UC Berkeley was the site of the famous Free Speech Movement in the 1960s – a movement that was triggered by the administration’s refusal to allow political advocacy on campus. As a “daughter institution” of UC Berkeley, we here at UC Davis should feel an especially close kinship to those historic events. Indeed, many of us are regular participants in the current ongoing protests at the “mother campus,” and this brings a greater sense of unity to the broader movement.

I was there last Friday and experienced a surreal scene that I will never forget. The intent of the protesters was to march from building to building, all around the campus, and catch people’s attention by chanting, distributing posters or perhaps writing chalk messages on sidewalks. I caught up with the group late and was immediately disturbed by what I saw: over a dozen police officers and sheriff’s deputies following the protesters around in an ominous fashion, with at least two officers filming people at point-blank range with video cameras.

It looked more like stalking than policing to me. I asked a supervising officer who was wearing a long cloth trench coat what the justification was for this type of police action, and his answer was: “This is the way we monitor protests.” That was a transparent lie. Granted, I saw at least one person using chalk to write a political message on an interior wall, and this was an iffy tactic that might have crossed the line. But if so, a simple citation for violating a minor infraction should have been the maximum police response allowed, if that. What these officers and sheriff’s deputies were attempting to do was stop the entire protest march, and thereby squelch free speech, by intimidating people with their video cameras and their close-up and in-your-face menacing presence.

During one moment in a small courtyard, with most of the protesters inside the building, there were more police officers than protesters present. The sky was overcast and there was light sprinkling coming down. It was a gloomy and half-spooky scene. A verse from one of T.S. Eliot’s poems came to mind: “Footfalls echo in the memory/ Down the passage which we did not take/ Towards the door we never opened/ Into the rose-garden…” Here I was witnessing the police, at the direction of the UC administration, attempting to steer us in a direction that should only remain in the imagination – toward a nightmarish dystopia ruled by plutocrats (in our situation, UC Regents) who have little regard for truth or justice.

The call on the flyer simply read: “Join us on the Sproul steps at 10 a.m. to show support, mobilize and march around the campus to demonstrate our needs, our power and our unity to … create a better world.” What is it about that call that would provoke the administration into attempting to stop it by ratcheting up the police presence? What the UC Regents fear, most likely, is the power of unity on the part of those who oppose them. The only way they can continue the hegemonic status quo is by resorting to divide-and-conquer methods. They are panicking and falling back on desperation measures. They fear losing face. They fear the exposure of how they have exploited others and society by leveraging their positions in the UC Board of Regents to engage in counterproductive business deals, as uncovered by investigative journalist Peter Byrne.

Like other lines in Eliot’s poem, I felt like I was “at the still point of the turning world” caught between “un-being and being.” I left the scene feeling convinced that the major turning point of the movement has been reached. With a new governor, Jerry Brown, and new lieutenant governor, Gavin Newsom, both taking their seats soon on the UC Board of Regents, things are bound to change. California Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg issued a statement the day before blasting the current regents for the new fee hike, and a recent survey released by the Public Policy Institute of California shows that 74 percent of Californians believe that state funding to higher education should be increased.

Let’s celebrate this Thanksgiving as a holiday to celebrate unity among family, friends and allies and the bountiful “harvest” that shared purpose and cooperative effort provides. The biggest battle is ahead: democratizing the UC Board of Regents and turning those positions into elected positions. When that happens, a new era of higher education will have officially begun.

Reach BRIAN RILEY at bkriley@ucdavis.edu.

For months in the
run-up to the 2010 elections, pundits wondered aloud how President Obama would
respond to the impending defeat of his party at the ballot box. Typically a
chagrinned president moves to the center if the voters part ways with him in
the midterm elections. But Obama had also been very consistent — with a few
exceptions — in implementing strongly progressive policy at the federal level.
So would Obama choose Clintonian moderation, or Pelosian determination?

The direction of the administration for the
next two years may not be clear yet, but one thing we didn’t have to wait for
was the president’s interpretation of why the House of Representatives was lost
by a substantial margin and the Senate only narrowly stayed in Democratic
control.

“I think the Republicans were able to
paint my governing philosophy as a classic, traditional big government liberal,
and that’s not something the American people want,” the president opined
in a “60 Minutes” interview several days after the election.

“I think the Republicans were
successful,” he added a moment later, “in creating a picture of the
Obama administration as one that was contrary to those common-sense, mainstream
values about the size of government.”

Other than depicting the Republicans as no more
than a collection of Picassos, Obama’s explanation is nothing new. It seems
that whenever the Republicans or the Democrats lose the American people, it’s
never that the product is flawed. It’s just the goons over in marketing that
botched the sale of it.

This method is the perfect escape hatch for
anyone in the public eye when the polls turn against them. My philosophy is
fine. I was just too focused on effecting positive change to play the
politician game as well as my politician opponents. Did I mention they are
politicians and I’m not?

The it’s-just-a-marketing-issue issue has been
around for a long time, and it’ll be around for a longer time to come. For
folks who spend all day in Washington crafting a message, of course their train
of thought would easily explore whether or not they succeeded. As with any good
spin doctor, their mind was already on the message anyway.

But this also reflects an inability to accept
genuine blame for your actions. Obama criticizing himself for losing the
messaging war is much like the job interviewee claiming perfectionism as his
greatest flaw. We’ve all heard of the backhanded compliment that’s really an
insult, but what about the insult that’s really a compliment?

Obama’s take on the failures of his
communications strategy feels suspiciously like the gentleman who says with
aristocratic politeness, “I must have misspoken,” when really he
meant, “You weren’t listening to me.”

Beyond all that, Obama’s explanation simply
doesn’t make sense. The president and the Democrats produced endless speeches,
press conferences, press releases, summits, in-district events and town halls
(until those became counter-productive). They argued for their spending
packages, healthcare reform and increased government controls until they were
blue in the face (pun not intended, but accepted).

Am I the only one to think it odd for the
famed, charismatic orator who crushed the unbeatable Hillary Clinton in 2008 to
claim that he’s just no good at pitching his ideas?

It seems more likely that Obama’s rhetoric only
failed him as president because a campaign is all talk. When the people
measured that talk up against his actions, as inevitably comes with governing,
there was too much of a disconnect for even Obama to overcome. 

Contrast Obama’s post-election self-reflection
with former President Bush’s in his new book, f. Bush concedes he should’ve put more troops into Louisiana after Hurricane
Katrina, faster. He didn’t know at first how big the 2008 financial meltdown
was. The infamous “Mission Accomplished” banner on the aircraft
carrier after the Iraq War in 2003 was another blunder.

For all his reputation of an inability to admit
mistakes, it seems only two years out W. is more willing to point out his own
failings than the quiet kid in the back who’s looking for reasons not to ask
out the prom queen.

I’ve got plenty of criticisms of my own for the
Bush presidency, and it’s undeniable that he cares about history’s eventual
verdict. But I find his recent publicity tour refreshing in its candor and
directness. It’s obvious Bush is a politician no longer, having reached the end
of his political career, feeling liberated to appraise his own decisions
without tired political tactics.

Unlike President Obama.

Paint a picture of ROB OLSON and send it to
rwolson@ucdavis.edu.

Meet Roxxxy. She’s 5’7″, brunette, large breasted and white. She knows your likes and dislikes, has genitalia and even a heartbeat.

I know, doesn’t sound too out of the ordinary, but get this: Roxxxy is not human. That’s right, this lovely lady is really a lovely robot – a sex robot. If her initial description doesn’t sound like your perfect girl, know that she can have any other breast size and any other hair color or skin color you’d like.

When I first heard about Roxxxy I rushed straight to the website (TrueCompanion.com) where she can be purchased. I was appalled. I should note that Roxxxy is not alone and also has a male version named Rocky, but seeing as how the target demographic is for heterosexual men, he is much less advertised and not given as many features as Roxxxy.

Unlike Rocky, Roxxxy comes with five different personality settings. She can be any sexist stereotype you like, fellas! There’s Frigid Farrah, Wild Wendy, S&M Susan, Young Yoko and, last but not least, Mature Martha (not a joke, I swear). These “women” can be programmed to do anything their owner desires and never complain. That’s the supposed allure of it all. A machine that looks like a woman, but doesn’t come with all the “baggage” that real women have – like, oh, you know, their own motives and thoughts. The website even promotes owners to swap their sex-bots with other owners, saying, “This is the same as wife or girlfriend swapping without any of the social issues or sexual disease related concerns!” Is this the future or what?

Sex robots are not a new idea, and for decades there’s been a community of people who now refer to themselves as technosexuals and have had fantasies about the day they could make love to robots. However, until recent years this has been mostly the stuff of robot-romance fiction novels and films.

Now that Roxxxy has come along, I was under the impression that the fantasy has finally come true, but this is not exactly the case. David Levy, leader in the field of artificial intelligence research and author of the book Love and Sex With Robots: The Evolution of Human-Robot Relationships, insists that a lot of technosexuals want more than just to make love to robots, they want these robots to be their girlfriends and perhaps someday their wives.

My first thought: Why?

In an interview conducted by Charles Q. Choi for MSNBC, Levy states that this is because robots are actually the perfect fit for “people who find it hard to form relationships, because they are extremely shy, or have psychological problems, or are just plain ugly or have unpleasant personalities.”

This is just sad. Levy is perpetuating the notion that certain people cannot find love if they are “social outcasts” of any kind, which presents an extremely narrow-minded view of what men and women look for in another partner. What’s worse is that technosexuals themselves are expressing similar sentiments. One anonymous technosexual writes, “you remove the possibility for rejection or mutual abuse or hurt or misunderstanding. Remove the human equation and all of that possibility for hurting another human being or being hurt goes away.”

So basically, many of the people who want a robotic partner fear the inevitable rejection and hurt that goes hand in hand with pursuing human romance. It makes sense in a way – people can be scary, are quick to judge and hurt one another frequently. If we were to avoid these kinds of people at all times though, we’d be avoiding pretty much everyone we know. Not just lovers, but friends and family, too.

Robot fetishism is evidently a more complicated matter than meets the eye. It appeals to a wide variety of people, most commonly heterosexual men. Some are purely misogynistic and seek to make love to a woman-like machine that will follow its owner’s every command without resistance. I might be sounding too much like a Defeated Debra, but perhaps it’s best they stick to their robots so women with self-respect won’t have to deal with them. Yet the others that are fond of an artificial partner because it will not reject them or bring them emotional pain I’m more on the fence about. It’s far too bleak to just let a person marry their robot under the pretense that this is the only type of love this person can have.

ALISON STEVENSON admits she is not fully immersed in this community like some of you readers might be, so if you have anything to add, dispute or clarify about the issue then please e-mail her at amstevenson@ucdavis.edu.