editorial for cabrillo voice
wind-up bird.
On March 22, 5,000 students from community colleges across California rallied outside of the State Capitol building in Sacramento, and a few of us associated with the "Cabrillo Solidarity" group (which organized Cabrillo’s March 4 event) were there as well. This was by far the largest protest yet to be made up primarily of community college students, who have gone largely unnoticed in the recent wave of budget cuts and protests against them. Probably this is because many of us are too busy working to keep our heads above water to even think about political action. Yet Cabrillo nonetheless managed to make a strong showing of over 100 students, a few faculty and several staff from the EOPS/CARE program. Once we got there, it was inspiring to see so many people in the same boat as us together in one place.
We realize that it must have taken considerable effort and resources to get all those people together in one place, and we recognize that it is important to see our numbers and to vent emotions together. Yet we couldn’t help imagine what would have happened had those 5,000 students chosen to do something more than stand on a lawn and listen to speeches for 3 hours. It was an opportunity to form a statewide network or even some bolder form of protest action. As it so happens, the rally received little attention from either the media or the legislators it was supposed to sway. We wonder if the event, like the nationwide March 4 protests, would have drawn so many attendees if not for the unruly collective actions at UC and CSU campuses that put education cuts and student protest on front pages across the country this fall.
Just as pressing as the lack of action is the lack of analysis. Speaker after speaker repeated the same messages and even instructed the crowd to chant along with them in slogan form, “No more cuts! Save our schools!” This first of all makes the false suggestion that things are ok now, or that they will be ok as long as it doesn’t get worse. It ignores the question of how we will obtain these ends, other than by asking the legislature to change funding allocations, and if we make this demand in a vacuum then we are simply asking for money to be taken away from other social services!
People, WAKE UP! We are facing a general economic crisis that affects everyone. Community college students cannot separate ourselves from UC students and workers who occupy buildings, or from the 23,000 public school teachers in California who just received pink slips, or from the workers, students, prisoners, indigent and disabled people, and others in this state and elsewhere who are affected by the crisis and by associated funding cuts. We cannot separate ourselves from the scores of our classmates who will be forced to drop out by the cuts to EOPS or the Cabrillo staff members who have already been fired.
From schools to prisons to foreclosed homes and shuttered businesses, the system is failing us. Now it is more important than ever to ask why it would do that, to question the myths we have been fed about capitalism, democracy and the way our society works. It’s not the time to beg the few rich people who hold power over us for more crumbs from their table, but to start thinking about how our gatherings can be opportunities for the exercise of collective power, and a step towards changing the structure of social decision-making.
We are the people and together we can transform society; the economy is failing and this is our moment. We have the opportunity and the numbers, we lack only the organization and the vision to make it happen. If these words resonate in any way with you, consider yourself invited to join Cabrillo Solidarity's reading and discussion group on organizing and crisis, Thursdays at 2:30 in Room 1091 behind the library at Cabrillo - Aptos. See also: http://cabrillosolidarity.wordpress.com
Cara Kubiak
Bill Stamos
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