UCD

I wish I was a more eloquent writer. I read the words of friends like Shannon and my father who can state the truth with simplicity, clarity, and emotion. I struggle to figure out what I'm feeling much less how to put in in words.

The UCD pepper spraying incident has me angry and frustrated. But the comments on the newspaper articles and videos just make me me sick to my stomach. They say such things as -  the students deserved it. They didn't move when the police told them to, so they paid the price, deal. Oh, this is what the students wanted, isn't it - more publicity?

Personally, I just want to sob.

When did we, the nation of the tea partiers (the original ones), decide that students should not be allowed to protest peacefully? These students were sitting on the ground with their arms locked. Sitting, unarmed. And a cop decided to pepper spray them. He said the police felt that they were in danger. In danger from whom? The kids sitting on the ground?  Yes, there was a crowd around the cops, but the cops were armed, the students weren't, nor did any of them try to hurt one of the policemen. Also remember, these students were most likely between the ages of 18-22. The policemen/women are older, trained, and armed (with something - take a look at that video).

And some people think spraying them was okay.

The police should have let the students sit there if they refuse to move. No one has explained why that would have been a problem. Or pull them apart. Yes, if you are going to protest you have to be willing to take the consequences. But when students are leading a non-violent protest, and the police are the first to react in a violent, aggressive manner - who do you think is going to look bad? That's why peaceful protesting works.

And people are defending the police?

Have we really traveled this far down the path toward becoming a police nation? There was a time when this country believed in and stood up for certain ideals. All people should be allowed to have their say, people shouldn't be tortured, everyone deserves a good life. Did we always live up to those ideals? Of course not, we are human, we fail.  But we tried. We as a country, had those goals, ambitions, and ideals. We clung to those beliefs. When we failed to meet them, we tried to change, we learned, we grew, we moved on. And now? And now, we have stopped reaching for the stars and started settling for mediocre. We condone torture, refuse to take care of this earth, and deride people for speaking the truth when it doesn't bring in a profit.  We condone breaking up peaceful protests of college students because they didn't do what they were told to do.

We are becoming an uneducated nation, easy to control with fear and terror. We are becoming the perfect police state, ready to give up our privacy and soul for a safer nation.

To be completely honest, I am much more upset about the comments then the policeman's actions. Weird I know, but true. We have had a very strong, must fight crime at all costs, attitude these days. What do you think the police are taught to do? I think they did what they were told. The problem is us, the people. The people who have accepted this change in attitude. Who've accepted that we need to pay any price for securing our nation that one iota more then it was yesterday. Yet we forget - the tighter you squeeze the more they'll slip through your fingers.

I know what these students are fighting for - education (along with much, much, more including, truthfully, just some teenage angst). We are denying them an education at a decent, fair price. People shouldn't have to assume as much debt as buying a house just to get an eduction. But we want to increase their tuition another 9% because the state doesn't want the rich to pay taxes on their Yachts. When I graduated from Davis, it was about $4,000 a year. Now it's 13,000 a year and going up again. It more than tripled in 11 years. If you look at inflation, that 4,000 should be 5,260. Did you know it's more expensive to go to Law School at Davis, a public university, than McGeorge, a private one (which doesn't charge out of state tuition).

I guess that is part of the plan, deny education to people or strap them down with so much debt that they have no future. People are easy to control and manipulate in that state.

Our country has lost its way. No one in charge cares a damn about fixing anything - the republicans want to get rid of government regulations and the democrats just want annoy the republicans as much as possible. We are the ones that are forgotten.

I want to call in sick tomorrow and be at the protest at UCD.  I know I won't. I know I'll  go to work and listen in on the radio, annoyed at myself for not taking part, yet unsure what I can do. But I do know what I can do. I can graduate from law school debt free. And without that debt, I can take on the world of corporate greed. Will I change things? Probably not - but I will hold on to my ideals. I'll probably fail miserably, but at least I will have tried instead of settling for mediocre.