I was arrested in the intersection and what I have to say is brief and comes in the form of observations about this article. Little more needs to be said about this than these two observations, which should make a whole other list of conclusions about this editorial board seem obvious.

First: The amateurish attempt at constructive criticism – find one thing good and one thing bad. A sort of poor man’s rhetorical trick to make the authors seem thoughtful, fair, and knowledgeable. Keep practicing those analytical skills, you’ll get there.

Second: That the editorial board condemns civil disobedience as a matter of practice with apparently no commentary, analysis, or understanding of the central role it has played in US politics and social movements. The editorial board needs to do some serious self-reflection and determine whether they are qualified practically or academically to deliver strong strategic mandates to those at UCLA who are doing the real labor. Just because you have the ability to write on a topic doesn’t make you an expert on it, nor does it relieve of you of your responsibility for acquainting yourself enough with subject matter to at least make more credible and careful suggestions.

That’s all you need to know.

PS We did our part to draw attention to it now do yours. The question remains the one that you did perceptively and correctly identify towards the beginning of this article, what is the student body, in general, going to do about what’s happening to California? Obviously some of us think that non-compliance is a powerful tool, certainly lobbying and elections have only had a limited effect on the narrow range of options that the constrains of traditional politics make available to us. If we are going to talk about being creative, that means operating outside of the boundaries of the traditional forms of politics that students have engaged in since the end of the great movements of the 60s and 70s. And guess what – that creativity will probably means that some of us will break the law. The question is what good does public condemnation on a segment of folks making sacrifices, taking risks, and doing the hard work serve for the formation of the movement you agree we need? More simply: what side are you on? If you’re a student paper, there should be no cause to ever ask this question.

And I turn around and ask you this, Jason:

What good does preventing other people from reaching their destination on time, whether it be work, class, health appointment, etc. do?

I never have a problem with people protesting for whatever cause, until the protesters consider their cause greater than other people’s need to get on with their daily lives. You draw no sympathy to your cause when you hurt others in your attempt to bring attention to your cause. Think about it, and be less selfish next time.

Hey PK, I wish I could respond to you directly, but I can not put it any better than Andrew:

“…if you can find a major movement for social justice in world history that was summarily defined as “convenient”, I’d honestly like to hear about it. From a historical perspective, it would be fairly hard to argue that we got the minimum wage, the 8-hour work day, child labor laws, the institutionalization of collective bargaining, civil rights for African-Americans, the end of apartheid in South Africa, etc. without explicitly breaking the law and creating disruptions of everyday life. That is the nature of civil disobedience. The action was not designed to offend you or people stuck in traffic personally, it was designed to get people to pay attention to a crisis in our education system that they wouldn’t be thinking about otherwise, as well as to propose a set of solutions to increase revenue for the state of California as an alternative to cuts and tuition increases (see the ReFund CA pledge, which we taped to the window of B of A).”

So I would contend that Jason’s (and other’s) actions on Wed. are selfless, more than anything. They are not protesting for their own gain.

The merits of the protest turn neither on whether it was legal nor whether you are with or against the protesters. It may be that laws must be broken to make certain kinds of progress. But if we accept JB’s position at face value, almost any sized disruption or cost to bystanders could be justified and we are apparently required to defer to his judgement on the details or be lumped in with the bad guys. In other words, he just doesn’t get it.

For example, what if you strongly favor more public support for higher education but question the half-baked bumper sticker mentality of the ReFund California pledge? Moreover, that pledge and the protest were completely top down (apparently mostly orchestrated by organized labor, which does not have precisely the same agenda as college students seeking lower fees) and brooked no debate or discussion. Being forced to pick with or against you, without debate or flexibility, is the kind of false choice favored by narrowly inflexible and insecure minds.

It would be comforting if passionate folks like JB were more tolerant of the diversity of views on his side of these issues. Otherwise, this kind of action may well prove to be counterproductive, exactly the point of the editorial. It was questioning less that the protest was illegal, than the excessive and unsympathetic form that took. In other words, the DB board thought the protest was quite likely stupid if the idea was to generate more, rather than less, support for public support of higher ed. JB seems to suggest not only that that is impossible, because it was so unimpeachably brilliant, but that merely asking the question brings one’s loyalties into question. Good luck with that kind of thinking.

Lionel,

So you and Jason are advocating acts that target random groups of people and disrupt their lives. Your statements imply that any amount of victims hurt by your actions is acceptable because it’s for your greater cause.

My objection is not out of personal inconvenience. I was miles away from the protest. My objection to the acts is the disregard to others (in this case, people blocked in that intersection) needs. Who made Jason the arbiter of whose cause is greater? What he did merely shows to me that in his opinion, his cause and needs (to bring attention to his cause) is more important than the needs of everybody else in that intersection. Not only did Jason’s reply (and yours) reflect a (IMO arrogant) belief that any amount of disruption to any number of people is acceptable, you make no distinction of who you are affecting and whether your actions lead to temporary inconvenience or lasting harm.

I don’t argue that civil disobedience needs to be harmless and non-disruptive. My issue is with the choice of targets to be disrupted. The protestors on Wednesday could have chosen to disrupt the the lives of individuals and entities who are actually involved instead of a random group of people. They want to make banks pay? They could’ve sat in BoA or Wells Fargo and refuse to move. They could’ve marched on UC executives. They still would’ve gotten the media coverage, and potentially could still be arrested, but without the damage to bystanders. Of course it’s not as sensational, but who cares how your actions affect others, right?

To argue that Wednesay’s action was led by ‘outsiders’ is not only false but represents just plain bad journalism.

I’m a graduate student in Urban Planning here at UCLA, as well as the statewide President of UAW Local 2865: the union that represents 12,000 student employees throughout the UC system, including Teaching Assistants, Readers, and Tutors. It was in this dual capacity as student and union representative that I was one of the lead organizers of Wednesday’s actions: those at UCLA, as well as those by students across the state.

I doubt that you would accuse the College Democrats or the College Republicans of being led by ‘a bunch of outsiders,’ just because they choose to affiliate with those national (hence, outside) institutions. You should give the same credit to all student groups, until proven otherwise. In this case, you failed to do due diligence as journalists.

Our union of student-workers chose to affiliate with the coalition ReFund California because we think their political analysis is spot on: it was Wall Street banks and the corporate elite that put our state and, hence, our public education system, in this crisis. It is they – not students and our families – who should pay to clean up this mess. It doesn’t help matters that the UC Regents are themselves bankers and corporate elite.

All of this is to say that our coalition work with labor and community organizations deserves applause rather than un-informed skepticism. Just because we choose to affiliate with an ‘outside’ organization does not mean that we are not the agents and leaders of our own actions.

Your excessive use of the grammatically-incorrect passive voice in this editorial (“a disturbance was made, a voice was heard”) is evidence of not only your poor journalism but your ignorance of who, exactly, was leading Wednesday’s actions. On behalf of my fellow students and workers, I would like to take credit for those actions. In the meantime, I’d like to get in touch with your TAs, because you obviously missed an important lesson in how to write (or do anything, for that matter) with an active voice.

Again, less stridency might move this conversation along more usefully. That UCLA students led this rally isn’t clear from the ReFund California PR; whose fault is that? Then the grammar complaint plays more snarky than helpful, not least since it’s wrong. (FYI, a short guide to the passive is here.)

I understand the instinct to claim the higher ground (and its syntax). Still, consider whether doing so advances your cause or sets it back.

Blocking the commute of hundreds or thousands of working class people will do nothing to help your cause, in fact, it will do the opposite and make many of them hostile to your cause, even if supporting it is in their best interest.

Instead, go protest a meeting of the Regents or something similar. There are ways to publicize your cause without forcing people with no control or connection to what you are protesting besides commuting on a particular street to sit in traffic for an extended period of time. Admittedly, this got you publicity, but certainly not good publicity.

Those of you, like Jason, who blocked the intersection should be ashamed. Not for protesting something they believe is wrong – which is a noble action – but for deciding that somehow you were justified in forcing a cost on others who had no influence or connection to the issues you were protesting. Civil disobedience is a powerful force – but it needs to be used responsibly, aimed at the correct targets, not at random. In the civil rights movement, sit-ins occurred at restaurants that did not serve minorities – thus it was directed at those who perpetrated and supported the policies they were protesting. The civil rights movement would not have accomplished anywhere close to as much as it did if its civil disobedience instead just randomly inconvenienced people.

Most of the cracking down on Occupy protesters by police in the U.S. is disgraceful and unnecessary, but these arrests were warranted. Congratulations on setting your cause back, wasting the time of working people and getting arrested.

To Jason and people like you, I’m glad you got arrested. What you did was wasted countless people’s time, thats it. You also blocked traffic to a major hospital. If someone died because they couldnt get them to the hospital in time thanks to your selfish reasoning, would it still be for the greater good then. As other protesters have pointed out, the movements that actually changed things targeted the very people they were against. Now you just pissed off hundreds of people. Do you really think people are going to support you when you are ruining their everyday lives for selfish reasons. Guess what, people going to work and putting food on the table for their family IS more important than you having to pay more money. I just graduated, and I hated the tuition hikes while I was there, but I would never harm the lives of innocent people to get what I want. Go sit in on UC board members, or protest in front of their houses, or take it to government buildings, or to buildings of your so called 1%. Stop harming the lives of innocent people, most of whom are the very 99% that you are claiming to help. Stop being so selfish, and maybe you’ll find that more people will support your cause.