Fun Protest Coverage Today, I caught the tail-end of a CUE union rally in front of California Hall. I was there from about 12:40-12:55, and still saw plenty worth laughing at. Here you go: There were probably no more than 50 people there as I passed by. They spent the whole time wandering around in a circle chanting and waving their signs. One woman was knitting as she walked, who I salute for being productive with her protesting time. I arrived while they were chanting, I believe, "What do we want? CONTRACTS! When do we want them? NOW!" Of course, "contracts" is far too complicated of a word to chant as a group, so it took me quite a while to figure out what they were saying. I heard "What do we want? FLAPJACKS!" first. No protest is complete without unoriginal "Hey hey ho ho" chants. I heard "Hey hey! Ho ho! Union busting's got to go!" and "Hey hey! Ho ho! Tution hikes have got to go!" (which raises the question, where is the money for their raises is going to come from? How is this related to their cause?) The person dressed up as the Planters Peanuts guy (making a joke about low wages) was suprisingly inconspicuous. Instead, you heard mostly loud fat ladies screaming into bullhorns, and barely noticed the big fat peanut walking around. Which brings me to the hillarious chant: "G-R-E! E-D-Y! UC has no Alibi! They're greedy! They're greedy! They're really really greedy!" It looks stupid in words, but it was fifty times stupider coming from the amplified voice of a pissed off fat lady. She seemed like a Dr. Seuss wannabe. "Everywhere we go. People want to know. Who we are. So we tell them. We are the union. The mighty mighty union." Clearly not the poets' union. And if you're so mighty, why can't you accomplish your goals? "Not the Regents, not the state! Workers will decide our fate!" So decide already. Why do you keep asking for the Regents and the state to decide your fate? Noisewise, we heard Indian war cries, a whistle of some sort, various shaky, clacky, and rattly devices that people got from a large sack of such toys one lady brought. Apparently, such tools add to the message. You know, because... umm... well, you see... the thing is... er... They ended with the traditional "We'll be back! We'll be back!" chant before dispersing. I would have ammended the chant to "We'll be back because we failed to accomplish any of our goals, which might be expected since all we're doing is standing outside and screaming at a building," but nobody asked me. Some signage: "My family can't eat UC Prestige." Well, true. The goal is to make it such that my family can eat UC prestige in the future. On T-shirt read "blah blah stuff stuff You never know when we'll strike." Which is true, because frequently, we don't even notice when they strike. posted by Beetle Aurora Drake 9/20/2004 04:16:00 PM # Comments (0) . . .
