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You believe your demonstrations yesterday were noble and profound. You feel that you are acting on behalf of the greater good. These unwarranted feelings are vindicated by your fellow students and faculty members all over the state, aided by apologetic media coverage.
Your protest yesterday over California’s budget cuts to higher education, which is unfortunate and perhaps also avoidable, only affords you a venue to unburden yourself from the pent up anger you have over this horrific tragedy in your life, while making a mockery of legitimate injustices and true human suffering that you so blatantly disregard.
What has been made most clear by you is the palpable sense of entitlement and the disillusioned sense of priority that plagues this generation. We never look to ourselves, and always insist someone else come to our aid. Students see their tuition rise and turn their cheek to the fact that their education is still massively subsidized.
Your narcissistic-oriented jeremiads near the free speech area demonstrate not your commitment to make aware the importance of higher education, but rather your desire for self-gratification, an opportunity to puff yourself up in your own mind as a “do-good-activist” and difference maker, while spotlighting how you, personally, have had to endure misery and hardship. This does little other than expose the enormously large chip that resides squarely on your shoulder.
You remind me of the Madden Library protesters in November when students felt it was expedient to refuse to leave upon closing time, citing their demand for the extension of operational hours, presupposing their right for the library to maintain hours that are agreeable to their preferences. Among the diluted were those who held up the sign “This is our university.” No it’s not. It is no more yours than it is the taxpayers of California who are contributing to the state’s general fund so you don’t have bear the full costs of your education.
The degenerates who found themselves occupying Dr. Oliaro’s office yesterday demanding to speak with university officials feel perfectly comfortable imposing their will on others in light of their petty grievances. I have little doubt that you are merely projecting the trials and tribulations you have experienced in your life, the ones that have come to symbolize who you are and the person you are bound to become: your role as the bewildered victim; a person who exudes the perception that they are constantly on the receiving end of an endless amount of epic injustices and intolerable suffering.
You evoke the word “suffering,” which can only be said by a person with a demented sense of reality, responsibility, and morality. You do not feel the need to run and offer aid to those men, women and children in Fresno who are actually suffering from impoverishment because their plight does not directly affect YOU. You are concerned not with the greater good, justice or the value of an educated workforce, but solely of educational costs to you.
I suppose it would be asking too much of you to rethink how you might go about making a change, if that is what you insist to be your goal. It may be too much to ask you to step outside yourself and recognize there are other players, factors, and consequences involved. If you think that spending $500 more on tuition is a means to inflict “suffering,” you have had a wonderful life, which makes me wonder why you insist on acting like a disgruntled, bitter and senseless human being.
Milton_Friedman • Mar 10, 2010 at 12:43 pm
As a student of economics, I've read more than my fair share of communist drivel. Perhaps you should read up on the only economic system that has created freedom for the common man. Everywhere communism has been tried it has not only failed miserably, but it has been disastrous for the very people it claims to be concerned with, the working class poor.
You can label me a neo-con (I no more support the religious right than I do the left) if it helps you dismiss my points. You can ignore studies that show that releasing criminals increases the amount of crime. And you can claim the unions had no influence on the various protests around the country last week, no matter how much groups like the SEIU are involved (perhaps not as much locally, but they were active at numerous other protests). But the vast majority of students on this campus can see right through it all and realize that you are attempting to harness the frustration over tuition hikes and class cuts to further an agenda that only a very small minority of Americans support, while ironically carrying on about democracy (here's a hint, we don't live in a democracy and if we did, your views would still be very much a part of the minority). No wonder some of you are so ashamed you hide your faces.
Karl Marx • Mar 10, 2010 at 8:04 am
I wish the teachers' union were antagonizing the students to protest. Unfortunately, its the other way around. This shows your lack of understanding and disconnect Robert. Your comment about state spending on “socialist” programs is laughable. Im sure you dont know what socialism is; let alone have you read Marx, Luxemburg, Pannekouk or any other true socialist. You sound like a neo-con radio host in the making; speaking as an expert, when you dont know what it is your speaking of. You probably think democrats are socialists too eh? The comment about “releasing 40,000 dangerous criminals” is not worth anyone's time. I feel sorry for you, for the fear has been instilled into you.
michaelkincheloe • Mar 5, 2010 at 11:36 pm
Look who's talking, Dominguez. You begin your comments by taking a cheap shot at Mr. Boylan's writing abilities, and you degenerate further into the abyss when your post begins to overflow with assumptions and innuendo. The only thing in your diatribe that surpasses your ignorance is your pretentiousness.
Why is it that every article or website that supports Alberto Torrico fails to mention that AB 656 would make California's combined taxes on oil and natural gas the highest in the nation?
If AB 656 is such a benefit to California education, why have the top dogs in the UC system refused to support it? The AB 656 oil tax won't raise nearly enough to cover the increasing lack of UC/CSU funding, and there is no guarantee whatsoever of how the money will be spent.
The fact that you support this woefully inadequate bill tells the reader as much about your entitlement mindset as anything you've written in the rant you posted above.
Robert • Mar 5, 2010 at 11:28 pm
Excellent article, these protesting sheep are nothing more than tools for the teachers unions who have been fooled into thinking that having someone else only pick up 80% of the cost of their education (100% for the poorest students who they claim to represent) somehow equates to injustice. They need to wake up and realize that state spending on socialist programs is the reason we don't have funds for education to begin with.
I guess you can't expect much from a crowd that thinks releasing 40,000 dangerous criminals from jail is a good idea, no matter how many studies show it will lead to a dramatic increase in crime.
DDominguez • Mar 5, 2010 at 5:15 pm
Not only is this a poorly written article, but the tone suggests you're actually more of a 'disgruntled, bitter and senseless human being' than those you target this opinion at. Aside from the comical use of synonyms that you pulled from the thesaurus you no doubt had next to you as you wrote this, it's very obvious that you are grossly out of touch with your own generation that you are blatantly attacking. Calling these campus organizers and activists 'degenerates' is not only downright offensive, but it hints at a much larger 'chip' that resides on your own shoulder. Our own generation finds itself in the middle of widespread transition and change across the board: politically, socially and culturally. You claim that we are not concerned with 'the greater good' but only with our own 'petty grievances,' however, you clearly do not grasp how higher education has a direct tie in with a push for progressive issues. College campuses across this state offer the most viable of platforms for our best and brightest to push for progress and reform – that is to say, health care reform, immigration reform, marriage equality, etc. Also, since you insist on asking us to rethink how we might go about change yet offer up no alternative to the campus wide demonstrations, allow me to: AB656. Look it up and get involved. Or maybe that would be asking too much of you.
mattford • Mar 5, 2010 at 11:38 am
Mike Boylan, you have once again showed your complete lack of understanding of the meaning of the statewide resistance to the privatization of education. Its rather disgusting to think that you can be a student at a University and still have a lack of understanding of student grievances and feel that we have a “sense of entitlement”. The comment “those who held up the sign “This is our university.” No it’s not. It is no more yours than it is the taxpayers of California who are contributing to the state’s general fund so you don’t have bear the full costs of your education” again shows your ignorance. Are those who hold the signs not “taxpayers of California who contribute to states general fund”? Yes, thats precisely what they are. And on top of that, our fees do not pay for the cost of education, our fees are put up as collateral for construction projects, which im sure you did not know because you believe all the BS that the Administration feeds to you. I would welcome you to do a bit of research before ranting a bunch of false info. Id be more than happy to point you to the right direction for academic discourse which proves these claims. Im sure you wont care though. Furthermore, we do not ignore the other suffering in Fresno, as you will see many activists involved in numerous human rights issues around the community, but again, im sure you wont care to know that. Also, we werent occupying Dr. O's office “demanding to speak w University officials”. If you were there, you would have known that nobody wanted to hear anything from the University officials. We were taking back public space, that as you so eloquently put, is payed for by the taxpayers of California (which makes it PUBLIC SPACE). Im sure its easy for a degenerate right-wing loon to sit on the sidelines and then rant in the opinion section of your college newspaper. Your comments show that you have a complete lack of understanding of what happened yesterday. If you were a true journalist, you would have been up in the Admin building getting info on the purpose of what we were doing. Since you did not do that, you dont know what the point of the action was, which reduces you to a weak and rather disgusting opinion article, and nothing resembling journalism. I feel sorry for you, for you are just a cog in the big machine working against the masses. Im sure you dont care and are rather comfortable being isolated in your world and then ranting your uninformed opinion. You are the degenerate, you disgusting human being.
concerned • Mar 5, 2010 at 10:12 am
Well said! It amazes me why students choose to exercise their rights for this 'cause' on campus. This is an issue of state and federal funding, in other words, the legislature. If a student really wants his/her voice heard, they should contact their assemblymen and congressmen, those are the people tasked with representing your interests. And failing that, then a student needs to prioritize their budget, just as all the CSU campuses need to do–perhaps consider ditching the $500 annual iPhone service…