Friends, The report below is chilling. At the same time, it opens up some interesting possibilities. The scenario is reminiscent of how the Free Speech Movement began at Berkeley in the sixties. In that case, a few radical students had occupied the administration building, without widespread support from the rest of the students. It was the police brutality in removing them that caused the majority of students to join the movement, eclipsing whatever had been the original motivation for the occupation. The police response to the occupation turned out to be a strategic blunder, leading eventually to a nation-wide student movement that was a major component of the overall sixties movements. The tactics used by the police in this case, UC Santa Cruz, were comparable to the tactics used at anti-globalization demonstrations. In those demonstrations, the participants were mostly from elsewhere, and they went home afterwards, their solidarity and anger dispersed to the winds. At UC Santa Cruz, however, the students were attacked in their own community, so to speak. They will still be there tomorrow, next week, and next month. The creates quite a different situation in terms of what is likely to follow. I hope Mark Bodhi will send us further reports (to: •••@••.•••). Also, Mark, please send a DVD of your edited footage. I'll give you a postal address if you respond to this. I suggest that you include some participant interviews in your final cut, and perhaps interviews with other students as well. yours, rkm http://cyberjournal.org -------- The following action is planned for today, Friday (from http://santacruz.indymedia.org/): Tent University Santa Cruz Friday, 22 April 2005 All day UCSC students, faculty and staff will create an alternative university at the base of the UC Santa Cruz campus to form a giant tent city symbolizing the displacement of higher education in our state. The initial reason for our gathering is the unjust budget priorities that manifest at our campus. Our goal is to catalyze a grassroots cultural revolution. UCSC faculty will lead their classes there, rather than in their classrooms; representatives of various community organizations and movements will hold teach-ins and workshops; and students will teach their own classes on a wide variety of subjects. The ongoing workers' struggle, the anti-war movement, the walk-out to defend public education on April 20, and the racial justice movement will all be part of this historic convergence. Location: UCSC Santa Cruz, the fields of the base of campus Cost: free Contact: future (at) riseup.net URL: http://ucsc.tentstate.com -------------------------------------------------------- From: •••@••.••• Date: Fri, 22 Apr 2005 03:07:44 EDT Subject: Fwd: Police brutality at University of California, Santa Cruz To: •••@••.••• ---<fwd>--- Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2005 12:35:34 -0700 To: Recipient List Suppressed:; From: Tom Cahill <•••@••.•••> Subject: Police brutality at University of California, Santa Cruz ---<fwd>--- From: bodhi mark <•••@••.•••> Subject: Police brutality at University of California, Santa Cruz some footage of some police brutality at ucsc 4/18/05 is at this web site http://santacruz.indymedia.org/ [corrected from Mark's original link] Yesterday 4/18/05 the students of University of California Santa Cruz were peacefully gathered at the base of campus were they had erected several tents to hold alternative lectures in. Around 10pm about 50 university police arrived in riot gear and immediately started to tear up tents. Some of the tents were occupied, most notably by a young mother and her five-year-old child. Their tent was ripped up and rolled around with them still in it. About 68 students having congregated in the large center tent locked arms and sat peacefully in small circles as the police surrounded their tent and announced that they were an illegal assembly. Several minutes later the police began to execute choke holds on the students to force them to let go of each other. These choke holds are not allowed for use by city police but the university police use them. They consist of the police pushing their thumbs into both sides of the victim's neck at the jugular. Riot police surrounded the students sitting in the tent. Students and supporters surrounded the tent and police. After about 13 arrests the students on the perimeter locked arms and refused to allow the police to drag the arrested students from the tent to the police detention vehicle. The police used batons to force their way through the students. It was after the police arrested about five more of the students this way that they gave up. The university negotiated with some students granting them permission for a small number to camp there overnight, and the university police were called off. However due to the democratic anarchistic organization of tent state those students who negotiated with the university had no authority to speak for the whole group. The number of students who stayed behind was decided at a late night meeting after the police had left. Those at the Tent State celebrated their victory today and held classes as planned. I was in the main tent filming the arrests and have many good shots of the violence perpetrated on the students by the university police. I have about 2 hours of footage which I can easily edit down into about 10 minutes which you could use as you want. Please contact me at ANY time on my cell phone (831) 325-1636. Bodhi Mark -- ============================================================ If you find this material useful, you might want to check out our website (http://cyberjournal.org) or try out our low-traffic, moderated email list by sending a message to: •••@••.••• You are encouraged to forward any material from the lists or the website, provided it is for non-commercial use and you include the source and this disclaimer. Richard Moore (rkm) Wexford, Ireland "Escaping The Matrix - Global Transformation: WHY WE NEED IT, AND HOW WE CAN ACHIEVE IT ", old draft: http://www.ratical.org/co-globalize/rkmGlblTrans.html _____________________________ "...the Patriot Act followed 9-11 as smoothly as the suspension of the Weimar constitution followed the Reichstag fire." - Srdja Trifkovic There is not a problem with the system. The system is the problem. Faith in ourselves - not gods, ideologies, leaders, or programs. _____________________________ cj list archives: http://cyberjournal.org/cj/show_archives/?lists=cj newslog list archives: http://cyberjournal.org/cj/show_archives/?lists=newslog _____________________________ Informative links: http://www.indymedia.org/ http://www.globalresearch.ca/ http://www.greenleft.org.au/index.htm http://www.MiddleEast.org http://www.rachel.org http://www.truthout.org http://www.williambowles.info/monthly_index/ http://www.zmag.org http://www.co-intelligence.org ============================================================
