LRDP Tree Sit Being Attacked!

Not once is the word 'attack' mentioned in the body of this article. What gives?

When a cherrypicker and other large machinery arrives at a tree-sit site accompanied by police, is it so unreasonable that the sitters and their supporters perceived this action as an attack? There was no way to know that a forced extraction of tree-sitters was not imminent until the cherry-picker drove away from the area.

Agreed, it is a bit of an overstatement to call the police action an attack, but bringing in a cherry-picker just to clip one banner out of the trees was an act of intimidation - calling it an attack is not too much of a stretch.

The following email was sent this afternoon to the "UCSC Community"


To: UCSC Community
Fr: Office of Public Affairs
Re: Update on Science Hill encampment

Campus grounds crews report that people who had camped illegally on the ground at a Science Hill site during the past six weeks departed over the weekend. While a few people remain in the trees, crews cleaned up the site on the ground this morning. Since the people in the trees and their wooden structures continue to pose a risk of injury to anyone below, one of the parking lots in the area remains closed and pedestrians are advised to continue to avoid the site.

The headline used the word "attack." As someone who has watched this protest progress (in person, I work at UCSC) over the weeks, most of us find the protest lacking in any sensible purpose other than trying to create individual attention for the few involved. We don't want the LRDP either but these people are an embarrassment to us all. Kicking dirt and leaves in the parking lot after the sweepers cleaned up is what 2 year old children do when throwing a tantrum. This is what I saw them doing after the cops left. Covering their faces with cloth, cowardly. If the students gave a damn they would be here but this is not their priority, only important when it's convenient. This tree sit is a joke and defeats the real purpose of the message which is to stop development. Geeze the people in the trees aren't even connected to UCSC, just lazy without any other way to get attention. This propaganda is just as bad as the Bush administration crap only with a different twist. Use some intelligence and stop looking like the fools you are.

unlike the Berkeley situation, I might advise tactically making decisions which help avoid hardship coming to participants. There is no 'defending the Alamo' dynamic going on in Santa Cruz because the area of the plan is 100 acres, they weren't about to construct anything at those trees by the library, and there is no fence with security guards who could prevent reentry to trees. In fact, it might blow some minds if everyone were to come down for a new year's party or during a dangerous windstorm, or if arrest were a risk, and then just go up a different tree. Maybe this would require a few hours for creating a new platform. There's lots of trees in the vicinity.

if you're so concerned about stopping the LRDP and have so many better ideas than the tree sitters why don't you go and do them. maybe you you should talk to the tree sitters before calling them idiots.
1.)they are wearing masks because people cops are trying to take pictures of them all day , the university has threatened to sue people, so why not hide your identity
2.) the treesitters aen't lazy, tree sitting is a lot of work and one doesn't get paid for it, only fined by police.
3.)the LRDP is a moneymaking scheme for the UCSC. the treesit costs the university a lot of money. when one has one's car continually broken into, one does not try to reason with the thief, one takes ones valuables out of the car or takes some other measure to alleviate the problem. by the same same token, the UCSC(as incorrigible as any other thief) is trying to do something absolutely horrendous and the tree sitters have intended to cost them money and cause them embarrassment in hopes that they will deter the UCSC in their efforts to steal our woods, our water drive us out of town with high rents etc. it hopes(I imagine) to be a rallying point for others who wish to do the same.

Mariena just burned the shit out of the rest of you. How did it take this long for a lick of common sense to approach this issue?

The fact that police were able to come in is a direct reflection of how "passionate" about this issue the students really are. This is all a guise by insecure and feeble minded students to mask said insecurities by creating a faux-sense of activism and social awareness. It's a joke. Holidays roll around, and suddenly you can't get home quick enough. "Screw the preservation of campus that we've been fighting for months over, I've got Christmas shopping to do."

It also just shows how attention-needy the people really are. There's no cause to fight for if there isn't a cop to fight or a camera to pose for. None of the people care about the cause...they care about identification WITH the cause, because of the image it gives them. It's sad. Very, very sad.

And calling this an "attack" is alarmist, bullshit rhetoric. Call it intimidation if you want to be slightly less of a jerkass alarmist, but the police aren't attacking you, and they're not forcing you to do a thing. Showing up to clean up the mess that people decided to leave behind, and cutting down a banner...that's not intimidation. That's their Goddamn job. Stop with the goddamn whoring for a cause you half-heartedly support.

I sympathize with those that don't want a grove of trees knocked over. However, the roosting in trees as a form of protest is foolish and pointless. People need to get involved (sensibly and realistically) at the planning level for the UC system. Fighting the decisions that the regents make after the fact is pointless and leads to posts like those above. Until activists come down to earth (literally) and bring their ideals to the table, reasonably demanding accommodation, the process will continue to railroad them and change will go in a direction other than what they'd like.

The case at UCB is the same. the Sports crowd got what it wanted despite loads of evidence (Hayward fault and lack of transport options being the big two). They proposed and there was no reasonable counter to the proposal as the tree-sitters were waiting reactionaries, not pre-actionaries involved in the planning process.

So, tree sitters, you have lost. The question is when will your realize you have been defeated even before you started to fight? Bigger still, when will you realize that power comes one meeting at a time, being involved, and having enough voice to appoint your vision to the commissions that make decisions?

Just a quick note to thank the efforts of the treesitters protecting the oak grove from destruction! There are many fans who may not be there in physical form, though you are in our thoughts and hearts. We love you!!

If anonymity is so cowardly, why don't you reveal yourself? You'll note that there is no Mariena on record in the UCSC staff or faculty directory.

http://www2.ucsc.edu/its/cgi-bin/ucscdirectory?action=Advanced%20Search

And the tone is all wrong for an actual indignant staff member (who's quiet support has repeatedly been voiced to anyone who's hung out at the tree-sit). Such clumsy disinformation work on the part of the administration, police, and their supporters. Tsk tsk.

In fact, people prefer to keep their identity hidden to avoid harassment by a powerful administration with many resources. Students, staff, and faculty -- who have demonstrated support throughout the tree-sit -- are most vulnerable.

The IPs of all posts are logged and available to Indymedia workers, so it is pretty easy to see where disinformation posts are coming from. Next time, "Mariena" and the others, save us trouble and don't bother to post your lame attempts at disinformation.

But all that said, the "indignant staff" posts, the dirty, lazy, selfish name-calling posts, and even this one, are distractions from the important issues:

* Destruction of 120 acres of forest will ruin a unique, beautiful, and diverse forest habitat
* 4500 new students will ruin what quality of life we have in this already overcrowded town

JS

You may be an observer, but you have clearly never engaged with the tree sit. To find the protest lacking in purpose is to say that you have never spoken to anyone at the tree-sit, read the newsletter articulating the reasons why the tree sit has happened, or even read any of the banners containing less than 10 words. There has been resistance to the LRDP on many fronts; faculty statements opposing the LRDP, community groups like CLUE getting ballot initiatives passed by vast majoritites, and finally, we have a student-based movement.

To discount student efforts because of their timing is the rhetoric of hopeless cynics who get failure because they expect it. Upper campus is still intact. The latest LRDP project, beginning with the Biosciences building, has yet to begin due to lawsuits from the town. The community is not yet ready to admit defeat, and we will continue fighting. What is so cowardly about that?

To say that the demonstrators want attention is clearly naive as well. The tree-sitters are all wearing masks, protecting their identities. To spend countless hours in the cold, holding a parking lot is not a glamorous struggle done for attention. It requires discipline and patience. It is impossible to get attention or even positive recognition for this work when you are anonymous.

To call the tree-sit a joke is to discount our country's rich history of civil disobedience for worthwhile goals. Would you feel alright calling Martin Luther King a joke?

Clearly, "Observer," you have proven your inability to think critically and stop swallowing the propaganda from the University. I don't know how you think you can read through government propaganda of the Bush administration when you have such an ill-researched position on something that matters so much. Perhaps you should use your own intelligence and recognize that the University has not listened to polite petitions, environmental impact concerns, or even the voters of Santa Cruz. These students are just trying to give them another front to address these concerns through.

I had to go home for break to see my dying father for Christmas. Many students can't afford the extra $500 to stay during the break. Just because many students have gone home for break is far from saying that they don't care. I would say that it's incredibly underhanded of the University to move in when students are not there to voice their objections. It's *especially* rude to do so when the tree-sit is in negotiation with the University.

Keep fighting, tree-sitters, and hold your heads high! Thanks for your amazing work.

quoting; "The IPs of all posts are logged and available to Indymedia workers..."

I'm pretty sure that statement is inaccurate. To the best of my knowledge, IP addresses are NOT logged, by IMC volunteers...

holding a parking lot is not a glamorous struggle done for attention. It requires discipline and patience.

That would be the same discipline and patience that others are investing in solving problems of disease, hunger, pollution, and global climate change. Look around at the people making real change happen. They are not people wasting time in trees, trying to pretend that UCSC is the very embodiment of evil and that if they can only "hold the parking lot" then all will be right in this world.

To call the tree-sit a joke is to discount our country's rich history of civil disobedience for worthwhile goals. Would you feel alright calling Martin Luther King a joke?

So somehow we are supposed to be seeing a parallel between MLK's work on civil rights for minorities and a group of privileged NIMBY protesters aligned in their goals with Santa Cruz nativist activists?

Girdle the trees and be done with it

When reading indymedia articles and the comments that inevitably follow, i find that over and over again we end up bickering over semantics, word choice, and simplifying the ideas and issues present to stereotypes and generalizations. Rather than waste our time seeing which one of us is the most radical, the most practical, the most macho, the most academic, the most militant, or the most pacifist - why don't we instead start building new ideas for how we can fight for the better world we want to see? This treesit action isnt perfect - it has its fair share of problems and in some cases replicates the same power structures which it claims to be fighting against, but rather than simply toss it aside why don't we instead talk about how we can perhaps make it better now or do it better in the future. If we want to create a movement which will eventually create a society based on compassion and solidarity rather than competition and greed, lets start by working together in meaningful ways rather than tearing each other down. So yes - let's criticize each other, praise each other, talk to each other, help each other when we need it and strike together when we can.

When it comes to taking a side with either the tree-sitters or the university and the police, i don't find it hard to see which side I'd rather be sitting on, even if I don't completely agree with them. Here's to struggle and beauty - keep fighting against the forces that would hope to oppress and keep fighting the ways in which we oppress others.

Thank you for comparing your struggle to that of Martin Luther King Jr., effectively proving every single point I made in my last post. So, so, so hilariously predictable and so, so, so hilariously off the mark. The self-aggrandizing never ceases to make me piss my pants in laughter.

I agree (a).
One thing I've noticed among both anti- and pro- comments above is an idea that this cause is not well-supported if there is not a large crowd by the tree all the time, or it gets sparse. Who is it that created the mark that they aren't committed enough if they want to come down to do something else, and somehow are weak if they only last a month or something.

The time and energy commitments of this style of protest are crazy. I mean, I'm sure they're thinking and reading books up there, but life is also going forward. Imagine if conflicts over everything else required more than a 40 hr/week job. Friends anc coworkers of mind have been able to make visible progress by joining city boards and commissions which meet once every 2-4 weeks. Think through who made it a rule that this is an endurance contest where 20 people have to be out there all the time, and remember you can always go up a different tree. Elsewhere on Indybay, there is often dialogue about anti-Iraq occupation marches in the city, and how they're a waste of time because they take 4 hours and won't stop the war, so people have stopped attending.

The only reason that the analogy was made was to demonstrate that the argument cynics are using to dismiss the tree-sit is that it is a protest taking an unconventional and voluntarily illegal turn.

Just because a sensational tactic is being used doesn't make the reasons for it any less valid. The tree sit is no less well intentioned than the voters opposing campus expansion at the ballot box, or by the faculty and staff preparing their statements of opposition to the LRDP.

The LRDP is immensely unpopular; the university has shown an unwillingness to many polite forms of dissent with their expansion plans, so now people physically intervened with their expansion plans. It's called direct action and it's simple and beautiful.

And guess what? Working on one radical project doesn't mean that you don't work on others; but I don't expect to be able to fulfill lofty goals if I can't protect 120 acres of a disappearing ecosystem (maritime chapparal) in my own town.

Those complaining have probably never really put work into anything before, just thrown money at big NGO's promising to "end the war." Just because you're too apathetic to be part of the solution doesn't mean you have to tear down those who put up a fight.

I am middle-aged, have a job, kids, responsibilities, and still manage to balance a life of resistance. I've worked for the man, supported myself through college coming from a poor rural town, and lived here in Santa Cruz for 20 years.

I support the protest and resistance to the continuous tide of unchecked UCSC expansion. So who's laughing?

I've seen this sleepy little beach town turn into a crowded little outpost of Silicon Valley. The university I moved here to attend went from a reputable and respected liberal arts college to a mediocre wanna-be science research institution. The thing that convinced me to come here, the great and amazing forests, are under threat.

When someone can't defeat an argument on it's merits, it is an old tactic to attack the legitimacy of those making it. But honestly Scott K, you've already said you are beyond convincing, so perhaps you've made your point and we can ignore any further insults and ad hominem arguments you make.

When they built the new bookstore, the new recreation center, the parking garage, Engineering II, the Performing Arts Center, College 9, College 10, the McHenry Library Expanision, ISB, the new Social Science and Humanities building and lecture hall, and PSB. Oh and I should mention the apartment in-fill at Cowell and Stevenson, as well as the moving of the villages to the quarry. And that is just in the last ten years. Shame on UCSC for educating more students, creating more jobs, and providing more and better fine arts performances over the years.

You missed them indeed. There has been non stop resistance to expansion in the 20 years I've lived in Santa Cruz. Not every building, but there have been many anti-expansionist fights.

At colleges 9 and 10, for instance, at the battle of Elfland, dozens of people were arrested or injured by police trying to stop trees from being cut.

The music center, for instance, was originally proposed to be built in the middle of the great meadow. After resistance to it, the plan was moved closer in on area that was slated for parking lots.

There was a road that was planned to go across the great meadow that was stopped by student and faculty protest.

There have been numerous projects that have been returned to the drawing board after UCSC tried to plow ahead with ill-conceived and short-sighted plans that would damage the ecosystem of the land that they seem to think of as useful only for photographs to grace the cover of course catalogs.

The tree sitters still have no plan. They are refusing to negotiate or at least initiate any talks with University officials. The tree sitters should at least try. Instead they want to throw a wrench in the University machine by closing their eyes, plugging their ears, and climbing a tree. I would support the tree sitters more if they went to the administration and complained. Write letters, post them online, post the responses, demonstrate that the tree sit was an unfortunate last resort. It seems like the tree sit was a first resort to many of the people involved. If the only reason that there are people in the trees is to increase awareness of the LRDP then a massive flier campaign could have sufficed. If preventing expansion is the cause then there is current construction on campus that could be stopped right now. If you don't like the fact that UCSC is expanding instead of building new Universities then that is a state government issue. Figure out how to change state policy. Start a petition, collect signatures, do the dirty work of democracy. It seems like too many tree sitters are doing the lazy work of anarchy instead.

The BATTLE OF ELFLAND?

Are you fucking kidding me? You guys are a riot! I'm in stitches!

a lengthy and difficult conflict or struggle: the battle over the future shape of UCSC

James didn't know what the word battle means.

What was your point exactly?

Rico states' that he arrived here 20 years ago, apparently to attend UCSC. He says that it was a good liberal arts University then, but it's changed now and he doesn't approve of it. He implies that it's the reason the town is now too crowded, and that it wasn't in 1987.

The irony is sublime, for someone who has been here longer than that, such as myself.

I thought that the campus and town were big enough in 1975, when there were 6,500 students and 25,000 people in town. I wish that both had remained the same size. The people who graduated 5 years ahead of me would tell me that I'd missed the glory days, when UCSC was a good liberal arts college; but now it was a watered down version of its original self.

So, if I'd of taken Rico's stance, perhaps Rico wouldn't be here today. There wouldn't have been room for him if I'd of gone up a tree and protested growth. He'd of missed out on the opportunity for an education at UCSC and a life in Santa Cruz.

My point? IMO, its selfish and short sighted to partake of the offering and then try to deny it to those who come behind you. It ignores the reality of population growth in the state and Silicon Valley that have had equal if not greater effect on the population fo this town than has the campus impact.

Seriously, if the campus disappeared tomorrow, does anyone think this town would shrink in population? I don't. I think we'd simply see 15,000 silicon valley residents move over the hill to take the place of the departing university folks.

I think the University makes a big and easy target for folks to take pot shots at. Wanting to save the forest is admirable. So is wanting to control growth.

...but why didn't anyone climb trees to stop the building of Costo? To stop the construction of that huge condo/retail monster going in near the town clock? To stop the infill that's occuring all over town?

I don't think the University is growing to satisfy the administrations ego or lust for power. I think it's growing because every year the UCSC campus turns away 12,000 qualified applicants who want an education, but the University doesn't have space for them.

I hope that the tree sitters will walk the walk and encourage their brothers, sisters, and friends not to apply to UCSC. That would be the first step in helping to control the growth.


And maybe Rico could consider moving away? As a person who got here 15 years before him and liked it better then when it was less crowded, I'd appreciate it.

yes, i wish we all were never born of this beast of a system. but we were. 2007, 1987, 1975, 1968, 1888, 1492... we are not blessed, we are not entitled, but we have enemies and there is nowhere to hide from them. we're here to take the fuckers down, it's our only option.