this morning, I was startled to discover the parking lot was much more crowded then it normally is on a wednesday. So I parked at the park and ride, and was hence running a little bit late. Well, imagine my surprise when an angry mob of people waving signs like “NO BLOOD FOR OIL” and such had surrounded the building that my class was in and actually would not let me pass.
Apparently there was a dual protest today- the anti-war protestors teamed up with a group that was protesting the increase in student fees. Apparently a ‘walk out’ was planned and they were trying to get as many people to not go to class today as possible.
While I also am upset by the increases in the fees, this semester is already paid for so its just a waste to not go to class. But by wanting to go to class I was treated almost like a scab is to strikers. I was really angry at first, but then the sheer number of people, and their body language, started making me rather frightened; they had surrounded several police cars parked on campus and were kicking their tires and slapping the windshields with their hands. I had a bad feeling it would get out of hand and I didn’t relish the concept of getting batoned for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. So I sweated it out in the Student Union until the mob dispersed/settled down. Fortunately I was able to go to my second class, which was a few hours later.
I’ve always been fantastically amused by the concept of a student “strike.” Here are a bunch of kids whose family and/or government are paying for their education, who decide they don’t like something, so they deny it to themselves.
Don’t they realize the purpose of a strike is to annoy the guy who’s pissing you off?
This kind of monumental stupidity is part of why I lost all motivation to finish my degree.
But these are tolerant, progressive, pacifists, who would never do anything violent, right? :dubious:
I missed the Sixties the first time. Summer of Love was the Summer of Learning to Walk, for me. Nowadays they have quite a few more non-lethal weapons, so hopefully the crowd control will go better than it did back then.
The idea of a student strike is stupid. But that’s not what happened, it was instead a walk-out. Temporary. Designed to get the media’s, and therefore the people’s attention. Perfectly logical.
Until I got to this, I thought we might go to the same school. There was a dual protest for precisely the same two things at my university today. They had the main campus center blocked up to the point that it was near impossible to get food, the screaming and drum pounding was of course a wonderful touch…
The people angry with me because I actually went to the classes I spent so much money to be in were a nice touch. Way to protest the cost of classes, by wasting the money you already spent on them. :rolleyes:
I’m a far-left student, and I don’t get walk outs of this sort.
Now when we had the lecturer strike, that made sense. We were showing our solidarity with them. Going to class was kind of akin to supporting scabs. Some campus protests- like ones designed to block specific meetings- make sense to skip class for. But walking out against war doesn’t make any sense. Exactly who are you trying to prove something to? Your teachers? Your Chancellor? None of the above?
This protest would have been just as good on a Saturday. Stageing a walkout on Wednesday is silly at best, indulgent at worst.
What spunds odd to me is that students who say they are for “peace” would surround police cars, kick tires, and slap window, and act all pacifistic and oh so non-violent.
I was a little concerned something like that would happen at my school today. UNC-Chapel Hill had a walkout starting at noon, and I was afraid that something similar would happen at NC State.
As of 12:10 PM, there was a single protestor in the campus brickyard holding up a small sign reading “NO WAR IRAQ”.
Actually, my biggest fear since all of this started was that these protestors, who seem to enjoy attacking cars in general, would take their complaints about “blood for oil” to the student parking lots and start vandalizing cars.
I stayed home today too. Not just as a protest of my own, but because “do not cross a picket line” is engraved in my mind somewhere near “do not murder.” Moreover, we actually had a strike mandate, if you will - the student union voted to walk out for the day.
I don’t think the point is so much to piss off your own administration, in this case, but to get a lot of schools to do it at the same time. Forgoing usual activity is a very common means of protest - I forwent education (at least, classroom education) today much as I might forgo food for the day in a different circumstance.
For this reason, I don’t think “breaking” such a strike is very serious. It’s not something I would do, but I couldn’t expect others to do likewise. Since the point isn’t to make the “management” suffer, the only effect of breaking a student strike would be to lessen its impact somewhat.