The protesters had occupied a bunch of the trees for about 21-months after the university announced that they were going to build an athletic training facility at the site (owned by the university). So, yeah, the trees would be cut. Hurray for sports, an important aspect of college life since forever. Hurrah! Go Blue! Hook 'em Horns! Snapping Alligator Gestures! Whatever.
Oh yeah? Cut a tree on your own property to grow your own university for the good of the people of California and for D-1 athletes? How dare you, University of California! Even though we're not students, we're gonna sit up here until you change your mind (and a bunch of other stupid demands). Because we represent The People of Earth! And we don't want these precious native and indigenous trees on this ancient burial ground WWI memorial cut.
Get the fuck out of the trees, people. C'mon. Protest the war or climate control or human rights or the goddamn election or something. Climb Sarah Palin and occupy her of you want to attract some attention. But, occupying a property owner's decorative trees (yep, they were planted by the university when the stadium was built) is just dumb. That makes the tree-sitters all mopes. Grow up. Did I mention that most weren't/aren't students? Did I say that part yet?
But it was fascinating to me like nobody's business. I loved it. Even watched the live video feed yesterday after the "deadline" passed and the university police set into action their plan to "extract" the protesters. After all the court stuff was exhausted and the landowners were freed to build a shed or something on their own damn back yard property, the university cut all but one of the trees. The remaining protesters (the final four) assembled in the sole remaining tree. A redwood. There was nothing left to protest, mopes. Shoot 'em down!
But climb to the top! And that's what they did. And the university build a scaffold all the way up. Blah-blah-blah. And what did the protesters do? They surrendered. Game over. And that tree was felled too. Fuck!
Protesters lose. University wins. Again. As always.
"By the late afternoon yesterday, the tree-sitters were in jail, the scaffolding had been removed and the redwood had been cut down."Now, you're thinking, damn, Ty's sounding all hard and conservative and Republican and shit with his mean old rant about the good-meaning protesters. Well, so be it. These shitheads make me feel pretty conservative. Occupying a tree in Humboldt to stop logging of centuries old redwoods is one thing, that says something. But occupying some damn scrub oak to protest a gymnaisum is retarded. Because: you make all protesters appear to be vapid and addled and just plain wrong. Real conservatives only see "hippie." Hippies saving decorative shrubs. Surely they cannot be taken serious on issues related to who gets elected as the Emerikahnnn president or global warming or foreign debt or anything. Thanks a lot tree-sitters. You are the gangster rap to the civil rights movement; the Sarah Palin to the women's movement. Thanks.
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