I'm trying to get some work done, here in my office overlooking Bascom Mall, and there's a mini-student protest going on. A few kids are lolling on the lawn and there are some signs, but the speaker has a really loud amplifier, so I can hear what he's saying even with my windows closed. He barely needs amplification at all to reach the gathered crowdlet. I'm informed that all the money spent on the military should be re-routed into social programs.
I think I'll take an early lunch break and hope when I get back they'll be dispersed. Or at least turned down.
UPDATE: Oh, this is that
walk out of class thing that I blogged about back
here. Later, there's a different phase of activities when a small band of students walks up the hill beating drums, carrying signs, and chanting. I was able to grab a picture from my office window just now:
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8 comments:
I hope the noise pollution isn't bothering those people trying to sleep. That is a nice lawn
I'm sold. They've convinced me. Just look at them. How could anyone disagree? Disband the military and bring on the welfare state!
How many people is that? Like 75?
I love "mass action."
When I was in college at BYU in 1967, some students tried to stage a demonstration. The university president came with a bull horn and announced that anyone still there in 5 minutes was expelled, and that was that.
They make signs. They sit and listen to some guy declare his simplistic moral opinions. They march. They inwardly congratulate themselves for their superior moral goodness, for being able to see that obviously war is bad, and passing around billions of dollars with which they have no connection is good. They think they do all this because they're avante garde but, really, they do it because they're conformists.
Back in 1989, when I was a student at the University of Florida, a friend and I organized a protest in support of the students at Tiannanmen Square and urging Bush the Elder to show stronger support for deomcracy in China.
Outside of the Chinese students, it was pretty much just my friend and I. No American could be bothered to care.
Even student government declined to get involved in such a controversial political topic as democracy in a Communist country (and the student newspaper wrote a glowing editorial about the SG's maturity and restraint).
I can barely make it out, but doesn't one sign say "US out of my pants" ?
But, hey, Dissent is ALWAYS patriotic don't you know.
litterial, Ms. Althouse is actualy Professor Althouse. Excuse her for complaining about something making it difficult for her to work, or just breaking up her day a bit. She's hardly sitting on her rear all day long doing nothing.
I thought the fliers stated this was a get the US military out of Iraq and out of the campus event. While I fail to see a real connection, I guess I can understand the sentiment. Apparently, leaving the Iraqi populous to the jackels is part of the social justic movement, whatever that is. I've never seen it defiend. Why progressives hate people in Iraq, I don't know. Maybe they believe an Iraq built by Iran and Syria would be a better place to live?
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