glad to hear this news. tusc has taught us the importance of working together to accomplish common goals. overall, this has been a very good learning leason.

Awesome! Now let's force the UCSC administration to admit that the pain compliance methods were not necessary to remove protesting students from the field at the base of campus. We need to demand an apology and a concrete commitment to reforms ensuring that this will never happen again. Good work!

Hear Hear!!

Well, I'm in Chicago and I just saw this on tape. I have to say, your response is more measured than mine would be.

They endagered the lives of peaceful protesters. There was not any remote reason for them to act this way. Look, you're in a small, liberal community. Certainly you can raise some noise here. I encourage you to go door-to-door, go around the campus, go into the community, and NOT SHUT UP ABOUT THIS. EVER EVER EVER. Everyone who did this needs to be fired. Get ahold of your parents and have them scream bloody murder. Contact your representatives and scream bloody murder. Hold the mayor accountable. Get one who will get rid of the type of scum who would do this. Find out when parents and potential students will be there and let them know about this. Get ahold of some alumni. Tell visitors that if they are against this, they should not be spending their money there. Go outside the campus bookstore and let people know where they can get cheaper prices online. Boycott anything on campus. Scream to the city council. Sit in at the dean's office.

Make their name mud-both the city and the university.

This is not normal, people. This belongs in Peru or China, not in the United States. Lesser things have happened here, and I assure you that I made noise. But a small group of people doesn't have the power to control our community like you do. Don't EVER let them forget that they did this to you.

My two cents. Sorry if I'm judging the situation without being there, but America is counting on you. We need you to stand up and fight here, folks. It would have been done in the 60's and it needs to be done today.

Word! DONT FORGET!

Clearly, the pain compliance methods used by the UC police on April 18th were illegal. In a taped interview with Chief Mickey Aluffi of the UC police dept., he acknowledged that only pressure points at the base of the neck are legitimate. Carotid arterial pressure points are excessive force.

If you witnessed a police officer using excessive force by using carotid pressure, or you were a victim, file a written complaint with your allegations with the Internal Affairs dept. of the UC police, crossfile with the City of Santa Cruz Police auditor (City police were involved and the area in which the arrests occurred is within the city limits) and the IA dept of the SC County Sheriff's dept.

Is there a legal defense committee for the Tent U 19? If so, how do I get in touch with them?

PLEASE send them out to tusc (at) lists.riseup.net

The protesters deserve to be exonerated ,I';m glad they were and I acknowledge the good intentions of Tent University ,but for purposes of becoming more effective ,I wish to discuss what didn't work about it. The group was somewhat successful in getting press for the absurd arrests, but demonstrations ,as strategized by Ghandi and King are to show the brutality of those in power to gain popular support,and in the hands of those who know how to work it,such arrests are pure gold.Unfortunately the students aren't really experineced enough to know how to exploit the press effectively enough,good try but no cigar.What i see as tragic is that they didn't succeed in counteracting the intent of the arrests,which was to scare students away from the "action".This worked well,attendence dropped drastically for the rest of the week. To counteract power requires understanding strategy and tactics,which are not the same.The same tactics can have different effcts in dfferent circumstances .To be committed to particular tactics.The right keeps winning power in the US because they are results oriented ,while the left is committed to tactics that no longer have the deisred effects.
The other major mistake of this action was the failure to create Real solidarity with university workers.Oh there was plenty of rhetoric about it,Emergency meetings to address the tent city caused decisions about raises for some workers,for which they 've been fighting for months to be delayed,meaning that the demonstration directly took money out of the pockets of some University workers.I understand that this wasn't the organizers intent,it's just that they weren't really organinzed enough to understand and predict the effects produced by the action.This sort of shortsightedness is one of the 2 major reasons that progressive/radical elements have been continueing to lose political influence in the US .The other major ,closely related ,reason is the continual failure to distinguish between leaders and followers. If we continue to treat the followers of the rightwing demagogues and plutocrats as our opponents we will continue to lose.This means actually having enough respect for middle class suburban white people to treat them as equals,just like we rightly demand that they do with underpriveleged and oppressed peoples.Without recognition of what is common to all,including plants and animals ,we fail. But this requires understanding the values of those with whom we differ.So far most radical and progressive politics in the US haven' t succesfully done this,and so demonstrations are easily spun in the press as levers to maintian the power structure.When I try to tell activists how this works I generally get intense resistence,and often hostility .Yet criticism is what we continually offer as political action,and we often elicit defensiveness, opposition and hostility from those whose minds we're ostensibly out to change.Rush Limbaugh knows exactly how to use this immaturity against us and much of what is called political action ,on the left,and this is exaclty what the rigth wants us to do,because they use it to strengthen their power base. We must figure out how to show mainstream people how our issues matter to them in the long run which shouldn't be hard to do-the tax burden has ,under bush been shifted onto them,exactly what the conservatives ,in their bid for power,said they were against.When we make the middle class feel blamed for the excesses of the neocons they've been fooled by ,we strengthne their loyalty to those liars.It's harder to persuade someone of something when there is an adversarial relation,this is Limbaugh has worked so hard at making the term liberal an insult.Divide and conquer always works.And to the extent we play into that strategy we re-enforce the current regime. If you really want change,make friends with some republicans,strnthen your relationship[ with your right wing relatives,don't let political views stand between you and other humans,we can only solve our problems as a community,which must include all.