On Nov. 16, the UC Regents will vote to increase our fees by 81 percent over the next four years. There is no one we can petition or convince to stop this trend toward privatization. We must take matters into our own hands by preventing the UC Regents from convening at UC San Francisco on Nov. 16.
This Wednesday, we will be holding a rally in solidarity with our comrades at UC, CSU and community colleges across the state who are walking out of classes in opposition to the proposed higher education fee hikes and budget cuts and in preparation for the convergence at UCSF on Nov. 16.
For the last 10 years, we students have sat back and let the regents walk all over us. Fees have gone up 300 percent since 2001. In the meantime, the richest Americans have gotten exponentially wealthier, services for working people have been slashed, the average student’s debt load has risen to nearly $30,000 and over 5,000 of our fellow young Americans have been sent to their unnecessary deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan.
President Barack Obama, who was elected on a cynical platform of “hope” and “change,” has flatly betrayed us. Why have he and the Democratic Party doubled our troop presence in Afghanistan, invaded Libya and illegally murdered U.S. citizens in Yemen? Why have they failed to provide the American people with a publicly funded jobs program to curtail growing unemployment and poverty? Why have they promised to slash Medicare and Social Security while giving billions of dollars in relief to the most profitable corporations? Why have they deported more undocumented people than George Bush and the Republicans?
In light of these events and the recent growth of the Occupy Wall Street movement, we UC students have decided that we have had enough with the two-party system!
No longer will we allow the Regents — appointed from both big business parties — to walk all over us. If they must increase fees each time they meet, then, quite simply, we must prevent them from meeting at all.
UC students, teachers and workers, please join the growing movement against budget cuts and fee hikes. The future of our state and our country relies on your involvement in the movement.
On the Nov. 16, free busing will be provided from UC Davis and several other Northern California college campuses to UCSF and back. If you are interested in coming, contact Davis Strike on Facebook for more info.
This is our ultimatum: if the Democrats and Republicans continue to raise fees on working Californians while slashing taxes for the rich, then they will not be physically able to vote on a fee-hike.
We have made our case passively for far too long. Now is the time for action, but we need your support. We will undoubtedly face the same police truncheon that brutalized Iraq War veteran Scott Olsen and disparagingly infiltrated peaceful UC Davis protests in previous years. But we are prepared to fight back with our numerical strength.
Join us on the quad this Wednesday to discuss the plans for the statewide convergence on the regents meeting on Nov. 16.
For decades, working people and students have been hit with the onslaught of austerity and corporatism. Now, for the first time in 80 years, the people are beginning to fight back.
Join us on Facebook by searching and liking “Davis Strike”.
Davis Strike
An organizational network of students aimed at mobilizing UC Davis students against fee-hikes and budget cuts
