Protestors Crash Yoo’s Class
The blogosphere has picked up on a fairly large protest in Professor Yoo’s ConLaw class today at Boalt.
Nuts and Boalts
Beetle Beat
Cal Patriot Blog
Apparently, anti-war protestors came stormed in and interrupted Yoo’s lecture by confronting him about the Iraqi torture legal memos (isn’t that old hat by now?). Honestly, these World Can’t Wait people are starting to get on many people’s nerves, with this incident being one of many that students and student groups have been complaining about. They aren’t ASUC sponsored (though they have OSL sponsorship). One of the more interesting perspectives on the incident was provided by a commenter from Nuts & Boalts:
When I first got to the lobby, I had no idea what was happening. The cops were real. Were the prisoners? Then Torture Victim’s expensive sneakers tipped me off. Something about the moral outrage of a guy wearing shoes stitched together by Indonesian 7-year-olds in a dank sweatshop fails to inspire me. From that point on, I couldn’t take those people seriously. When I got the story as to what happened, I was even less impressed.
I am no fan of Yoo’s politics, and I shouldn’t even have to say that to qualify my statements, but such is the climate. I’ve actually read his memos and correspondence with Alberto Gonzales, which is more than I suspect most people have done. It can be creepy stuff, but he was a lawyer called upon to do a lawyer’s job. It’s pretty standard memoranda. Just like Anonymous is going to write for Halliburton someday.
The whole thing just fails to provoke me. Yes, the world is in serious trouble. No, memos condoning torture are not helping. But is this the kind of change we need? Harrassing some teacher (and his students) and trying to get him fired because he worked for an administration we don’t like? Just seems like there are problems that deserve more attention. But maybe I’m just being an apathetic law student.
Seems like a pretty clear example of agreeing with the ends, disagreeing on the means. Honestly though, events like this can only be seen as underperformance by a group that appears to be as well-funded and geographically organized as this group is. I’d expect better from an ultra-liberal anti-war (socialist-backed?) group at Berkeley.
Way to go and practice tolerance in the world by being intolerant themselves. Honestly, groups like these make antiwar conservatives like myself pretty upset. The wrong message is being sent out, and very few of these people actually understand their issues or how to get support. Perhaps Iraq was the wrong decision, a position I personally support. It’s not going to help by screaming and yelling and harassing professors and students who disagree with them. Telling Bush to die or calling him “stupid” or a “monkey” is, of course, going to persuade no one on the other side or have Bush pull out of Iraq.
The 2004 election was enough to prove that the torture memos are not going to be sufficient enough to get Bush kicked out of office. Maybe these idiot leftist groups can reevaluate these issues and frame them in ways the average American can relate. How is this affecting American tax dollars? How will this affect our economy and international standing? And finally, actually choose someone BETTER to run against the opposition. The Democrats accomplished none of these last year.
Comment by RepBast1984 — October 26, 2005 @ 11:16 am
so Yoo presented an unpopular opinion and thus should not be allowed to be at Cal.
by similar logic, since i don’t like they way that the World Can’t Wait folks conduct themselves, so they oughta go ahead and take a long walk off a short pier.
Comment by gomez — October 26, 2005 @ 1:46 pm
when Harriet Miers drops out of the supreme court hearings, Yoo and Gonzalez are both thought to be on Bush’s short list.
With the Ben Bernanke appointment to the Fed, one can fairly clearly recognize that various Bush handlers realized that Wall Street would not accept a crony and could react with selloff behavior which would lower tax proceeds etc.
Comment by bbb — October 26, 2005 @ 2:18 pm
Uh… who thinks Yoo is on Bush’s short list?
Comment by Beetle — October 26, 2005 @ 2:27 pm
More evidence that intelligent design theory is false -> someone who thinks John Yoo is on Pres. Bush’s short list of supreme court nominees.
Comment by chet — October 26, 2005 @ 2:34 pm
http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/courses/ed253a/2004/07/other-side-we-are-no-safer-today.php
On the other topic, can you cite any examples through history where an activist group achieved significant political change, particularly in the area of use of the military, via pamphleteering or inspirational oration? Zoning discussions at the city council level are different, but I am having a hard time thinking of good demonstrations that politeness pays off.
Comment by seh' mal — October 26, 2005 @ 3:04 pm
Well, if some guy in a column that isn’t accurately linked to on a site like that says so, it must be true. Interestingly, is that a class website?
Comment by Beetle — October 26, 2005 @ 3:11 pm
bbb:
a) Ben Bernanke is a chump, even worse than Greenspan.
b) Republicons and Democraps are mostly the same when it comes to Wall Street. (To be fair GW has investments in oil and gold which will do well with inflation mongers like the idiot Greenspan and his crony Bernanke)
c) Wall Street is going to sell off no matter what idiot they get to replace Easy Al. Thats not a question of its “opinion”. Greenspan fucked the economy up, hawdcore.
d) The how much tax revenue is generated equation depends on a lot more than whether the market is going up or down. To begin with, everytime someone sells a stock for a profit they pay taxes, you know.
A quick FYI: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/26/opinion/26grant.html
Comment by mano — October 26, 2005 @ 5:44 pm
i know that communist revolution is coming soon. damn, it must be just around the corner. i just KNOW greenspans ruined the economy. PLEASE let it be next year. my three friends and i are going to look SO PATHETIC if doesn’t happen soon.
Comment by chet — October 26, 2005 @ 5:52 pm
I think Yoo is somewhere on Bush’s list. Bush has done a lot of unconstitutional things, so he has appointed a confidant and defender in Miers. If Miers’ nomination fails, Yoo has a chacne at the nomination because he be similar.
Comment by McMike — October 26, 2005 @ 6:10 pm
Conservative, young, token minority, bush ally, Yoo would be a good choice for Bush. Aside from the torture memos, there is no other (potentially) public paper trail to sink him, and the torture memos would make most democrats vote against him and most coservatives rally around him. Ture that an anti-torture amendment passed the senate by 89:11, but since the democrats would attack Yoo, the somewhat-anti-torture republicans would have to stand by the president lest the democrats build up strength. If they don’t, conservative interest groups can apply pressure against a fair number of them. If Yoo had a vagina he’d be strong candidate.
Comment by McMike — October 26, 2005 @ 7:37 pm
yes, I agree that Greenspan was really bad. I suspect that something like the Savings&Loan bankruptcies of the late 80s could easily be repeated as the housing asset bubble is naturally pulled away from it’s current ponzi scheme nature right now. And if interest rates ever go up, and lots of people are locked into low rates with their mortgages, they will have a hard time bringing in enough money to pay interest on regular bank accounts. Not to mention, the whole industry has been handing out credit cards like crazy and there is a negative savings rate, and this wasn’t nearly as true in the 1980s.
Alberto Gonzalez is considered to be somewhat equivalent with Yoo in his torture policy support, but is considered more likely to be selected as a candidate, and they even say conservatives won’t like him because he’s pro-choice, so liberals are lucky if Bush picks Gonzalez - because Roe Vs. Wade is the only area we care about.
Comment by bbb — October 26, 2005 @ 7:50 pm
I really doubt that Yoo is on the top (or anywhere near the top) of Bush’s list. For one thing, we know too much about him (as opposed to almost nothing about Miers). Prof. Yoo has a new book out and he also writes opinion pieces for the LA Times and other newspapers a few times a month.
Not that he’d be a bad choice. He wrote something over the summer decrying the federal government’s (i.e. Bush’s) war on gay marriage, medical marijuana, etc. saying that we need to go back to true federalism. He really isn’t such a bad guy, and some liberals even admitted it after he penned that opinion piece.
But when Miers withdraws, Janice Rogers Brown fo sho.
Comment by patr — October 26, 2005 @ 7:56 pm
I really don’t undertsand why people call Yoo a token minority. If he makes Supreme Court this would be the biggest victory for Asian-Americans in getting representation. And the biggest judicial victory for Berkeley since Earl Warren. Asian leaders always cry Asian apathy but I don’t see them praising one who finally makes it through on his own merit.
Comment by RepBast1984 — October 26, 2005 @ 7:58 pm
I’m a pessimist, especially in regard to governemnt. People in power love to show off diversity much more than they care about groups’ victories. Their mouths will proclaim “success for Asian America” but their minds would care only about the polls.
I must admit though that seeing a golden bear on the bench would be great.
Comment by McMike — October 26, 2005 @ 8:36 pm
Chet, how stupid are you. Try actually looking at the article.
First, Jim Grant is hardly a leftist. The negative opinion of the era of credit expansion fostered by AG is generally that of people who are fiscally conservative and hard right.
Second, I know its hard for you to acknowledge that you really dont know shit about the left. The issue I am raising is not something that most far leftists even begin to think about.
Third, would like to put your money where your mouth is? I am a betting man, and I be happy to publicly embarrass you on this forum, and lightening your wallet in the bargain. But seriously, do you even know what inflation is? How are we going to make a bet if you dont have the vocaublary to understand them?
Seriously, chet, you wanna bet on the future of the US economy? Wanna show me up? Heres your chance.
Comment by mano — October 26, 2005 @ 9:19 pm
You’re an anti-inflationazi, mano!
Comment by Donald — October 27, 2005 @ 7:23 am
Miers just withdrew her nomination. Maybe we might get Yoo or Gonzales after all.
Comment by RepBast1984 — October 27, 2005 @ 7:35 am
what specifically is the bet you wish to make?
Intuitively, I expect the stock market to fall in January when they transition, however, there is also the idea that wealthy people have a lot of power, and have a lot to lose if their stocks go down to a more natural value, so it would be in their interest to collude together to not let that happen. Yet, how would they arrange this- by meeting in a room together? I sort of agree with D. Henwood’s “wall street”, regarding the institution of stocks. Are you antiinflation? Some would say that inflation is a good thing for debtors, because the middle class which pays taxes would owe proportionally less for all the national debt they’re eventually going to have to fund, and it’s good for all the people who took out a bunch of credit cards to put their daily living debt on, because they can’t make ends meet in California. But supposedly inflation can’t really happen like it could in the 70s because part of it is employees earning a higher wage from their employers, but there are fewer unions etc. now that are good at getting higher wages, plus CAFTA and NAFTA provide a huge labor market of people from central america who need to work at $5/hour
Comment by bbb — October 27, 2005 @ 8:55 am
inflation kills the middle class. the goal of the middle class is to amass capital (ie save - well, this is actually funny cause the middle class isnt saving, since in this country the middle class has its head up its ass). thats what you need, in a capitalist society, to be rich (ya know the old saw: you need $ to make $). inflation kills savings, since whatever youve got is worth less. hence, its bad for the middle class.
inflation can be good for the wage slave, since hes basically got no savings. if his wages go up, and it levels the playing field between him and the middle class (course, this depends whether the economy tanks). inflation is also not necessarily bad for the super rich — they may, if they arent morons, invest the $ they already have in ways that cushion the blow from inflation. course, we are talking about americans here, when the wind blows hard they lose the ability to repair power and drive bottled water from point a to b for weeks at a time.
as for specifics, what i believe, the housing market has put in a top, that is what you need to be looking at, its an imbalance much greater than the stock market bubble. when that goes, the consumer goes, when the consumer goes, this whole economy goes. all of this will be compounded by the fact that americans have no sense, an entirely and totally corrupt leadership, a staggering dependence on cheap commodities (eg oil), no real economy, an increasingly useless education system (television), increasing racism and xenophobia, no savings, a record, record trade deficit, and a military with a very large stick up its ass.
on a more speculative tip, once all these Cal student parents realize they are royally fucked, students’ financial umbilical cord will stop delivering the goods, and once students know what its like to work for a living, people like the wieners that post here are going to be running to people like me and signing up for the revolution. i could be wrong on the political front, but im confident that you will get fucked economically, either way.
so anyway, im not sure what the bet will be, i want chet to put his money where his mouth is, if he thinks what i said is wrong, make a bet against it. so come on, chet, lets pick a milestone on the way to the financial ruin of the middle class and make a bet. how can you lose, me being the craaaaaaayzeee, out of touch anarchist i am?
Comment by mano — October 27, 2005 @ 9:52 am
you want me to make a bet on the economy? okay, i bet that there will be good times and bad times, but in the long run Americans’ lives will get better. and no, i won’t tell you where I live or how to contact me. go back to beating off in your left wing echo chamber. yo.
Comment by chet — October 27, 2005 @ 10:15 am
Yes - those ‘free checking’ accounts at Washington Mutual have zero interest, plus you’re inevitably going to have to pay $40 fees. The student credit union is sort of useless and has .75% interest. Someone told me about the online banks that have 3.5% interest - but then you realize that inflation is at 3-4%, not counting energy and housing inflation which is higher. There is insider advantage for energy stocks, so average people can’t buy in without $20,000 minimum. the bubble is stronger in California, I think because there is a subset of jobs concentrated in the south bay and Los Angeles, representing less than 10% of the total economy, where people are earning crazy amounts - such as the military research jobs un Sunnyvale, and a few information technology jobs. Because of low stock returns and the really low interest rates in the early ’00s, they had stacks of money they didn’t know what to do with so housing was the answer. But if you travel through the south or Baltimore/Philadelphia, most of the midwest and west except for Arizona and Nevada, houses are so much cheaper. But California could bring everyone down.
Comment by bb — October 27, 2005 @ 10:54 am
good times, bad times, in any times chet is still a chickenshit, just as i suspected. afraid of saying anything specific in a debate that could actually be empirically validated.
well, chet, you are like your little republican friends, you wont put your ass on the line for what you believe in. i made a similar offer to one of your wiener college republcian buddies at the start of the iraq war, told him if he wouldnt enlist, at least put your $ where your mouth is, lets bet on whether iraq will be stable in a fixed time frame. told him id give him 10 to one odds on a ten dollar bet. and of course, he got red faced and he STILL backed out (i guess he must have known, somewhere inside, that he was full of shit).
likewise you want to believe that everything is a-ok, but you know, deep down, that some pretty bad economic shit is going to happen to your country within the next 2 years. and that will just be the beginning. but you want to remain a spectator as long as you can, so enjoy the show.
Comment by mano — October 27, 2005 @ 11:21 am
um, okay, then i bet $10 that on October 27, 2006, the unemployment rate will be under 5%.
Comment by chet — October 27, 2005 @ 11:27 am
interesting. a year is such a long time to wait. so is this 1-1 odds or what? the unemployment rate is at about 5% so this is basically a directional bet.
Comment by mano — October 27, 2005 @ 12:14 pm
well, if you can’t wait that long, then i’ll bet $20 that the “housing bubble” doesn’t “pop” in the next ten days.
Comment by chet — October 27, 2005 @ 12:22 pm
well, there’s a lot of stuff about the economy that is a mysterious paradox to me, that I wish I understood.
First, my grandfather had two years of college in Nebraska, and could support five kids, stay at home mom, and have a car, 2000sqft house etc, and many people in 1930 would have predicted that with computers and robots, we would all be working a 4 hour day by now. But instead, households are all double income and often pressured to work over 40hrs/week, and a 4 year degree often isn’t enough for a good job - despite all the productivity gains. So what happened and where did the productivity go? I guess I suspect that once many people had money that didn’t have to go for food and clothing, the price of housing and healthcare could be raised in correlation to increased money available. Also, the proportion of wealth in the top vs. bottom quartiles affects prices a lot.
Secondly, what is happening here. I think the way the news presents the immigration debate as conservatives wanting it all stopped, while liberals want charity, could be completely wrong. What I just can’t believe here is that the u.s. gov’t can’t afford jail holding areas - when we spend billions on Homeland security, 2 million inmates nationally-often for drug crimes etc. I just don’t buy it. I think they actually want to let people in who can’t unionize. Definitely, it shows that jobs are not being exported to Mexico, and it would be immoral to just let people starve to the south, so maybe it’s okay, and will make us confront issues earlier. Also, agriculture says it has a farmworker shortage this year because americans refuse the jobs, and their undocumenteds are getting a better wage in Louisiana.
Comment by cc — October 27, 2005 @ 12:33 pm
haha. the housing market is already in decline. im happy to take the other side of your unemployment bet. 1-1 odds? only 10$? (i was thinking more along the lines of at least $100).
Comment by mano — October 27, 2005 @ 12:36 pm
cc, its pretty obvious where the wealth generated by the productivity has gone, no? good point though, about your grandfather’s time vs now.
PS: robots still need improvement.
Comment by mano — October 27, 2005 @ 5:30 pm
Screw it, let the Mexican illegals in. They work hard and seriously do work that lazy ass Americans won’t do. Someone has to do it. They always work hard, do you ever wonder you never see Mexican and Asian bums/peopel on welfare? The bums and welfare recipients in this country are predominantly white and black. And Mexicans make less per capita than blacks or poor whites. Obviously poverty and “racism” alone cannot explain why some people work harder than others.
Comment by Anonymous — October 27, 2005 @ 7:22 pm
Hey, does anyone know if Yoo has a chance at the bench? A bear on the bench would kick so much ass.
Speaking of Yoo, can someone here explain to me his infamous torture memo? Someone who has actually read it, I mean.
Comment by Steve — October 27, 2005 @ 11:21 pm
People actually read it? I thought it was like the PATRIOT act, where everyone knew the horror it imposed, but no one knew what it did. “Such-and-such a random unfriendly action by the governemnt was authorized by the PATRIOT act!” when the government had been doing that for decades before… those were fun times.
Yoo was asked by the government to pull a legal justification for torture out of his ass, if I’m filtering my own ignorance and everyone else’s ignoracne properly.
And no, Yoo doesn’t have a chance at the bench.
Comment by Beetle — October 27, 2005 @ 11:30 pm
umm.. excuse me, I work the contra costa county social services, and the only ones keeping me in business are the mexicans..
Comment by obbb — October 28, 2005 @ 7:46 am
Um, that was my point.
Comment by Anonymous — October 28, 2005 @ 10:34 am
Chet. Are we betting or what?
Comment by mano — October 28, 2005 @ 11:22 am
i already said that i’m not going to tell you where i live. how are we going to settle up next year?
Comment by chet — October 28, 2005 @ 11:47 am
fine. we could use an intermediary or just meet somewhere for a handoff. or we can donate the $ to a charity of the others choice.
Comment by mano — October 28, 2005 @ 12:00 pm
how was that your point anonymous, I’m saying that they are on welfare, youre saying that theyre not.
Comment by obbb — November 2, 2005 @ 2:24 pm