Monday, August 20, 2007
Yeah, man
A draft to fight communism or something in Vietnam. BAD! A draft to make us feel important. Good?
"What this country needs is probably a good draft once again," said Rusty Smith, a lifelong city resident and a Berkeley High School student in 1967. "It will change the face of the students. ... You'll find solidarity once again." Well, yeah, probably. But, noting that this solidarity comes from facing adversity, the lack thereof might be symptomatic of some good news: things don't suck for us. If you're the kind of person who loves chaos and suffering, who enjoys it when folks get chased out of town, when stores get their windows broken, when buildings get set on fire, (and some people do enjoy it) then yeah, I guess we need to make things suck more.
If, on the other hand, you're a fan of happiness, and think folks' lives should be defined however they want, rather than by the pain and suffering folks like Smith love, you're probably opposed to the draft.
The public would not tolerate such an action, he said, and there may be no other way to create a movement large enough to immediately end the war. That's the problem with winning, isn't it? You can't fight anymore. If you're fighting because you want to end injustice, that's good! If you're fighting just because you want to feel good about yourself, though, it's terrible to succeed.
Charlotte Hutton, a junior majoring in architecture, says it would take "some sort of debacle in the Iraq war" to get her to protest on the steps of Sproul Hall or the streets of San Francisco.
"Right now, there's nothing I'm so passionate about that I'd be willing to give up studying," she said. "I'm in college to get good grades. I'm selfish right now. I'm working toward my future." You know, the effort it takes to protest on Sproul is not going to affect your grades all that much. Hell, you can study while protesting.
Students today are more practical than their counterparts in the sixties, who were "utopian and ridiculously naïve," said history professor Geoffrey Koziol. They are scared, and for good reason.
"Society will get more deeply troubled," he said. "The economy is going to get scarier, which will create greater poverty."
People felt more secure in the sixties, Koziol said. Prosperity seemed to stretch forever, which allowed society as a whole to focus on their ideals. Excuse me? This is still the "we're special" generation. For most of the folks who come to Cal, prosperity seems to stretch forever, because regardless of how bad the economy gets, they'll still be able to find jobs. In fact, they already could, they're just chilling in college because they have nothing better to do with their lives. College was just the next step in education after high school for most of them. If folks were "scared" for their future, you wouldn't see folks clamoring to take DeCals, or to find "easy classes."
In 2007, protests have not increased in Berkeley or San Francisco, despite growing opposition to the war. According to the New York Times, support was at all-time low in May, when only 35 percent of Americans said the United States' invasion of Iraq was the right thing. It's actually shrinking opposition right now.
Students organized Day X in 2003, a rally that led to the arrest of about 100 students during a Sproul Hall sit-in. I remember that sit-in, but I don't recall it ever being called "Day X" here.
But the demonstrators against the Iraq invasion did not sustain their sense of urgency as the war continued.
"When that many people protesting failed to prevent the invasion, it threw a wrench in people's beliefs in how much protests can change things," Shingavi said. I think that wrench should've been there in the first place.
The mass protests will likely not coalease, but the war may affect the outcome of the 2008 election. It may. There's a small chance of that, so I guess you have to mention it.
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