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University of California campus erupts in riots
Published: 03 March, 2010, 00:49
Edited: 09 March, 2010, 14:13
TAGS: Crisis, Protest, Budget, USA
Violence breaks out as students at the flagship school of the University of California protest stiff tuition hikes.
Students at the University of California’s flagship Berkeley campus took to the streets on Friday night, vandalizing university buildings, burning trash cans and clashing with police in the latest expression of frustration over cuts to the educational budget in California.
The first tuition hikes took place in January, and since then tensions have been on the rise.
“Nobody planned what happened, but anger erupts when it has been building for so long. That’s what happens,” said Callie Maidhof, a student activist at UC Berkeley. “[The regents] are effectively closing off the campus, making it less accessible, and those already here are getting less out of their education.”
The University of California system, made up of 10 campuses with nearly 160,000 students, has long been the envy of other states. For many years, UC has provided a low-cost, world-class education, and scholars and politicians alike have noted the role of the UC schools in building California’s middle class. In recent years, however, the system has been battered by the state’s ongoing budget crisis.
California, which has the sixth largest economy in the world, has been hard hit by the economic crisis. Rising unemployment has caused a drop in the state’s income tax revenues and lawmakers have been reluctant to raise taxes, leaving the state government with little choice except to make severe budget cuts.
Schools across the state are planning mass protests on March 4 to protest the $17 billion in cuts to education budgets expected over the next two years.
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4 comments
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. When you are studying in the classroom, you are a student. When you are burning things in the street, you are a thug. These little punks need a taste of real life, working for you own bread and salt, paying your own way thru the world. There is no free lunch or free vodka. Eighteen years of parental indulgence and pampering is no way to prepare the next generation for adulthood. .
US is in for a boatload of trouble. Even though California has been run for the longest time by Republicans, it is always those liberals that are to blame. But many readers have made good points: free lunch is over. Provided that we know what is free lunch. People in US work to produce everything we see around us, everything we use and eat every day. People work so we can have the life we have achieved. Yet, there is an underlying assumption that these people, who actually produce everything, do not have any rights to ask for a greater share of the pie. It is quite reasonable that the bankers who make money out of thin air, give themselves huge bonuses for pushing a few papers --- not even that --- pushing a few keys on the keyboard. They somehow deserve a huge piece of our econmic pie. So when we pay taxes, it is OK for our legislators to give huge "contracts" to various smarmy profiteers in the name of goods and services we will not see. But it is an outrage, when thinking of giving a few pennies more to social security, or to pay something for education or health care. The general prejudice, that does not bode well for US, is that the plunderers are "winners" and deserving "capitalists" that make money, and make economy run. And that the cash paid out in taxes by the very working slobs, should go to those "winners" so they will bestow us with "jobs". We are a nation in trouble. Plundering is equated with capitalism, and is presumably good, while our own money given to Universities is bad. And our own money cannot go to elderly or for health care. No, no... It needs to be given to bandits to make us rich! These are the destructive, sick, dreams that we indulge in, and do not question any more.