As many as 100 students and faculty members turned out on Monday afternoon to show solidarity with 12 protesters facing as many as 21 misdemeanor charges, up to 11 years in prison, and restitution fines up to one million dollars for their activities relating to the blocking of a US bank building from January into early March.
On Friday, 12 of them will be arraigned in Yolo County Superior Court. On Monday they rallied, asking the chancellor and the Yolo County District Attorney’s Office to drop the charges. Students and others were signing the letters during the course of the event.
“Starting about 2009, various members of the UC Community started to mobilize to oppose the privatization of the university and the resulting budget cuts and fee increases,” one of the organizers said during her opening comments. “The administration discovered that using violence to combat this dissent was really not going to work – that was clearly evidenced by the international outcry over the beating of students at Berkeley November 9 and of course the pepper spray incident here at UC Davis.”
“So now that they know that violence is not a viable or acceptable tactic, they’ve really turned to litigation to suppress dissent on campus,” she continued. “The result of this is that a great deal of public resources are being wasted to criminalize dissent and these are resources that theoretically could have been spent on public education.”
Muneeza Rizvi read a statement on behalf of friends of the Davis Dozen.
“With the release of the Reynoso report, the world was told what we already knew, there was no legal basis for the suppression of Occupy UC Davis at all,” she read. “The administration with the harsh paternalism that demands absolute control and the fear of resistance that demands silence and stillness did not ask whether a law had been broken that November, but asked what laws could be used to halt our dissent.”
“The events in November were a disgusting example of police misconduct, but really there’s no proper way to stop dissent,” she continued. “As images of Lt. Pike shot across the globe it became belatedly clear to the administration that pepper spraying seated students was not a good way to diffuse resistance.”
She charged that, since then, their movement has been continually monitored and spied on.
“Now 12 people, half of them students that were pepper sprayed in November, are being charged with conspiracy and facing 11 years in jail. They are accused of doing exactly the same thing as those students that were pepper sprayed – sitting in the wrong place,” Ms. Rizvi said. “One of those 12 was recently dismissed and only reinstated after the backlash of an angry sit in and the intercession of his lawyer.”
“The frantic need to stop this dissent drives this action no less than the physical need for repression in November,” she added. “These charges are an abuse of the legal system and a waste of our county’s already limited resources.”
Noha Radwan, an assistant professor of Arabic and Comparative Literature spoke spoke, saying, “I’m very proud of the Banker’s Dozen. I wish I could take credit for having taught them a little bit of what they expressed by their action – to not bow down in the face of power, to speak the truth and to speak their mind and to risk themselves and their careers in doing so.”
She said that when she thinks of the UC Davis Administration, she continually thinks of Shakespeare’s line from Hamlet – “There’s something rotten in the state of Denmark.” She said, “I think there’s something rotten in this whole logic not only the state of California but all of the United States of America.”
“On November 18 the administration ordered the police to go and remove the Occupied Encampment which resulted in the pepper spray of the students in the name of their safety – the administration was very concerned about protecting the female students in the Occupy from fictitious and imaginary predators who might rape the females in the Occupy Movement,” she spoke.
“But when it came time to actually defend the Occupy Movement who were closing the US Bank, they let them go free and left them to the predators who were not fictitious but very real – the US Bank and their support in the court system,” she added. No longer does the university want to protect and defend the students. Professor Radwan added, “The logic completely defies me.”
Professor Radwan argued this was not an action against the US Bank which could have taken place in downtown Davis at that branch and drawn the support of many sympathetic residents.
“The reason the opposition was staged here on campus is that it was also targeting the administration – the administration’s decision to give part of the university campus to the US Bank and claim that this was a neutral act that has nothing to do with the larger context of banking in the United States,” she added.
Scott Shershow, an English professor and Chair of the UC Davis Faculty Association, told the students and others that the DFA has voted to ask the administration to call for the dismissal of charges against the students.
He asked those listening to look around at the university, the buildings, all of which he said were “built out of nothing during the span of a single person’s lifetime and they did it as a gift to themselves and to us because they believed that everyone without exception deserves an education – a free public education.”
“As recently as when I was starting college it was almost free to attend the University of California and we are not going to stand by and allow this university to be sold off to the highest bidder now to become a luxury product confined to the sons and daughters of the rich and the privileged,” Professor Shershow added. “This is our university and we always have to remember that.”
He likened the administration to the proverbial dog that one’s parents says is more frightened of you than you are of it, “They are frightened of us.”
Sunaina Maira, an Associate Professor of Asian American Studies, called this one of the most historic struggles in recent UC Davis history.
“One of the things that really pains me is that you all are fighting for the right to education and yet we find so many people who want to distance themselves from the struggle not understanding that we are actually here for the students – this is a university,” she said. “As a faculty member… I believe I am here for students and if there are no students in classes, if they can’t afford to come here you will be driven out of the university – then what is the point of my having a job.”
“One of the things that disturbs me is how the discourse of higher education at a land grant university has been displaced by a discourse of law and order, of campus security, national security, and policing – this is not what the university is created for,” she added.
She said we have gone from a national security nation to a homeland security university. Professor Maira said, “We were Pepper Spray University on November 18 and now I think we’re Repression University.”
Natalia Kresich, a fifth year student, spoke of witnessing many changes during that short time span to UC Davis and higher education overall in California. Student fees when she arrived five years ago were around $8000 a year, and now they have nearly doubled to more than $15,000 per year.
Departments have been cut and entire majors have disappeared, she continued. “I waited in line for financial aid for hours and I had to fight hard to keep my financial aid when it was being taken away,” she said.
“I have seen administrative salaries increase again and again and again and again while our Women’s Resource Center is forced to cut its self-defense program,” she said.
Ms. Kresich spoke, “We have all been told to accept the fate of austerity. We have all heard the rhetoric that tells us that austerity is necessary. That ever-increasing fees and crippling debt are inevitable and normal. For years now we have heard them say there’s no funding, there’s no money; when we called them out on their privatization agenda they say in effect, there’s nothing to see here, take your concerns elsewhere – if they bother to respond at all.”
“There’s a lot of truth to the slogan we say, ‘Behind every fee increase is a line of riot police,’ ” she continued. “Privatization is an agenda and it is brutally enforced.”
She went on to say that for those who fight this repression it is enforced with pepper spray, shot with plastic bullets, jailed, harassed, dropped from classes or expelled from school.
“Or we wake up one morning and find out that the university has asked the county to file charges against us and will attempt to prosecute us to the fullest extent of the law,” she says.
She said that we had to wait for months to learn from a former Supreme Court Justice that the police action on November 18 was unjustified and completely criminal, and that the weapons that they used were illegal and that they were not even permitted to own them.
“The logical conclusion of these findings is that the chancellor should resign and that the UCPD should be disbanded immediately,” she added.
She added that there was no Reynoso report, however, to explore the new charges, which she argued are as repressive as those actions taken on November 18.
Nick Parone, representing UAW 2865, the union that represents graduate student assistants, represents 1600 students on the UC Davis campus and over 10,000 statewide. He spoke, giving an update on what the union was doing to support the Davis Dozen.
They unanimously voted to support the students and faculty being prosecuted and “as a union we’re actively encouraging everyone to get involved in any way possible.”
“This is very serious. The prosecution of students and faculty for peacefully opposing the privatization of the university sets a very dangerous precedent,” he said. “If we are not willing to allow students and faculty members to express dissent on campus then we must question whether or not this institution can truly be called public anymore.”
—David M. Greenwald reporting
they create a crisis, they exacerbate the situation, they waste resources of the University and court system and they whine about how the funds could be better spent on education… at least we are all in agreement on that one.
Shakespeare had it right . . .
[img]http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3H6qcrvFQow/TvaG1sAS0rI/AAAAAAAAByE/v0sMLIrfgP4/s400/Much_Ado_About_Nothing(261110223618)Much_Ado_About_Nothing_4.jpg[/img]
Matt: At least if you are a 64 year old without kids in college?
[quote]”Starting about 2009, various members of the UC Community started to mobilize to oppose the privatization of the university and the resulting budget cuts and fee increases,” one of the organizers said during her opening comments. “The administration discovered that using violence to combat this dissent was really not going to work – that was clearly evidenced by the international outcry over the beating of students at Berkeley November 9 and of course the pepper spray incident here at UC Davis.”
“So now that they know that violence is not a viable or acceptable tactic, they’ve really turned to litigation to suppress dissent on campus,” she continued. “The result of this is that a great deal of public resources are being wasted to criminalize dissent and these are resources that theoretically could have been spent on public education.”[/quote]
1) The protestors dissent has not done a thing to stop the increase in tuition.
2) The protestors themselves caused the university to spend a boatload of money to quell the demonstrations, which began getting out of hand, and eventually led to a campus bank closure.
And you want to tell me these professors are not egging the protestors on? Trying to justify the closure of a campus bank branch? Insinuating the protestors acts were legal, and the acts of the university were illegal, when no such thing has been adjudicated…
[quote]Noha Radwan, an assistant professor of Arabic and Comparative Literature spoke spoke, saying, “I’m very proud of the Banker’s Dozen. I wish I could take credit for having taught them a little bit of what they expressed by their action – to not bow down in the face of power, to speak the truth and to speak their mind and to risk themselves and their careers in doing so.”
…”The reason the opposition was staged here on campus is that it was also targeting the administration – the administration’s decision to give part of the university campus to the US Bank and claim that this was a neutral act that has nothing to do with the larger context of banking in the United States,” she added.
…Sunaina Maira, an Associate Professor of Asian American Studies, called this one of the most historic struggles in recent UC Davis history…”One of the things that disturbs me is how the discourse of higher education at a land grant university has been displaced by a discourse of law and order, of campus security, national security, and policing – this is not what the university is created for,” she added.
Natalia Kresich, a fifth year student, spoke of witnessing many changes during that short time span to UC Davis and higher education overall in California…She said that we had to wait for months to learn from a former Supreme Court Justice that the police action on November 18 was unjustified and completely criminal, and that the weapons that they used were illegal and that they were not even permitted to own them. “The logical conclusion of these findings is that the chancellor should resign and that the UCPD should be disbanded immediately,” she added.
Nick Parone, representing UAW 2865, the union that represents graduate student assistants, represents 1600 students on the UC Davis campus and over 10,000 statewide…”This is very serious. The prosecution of students and faculty for peacefully opposing the privatization of the university sets a very dangerous precedent,” he said. “If we are not willing to allow students and faculty members to express dissent on campus then we must question whether or not this institution can truly be called public anymore.”[/quote]
“1) The protestors dissent has not done a thing to stop the increase in tuition.”
Do we know that? It was interesting that at the higher ed meeting where Katehi testified the subject quickly went to tuition. Tuition of course is only one part of this.
It is also worth noting that there is an increasing backlash both in the legislature and the Brown admin (also the Sec of Education Torlakson) against executive pay increases.
So I’m not sure you can say there is no impact, they’ve definitely raised the profile of the issue.
“2) The protestors themselves caused the university to spend a boatload of money to quell the demonstrations, which began getting out of hand, and eventually led to a campus bank closure.”
UCD already spent probably close to $1 million after their bungled efforts on November 18 and that is on them.
“And you want to tell me these professors are not egging the protestors on?”
Believing that the students’ cause is worthy and the administrative approach over the top seems like a thin reed for egging them on.
David M. Greenwald said . . .
[i]”Matt: At least if you are a 64 year old without kids in college?”[/i]
David, I couldn’t disagree with you more. [i]How has the US Bank branch on the UCD campus contributed even one penny to the cost of having kids in college?[/i] If you can provide me even anecdotal evidence that supports that premise I will be very, very surprised. I look forward to hearing any examples you may have.
David M. Greenwald said . . .
[i]”Tuition of course is only one part of this.”[/i]
David, what are the other parts? I can see Fees, and when I hear “Tuition” I actually think “Tuition and Fees.” What are the other parts and how do those parts relate to the US Bank branch on the campus?
Matt: The issue other than tutition and student loans that most vexes the students is privatization, the implementation of for profit and commercial tactics.
“Starting about 2009, various members of the UC Community started to mobilize to oppose the privatization of the university and the resulting budget cuts and fee increases,” one of the organizers said and privatization is at the core of these protests.
It’s hard for me to believe the District attorney is willing to stick out his already over extended neck any further by prosecuting these student protesters for a “crime” for which they were never arrested. If what they were doing was cause to charge 21 misdemeanors, resulting in as much as 11 years in prison and a million dollars in restitution, why were they not arrested on the spot?
I,m pretty sure that any reasonable jury will laugh the District Attorney out of court, furthering his already growing reputation as an overzealous bulldog, with no interest in justice, interested only in the furtherance of his own career at any cost to taxpayers and innocent citizens.
David M. Greenwald said . . .
[i]Matt: The issue other than tutition and student loans that most vexes the students is privatization, the implementation of for profit and commercial tactics.
“Starting about 2009, various members of the UC Community started to mobilize to oppose the privatization of the university and the resulting budget cuts and fee increases,” one of the organizers said and privatization is at the core of these protests.[/i]
David, “privatization, the implementation of for profit and commercial tactics” brings me full circle back to the questions I posed in a prior thread. Why aren’t the protesters closing down the food service portions of UCD and why aren’t they closing down the dormitories?
What UCD has done is not “privatization” it is pure and simple outsourcing of functions that it is significantly more expensive to staff and deliver with internally generated resources. If UCD tried to run all its food facilities on campus itself, the total UCD budget would expand significantly, and the only way to balance that budget expansion would be to further increase the student fees. Similarly, if UCD tried to staff and run a bank on campus itself, the total UCD budget would again expand significantly, and the only way to balance that budget expansion would be to further increase the student fees.
Do you think UCD shouldn’t be trying to provide banking services on campus to its students? Is it inappropriate for UCD students to be requesting banking services on campus? Is it more appropriate to force UCD students to walk off campus in order to be able to access banking services?
Believing that the students’ cause is worthy and the administrative approach over the top seems like a thin reed for egging them on.
cut the crap. Nohas language is pretty specific…. cannot really be interpreted in two ways.
bockrath: did it ever occur to you that the DA, in the manner in which it is charging them, is hoping for a plea bargain?
As many as 100 students and faculty members turned out….
wow a hundred people! That is so not that many! and not worth losing sleep over!
“Why aren’t the protesters closing down the food service portions of UCD and why aren’t they closing down the dormitories?”
Probably because they don’t view them as the type of targets that will get them the kind of bang for their buck that focusing on the bank that put their logo on student cards and came to embody the new private-public partnership that the student protesters despised most.
David M. Greenwald said . . .
[i]”Probably because they don’t view them as the type of targets that will get them the kind of bang for their buck that focusing on the bank that put their logo on student cards and came to embody the new private-public partnership that the student protesters despised most.”[/i]
What I hear you saying is that “theatrical impact” is driving the Occupy Movement in Davis. 1) they choose their targets based on the theatrical impact that actions against that target will produce, and 2) they object to the theatrical impact that placing a bank logo on their ID cards produced.
Is that a fair reading?
I think that is an element. In order to be effective, you have to pick your targets well in terms of impact, access, symbolism, etc. But if you are reading my point to suggest the lack of substance there, I disagree. You are talking about a multimillion private-public partnership. One that is largely a one-way benefit.
David Greenwald said . . .
[i]”You are talking about a multimillion private-public partnership. One that is largely a one-way benefit.”[/i]
You lost me in your statement above. The students benefit by having banking services on campus. The university benefits by getting an income stream that helps offset some of the costs of delivering educational services to the students. The bank benefits by adding additional accounts from students. How is that not a win-win-win equation that benefits all parties?
Do they benefit from having banking services on campus? There is a small degree of convenience that comes with having a bank on campus, but how much more convenience over an ATM these days it’s hard to know.
The primary benefactors are the university that gets their income and the bank who gets a plum deal with a few added accounts and their indecia on the ID card. It seems a very asymmetrically distributed benefit.
The whole thing reminds me of an episode of Daria, a deceptively complex cartoon that was able to make its points well with satire. A high school principal found herself short of cash and decided to go into a partnership with a fictitious soda company. She got her cash, but apparently failed to read the fine print and the amount of promotional rights it gave the soda company to them be able to commercialize the school with saturation advertising. In the end, they failed to make their quota and the principal compelled the students to consume the product. It was only when the football team, overloaded on soda had to forfeit their game and the principal “snapped” that everyone recognized the dangers of selling out.
It’s an overblown example, but I know if I were a student I would have resented the forced commercialization of what is supposed to be a public land grant university.
In the meantime, this move comes at the same time when tuition has risen and the burden of student loan debt has become more onerous.
I have been warning for some time that this is a generation that feels that their future has been imperiled and that the cost of higher education is rapidly moving away from the middle class. This has been brewing for some time.
[quote]they create a crisis, they exacerbate the situation, they waste resources of the University and court system and they whine about how the funds could be better spent on education… at least we are all in agreement on that one.[/quote]
This is the rare time when I agree with gunrock. Part of civil disobedience is facing up to the penalties, and frankly, this was a stupid protest which only hurts the University. I doubt they will serve any jail time but I think this kind of behavior needs to be punished. Its not like protesting in the quad .
David M. Greenwald said . . .
[i]”The primary benefactors are the university that gets their income and the bank who gets a plum deal with a few added accounts and their indecia on the ID card. It seems a very asymmetrically distributed benefit.”[/i]
But David, the income that the University gets is a pass-through that offsets an equal amount of education-delivery expense, and that means that student tuition and fees income doesn’t have to make up that amount of expense offset. The end result is lower tuition/fees for the students as a whole.
It doesn’t look like there were very many supporters there. Well under a hundred.
When 12 students (and faculty) can’t even get out 100 supporters out of 25,000 UC Davis students, that indicates they do not have the support of the campus community.
J.R. If there are only 100 supporters, it could very well mean that students and faculty are scared to come out. Now the DA has charged multiple misdemeanors and felonies at students that protested in the past to the tune of 11 years in jail.
Many people may support the protesters position, but are not willing to speak up or show up because they are worried about being arrested and given jail time.
This is the point David is trying to make. You can scare people into not talking out, but it doesn’t mean you have convinced them that your position is right. It is just an example of “might” over “right”.
“The end result is lower tuition/fees for the students as a whole.”
Last year they brought in like $160,000, so we would be talking about at most $5 a person at most if money is even getting to students.
Gunrock and Dr Wu
“they create a crisis”
While I do believe that the actions of the protesters have indeed cost the university money, it would appear that we have a fundamental difference of opinion about causation of the “crisis”.
I do not believe that the current protesters had anything at all to do with the under lying crisis which is not minimal damage to a university, or contributing to a bank branch closure, but rather the extreme increases in student costs to attend what is supposed to be a publicly funded university. The gutting of the “public”nature of the UC system is the real crisis that we will be paying for in terms of educational quality as a society.
My basis for saying this ? I have two children, one newly graduated and one in the process of attempting to transfer into UCB. I am seeing this directly in terms of higher costs paired with lower course offerings. Yes, for the individual trying to achieve their educational goals, this is a crisis, and it is not of their making.
David M. Greenwald said . . .
“Last year they brought in like $160,000, so we would be talking about at most $5 a person at most if money is even getting to students.”
David, why is the amount per student being small relevant? The fact is that passing through the $160,000 is a tangible dent in tuition. Why does removing this tangible effort to offset costs make things better?
David,
Thank you for the photos. How do you estimate that there were 100 to show solidarity? Is that the number of people:
a) Who spoke in support
b) Who held signs, or did other preparation in support
c) Who cheered at the speech
d) Who listened for more than 5 minutes
e) Who happen to be captured by the photograph
Personally I am wary of these rally because I don’t want someone to automatically assume that my present means agreement. Could you explain how you come up with the figure? If you could explain it I would feel more comfortable to be present because I won’t have to worry as much that the meaning of my present would be misinterpreted.
Personally I am surprised that I do not recognize anyone on the photos.
———-
About US Bank’s $160,000 to student services:
Could you put that amount of contribution on a scale showing the contributions from other companies? Is US Bank’s contribution really low in comparison?
Such as:
o Davis Food Co-op
o Golden One
o Google
o Intel
o Lockheed Martin
o Microsoft
o Monsanto
o Nuggets Market
o Sodexo
o Starbucks
o Tandem Properties
o Walmart
If you don’t have these figures, would you still comment on what such ranking would mean?
————
There are two main possible objections against the blockade. The first is the fact that it was illegal. The second is the underlying stance against privatization. The following is about the second type of objection because I had previously addressed the lawful alternatives such as passing flyers that inform students which banks are socially responsible, where they should get financial help instead, and what they can do legally to stop tuition hike.
I want to understand your understanding of their stance against privatization. Is it clear [b]to you[/b] what they wanted? (To me, that is not clear.)
Some possible stances:
a) No company or any person who hold management or executive role of a company may donate to the university.
b) No company may donate to the university. A donation must be made by an actual person in the name of a person, not a company entity.
c) No company should be present on campus. If they want to donate, their donations must be anonymous.
d) Companies may donate and have their names listed, but in no way should they attach their name or logo in any campus related items including building names.
e) Companies may donate and attach their names on items that they sponsor.
f) Companies may buy space and advertise on campus
g) Companies may buy space to conduct business on campus
h) Companies may negotiate a contract of monopolistic presence on campus
I understand that not all companies are equal. In that case the word, “Company” above can be substituted by “Disqualified Company”, if the method to qualify a company is explained.
This sort of information is necessary for me to understand the principles behind the blockade to decide whether I should support. I follow these principles:
a) Support only causes that I understand
b) Support only groups that behave in a way that I agree
c) If I don’t understand a cause, it is my responsibility to explain what I don’t understand, but it is the advocate’s responsibility to explain it.
d) If I do not support a cause, it is my responsibility to clarify my stance whenever my presence could be misinterpreted.
——–
About the US Bank logo on the back student ID cards:
Have everyone seen that logo? I have seen that logo. It is at the lower corner of the card, after a block of text saying that the card can be used as a cash card if the student banks with US Bank.
I do not understand whether this is common knowledge or why the actual back of the card is seldom (if not never) posted in a discussion so that people who are not students or have never seen the card would know exactly what the protesters are talking about.
David, could you post such a photo? If not I think I will post it.
Fight Against Injustice said . . .
[i]”This is the point David is trying to make. You can scare people into not talking out, but it doesn’t mean you have convinced them that your position is right. [b]It is just an example of “might” over “right”.[/b][/i]
Fight, can’t the same exact thing be said about the sit in around the bank entrances? Isn’t that every bit as much an exercise of the protesters’ might over the right of the students who have accounts at the bank and the employees who work at the bank?
medwoman said . . .
[i]”While I do believe that the actions of the protesters have indeed cost the university money, it would appear that we have a fundamental difference of opinion about causation of the “crisis”.
I do not believe that the current protesters had anything at all to do with the under lying crisis which is not minimal damage to a university, or contributing to a bank branch closure, but rather the extreme increases in student costs to attend what is supposed to be a publicly funded university. The gutting of the “public”nature of the UC system is the real crisis that we will be paying for in terms of educational quality as a society.
My basis for saying this ? I have two children, one newly graduated and one in the process of attempting to transfer into UCB. I am seeing this directly in terms of higher costs paired with lower course offerings. Yes, for the individual trying to achieve their educational goals, this is a crisis, and it is not of their making.”[/i]
I completely agree medwoman. That is indeed the crisis and targeting the branch of the bank does virtually nothing about the underlying causes for the true crisis.
With that said, why does that crisis exist? Said another way, why have university costs gone up so much? Is the UC system unique in its cost escalation, or are costs going up in similar increments at other universities and colleges?
Is this situation really the result of poor past decisions? Were the past tuition levels at UC unrealistically low? Has the system finally sagged as a result of the accumulation of many many years where costs exceeded revenues, and the only reason the budgets appeared to be balanced was subisidies from non-University sources?
Are today’s students and parents really asking, “Why did the prior students get an unrealistically low tuition and fees burden, but now we aren’t?
Is this really a parallel to this country’s healthcare system where we have had year after year after year where we promised ourselves more than we can afford . . . in effect mortgaging the future? If that is the case, what do we do about the reality that the future is now?
To Edgar Wei,
Thank you for one of the very best posts I’ve ever read on the Vanguard. Beautifully said. Beautifully.
Explanation on responsibility:
This explanation applies to a person who does not understand the cause, but has no bias on whether to support or oppose the cause. From that perspective, if an advocate speaks about a concern, it is under the principle of community that every member should at least listen and acknowledge the concern (if time and priorities permit).
If the member does not understand the cause, it is the advocate’s responsibility to explain because they should already know why they support their cause the moment their role becomes advocate (instead of a reporter or investigator).
(If the advocate deescalates into an investigator, then the member may offer to take part in that investigation, because at that point, the community collectively has an unknown, so research is not an obvious waste of time.)
If the responsibility falls on those who understand, that would just be inefficient because the answer should already be there. If the advocate fail to explain, that is a sign that the advocated cause is either unjustified, or that the advocate does not care about the support from those who don’t currently understand their cause.
In both cases, those who do not understand the cause are relieved of their responsibility, if they had made it known that they do not understand the cause and are ready for an explanation.
Edgar, I can’t believe my dyslexic fingers misspelled your name. I apologize.
Matt Williams: You are correct that the students blocking entrance to the bank is “might over right.” And if it is illegal, I do not condone it. But there is a huge difference in the amount of might! I do not condone the amount of punishment that the district attorney is proposing. The punishment should fit the crime.
Scenario 1: I can’t go into my bank today without crossing a line–this causes one to feel uncomfortable or inconvenient for a day or a very short time.
Scenario 2: I am facing 11 years in jail and lots of money in fines–this will completely destroy my life.
Do you see what I mean about throwing “might” around. This is overkill.
Fight Against Justice, I don’t disagree with your point at all regarding Scenario 2; however, that overkill doesn’t make Scenario 1 any less wrong or any less “Might Over Right.”
From the perspective of the individual banking student who came to the bank to access their account, can you argue at all with their saying “these protesters are throwing ‘might’ around. This (protest) is overkill.”
My point all along has been that the protesters chose their target very badly.
Re Matt:
About the fundamental crisis, I think the root cause is that the system as we know it cannot sustain the demand of population growth.
The fundamental problem is this: As technology advances, few people are required as decision makers and workers to sustain a society.
In the old days, a village with 10 people would have enough workload for every villager. Every villager would work and earn their fair share to support their lives. There is no disparity between “the poor” and “the rich”. Even if a villager decided to confiscate all of the wealth of the village, the disparity would only be the equivalent of 10 shares.
The congregation of villages and the advance of technology have direct impacts on widening this disparity. First, if 10 villages meet and combine, and if there is a dictator, then the dictator could create a disparity of 100 shares. Power that comes from wealth does not scale linearly. The dictator could do more with a collection of 100 shares than with ten collections of 10 shares each. The command of this collected wealth (or collaboration) is a cause of efficiency, from that efficiency, the margin for technological research is established, which further drives efficiency and the widens the potential disparity in wealth.
Technological advances create a different problem itself. With technological advance, one member working alone might be able to produce enough shares to support a ten-member village. If everyone gets to work like that, the village would effectively produce 100 shares. However, in reality, only the [i]privileged[/i] or the [i]lucky[/i] member gets into the position or access to use that technology. The effect here, is that while a technology exists for one villager to produce for the entire village, not every village gets to be that hero. The problem is, if the ‘hero’ somehow believes that the wealth he gathered by using that technology belongs to him alone, then the society will have problem:
John created a robot that farms 10 farms. Everyone in the village can be fed, but John thinks that since he made the robot, all the crops belong to him. Now the other 9 villagers are in despair because the farms had already be farmed, there is nothing left for them to farm [i]even if they are willing to farm[/i]. By law, by force, or by social custom, John now owns the farms.
Combined with the natural effect of globalization, John could be owning a billion farms, producing at a capacity to sustain 1 billion people, while 999,999,999 people are starving.
In this case, the root cause is not scarcity of resource, but the inaccessibility to productive positions, or the unwillingness of those in such positions to decide what is fair for them and the society.
Public university takes the role to increase accessibility to such positions, because part of the reality is that not everyone is qualified to take the position John has.
There could be a time when technology only had the capacity to support 1000 villagers, but there were 10000 villager. Through his research and the brilliance, John made it possible to support the extra 9000 villagers. But is John keeping that honor to support those extra 9000 villagers, or does John only see technology a mean to advance his own wealth.
In judging the current role public university has, I think we need to determine what worldview our graduates get when they exit the university.
Is our public university training people to advance knowledge and technology to:
a) Further their own wealth because their university education gave them their competitive edge, which they have rightfully earned to compete and conquer.
b) To constantly observe the needs of society to sustain the collective global community, to increase accessibility so that every member can take a productive role in society, and to be willing to take only their fair share and recognize that their success, by chance, or by endowment, is made possible because of the goodwill the society placed on education.
The second perspective is fundamental to the concern that the Chancellor being overpaid. But to answer that question, we need to answer these:
What is the actual capacity (in terms of people) that our technology support? Is there an issue of scarcity?
What is the baseline of wealth that a person should have?
(If there is no scarcity and every member actually has access to be productive enough to get a fair share to sustain their own life, then the overall issue is not what I explained but that of Jealousy. Jealousy here means that Mary worked and got what she needed, but she saw that John got more than she got somehow, and decided that that isn’t right.)
RE: public versus private…
Look at each public-sided industry where we are experiencing the strangling effects of hyper cost inflation and you will find employee’s unions. There you will also find an economic trend line and business model that has proven unsustainable for decades… but this has been ignored by the union-funded Democrat political consortium that has dominated this state for decades. The consortium has instead relied on their previous winning marketing strategy of exploiting the impact to the little people they serve to foster populist support for growing their union members pay, benefits and job security. The plight of the little people has always been a proxy for what really drives the consortium: the pursuit of more money and more power.
Now state Democrats… especially the standard issue California liberal/progressive Democrat… find themselves painted into a corner of their own making. They are becoming desperate… and desperate situations call for desperate measures. Hence we have the Occupy movement. This, despite all the labeling attempts from the brain-dead media, is not a grass-roots upwelling of young people doing their own thing. For one, it is not the same as the 1960’s drug, sex and music-motivated agitation… primarily because the kids can already get enough drugs, sex and music without needing to attend the big party-protest. The Occupy movement is simply the manipulated-manifestation of the union-Democrat consortium having felt the air leaving their room. They are pulling out the PR stops because they are deep in worry that this is the beginning of the end of their political and fiscal-corrupting partnership. The sooner it dies, the better off we will all be. The kids are simply pawns caught up in the consortium’s feeble attempts at survival.
After the great “public-sector-reset”, we will have among us a special population of pre-reset, public-sector retired folks that have more money than the rest of us. They will take more vacations, eat better and live longer. They will be relics of the past and likely targets of scorn from the rest of us for the damage they caused us before we wrestled back control of our own fiscal house.
Jeff: The Occupy movement by and large are not comprised of Democrats. Most of them think the Democrats are just as bad and corporately controlled as the Republicans.
I did not say they are Democrats. The kids are proxies for the union-Democrat consortium (for example, the lefty-professors). It does not matter that they are not specifically registered Democrat. However, I doubt very seriously that you can find many registered Republicans in the Occupy population. I also doubt you can find many non-left-leaning folk in those crowds. We need to face the fiscal realities of unsustainability.
Edgar:
Apologies for the delay. I wanted to give your post the time it deserved to respond.
How do I estimate that the 100 or so were there to show solidarity? It was my sense that by and large it was a supportive crowd. That’s not to say that a few were there just to learn or to scout out the opposition.
You ask to explain where I came up with the figure? I recorded the event on my recorder so I spent nearly all of my time taking photos and making sure I got the names right. Walking around, I had a sense that the core crowd was solidly behind them – there was uniform applause. There were people on the outside that I did not necessarily include in my count and they could have been more ambiguous.
Some suggest that 100 people is not a huge crowd. The first event drew a much larger crowd, so I would say it was respectable. Not the 5000 people that showed up after the pepper spray, but a solid draw for secondary event.
“Personally I am surprised that I do not recognize anyone on the photos.”
I was originally going to respond that you are not familiar apparently with the core occupy crowd. But looking back, the pictures for the most part are not of the 12. I took a ton of pictures, and decided to depict some of the signs, collage a few of the speakers, and have a general crowd shot. There were core occupiers there in the crowd, but my photos that I selected didn’t depict them.
I don’t know that I can put the $160,000 into any kind of perspective. My only point is that it is really not a noticeable asset to the typical student if it ends up aiding them at all.
“I want to understand your understanding of their stance against privatization. Is it clear to you what they wanted? (To me, that is not clear.)”
No it is not clear to me either. I tend to believe that it was a target of opportunity. I also tend to think they are the dog that caught the proverbial car and while they say they wanted to close down the bank, realistically they knew or should have known that was unrealistic.
In terms of your possible stances: They probably argue (a) no disqualified company. For instance, I doubt very much they would object to the Vanguard donating to campus. I would also suggest that the objection is not to the donation but also to the commercialized strings attached to the donation.
I actually believe you have delved far deeper into this calculation than they did. I think they saw (a) multinational corporation; (b) bank (C) student loans (D) Memorial Union (E) Student ID Cards (F) Private-Public Partnership which to them equaled privatization
I have seen the logo but do not have an image of it, you are welcome to post it.
Jeff: My sense is that they are not “left-leaning” and that many would actually qualify as “leftists.” Also it was interesting this one I interviewed a few months ago, Janet Li, she supported Ron Paul but did not have a very sophisticated understanding of either his positions or even her own. Which led me to believe at least in some respect you are looking people who are apolitical in conventional ways.
I think there is very little linkage between the Occupy movement and the mainstream Democratic Party leadership, or the unions for that matter. In fact, I expect they are very suspicious of each other. Jeff’s comments reflect his own biases more than any objective analysis.
Don: I tend to agree with you post. Though I would say there is some linkage between the Occupy Movement and what I would call far left unions. For instance, the Graduate Student union supports the bankers dozen. There are other far left unions whose names escape me at the moment, that I see supporting various occupy causes. But the mainstream unions have certainly veered away. Perhaps the closest to what I would call a mainstream union would be the American Federation of Teachers, the smaller of the two major teacher’s unions. While CTA was on board with the Governor’s tax proposal, AFT was supporting the Millionaire’s tax which had strong support among the Occupy Capitol crowd. One of Jeff’s shortcomings is not only his own biases but rather than he fails to discern between types of groups.
David: I think you are demonstrating exactly what I am talking about. You are attempting to coopt a more inclusive political meaning from something that is primarily one-sided… and on the left. You are doing this instead of facing and accepting ownership of the source of the problems you celebrate this agitation over.
I think some young people are starting to get it, and interest in Ron Paul is only the manifestation of their first baby step in recovering from the earlier brainwashing they have received from the consortium. They are not so much Ron Paul supporters (proved by his dismal primary results) as they are currently confused about why their worldview is unraveling.
The nation has always been right of center and has focused on private-sector free-market capitalism as the first priority economic engine that the public sector supports. The left worldview is different primarily in the opinion of primacy… that the public side comes first and the private-sector should be subordinate and serving.
It is simple math. You have inflows and outflow. You have to make money to spend money. Government does not make money. It only spends money. If government is allowed too much control, it will spend more money than it takes in. When we add the effect of media-driven politics driving up the cost of campaigns, we have the exponential driver of politicians having to pay off their benefactors helping to keep them in power.
If we are talking only fiscal policy, Ron Paul supporters are Tea Party supporters. In October, Ron Paul said the difference between Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party was that the protesters of the former are “Scared to death they won’t get their handouts,” while the latter are “sick and tired of paying for it,”. Paul has lost support from the Tea Party because of his stance on military funding and some social issues. The Tea Party is not Libertarian, but it has much more in common with the libertarian worldview than it does the Occupy worldview based on the published goals.
Occupy goals:
[quote] 1. Eradicate the Bush tax cuts for the rich and institute new taxes on the wealthiest Americans and on corporations, including a tax on all trading on Wall Street (where they currently pay 0%).
2. Assess a penalty tax on any corporation that moves American jobs to other countries when that company is already making profits in America. Our jobs are the most important national treasure and they cannot be removed from the country simply because someone wants to make more money.
3. Require that all Americans pay the same Social Security tax on all of their earnings (normally, the middle class pays about 6% of their income to Social Security; someone making $1 million a year pays about 0.6% (or 90% less than the average person). This law would simply make the rich pay what everyone else pays.
4. Reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act, placing serious regulations on how business is conducted by Wall Street and the banks.
5. Investigate the Crash of 2008, and bring to justice those who committed any crimes.
6. Reorder our nation’s spending priorities (including the ending of all foreign wars and their cost of over $2 billion a week). This will re-open libraries, reinstate band and art and civics classes in our schools, fix our roads and bridges and infrastructure, wire the entire country for 21st century internet, and support scientific research that improves our lives.
7. Join the rest of the free world and create a single-payer, free and universal health care system that covers all Americans all of the time.
8. Immediately reduce carbon emissions that are destroying the planet and discover ways to live without the oil that will be depleted and gone by the end of this century.
9. Require corporations with more than 10,000 employees to restructure their board of directors so that 50% of its members are elected by the company’s workers. [/quote]
One important thing the Occupy movement and current liberal Democrats have in common is extreme anti-capitalist, anti-conservative rhetoric.
Edgar Wai: [i]”I think the root cause is that the system as we know it cannot sustain the demand of population growth.”[/i]
While I’m not in complete agreement with this statement (up to a point), I agree with most of the other points made in the same post.
I was working for a large local healthcare company in the late 1990s and was responsible for managing a multi-million dollar project to purchase, design, develop and implement an automated call-center system. For executive management to approve this project, we first had to complete a feasibility analysis where the benefits would exceed the costs, and the payback period would happen before the new system became obsolete. At the time the company had about 600 call center employees (customer service reps). The technology would allow the company to shed over 200 of those jobs. The savings from the RIF would provide more than adequate ROI for the project. We proceeded and the system was implemented. The company offered early retirement, laid off the lower performing employees and implemented a hiring freeze. In about 18 months they reached the target of 2/3 the previous work force.
I remember driving home one day from work during that project thinking that my job was to help the company reduce the number of workers needed. It was not a positive epiphany. I started thinking about the future for our kids. As we automated the world, what work would be available? Would we have to increase social programs to offset the trends? What would the effect of that be?
The answer was that we need a continually expanding economy. We need to foster constant growth and improvement so we are constantly creating new jobs. We need to move away from the “job-for-life” mentality, and move toward one where we are constantly learning and retraining before we retire. Our careers will be more organic and diverse… probably changing course and direction several times before we save enough to retire. With respect to the constant learning and training… we need a significantly reformed and improved education system. Our simple low-skilled manufacturing jobs have been replaced by robots and computer programs. Now it is a challenge to build the robots and write the computer programs. These are high-skilled jobs.
My thinking for all of this is primarily why I now work in small business economic development and why I am so aggressive in advocating for complete education reform. We cannot afford just putting more people on the public dole. We must grow the economy while we grow the capability Americans to be employed in a world that is changing and advancing in every increasing speed.
With respect to concerns about population growth…I have concerns about the birth rates in the Muslim world because some key Islamic beliefs seem to be counter to economic growth and prosperity, and force women to be mostly childbearing tools of the men that dominate them. These two forces lead to too many unemployed young people who burn with anger and envy. However, in less than two decades, Mexico’s birth rate has gone from 6% to 2.8%. This change has a lot to do with improved economics that combat the old cultural norms that cause copious offspring. The birthrates in South America, and even Africa are on decline. My point here is that solid economic growth has an adverse effect on birthrates on high-birthrate countries. Technology is enabling for economic growth.
[quote]I actually believe you have delved far deeper into this calculation than they did. I think they saw (a) multinational corporation; (b) bank (C) student loans (D) Memorial Union (E) Student ID Cards (F) Private-Public Partnership which to them equaled privatization [/quote]
And in my book a small minority of students should not be able to decide for/trample on the rights of the rest of the student population…
“And in my book a small minority of students should not be able to decide for/trample on the rights of the rest of the student population…”
I suggest two points in contrast.
First, they should not have been able to have been successful and it was only the incompetence/ complicity of the bank and university that enabled that to have occurred.
Second, do you believe a small number of people should be able to speak before council and attempt to change their minds? If so, do you also believe that the council should listen to what they have to say or ignore it because they are only a small number of people and don’t represent necessarily the entire community?
David M. Greenwald
[i]”Second, do you believe a small number of people should be able to speak before council and attempt to change their minds? If so, do you also believe that the council should listen to what they have to say or ignore it because they are only a small number of people and don’t represent necessarily the entire community?”[/i]
As a person who speaks relatively frequently at Council, your question strikes home. So I will give it a whirl.
The huge difference is that the people speaking at Council are complying fully with the law, right down to the three minute time limit Council imposes. The bank blockers neither comply with the law nor have any sense of time limits.
I understand the difference (or at least your view of the difference), but the point I was making is that a small number of people all of the time attempt to change policy.
But since you skipped ahead a bit, my next question is whether you believe that the tank driver in 1989 at Tienanmen Square was “justified” shooting the protester.
Don’t know the answer to that question David. All I do know is that my wife’s nephew was actually there at the time and has a picture he took of the incident as it unfolded. There are times when the World is a very small place.
David, regarding your tank driver question, have you read “Great Books” by David Denby.
Matt: It wasn’t the most fair question but it is a situation that came to mind reading Elaine’s comment about small numbers of people imposing their views.
I haven’t read the book.
But it’s a question I constantly wrestle with as I attempt to find a universal principles for dealing with protest that doesn’t rely on a subjective assessment of the core cause.
It’s pretty easy for me for instance to believe that the SCOTUS got it right when they allowed the KKK the right to march in Skokie, Illinois. Or to say that Democrats perhaps have gone too far curtailing the right to protest abortion clinics.
David M. Greenwald
[i]”But it’s a question I constantly wrestle with as I attempt to find a universal principles for dealing with protest that doesn’t rely on a subjective assessment of the core cause.”[/i]
If you are questing for universal principles, you may want to change your name to Don Quixote.
If you are suggesting I’m chasing windmills, I get that. The problem is that once you end up with subjective judgments it only matters who is in power.
The problem is that all judgments are subject to the “framing” of the stakeholders. The exact same situation will get different answers if the religious makeup of the stakeholders changes . . . and that is only one variable.
This is for those who had not seen the current UC Davis student ID card. That included myself when I first learned about the US Bank blockade issue.
[img]http://www.skylet.net/images/2012-04-25_-_UCD_Student_ID_-_Back.jpg[/img]
[Image of the back of UC Davis student ID card] ([url]http://www.skylet.net/images/2012-04-25_-_UCD_Student_ID_-_Back.jpg[/url])
Showing the following text and a US Bank logo on the lower right corner:
[quote][b]FROM OUR UC DAVIS PRINCIPLES OF COMMUNITY:[/b] [i]”We affirm the inherent
dignity in all of us, and we … will strive to build a true community of spirit and purpose
based on mutual respect and caring.”[/i] http://principles.ucdavis.edu
—–
[b]EMERGENCY USE ONLY[/b] – dial [b]911[/b] (from a cell, 530-752-1230)
UC Davis Police non-emergency and Campus Escort Service – 530-752-1727
City of Davis Police – 530-747-5400
UC Davis campus emergency status line – 530-752-4000
UC Davis website – http://www.ucdavis.edu
—–
[b]U.S. Bank Customers: For 24-hour customer service or to report a lost or stolen
ID card, call 1-800-US BANKS (872-2657).[/b]
PROPERTY OF UC DAVIS. If found, please return to the
University Registrar, UC Davis, Davis, CA 95616-8692
POSTAGE PAID
[/quote]
The old card (the one I had) had the Principle of Community excerpt and the “Property of UC Davis. If found…” part.
“What UCD has done is not “privatization” it is pure and simple outsourcing of functions that it is significantly more expensive to staff and deliver with internally generated resources”
I actually just registered an account just to respond to this uninformed quote. The person writing it apparently has no idea what privatization means.
Since we are all on a computer anyways lets take 1.5 seconds to look this up.
Search result #1 wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privatization
“Privatization is the incidence or process of transferring ownership of a business, enterprise, agency, public service or property from the public sector (the state or government) to the private sector (businesses that operate for a private profit) or to private non-profit organizations. The term is also used in a quite different sense, to mean government out-sourcing of services to private firms, e.g. functions like revenue collection, law enforcement, and prison management.[1]
The term “privatization” also has been used to describe two unrelated transactions. The first is a buyout, by the majority owner, of all shares of a public corporation or holding company’s stock, privatizing a publicly traded stock, and often described as private equity. The second is a demutualization of a mutual organization or cooperative to form a joint stock company.[2]”
Search Result #2 Answers.com: http://www.answers.com/topic/privatization
“Transfer of government services or assets to the private sector. State-owned assets may be sold to private owners, or statutory restrictions on competition between privately and publicly owned enterprises may be lifted. Services formerly provided by government may be contracted out. The objective is often to increase government efficiency; implementation may affect government revenue either positively or negatively. Privatization is the opposite of nationalization, a policy resorted to by governments that want to keep the revenues from major industries, especially those that might otherwise be controlled by foreign interests.”
Search Result #3: Cornell: http://government.cce.cornell.edu/doc/viewpage_r.asp?ID=Privatization
“Privatization is a worldwide phenomenon. In recent years all levels of government, seeking to reduce costs, have begun turning to the private sector to provide some of the services that are ordinarily provided by government. The spread of the privatization movement is grounded in the fundamental belief that market competition in the private sector is a more efficient way to provide these services and allows for greater citizen choice.”
Search result #4 Econlib.org: http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/Privatization.html
““ Privatization” is an umbrella term covering several distinct types of transactions. Broadly speaking, it means the shift of some or all of the responsibility for a function from government to the private sector. The term has most commonly been applied to the divestiture, by sale or long-term lease, of a state-owned enterprise to private investors. But another major form of privatization is the granting of a long-term franchise or concession under which the private sector finances, builds, and operates a major infrastructure project. A third type of privatization involves government selecting a private entity to deliver a public service that had previously been produced in-house by public employees. This form of privatization is increasingly called outsourcing. (Other forms of privatization, not discussed here, include service shedding, vouchers, and joint ventures.)”
Search Result #5 Dictionary.com: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/privatization
“privatization[prahy-vuh-tahyz] Example Sentences pri·va·tize /ˈpraɪvəˌtaɪz/ Show Spelled[prahy-vuh-tahyz] Show IPA
verb (used with object), pri·va·tized, pri·va·tiz·ing.
1. to transfer from public or government control or ownership to private enterprise: a campaign promise to privatize some of the public lands.
2. to make exclusive; delimit or appropriate: special-interest groups attempting to privatize social issues. “
I THINK you should be able to see my point by now……
Re: DConstruct
I am not the person you were replying to, but according to your explanation, privatization comes in several forms, and I find that I don’t have an opposition against that form of privatization, because I don’t have a sense that the University lost control of its core mission, especially when the new functionality (that the ID cards can carry cash) is auxiliary to education.
If a police department outsources its dispatch center, I agree that that is privatization, because being that is a core function of the department. If a police department gets a few vending machines in the break room, is that privatization?
As far as I understand, the core functionality of the student ID cards (to get into dorms, to check out books from the library) are not outsourced. The control is not lost. If US Bank decided to go on strike, no core functionality of the University would be put on hostage.
Because of this distinction, this is not privatization because the ownership and the control of the core functions are retained.
The quick test to check if a cooperative relation is privatization, is to define the core functions of the entity, then check whether how those core functions would be affected if the cooperation is suddenly severed.
Imagine that the University is a running system like an airplane that is flying. Now imagine that the US Bank Branch at the MU is a component on that airplane. Now, imagine that that component is suddenly destroyed. If the Branch was a core component, the airplane would fall. In this case, the core functions of the University would continue without interruption.
No ownership is transferred. No control of core function is handled over. No dependency is created. It was not privatization.
In this case the University is a landlord to the Branch. If losing control of public land to private companies is privatization, what do you call the use of public land to get money from private companies?
The relationship still involve a public entity and a private entity, but it seems to be the reverse of privatization.
Re: Jeff Boone
I agree with your assessment that technology is an enabling factor of prosperity and healthy growth. I think our disagreement is in the order of the events.
In your description, technology is driven by competition or greed. People should retrain themselves and take the responsibility to find new areas to be productive.
My worldview is different in that it does not represent how the world currently works, but how I think the world should work.
Imagine a household with 4 members: Dad, Mom, Daughter, and Son. Every day, 3 of them need to work on the farm, 1 needs to work in the house. They would also want someone to work on the garden, but they are undermanned. Because they don’t get to work on the garden, Dad created a Scarecrow to help work on the farm. This frees 1 member to work on the garden.
In my description, technology is driven by scarcity of human resource. Dad created the Scarecrow but he will not get an extra share of the food from the farm. No one is going to starve, everyone will still be employed. The benefit is that with the Scarecrow helping on the farm, now everyone gets to enjoy the garden. If Dad makes 2 more Scarecrows such that no one need to work on the farm anymore, then the household is free to work on two additional tasks, and everyone is still getting fed.
The difference in the two worldviews, is whether the community is committed to fulfill the basic needs of everyone in the community who contributes; and whether technology acts as a form of liberation rather than a Darwinian selective pressure.
I agree with you that we need to foster constant growth and improvement, create new jobs, and change the general mindset about professions. But my underlying motivation is not that people should do so to make themselves competitive to secure their own lives, but that people should do so to get the surplus to take care of the rest of the world.
Technology frees me to volunteer and to understand and help solve the issues of the community without sacrificing anything. The motivation is in the commitment to serve and share.
If a community provides all basic needs and list all the issues that need to be resolved, people will focus and cooperate to solve those issues, and the waste caused by competition will be eliminated.
That is the honor system where people were accustom to up to grade 12. Then somewhere when people get to university, the worldview gets flipped around when the students are increasingly asked to fend for themselves instead of fending for their neighbors.
[quote]But it’s a question I constantly wrestle with as I attempt to find a universal principles for dealing with protest that doesn’t rely on a subjective assessment of the core cause. [/quote]
You need a few more years on you to realize that such universal principles are never an “ever fixed mark” written in concrete to be applied in every situation the exact same way…
“You need a few more years on you to realize that such universal principles are never an “ever fixed mark” written in concrete to be applied in every situation the exact same way…”
What makes you think I don’t know that already and view more as a goal that cannot be obtained than anything else?
Edgar Wai:[i]”But my underlying motivation is not that people should do so to make themselves competitive to secure their own lives, but that people should do so to get the surplus to take care of the rest of the world.”[/i]
I really appreciate this point, and I think it gets to the heart of where I differ from your worldview a bit.
It is my belief – based on my life experience dealing with and observing personal and professional human relationships – that humans are not as evolved as I think your view would tend to demand. We are impulsive emotional creatures despite our academic and cognitive achievements. We are driven to constantly want more for ourselves. Everything we do will get its motivation processed through our filter of how it makes us feel. If it feels bad, we don’t want to do it… unless we can find a way to reframe it into something that makes us feel good. Exercise and eating right are good examples of this point. Morality is certainly an important attribute to this driver. However, morality is a social construct, and one society’s morality can differ significantly (e.g., it is immoral to eat pork or beef) from another’s’. The better educated of us are actually more dangerous in this context, because we can rationalize our emotional impulses. We can come up with convincing arguments for what makes US feel good. We can make it all righteous… even though our opinion drivers are no different than are our less-educated neighbor’s. The worst is when we start believing our own rational arguments excusing our emotional behavior.
Within the constraints of our societal norms for mortality, it is this drive to pursue what feels good to us that ensures our survival and is responsible for the technological innovations that make our lives easier and more enjoyable. It is also this same drive that causes us so many personal and societal problems.
My view is that this spontaneous and emotional human nature is unavoidable and largely unchangeable. At best, because we pursue what makes us feel better, human lives will be messy affairs and they will constantly gum up the works of their social design. I think some people believe they are smart enough to collaborate with other people smart enough to all design a better system of control that prevents mess and gumming-up. I think these people are at best a bit foolish and at worst dangerous (in positions of power) because, I think, human nature cannot be changed, and humans are crafty and inventive pursuing their own interest. They will do so more effectively than can any system of collaborative top-down control can do to contain them. In fact, when the smart people attempt to exert too much control, they cause unintended consequences and create a bigger mess. CRA, Freddie, Fanny, below market Fed interest rates… these are all examples of this point.
Instead of seeing a world that can be made more orderly and fair with more top-down controls put in place by a collaborative group of smart people , what we should be doing instead is creating a robust societal and economic framework that fosters competition where human nature can be exploited to create the highest benefit. We should be focused on morality to help steer human decisions pursuing self-interest… rather than rules that limit competition and punish the pursuit of self-interest. For example, it is immoral to pollute the environment while pursuing self-interest.
Our system of social governance is frankly just a perpetual game we design and evolve to exploit human nature. I don’t see any system as being as profound as individual life in general. But the system can enhance or degrade the life experience of individual life. The American system of governance as designed by our founders was a profoundly life-enhancing game. It was better conceived than all previous, IMO. But we have devolved. I think I know why, but that is a broader topic.
The challenge facing us today is deciding how we evolve the system from this day forward. My view is that the collaborative group of well-educated elites thinking they can build a better socialist mouse trap (despite the overwhelming evidence that all other attempts have failed) has also profoundly failed. We simply cannot take care of the rest of the world. The best we can do is to create a framework system that fosters robust and fair competition (not outcomes) for people naturally and freely pursuing their own self-interests so they have the best chance to take care of themselves.
Basically, we all have to get comfortable with a world of winners and losers, and focus our efforts on improving the opportunities for winning within a moral construct. We must focus less on classism and fair outcomes. We should not tolerate behavior outside of a common and binding societal moral construct.
Bringing this back to the topic at hand… the greed displayed on Wall Street is no different than what we are experiencing in our public sector business. It is the same pursuit of emotional self-interest. The lie is that the public-sector workers are somehow more evolved, more important, more serving, and more deserving. The fact is that each employee in both domains displays the same tendency to fight to protect their own self-interest even at the harm of others. I don’t blame them for this because it is human nature. What I blame is the system that allows them to continue long after we learned of the gummed-up mess. I also blame a societal breakdown in fostering a common and binding moral construct. I have my opinions on this too, but it is for another conversation.
Re: Universal Principles
I suppose I am young enough to believe that there are Universal Principles that are applicable to every situation. To explain this I need to explain two concepts.
1) A set of Universal Principles may contain variables and exist as equations that describe the relation between interacting forces. When I ask [i]how much force would a ball make as it hit the ground[/i], we know that the answer is not a constant, but that does not reject the possibility that there natural laws that governs the outcome. That set of laws is what we can call the Universal Principles, and they contain variables.
People are familiar with laws and policies written in rigid, absolute forms that are void of important context. With the advance in the understanding of programming languages, society will start to see that laws need not be written in such rigid forms, but more like equations and algorithms. The set of principles will give a different response depending on the situation. But the set itself, the set of equations from which the response is obtained, could be constant.
2) A set of Universal Principles may not be known on the onset. In the beginning, society may only have glimpses of what it is, and do their best in trying to articulate them. As time goes on, their view of the Universal Principles is refined, and their knowledge of them will converge to the actual Principles that were unknown in the beginning.
While it is true that our understand of the Universal Principles is expected to evolve overtime, that evolution does not simply go in random directions. Every revision of the set of Universal Principle must explain and show the resolution to all historical conflicts. This consistency is forged over time. Every time a new conflict arises that the set cannot solve, the set needs a revision, not abandonment.
Edgar, I couldn’t disagree with you more.
To illustrate my point lets take a Buddhist, a Muslim, a Roman Catholic, a Mormon, a Jew and an Athiest. When you present them with a dinner, how universal are their principles going to be vis-a-vis any decisions they make when the meat portion of that dinner is pork? Or you present them with the decision whether to produce a child? Or the decision about any steps they might take to avoid producing a child?
Re: Matt
Believes and religious convictions are generally not principles. Principles are a set of knowledge that explains the world in a coherent manner.
Let me think more about what you were asking. What is the conflict in the situation you described? Those who don’t want to eat pork would not eat it. What is the problem?
In each case you have people approaching a question and applying their principles to it and getting very different answers because there is no universality to the very basic human drivers that produce the various incongruent decisions.
Each of these decisions would produce ranges of responses/actions from a “sure” to “I will not sin against God by doing that.”
Bottom-line, universality is trumped by framing.
Edgar Wai said . . .
[i]”Believes and religious convictions are generally not principles. Principles are a set of knowledge that explains the world in a coherent manner.”[/i]
I would say the exact opposite. Knowledge is generally not principle-based, but rather fact-based. Principles are a set of moral beliefs that explain the world in a coherent manner.
Edgar Wai
“Let me think more about what you were asking. What is the conflict in the situation you described? Those who don’t want to eat pork would not eat it. What is the problem?”
There would be no problem if not eating the pork is all they would do. The problem arises when they decide that no one else should get to eat pork either and then take steps to prevent them from getting any pork.
Jeff Boone
“The best we can do is to create a framework system that fosters robust and fair competition (not outcomes) for people naturally and freely pursuing their own self-interests so they have the best chance to take care of themselves.
Basically, we all have to get comfortable with a world of winners and losers, and focus our efforts on improving the opportunities for winning within a moral construct. We must focus less on classism and fair outcomes. We should not tolerate behavior outside of a common and binding societal moral construct.”
This is nothing more than a prettily worded “might makes right” argument. And, as is your norm, completely ignores that there is more to “human nature” than greed and competition. There is also cooperation, collaboration, and empathy. Since these are all components of our human nature, as is our rationality, why not deliberately choose to enhance these aspects of our nature instead of glorifying only the competitive aspect ?
I will address the difference in our use of word principle later. Here I highlight a concept which I see as a misunderstanding
[b]Concept: A principle-driven society can be a bottom-up society.[/b]
and the misunderstanding that a principle-driven society implies a top-down governance of a society. The short answer is that it is actually a bottom-up society, where each individual starts by using principles to govern themselves, including their desires and emotions.
When an individual has mastered that level of self-control then they become an asset to the household. When the household achieve cooperation, the household becomes an asset to the community. The order builds up from the individual and ascends to the level of the world. Therefore such society is a bottom-up society. It is not about a group of few imposing rules. It is about a society where each individual takes the initiative to train themselves to have the intention and skills to practice cooperation and conflict resolution in every way of life.
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[b]Escaping the Cult of the Average[/b]
Echoing what medwoman said, there is an inherent problem when people limit their potentials by looking the norm. I am Happy Project introduced this TED talk to me, and I will pass it on to you.
[TED Talk] ([url]http://www.ted.com/talks/shawn_achor_the_happy_secret_to_better_work.html[/url]) – at 3:00, “Escaping the Cult of the Average”