Protesters march through the Cal campus to protest fee hikes imposed throughout the University of California system in Berkeley on Wednesday, Dec. 2, 2009.
Posted on 12/02/2009 9:26:33 PM PST by SmithL
The Free Speech Movement lives on at UC Berkeley - 45 years to the day after a barefoot, 21-year-old student named Mario Savio energized thousands from atop a police car by exhorting them to do all they could to stop the administration's restrictive policies.
Today the issue is less about freedom of speech than about freedom of access to a quality education, as thousands of students have protested rising tuition, employee layoffs and course cutbacks in recent weeks.
"We're the ones fighting for this to be a public university that everyone can afford!" Ronald Cruz, a Berkeley activist, told a crowd of about 100 students who gathered Wednesday on the steps of Sproul Hall, site of the late Savio's famous speech. "The Free Speech Movement is alive!"
On Dec. 2, 1964, Savio used the metaphor of a machine to urge student action- not just against campus policies prohibiting them from even setting up tables for their causes, but against the rampant civil rights abuses of the era.
On Wednesday, students repeated Savio's most famous passage en masse: "There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part. You can't even passively take part. And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free the machine will be prevented from working at all!"
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Protesters march through the Cal campus to protest fee hikes imposed throughout the University of California system in Berkeley on Wednesday, Dec. 2, 2009.
But I really shouldn’t have to pay for your free speech.
It’s a university run by liberals. Why do you think it’s so expensive?
Hey idiot students: Just wait till these people put themselves in charge of your healthcare.
Check out this free speech story: Protesters shut down Free Speech Movement tribute
Then they'll know it firsthand, still complacent in that 'it can't happen to me' attitude.
IT’s hard to feel sorry for people who are dressed in the latest high priced fashions.
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