Ah, to be a young idealistic college student again

The political idealists at the University of Florida must be in heaven. They finally have something real and concrete to protest, to experience those heady days of sit-ins and marches, making demands of the administration, and all while the eyes of the US media rest upon them. Yesterday, in response to the tasering of UF student Andrew Meyer, students held a sit-in which doubled as an organizing meeting at which they demanded a meeting with the university president but settled for one with a lackey, then marched on university police HQ, then issued a list of three "demands" to the university police: 1) that all charges against Meyer be dropped, 2) that the officer who tasered Meyer be charged, and 3) that the university ban use of tasers on campus.

People who had been yearning deep down inside for a chance to play political organizer and rabble-rouser like back in the heady 60s and 70s that they've always heard about finally got their chance, and boy did they take it. And the collective media seem, through everso vaguely tongue-in-cheek coverage of the whole affair, to be recognizing it for what it is: an excuse for these students to go through a rite of passage, their first political organizing event.

As with all such events, there were the "Hey Hey Ho Ho" chants and "No justice, no peace" chants. It all brings a nostalgic tear to my now cynical eye. Have these protestors really examined the details of the situation, the many videos and stories out there, or do they just really want and need something to rally around?