Stephen Colbert on Occupy Cal

[ahorbinski]

I've never been so ashamed to be associated with Cal as on Wednesday night, when the UCPD beat UC Berkeley's students and arrested 40 members of its campus community for expressing their views in accordance with their constitutional rights and long-standing campus tradition.

I found it telling that the mainstream media totally failed to cover Occupy Cal (40 arrests) and focused entirely on the Penn State riots (zero arrests).

Comments

[peoppenheimer]

Coverage of riots sells more soap than coverage of self-disciplined, consensus-based, peaceful democratic actions?

[peoppenheimer]

Addendum: I saw one stretch of video in which it appeared that Robert Hass was among those being mistreated by members of the UCPD, although I did not see any footage in which a baton was being used on him. Is this a sign that we are beginning to take poets seriously? Celeste Langan was arrested, I've read, but I don't know how much physical force was used against her. Are any other of the arrestees, or people beaten by members of the UCPD, known to you?

The statement by the administration, claiming that linking arms is not non-violent civil disobedience, seems to impose a more stringent standard for non-violent civil disobedience than any I've been exposed to before. I think that it is a false claim. (There might possibly be circumstances in which a case could be made that linking arms is violent—perhaps, for example, if it is used to prevent rescuers from saving a life—but no such circumstances seem to have obtained in this case.)

[ahorbinski]

No, to my knowledge I don't know anyone who was arrested or beaten.

Re: "linking arms ≠ non-violence," we've all been scratching our heads about that one. I've been told that there is precedent for it (though I have no details on where, I should ask my friend), but it's clearly morally bankrupt, regardless.