OCCUPY WALL STREET

[AtLast]

Originally Posted by persiphone

sorry if this has already been posted....looks like beating and arrests aren't just for dirty hippies, the unemployed, the eldery, and the homeless...

http://morallowground.com/2011/11/15...eviction-raid/

Yes, anyone out there protesting could be subject to the insane methods being used by police.

And students that have paid tuiton, will be in debt when they graduate into an economy in which there are few jobs available to them. They are being pepper sprayed on campus while they are demonstrating passively and without malice.

I know that because I teach community college students, I have a bias, but, in CA, the rise in costs for students throughout our college and university systems has doubled in 1 academic year!! New increases are in the works as well.

A huge number of college students that were key in electing Obama 3 years ago will be finishing college by the time of the general election. Will they be supporting him??? They don't exactly have a lot to look forward to starting out. I graduated during a recession and when Jimmy Carter was in office. I didn't have many options and knew I would not be employed in the area I just earned a degree in, but, there were many more jobs available to grads then that they could take and build experience in the workplace and later do what they studied for. This is not true for our young people today unless they are in science and math and even then, the competition is great.

So many of my students were laid off and are seeking new employment skills. They have kids and are often working part-time to make ends meet. Some are returning vets that are not finding work. Community colleges have high numbers of POC also and are often the heart of smaller towns.

I see so much depression and fear about the future in these students. Yes, I eventually was able to work in areas I wanted to, but I don't feel optimism about this for kids in college right now. I have never felt this negative about this.

[SoNotHer]

http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/...x&rc=confemail

Tell the University of California: Ban the use of chemical agents and physical violence against peaceful protester


Last week at the University of California at Davis, campus police dressed in riot gear sprayed nonviolent protesters with chemical agents. A dramatic video captures the scene. The protesters kneeling. Arms linked. They posed no threat to the officers. The officers standing above them. Dousing them with pepper spray.1

Social movements in this country have a long tradition of using civil disobedience to challenge injustice. Protesters with a deep commitment to social change peacefully disobey an order to disperse and the police must make mass arrests in order to end the protest.

What the authorities at the University of California have done is employ the use of chemical agents to stop protesters from exercising their First Amendment rights. They clearly fear that the size, commitment and growing power of the Occupy protests is so great that they will fill up their jails -- not on one day, but every day -- if they want to put a stop to the movement.

Tell Mark G. Yudof, president of the University of California, and Sherry Lansing, chairperson of the University of California Board of Regents, to protect protesters' First Amendment rights to peaceably assemble, and ban the use of chemical agents and/or physical violence against nonviolent protesters on all University of California campuses.

Outrageously, the chancellor of the University of California at Davis, Linda P.B. Katehi, initially defended the actions of the officers but today finally placed the chief of the campus police on administrative leave pending a review. The UC Davis faculty association is calling for Katehi's resignation. 2

This is not just happening at the campus in Davis. In Berkeley, Robert Hass, a 70-year-old former poet laureate of the United States and Pulitzer Prize winner, described how he and his wife were beaten by police while peacefully assembling in solidarity with campus Occupy protesters.

In an op-ed piece in the New York Times, Hass notes that the violent actions against peaceful protesters on the Berkeley campus are thrown into particularly high relief as the protests there are taking place where the Free Speech Movement was launched almost 50 years ago, quoting Mario Savio's famous call to action: "There is a time ... when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part. You can't even passively take part." 3

The University of California Board of Regents has ultimate responsibility for the actions of authorities at all University of California campuses, including Davis and Berkeley. The president and chairperson of this board must take decisive action to protect the First Amendment rights of student, faculty and the campus communities -- rights that are so clearly under violent attack.

Tell Mark G. Yudof, president of the University of California, and Sherry Lansing, chairperson of the University of California Board of Regents, to protect protesters' First Amendment rights to peaceably assemble, and ban the use of chemical agents and/or physical violence against nonviolent protesters on all University of California campuses.

From Mahatma Gandhi to Martin Luther King, Jr. to Mario Savio, nonviolent civil disobedience is an time-honored form of protest. If authorities allow police in riot gear to simply use chemical agents and violence, instead of arrests, to remove peaceful protesters respectfully decline to follow an order to disperse, then they will not only be taking away our fundamental rights, they will implicitly be encouraging more violent forms of resistance.

The community response to the events in Davis have been overwhelming. In the coming days we may see resignations at the highest level. But what's at stake is not just the job of the chancellor of the University of California at Davis or its campus police chief. It's about whether the right to free speech on campus will endure. That's why we need the President and the Chairperson of the UC Board of Regents to protect the rights of protesters on every UC campus, and to set a precedent for universities not just in California but nationwide.

[atomiczombie]

Originally Posted by AtLast

Yes, anyone out there protesting could be subject to the insane methods being used by police.

And students that have paid tuiton, will be in debt when they graduate into an economy in which there are few jobs available to them. They are being pepper sprayed on campus while they are demonstrating passively and without malice.

I know that because I teach community college students, I have a bias, but, in CA, the rise in costs for students throughout our college and university systems has doubled in 1 academic year!! New increases are in the works as well.

A huge number of college students that were key in electing Obama 3 years ago will be finishing college by the time of the general election. Will they be supporting him??? They don't exactly have a lot to look forward to starting out. I graduated during a recession and when Jimmy Carter was in office. I didn't have many options and knew I would not be employed in the area I just earned a degree in, but, there were many more jobs available to grads then that they could take and build experience in the workplace and later do what they studied for. This is not true for our young people today unless they are in science and math and even then, the competition is great.

So many of my students were laid off and are seeking new employment skills. They have kids and are often working part-time to make ends meet. Some are returning vets that are not finding work. Community colleges have high numbers of POC also and are often the heart of smaller towns.

I see so much depression and fear about the future in these students. Yes, I eventually was able to work in areas I wanted to, but I don't feel optimism about this for kids in college right now. I have never felt this negative about this.

Back when I first went to a community college (1989), tuition was $5 per unit.

[atomiczombie]

For anyone who thinks that the protestors don't know why they are protesting: