Part II

Part III 

"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!"

            -Mario Savio

This is easily Mario Savio’s most famous quote.  Anytime people talk about Berkeley and the 60s, it usually pops up.  They even have a gaunt Ryan Gosling playing the video of Savio saying it in the depressing movie “Half Nelson.”  And I am sure that the protestors sitting in the trees right now (unless the removal of their encampment has caused them to finally depart) know it backwards and forwards.  They might even think that their actions are on the same level as Mario’s.  It wouldn’t be the first time.  In my 4 years at Cal, I saw legions and legions of “activists” seemingly more interested in stroking their own ego as the “next Mario Savio” than say, actually causing some real change in the world.  After all, if RunningWolf and his cadre of merry tree-sitters wanted to really stop the progress of the stadium upgrade, don’t you think there would be better ways than sitting in a tree and lying about anything and everything? 

Perhaps a letter writing campaign or going door to door to explain their personal views to Berkeley citizens might work better.  But no, the professional protesting class seems more fit to wage a guerrilla PR campaign of smoke and mirrors.  Some oak trees planted next to the stadium?  Well, they just HAVE to be ancient old grove oaks.  Court order goes against my enemy even though it in no way involved our arguments and in fact weakened our ability to stay in the trees?  DECLARE TOTAL VICTORY!  A skeleton found with a Mexican coin discovered 80 years ago?  Sacred Indian Burial Ground!  Let’s bring in some local Native Americans for a PR opportunity. 

No, the machine that I see here isn’t the UC, which has been on the defensive pretty much since Day 1.  The machine I see here is the professional protesting class still holding on to the last shreds of the 60s.  But that was a different time, a different place.  The “People” came together there, because of direct pressure upon every single Cal student placed by the administration.  It wasn’t Israel-Palestine.  It wasn’t South African Apartheid or Darfur.  It wasn’t Tibet, hanging chads, or Affirmative Action.  It was direct restrictions placed on every single student, keeping them from setting up tables on Sproul Plaza.

To us, today, that seems INSANE.  We’ve seen thousands and thousands of people tabling on Sproul Plaza.  We might have tabled ourselves.  I know I was out there every semester with my fraternity promoting a blood drive.  And if Berdahl had come down and forced us to take off that giant blood drop suit, I’d sure as hell be protesting.  I’m sure you all would be, too. 

But nothing exists like that anymore.  Not only does the Memorial Upgrade plan not restrict the free speech of 30,000 people, it actually has a stunningly large amount of positives.  Not that you’d hear any of them, thanks to the poor PR campaign run by Cal.  Upgrading the facilities will keep Tedford.  Keeping Tedford will (hopefully) keep the team good.  And keeping the team good has a host of positive side effects. 

National prominence for Cal.  People think Cal and Berkeley are two different things.  For some reason, the Berkeley establishment wants to continue this.  Why not be stellar at academics AND athletics?  Why not create a tradition of excellence in academics AND athletics?  Only myopic resistance against growing past the 60s could disagree.  I ask, why not have it all!  In my humble estimation, Cal is the greatest university America has.  If it takes being good at sports to promote that view, then so be it.

Increased civic pride.  When you say I went to Berkeley, how many people have a positive reaction to that and how many have a negative?  How many people wonder why you’re hair isn’t that long?  Or if you have long hair, how many people think that plays right into stereotypes?  People in the rest of the world seem to LOVE Berkeley, but for some reason that isn’t reflected as much in America.  Having a successful football team can change that.

Memories.  I have an amazing set of football-related memories from my 4 years at Cal.  But I was in the marching band.  I practiced hours a week in preparation for the games.  I could not leave and had to go to every game.  But we were alone in that, mostly.  I remember the half empty Memorial stadium.  I remember people leaving by halftime after the band performance.  I remember epic apathy about the football.  I remember the picture in the Daily Cal of that dude holding up the Fire Holmoe sign in a nearly empty student section (he was my roommate, after all……).  Sure, it was great that people focused so greatly on the band when the team was terrible.  But that’s not really the overarching point here. 

Starting with Big Game 2002, the atmosphere at Memorial Stadium has been wholly different.  It has started getting MORE and MORE packed, culminating in record attendance levels this past season.  When you get so many dozens of thousands of people together, the energy level is amazing.  When you rush the field after a hard fought victory (U$C 2003 comes to mind), you never forget.  When you see Marshawn driving the injury cart, you will never forget.  When we finally beat Stanford for the 7^th straight time, you will never forget.  DeCoud’s hit.  That Oregon’s TEs dropped 4^th down pass.  The trick play for a touchdown against Baylor on Tedford’s first ever play.  Marshawn stiff-arming Patrick Chung.  How many of us will ever forget these memories?

I see so many families making the trek up to the stadium.  How many children have been raised at the altar of Pappy Waldorf and Andrew Smith?  How many will be?  How many families bond on a warm fall day cheering on their beloved Golden Bears?  I can only hope that this Memorial Upgrade happens not only so that I can continue to enjoy Cal football in a world class setting, but so that my children and my children’s children can do so.  This isn’t just about you or I, it’s about future generations of California fans who deserve to have the same special memories we have had since 2002. 

Part I

Part III 

Financial windfalls.  This is probably the most important positive side effect of the Memorial upgrade.  I remember the U$C 2005 game.  Well, to be fair, I try to forget the game.  But here I’m talking more about before the game.  I BARTed in early and went from tailgate to fraternity to Bear’s Lair to stadium.  Just all over the place.  And I wasn’t the only one.  There were thousands and thousands and thousands of people (many dressed in red L!) roaming the streets of Berkeley for hours before the game (speaking of just plain crazy energy).  A more successful football team will bring thousands upon thousands of customers to Berkeley businesses on fall Saturdays.  This is especially true since the BART drops you off so far away from the stadium and you have to walk so much.  Who knows?  Perhaps Cody’s woulda stayed in business if Tedford had come a few years earlier. Really, for us fans this is the least important point, unless you happen to own a downtown eatery.  But it is the most important arrow in our quiver of arguments, because the City of Berkeley probably doesn’t particularly care if you have great memories or feel some slight embarrassment if people think Berkeley is crazy.  But they sure do care about the growth of business in the city. 

And remember, this is a city that would rather have major employers such as Cody’s go out of business rather than make a good faith effort to clean up Telegraph.  This is a city that would rather keep fast food employers out of Telegraph Ave than have those jobs and business growth.  It is that whole 60s-obsessed ethos again.  They want it to remain exactly as it was back then even as it gets more and more run down.  Remember, this is a city that would rather keep a patch of drug and homeless infested “park” because 4 decades ago, people had a great week and a half planting long since dead plants.  Yeah, they are really STICKING it to Ronny Regan by keeping the ever so dangerous People’s Park smack dab in the middle of the student ghetto.

I’m not advocating for razing the whole thing and putting up a giant parking structure or some such thing.  Far from it.  Nonetheless, I’m sure there is a middle ground to turn that land into something productive, while still retaining its garden-esque atmosphere and being true to the spirit of the 60s. 

The professional protesting class supports the city in all these anti-growth endeavors.  And, unlike the vast majority of Cal students, they are local, registered, and VOTE.  So, the city ignores the majority to kow tow to a vocal and powerful minority.

And yes, I know exactly what the professional protesting class would say.  In a perfect world, this stunning importance of football wouldn’t exist.  In a perfect world, people would flock to Berkeley to see avant-garde jazz music and Brechtian plays.  I cannot disagree!  Except for the Brecht thing, I hate that guy.  Suck it, Bertold!

Unfortunately, we do not live in a perfect world.  We do not have thousands upon thousands of people flooding Berkeley businesses and bringing their families to bond over a Turtle Island String Quartet performance.  We won’t have people from the Midwest, Northeast, and South respecting Cal, because of its all student-run student government.  The success of a football or basketball team can have many positive effects on a school and local region. 

I don’t understand why the City has such a negative view of the UC.  Is it this imperial arrogance they claim?  Is it this snobbish intellectualism against its athletic pursuits?  Or is it just that it plays better to their constituencies to appear strong to Cal?  I can’t answer that.  What I do know is that without Cal, Berkeley would be a MUCH different place.  It’d be more El Cerrito or Albany than San Francisco East.  Yo Yo Ma and Wynton Marsalis probably wouldn’t come to play each year.  Much fewer Nobel prize winners would probably work here.  And Berkeley’s most well known trait (Land of the Free Speech Movement) wouldn’t exist.  The City cannot keep treating Cal like an unwanted 30,000 person transgression into its hallowed land.  The City has one of the most advanced, forward-thinking, technologically and culturally vibrant organisms smack dab in the middle of itself.  Yet it seems to fight it at every turn. 

I just wish that Cal would run a stronger PR campaign to get the truth out.  Instead you see article after article in the Chronicle, East Bay Express, Berkeley Daily Planet that seem to spread disinformation about the project.  This could be one of the best things to happen to Berkeley, both environmentally, culturally, financially, and nationally.  But because of the limited interests of a vocal minority, we are dangerously close to not seeing it to fruition.      

Part I

Part II 

Finally, before you think I’m some crazy right wing nutjob, here are photos of my parents back in the 60s. 

            My mom was at Woodstock.  My dad owned and operated a healthfood store from the late 60s to mid 70s at the corner of Ashby and Shattuck.  You don’t much more dirty hippy than owning a health food store on a main intersection in Berkeley in the 60s.  My in laws both came to Berkeley in the 70s.  My mother in law even owned and operated a flower shop over in North Berkeley back then, while being a crazy Marxist, too.  Dirty hippies abound in my ancestry. 

            And as far as trees are concerned, both my mom and my mother-in-law are botanists.  I grew up surrounded by a series of botany-oriented home businesses, each one less successful than the last.  After long days at school, I would come home to pruning or weeding or planting or soil distribution.  My mom had 2 greenhouses in our backyard growing up.  Further, as previously noted, my mother-in-law owned a flower shop in Berkeley in the 70s.  Later, my in-laws would own and operate a plant installation business in Miami.  My connection to botany is strong.

            So, I come from a long line of dirty Berkeley plant hippies.  Well, dirty Berkeley plant hippies and Jews.  But until Jon Stewart climbs an oak tree, let’s just focus on the more important aspects here, ok?  I gots me the street cred.  I care deeply about the growth of Berkeley as a local, state, and national city.  I want sustainable growth for our fair city.  One aspect of that growth is maintaining its stark physical beauty.  We get to live, work, and watch Cal football in one of the most amazing settings in the world.  Certainly, none among us want to jeopardize that.  Nonetheless, the positive benefits of this Memorial Upgrade plan FAR outweigh the negative benefits.

            I just hope one Alameda County Judge realizes that. 

            GO BEARS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!