Occupation Ends; Beginnings

The UC Santa Cruz Occupation of Kerr Hall was relatively successful.
None of the demands that university negotiators and students spent hours haggling over got met yesterday.
On the other hand, probably this was the first [third, depending who you ask] in a much longer process involving a series of escalating actions. No one's under the illusion that this is the only tactic that the students have under their belts. Meanwhile, frankly, the administration might be more willing to work towards real changes knowing students can always re-occupy an administration building. If we can occupy Kerr Hall, we can occupy anywhere on campus. They know this now. More, WE know that they're scared of the power we have always had to cause them to change their tendency to view us as pawns in their game of power to take what they can in the name of placating the Regents. That's not to say they're bad people--it's just that their jobs were designed to fulfill very specific functions within a much larger system that's not designed to threaten the UC Regents' power to determine where the money within this system goes.
There were injuries were reported. You will hear details later. Cops seemed unaccountably as though they wanted an excuse to be aggressive, and were held back by orders from higher up. This does not restore faith in the UCSC police department; however, tales of cops holding their fellow officers back and responding humanely to protesters who were upset restores a good deal of faith.
Meanwhile, protesters held to their word--no one left willingly--i.e. without threat of immediate and overpowering police violence--before demands were fully met. Sounds good to me.
The experience has been across the board described as a really positive, happy, uplifting one by students there. Congratulations to everyone, most especially those who sang and played music for five hours.
It seemed most special to recognize that no one played a hero, no one tried to rush the police or battle it out into the street. No one broke the group agreements. Everyone operated according to what had been consensed on previously. Because everyone did this, everyone aside from one professor who was forced to jump from a staircase but fell and miraculously was okay, everyone got out safely. Because everyone had enough respect not to try to lead or control what was happening but just to let it happen and actually have faith in the group of people around them, the community essentially won the day. Score one for having trust in what you can feel in your hear but maybe cannot quite completely articulate or explain. Luck had nothing to do with it. Whatever happened there was magic, and restorative, and healing, and strengthening, and that particular truth was clear on about 65 happy, healthy, radiant faces filling the still-occupied Kresge Town hall with the joy of folks discovering their own power and the strength of their own belief for the first time.
I suggest the administration get in contact with the Regents and find some way to get themselves more bargaining power at this university, STAT, so that this does not happen again. That seems a pretty solid suggestion, after all--better the devil you know than one who you don't know at all. In this case, the 'devil' Regents have access to more money than you will ever see in your life unless you either rob a bank or choose to rob native american casinos or rob Mother Earth of her natural resources for the rest of your life. In which case, go on your way merrily and with grateful acceptance in that beating heart of yours.
Meanwhile, our administration on the whole seem like fairly good people to have around in a bind. We've all had at leas tone positive experience with them recently, right, and I'm only alive [shhh] because of some of the strings Alma Sifuentes has pulled for me and I know of a few others who might say the same.
The administration says we 'made a mess in there.' They like to equate protesters with animals. They forget this actually makes science people like us more, at least biology students, and they definitely forget that if we are animals...well...what's that say about t hem, I wonder.