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Editorial board presumes protest was not meant to be silly, discounts effectiveness of sillyness. The absurdity of the situation here is met with more absurdity by the protestors (by the way no mention of the absolutely incoherent french manifesto posted to the tree, wtf?) and all you can say is: look at how silly these guys are!

Someone has missed the point entirely.

Dear Daily Editors,
The funniest and saddest part of this whole story is that a dozen hippie-looking students making a confusing statement on the South Oval has created such a furry of commentary from the Daily. I’m sure that far more hours have gone into the commenting by now than went into the planning of the event itself. Without that small tribe of gypsy students you wouldn’t have much to write about. (It’s too bad you can’t count on a woman getting tasered in front Bizzell every day.) So why then bite the hand that feeds you? And protest tips from you guys? You wouldn’t know a protest if it ran you over in the middle of the road.

Guys, postmodernism isn't hip anymore, get with the teens.

Amen to the OU Daily Editors. I was covering this "protest" for one of my journalism classes and one of the "protesters" didn't want to be interviewed. That's understandable, but later, when I was taking pictures of the "occupied" area, SHE ASKED ME TO STOP TAKING PICTURES. You are protesting in a PUBLIC AREA and YOU DON'T WANT ME TAKING PICTURES? YOU ARE IN PUBLIC! YOU CANNOT TELL A JOURNALIST WHO IS COVERING YOUR EVENT SO AS TO LET OTHERS KNOW ABOUT YOUR CAUSE THAT YOU DON'T WANT HIM TAKING PICTURES OF YOU WHILE YOU STAND IN PUBLIC!

So much for your anarcho-communist ideals. This was easily more radical masturbation than raising awareness.

Oh wait, forgive me, TWO of the protesters asked me to stop taking pictures.

"[I]gnorant Tea Partiers"? Pardon me, but I'm fairly certain the overwhelming majority of the Tea Partiers whom this paper dismisses as "ignorant" have a college education and possess a good understanding of the United States Constitution. These are small business owners, concerned grandparents, moms and dads, and young college-aged activists who are protesting. They are not "astroturf" organized by the Republican Party - I'm so sick of hearing that B.S. And these protests, while energetic and no doubt an expression of anger and frustration with the government, with a few isolated incidents here and there (as can be expected in any crowd), have really not been violent. The same cannot be said of some of the protests organized by the left over the years. I'm sick and tired of this paper, and the so-called "mainstream" media, and this current White House Administration dismissing these concerned citizen activists as a bunch of "ignorant right-wing extremists". Why don't you re-read up on the Constitution, and the letters of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison, and look at the way our government was originally designed by our founders, and then look at the way it has become now today, and maybe you'll begin to understand why the Tea Party people are so upset right now with our government. There are going to be extremists in any movement. The overwhelming majority of these protestors are not "anti-goverment" revolutionaries; they are simply fed up with uncontrolled spending and a government that increasingly does not heed their voice. They want an end to the special interests that have corrupted Washington, and a return to more responsible and limited government - they want a government that adheres to the founding principles of this country and the Constitution. I'm pretty sure the founders would applaud these people for standing up to a federal government that, because of the reckless and self-serving actions of BOTH parties over the years, continues to grow larger and acquire more power every year, intrudes ever more into their personal lives, and is so drunk on unrestrained spending that it makes a person with a high pile of credit-card debt look like a frugal spender. So to those of you at the OU Daily who are actually listening, please get your facts straight before you go off labeling people as "ignorant".

I agree that the Daily's deluge of articles, criticisms and condemnations about a few hippie protesters occupying space on the South Oval has done little except to demonstrate its almost complete obsolescence. In particular, Max Avery's management of the Opinion section has proven to be nothing more than sensationalist and amateur. Great job. You all are a complete joke.

First of all, the demonstration on the South Oval on Thursday was never described by us as a "protest". Those are your words. We never set out to convert anyone by evangelistic flyers or through getting "mad...loud and angry".

Rather, we demonstrated in solidarity with friends in California that are currently in a situation that very few students here know or care about. We sent out notices and handed out flyers letting people know where we would be, that we would like to talk, and a little bit of why. The rest was up to you. And yes, we chose the South Oval, as our target was students and ideas, not Boren and reforms.

We were putting a face to an idea. Creating a space for discussion. But apparently you are much more comfortable in front of your computer screen. We were simply letting people know that there are those of us who disagree with the state of affairs and are looking for something new. If anyone took the time to actually approach us and talk, that's most likely what they got.

And yes, we will always answer absurd questions and situtions with an appropriate, absurd response.

It's funny to me that OUR VIEW called for voicing of our discontent, and when that same discontent is voiced, you immediately discredit it. I saw very few editorial board members causing a ruckus in support of higher education on Thursday. Actually, I saw fewer editorial board members even at a picnic on Thursday. Apparently you had something better to do than voice your own discontent.

Sorry if we weren't loud enough for you. Maybe we were just being realistic, knowing that the political atmosphere in Oklahoma is apathetic at best, and a picnic would be more constructive than the alternative.

@Mesocyclone

"I'm fairly certain the overwhelming majority of the Tea Partiers (...) have a college education and possess a good understanding of the United States Constitution."

Are you talking about college dropouts or people who graduated from biblical diploma mills? The TEA party is probably the biggest insult to humanity's honor and intelligence since the KKK.

It seems like you all are just upset that they didn't want to talk to you. I wouldn't want to talk to you either.

Tate continues to impress. If he wanted people to perceive that demonstration as being about the specific problems of California's education system then he wouldn't have plastered advertisements everywhere that were only dumb, abstract exhortations about our corrupt system and the need to mount a revolution. But I guess he's taken a note from the Schuyler Crabtree handbook by continuing to blame all of us for being too stupid or intellectually lazy to read his mind instead of his group's flyers. "just being realistic"... that's a good one. Try having an actual program next time.

This article is spot on. I think the idea of protesting the nation-wide tuition cuts, especially the insane ones that happened in California, is a worthy goal. But the hippies chilling in the South Oval weren't educating the masses, they weren't showing their power, and they didn't even make an attempt to own their message. I'm not saying they needed to smash cars and cause a riot... but that would have made a bigger impact than what they actually did.

Joe, Tate neither made nor hang up those fliers. I'm sorry that some of us like to be autonomous individuals that holds our own beliefs and desires independent of some perceived group that the OU Daily labeled those on the South Oval as. (They even gave us a cute name and pinned the banner drop on "us".)

And perhaps no one wanted to talk to the Daily or the OU Nightly seriously because of how they have constantly butchered serious issues in the past, especially one reporter covering this story. Even brief quotes made as a personal favor to a newspaper staff member were misquoted in a gross manner. And I guarantee you that those elusive little fliers got more people approaching us asking "What the hell is this?," many of whom stayed for quite a long time finding that we had much in common despite their initially combative interests.

So in other words some random member of your non-organization decided to go hang up those crazy flyers over the entire campus without group effort and they don't represent the front or purpose of your event, organized by autonomous individuals not part of a group? Or do I incorrectly perceive this set-up...

And are you really saying that the Gaylord banner (which you inconveniently made some university-employed wage slaves remove) had nothing to do with the South Oval?

Janowiak,

I found the “occupation” bemusing and befuddling myself. I never saw the flyers for the event you are referring to, though I saw a lot of literature being passed around when I was there, and I had no hand whatsoever in staging the event, so I’ll let the tribe’s leaders speak for themselves. “Pretentious and incomprehensible?” I’ll accept pretentious; but see if anything that follows makes sense to your literal mind: “Stop trying to ruin the Left’s name on this campus.” You sound like Don Quixote defending the honor of chivalry. Tell us, Janowiak, where is this “Left” on campus? If you’re so concerned about the reputation of your “Left,” and if you’re losing sleep because a band of Groucho Marxists threatens to jeopardize it’s “serious” projects, then please tell us more about your “Left”—since you have appointed yourself its gatekeeper--and, more to the point, what your Left’s plans are for defending higher education. You know as well as I that a 3.5 percent budget cut is only the beginning; The University of Oklahoma can only fend off the economic crisis while our President plays good/ bad cop with the state legislature for so long. So it’s better to do nothing you think? Then by all means continue doing nothing. Pray that your Left will ride in and rescue you at the last moment. “He who does not descend from his horse to speak with the peasants has no right himself to speak,” but “He who is not afraid of a death by a thousand cuts will unseat the emperor.” (Mao Zedong) Yes, this response to you is from an older thread.