Friday, October 17, 2003
Blowtester
People are stupid. Unfortunately, people are probably too stupid to notice. Letters:
Sid Patel: He misses the fact that this whole process is being rushed by the university as a backhanded way to deal a blow to the anti-war movement on campus.
That's some fact. Are you absolutely sure it's not your hypothesis?
In fact, the students were informed that they were to go on trial less than 10 days in advance. And they were required to submit all of their evidence and witnesses five days in advance of the trial.
According to the university, they were informed months earlier. It was merely the date that they found out recently.
So the university, and their full-time, professionally trained prosecutor Rajmaira, got five months to prepare a meticulous case against these activists. The grassroots activists got less than five days to put together their defense.
Aww... whassamatter? Don't like that things aren't fair? It's also not fair for the students to have to put up with protests interfering with their classes and their business. But that unfairness is acceptable, apparently. Also, it's not like this was news. If you don't have the guns to go up against an enemy, don't provoke it.
[T]here is another reason I think this trial is a sham.
Those three students did the right thing in protesting the war on Iraq.
Yep... because they did the right thing, the trial is a sham. That makes perfect sense.
The university is trying to send a message—protest is not welcome on this campus.
Message received. Communication successful.
From Pablo Arredondo:
Specifically, when the defense objected during the opening argument that they had not received any information about the defendant’s priors, Mr. Rajmaira replied that he did not send the information, despite having it “ready to go,” because he was not specifically asked to.
Guess they should've asked for it, eh? Welcome to the world of law. It's not supposed to make sense to the layman. See above comment on guns.
Daniel Watts: UC Berkeley’s the only campus with protesters stupid enough to think that commandeering an administrative hall is an intelligent way to convince Bush to pull out of Iraq.
I doubt it's the only campus, but that is a good point. How did stopping the war in Afghanistan go, lads? Oh, right...
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