And the buffalo roam to a slaughterhouse grave

Okay, I've been hedging around the UC strike issue since I first heard about the walkout at the beginning of September, and now I'm going to come right out and say what I'm thinking. It's an opinion. You can feel free to disagree with any of this.

I'm going to start by saying that don't know who this weaselofjustice person is, but I love everything he/she is saying.

I'm also kind of embarrassed to be a UC student right now, if I'm being completely honest. I'm kind of getting the impression that the rest of the country is currently laughing at all of us for being completely unreasonable and ineffective. I know, it's totally great that the students can strike and protest fee increases and get themselves arrested in the name of the cause, but I think their energy is misguided and that they're focusing on the wrong people. We're the UC closest to the state capitol. The UC regents AREN'T going to repeal the fee increases, and they sure as hell aren't going to agree to the incredibly schizophrenic list of demands being tossed around by student protesters at recent sit-ins and strikes (you can read it here). True, there are grassroots-type organizations already working toward action at the state level, but all of this energy being wasted on Mrak Hall could be put to better use in Sacramento.

I'm not protesting. I'm not GOING to protest. I do wish the regents had thought to come up with a more reasonable way of covering the shortfall, but they didn't. The student protests won't change that. I may be a cynic (along with the rest of our political science department; I find it so hilarious that so few poly sci professors are willing to support the strike), but I like to think of it as knowing when to pick my battles. And this is not my battle.

I just want to graduate and get my degree. The University of California is a good school system, but college hasn't exactly been the "best years of my life." That's not the UC system's fault. However, I do find it very, very difficult to sympathize with student (and faculty) protesters when everything they do is designed to interrupt our education for the sake of making a statement. The quarter system doesn't give a whole lot of makeup time for canceled or postponed classes.

So, no. I don't support the strike. I will write letters to my reps at the state government level and do all I can to make my voice heard, but the fact remains that California is royally fucked. I was working for a union office in summer '08 when the budget crisis was happening, and I saw a lot of the frustration with the state legislature firsthand. The problem is California's financial crisis, and while I agree that the UC regents went too far with the fee increase, I doubt that student protests are actually going to lead to its repeal.

And as my friend SMB just said in a related email: "I don't know if anything will make a difference at this point -- the state has no money and no willingness to raise taxes for any reason. It's been a disaster waiting to happen, and so now it's a disaster in the making. It sucks."