Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

Trump’s cabinet: like a magic 8 ball that only gives wrong answers.

… gradually, and then suddenly.

“But what about the lurkers?”

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

Do we throw up our hands or do we roll up our sleeves? (hint, door #2)

“I was told there would be no fact checking.”

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

The Supreme Court cannot be allowed to become the ultimate, unaccountable arbiter of everything.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

America is going up in flames. The NYTimes fawns over MAGA celebrities. No longer a real newspaper.

People are weird.

Republicans don’t lie to be believed, they lie to be repeated.

We can show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

If ‘weird’ was the finish line, they ran through the tape and kept running.

GOP baffled that ‘we don’t care if you die’ is not a winning slogan.

Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.

You are here: Home / Organizing & Resistance / #OWS / So Sorry

So Sorry

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Everyone who wanted to speak at today’s assembly on the Davis quad had one minute to speak. Here’s Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi’s minute. She tends to blather on, and having 60 seconds to say her piece focused her mind. She threw in a reference to her presence at the Greek uprising in 1973, which just makes me wonder what she learned at that event. Overall, though, Atrios gets it right:

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42Comments

  2. 2.

    Baud

    First of all, what the f*** happened to Cole’s open thread.

    Second, I can see a new line of Hallmark “Sorry I pepper sprayed you” cards.

  3. 3.

    Svensker

    OT but did I just hallucinate a Lily post?

    Aaaccckkk, apparently the world has driven me round the bend. Scuze me while I kiss this guy. Off to a darkened room.

  4. 4.

    cathyx

    No, that’s not the translation. It’s “Sorry I pepper sprayed you. I really want to keep my job.”

  9. 9.

    Earnest Bunbury

    She is still talking and acting like some act of God befell the campus. She is not admitting or even recognizing that she alone made the decision to send the cops in. She may not have trained the beast, but given the Berkeley police response, she knew what the UC police SOP is.

    She simply is not taking responsibilty. I am not sure she even knows what that means.

  11. 11.

    The Republic of Stupidity

    Perhaps we should all be thanking that blessed idiot…

    The 20 or so sec clip of the students being hosed down that I saw has probably done more to galvanize the opposition, so to speak, than hundreds of peaceful protests ever would have…

  12. 12.

    Mike G

    Matt Taibbi had the “greater asshole” theory of nonviolent protest. Many of the public may not care about your cause or even think you are assholes, but if you can make the forces opposing you look like greater assholes, then you win. This is how you turn the disinterested masses.

    Black people in the South demanding civil rights, or Bull Connor’s firehoses and dogs? Hippie-ish college kids or a fat cop pepper spraying them in the face like he’s killing a row of weeds?

  13. 13.

    John Cole

    Tough call as to who’s had a bigger display of incompetent today, Cole’s open post crank-stomping or Zandar’s “scientific knowledge” on neutrinos.

    I have no idea what this means.

  18. 18.

    RossInDetroit

    I’m so conflicted about this. It’s terrible that people in a position of power used violence to arbitrarily punish peaceful protesters.

    On the other hand, the ‘shopped John Pike photo mashups all over my F’book & everywhere else are so hilarious!

    I am a bad and nonserious person for laughing at Pike macing Jesus at the Last Supper. A very bad person.

  19. 19.

    Tyro

    The fallout from the deaths at Polytechnio in 1973 is that the police are not allowed on Greek university campuses, precisely because they don’t want that kind of paramilitary escalation of violence during protests.

  21. 21.

    Cacti

    It’s called the sorrow of the damned.

    I’m sorry I got caught vs. I’m sorry for what I did.

    She’s reeeeaaalllly, truly sorry for the negative publicity that may have jeopardized her $400,000 a year job.

  22. 22.

    Jenny

    She threw in a reference to her presence at the Greek uprising in 1973, which just makes me wonder what she learned at that event.

    She was probably on the side of the Junta.

  23. 23.

    Chuck Butcher

    If these had been the first words out of her mouth there might be someplace for her to go in regard to her students. No, I don’t trust the mindset that sent the coppers in to begin with, but…

  24. 24.

    Cacti

    @Jenny:

    She was probably on the side of the Junta.

    Ya beat me to it.

    “She threw in a reference to her presence at the Greek uprising in 1973…”

    But omitted that she was wielding a billy club.

  25. 25.

    mohagan

    FSpeaking as a life-long N Californian (who graduated from Berkeley in 1973), what makes this so amazing is that it happened at UC Davis. UCD is not at all like Berkeley in terms of a tradition of protest. Davis is near Sacramento in the Valley and is the state aggie school. Every vet I’ve ever had (60 years on) graduated from Davis. OWS is going deep!

  26. 26.

    Kyle

    She threw in a reference to her presence at the Greek uprising in 1973

    Which is where she learned to brutalize students?

  27. 27.

    Carl Nyberg

    I’ve worked with some high-powered people who blew me away with how much effort they put into a short meeting or presentation. Ken Bacon comes to mind.

    Somebody who makes $400K per year facing a short, important speech is supposed to put some effort into it.

    It seems like she formulated her thoughts during the few minutes she was waiting for access to the mic.

    She takes responsibility for nothing except the vague idea she’s supposed to earn the trust of the students.

    When she talks about unity, she’s clearly talking about people getting behind her agenda. I got no sense she’d offer to resign if that would promote unity.

    The reference to Greece, 1973… um, if you’re gonna invoke something like that then there needs to be a follow on statement. Here let me try.

    In 1973, I was part of demonstrations where students were brutalized. I remember how angry I was. I never imagined that instructions I had given would lead to a similar tragedy. While the police went beyond what I intended when I gave the instructions, I take responsibility that I did not limit the methods they were supposed to use to implement my instructions. I feel horrible. I know there are many here dissatisfied with me. If everyone dissatisfied with me raised their hand today, I would expect most hands to go up, because my hand would go up too. I am processing what happened. I have learned from it and will continue to learn from it. And the police will never use weapons against non-violent demonstrators again while I am chancellor. If the board of regents disagrees with my judgment on this matter, they can fire me.

  30. 30.

    Chris

    @J Edgar:

    Is she a martyr, like Dreyfus?

    DREYFUSS WAS GUILTY!!!!!

    [it’s a movie quote, it’s a movie quote… just for those who don’t get it… I’m not actually a fascist]

  31. 31.

    William Hurley

    It’s not so amazing that this twit will not quit. She and her ilk are decency-phobic.

    It’s also important to remember that Davis is, euphemistically, UC Wine Country. The school is home to several of the world’s most accomplished oenologists and viticulturalists. In fact, current and former US Davis faculty have been instrumental in identifying the genetic heritage of several of the world’s most well known wine grape families. It may sound an effete achievement, but as the Greeks knew (pun intended), where went people (e.g.: historical migration) so went the wine.

    I raise this second point as a reminder that the people at the other end of Chancellor Katehi’s are the uber-wealthy wine and “spirits” barons of Napa and Sonoma counties. They brook little dissent, even with blood relatives as evidenced by the Mondavi or Mondavi war that’s still simmering. The Chancellor’s stunningly self-destructive though toadying behavior is merely a further demonstration of the state of affairs between the 99% and the sociopaths in or aspiring to the 1%.

  32. 32.

    cthulhu

    @mohagan: Well, Davis has always been a pretty progressive town despite being in the Central Valley. It is very much a university town but far more studious than partying (that was Chico State). We were common football champs but it was Div II so it was never a huge thing.

    I was there as an undergrad for my first Presidential election and I recall Jesse Jackson campaigning there and getting a positive response (I know I voted for him in the primary). Of course, Bozo the Clown also campaigned there as well and he might have been even more popular.

    So I am not surprised that Occupy is at Davis, nor surprised that the demonstrations were not at all violent. I am shocked that the Davis admin felt they had to do something about it and what they decided to do. It seems so un-Davis to me.

  34. 34.

    Kyle

    “We really need to start the healing process and move forward,” she said, by way of explaining why she will not resign.

    Hey, it’s the American way — zero accountability for people at the top. “Mistakes were made”, “No-one could have expected”, “The intelligence (that I purposely rigged) said the nookyular weapons were there”, “It would be counterproductive to prosecute Bushco torture”. Enjoy the contempt of the 1%, powerless peons.

  35. 35.

    Al Swearengen

    Make an example of her so that no campus official anywhere ever sics SWAT teams on students ever again. Fire her.

    We need to do the same thing to Bloomberg as the kids did to her. Have a silent protest outside his office every day at quitting time. Giant “Shame” placards.

  36. 36.

    cthulhu

    The UCOP just sent out a letter to the faculty. Hopefully Yudof is serious about this:

    Therefore I will be taking immediate steps to set that response in motion.

    I intend to convene all 10 chancellors, either in person or by telephone, to engage in a full and unfettered discussion about how to ensure proportional law enforcement response to non-violent protest.

    To that end, I will be asking the Chancellors to forward to me at once all relevant protocols and policies already in place on their individual campuses, as well as those that apply to the engagement of non-campus police agencies through mutual aid agreements.

    Further, I already have taken steps to assemble experts and stake-holders to conduct a thorough, far-reaching and urgent assessment of campus police procedures involving use of force, including post-incident review processes.

    (Note sure why the blockquote didn’t work quite right)

  37. 37.

    MonkeyBoy

    @cthulhu:

    (Note sure why the blockquote didn’t work quite right)
    __
    (FYWP)

    This version of FYWP does not like blank lines within a blockquote. So you have to fool it with something that will turn into a blank line – like my copyrighted 2009 hack of using two underscore characters for a blank line.

    (2 underscores with something between makes the text _italic_ like I just did for the word _italic_.)

  38. 38.

    Xenos

    @Chris: Hard to joke about Dreyfuss when at least one of his grandchildren, when found by the Vichy Government, was handed over to the Nazis for liquidation.

    What movie is that quote from?

  41. 41.

    Chris

    @Xenos:

    Yeah. I thought that’s what J Edgar was quoting from and completed the quote… it ends (SPOILER ALERT I guess) with the prosecutor bringing in the junta member who plotted Lambrakis’ murder, and when the junta member gets out of the session, a reporter asks him if he thinks he was the victim of a mistake, “like Dreyfuss.” His response screams out to the audience, just in case we’d misunderstood the rest of the movie, that he is in fact a fascist fuck.

    Thanks for the history anecdote: I didn’t know Dreyfuss’ descendants were turned over to the Nazis but I’m not surprised in the slightest, considering that even Leon Blum (the Jewish former Prime Minister of France) wasn’t spared from that fate.

  42. 42.

    SFPoet

    @DougJ: I’m Greek American and I didn’t think your comment was anti greek. They’re both from the same part of Greece (I can tell by the accent) and they use similar body language.

    Sidenote: I thought it was interesting the young woman from Occupy who made the announcement to the media was doing a great job of facilitating the meeting, and was showing more leadership skills than the Chancellor of the University.

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