they are trying to push back in an area where they can--and often because they are afraid that younger members of their communities will be shut out.

Sure there are some who are coming to politics for the first time--and you know what....they are 17 or 18.  Instead of browbeating them you should be trying to connect with them.  Good way to kill off any hope of actually making alliances.

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by: call me ishmael @ Thu Nov 19, 2009 at 22:32:53 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Get off your high horse (0.00 / 0)

If you truly believe that students only get organized when they're ass is on the line than you are more out of touch than you accuse us to be.

Spend any time on a college campus and you will know that the number of groups advocating for various issues is nearly overwhelming.  You have numerous single issue organizations ranging from Invisible Children to health care groups to SIN to gay rights orgs to groups advocating for AIDS patients to environmentalists coupled with multi-issue groups such as CALPIRG and College Democrats.  I can think of nowhere in the state where people are more willing to stand up and get active on issues that do not directly effect themselves.

Additionally, do you believe that all of these students are first years?  Is every senior who will likely face no consequences from the regents vote just sitting and downloading stuff (isn't it funny that even bloggers are now trying to use technology as a symbol of inactivity?) Do you assume that none of the protesters are well off enough to continue going to school regardless of fee increases? Also, do you think that nothing was done prior to the vote? Do you we woke up on Wednesday and said "shit, I need to protest!"? We've been fighting for years on the principle that public education needs to be accessible to the public and not just to those with enough money to afford it.

Finally, we are organizing against the 2/3rds rule. I'll be very surprised if students do not make up a disproportionate amount of the signatures needed to get the Lakoff initiative on the ballot.

So in the future, please direct your smug, condescension elsewhere

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by: jlwolff @ Thu Nov 19, 2009 at 22:13:25 PM CST

smug and counterproductive (5.00 / 2)

undergrads have been organizing and protesting against this process for the entire time i've been a grad student in the UC system. they were at the front of the protests against every fee hike, they were at the center of the years-long drive to force UCD to recognize subcontracted-out food service workers and let them unionize, they came out in force when police tazed students on-campus, they were very supportive of the faculty protests over furloughs and the grad student union's attempts to win fair contracts, they were at the center of the anti-prop 8 effort in town, and are very active in all sorts of causes when they're not doing homework and working jobs on the side (sometimes multiple) just to cover the growing fee demands.

to scold students at the moment that they put together a pretty significant, statewide protest? not only is that offensive, it is tactically dumb. it turns people against you, instinctively, at the very moment when you should be bringing them in and cheering them on.

i can't believe you front-paged this.

surf putah, your friendly neighborhood central valley samizdat

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by: wu ming @ Thu Nov 19, 2009 at 22:23:24 PM CST

Wow! (0.00 / 0)

I didn't think anything could top your moronic Daily Kos diary about the Franken recount, but you've managed to outdo yourself!  Mozel tov!

Next time I hear a young dem complain about a pol talking down to them, I'll remind them of this screed from one of their own.

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by: sanchez96 @ Thu Nov 19, 2009 at 23:23:10 PM CST

Lobby your legislators... (0.00 / 0)

Thanks to the website Keep California's Promise you can find out what representatives represent the schools that are being afflicted with these cuts/fee increases.

UCSB has Tony Strickland as state senator representing them.

UCR has Sen.Dutton and Assemblyman Nestande

Cal State San Bernardino has Assemblyman Adams / and state sen Dutton

UCI has Chuck DeVore and Sen.Harman

Many state schools have Republicans representing them. Don't do rallies at your schools, take the rallies to the Republicans district offices. With political pressure good things can happen.

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by: mmunson @ Fri Nov 20, 2009 at 19:33:54 PM CST