Two Weeks too Late

This morning I woke up realizing what I'd have said if I'd been up on that UC Davis podium at the rally on 11.21.

It would have started from this: the war on terror is over. It's over. Time to go home. 9/11 was about militarizing everything, and now it's come home to roost by being practiced on American children. Who authorizes that, who does that, spraying pepper spray down someone's throat, for sitting on the ground.

9/11 was used a big excuse to give the police weapons that are now being used to defend private property against free speech, even more than ever. Police are there to protect private property. UC Davis gets billions from big food and big ag corporations. Administrators are living in a bubble in which they respond mostly to that. It's an inherently violent situation: big corporations, big money, threat of defunding by the state, police with weapons. It has nothing to do with education anymore.

Clearly this connection has come to a point where big business is ready to do violence to voting citizens to protect its interests. This has to end. 


The point is, there were TV from around the world. This was a moment in which poor professors could actually speak to (as they love to say) “a larger audience.” To show people who are are and what we think—some of it quite carefully worked out, all of it hardly ever given the airplay. To give others a reason to get behind the tactics.

Tragically, and this is only my opinion—we blew it.