how to lose five pounds and feel totally self-righteous
http://www.boston.com/news/education/hig…
Protesters’ hunger strikes stir worry on campuses
At Harvard, they consumed only Gatorade and water for nine days. At the University of Vermont, they subsisted for five days on orange juice, herbal tea, and sea salt. At the University of California, some lived off a potion of lemon juice, maple syrup, and cayenne pepper.
This is not the latest dieting craze, but a controversial trend in student activism: hunger strikes…
Memo to “concerned” university administrations:
if you keep giving in to hunger strikes by economically ignorant, self-important, 19 year old hippies, then you will get more hunger strikes by economically ignorant, self-important, 19 year old hippies.
Note that I do not hold your ignorance of this connection uniquely against you – the inability to perceive the relationship between incentives and effects is a problem that plagues a much larger group, conventionally called “The Left”.
Hunger strikes demonstrate the depth of passion many students feel about the fight against economic inequality.
Personally, I’d consider that someone irrevocably committed a portion of their own trust fund or future earnings to less productive individuals as exhibiting “depth of passion”.
Someone who snacks on maple syrup (from independent Vermont farmers), orange juice (organic, I’m sure) and water (Evian, or – at the very least, Brita-filtered) four 96 hours or so doesn’t really demonstrate “depth of passion” to me.
I also find it highly amusing that the various janitors and security guards don’t go on hunger strikes – just kids from the mom-got-me-an-SAT-tutor set.
… another sit-in like in 2001 seemed out of the question…
Lee, of Springfield, Ore., said campus police told the detained students that Harvard had a new policy to discourage disruptive protests. So they were worried about taking action that could get them suspended, expelled, or dragged out by police. A hunger strike seemed like the answer…
There’s “depth of passion” for you – students who demand social change so strongly that they’ll accomplish it by any means necessary, man!!!…as long as it doesn’t result in a suspension, or being dragged.
Before they started fasting, the protesters met with a university health services doctor to learn how to stay as healthy as possible. After five days on their Gatorade diet, they visited the health center for blood tests.
Wow.
These kids are just really giving it their all.
At some schools, the protesters weighed themselves daily
I’m sure that going on a political hunger strike is entirely about the workers, and has nothing to do with generating lefty reputation capital, and/or shedding 5 pounds just before swimsuit season.
“Basically, your body adjusts,” said Zack Pesavento , who went on a juice-and-salt-only hunger strike at Georgetown two years ago. “On day three or four I felt a sense of peace. I remember on the seventh day thinking, ‘How is it possible that I’m walking around and talking to people?’ “
Because, you pampered yuppie / hippie ignoramus, the human animal evolved in an environment where food often was not available for several days at a time.
Next question, young scholar ?
The Harvard protesters broke their fast when negotiators appeared to be making progress. The guards and the company reached a deal a few weeks later, but only after labor leaders had threatened to disrupt commencement.
Perfect. Well tanned young co-eds get to drop a few pounds, feel self-righteous, old-time labor leaders threaten old-time labor tactics (i.e. “harassment”), everybody wins!
The hunger strikers counter that they needed an extreme form of protest to break though the indifference to their concerns.
I hereby encourage all young lefties in the Boston area to launch a hunger strike (water only, please) against the various socially regressive policies of TJICistan.
I promise you, collectively, that you will definitely break through my indifference.
I suspect that it will take two-to-four years of fasting, but I’m sure that at some point I’ll be roused to an emotion other than indifference.
(Chortling glee, perhaps).
June 19th, 2007 at 10:29 am
I read that Israel deals with hunger strikes by prisoners by barbecuing meat right outside their cells.
June 19th, 2007 at 12:49 pm
No doubt fueled by a link that you’ll come across while catching up on your feeds, I recently read an article by a 60s protester talking about how when they went in to harass military recruiters (Berkeley? Stanford?) they expected to be expelled, and were shocked when nothing happened to them.
This was in an article wondering why people are surprised that university administrations don’t punish out-of-control students, given that the current administrations are the same people who learned they could get away with whatever they wanted back in said 60s.
June 19th, 2007 at 2:40 pm
I’d go on a hunger strike, and then eat somebody after the fifth day, and plead insanity due to my righteous regimen of self imposed starvation, which was necessary because The Man was raping The People, so really, it’s all whitey’s fault.
June 19th, 2007 at 7:24 pm
I’m picturing an old Warner Brother’s cartoon, where the shipwrecked sailor sees the other character morph into a T-bone steak.
(I mean, burrito).
June 22nd, 2007 at 8:07 pm
Cheeseburger, I think.
June 26th, 2007 at 3:49 pm
You are an idiot.
June 26th, 2007 at 4:05 pm
gregor Says:
Thanks for stopping by, Gregor, it’s always nice when someone takes the time to leave a thoughtful reply showcasing the logic and beliefs of the other side.
June 26th, 2007 at 4:22 pm
Aww lay off gregor — he’s still crabby from his fast — next time lay off the Red Bull sonny.
I do believe it was a T-bone steak. It was a Loony Tunes / Merry Melodies episode, and the sailor was a large dog. I was home sick with the flu.
June 27th, 2007 at 10:04 am
It’s charming when folks use stereotypes, rather than evidence, to pass judgment on us Harvard brats. I’m all for constructive criticism, and there are certainly valid critiques one could make about the Stand for Security campaign. Your arguments manage to touch on none of them. My favorite tidbits:
I also find it highly amusing that the various janitors and security guards don’t go on hunger strikes – just kids from the mom-got-me-an-SAT-tutor set.
Ooh — double zing! Impugning workers’ courage and tucking in a classic pampered-rich-kid jab. Never mind that most of the security guards (not janitors; this was a guard battle) risked their jobs fighting for recent unionization, and helped tip the scales in these negotiations by preparing to strike. Or that some of the hunger striking kids come from families that struggle to put food on the table. Although Harvard students are certainly disproportionately wealthy by national standards, our financial aid programs have improved in recent years to make room for many more students from low-income backgrounds. And — surprise! — those are the kids who tend to care about things like a living wage. Shocking, I know.
if you keep giving in to hunger strikes by economically ignorant, self-important, 19 year old hippies, then you will get more hunger strikes by economically ignorant, self-important, 19 year old hippies.
Ah, yes. ‘If you give a mouse a cookie…eventually you’ll wind up bankrupt. And beseiged by soliciting rodents.’
Care to offer any evidence of this strike-proliferation threat? It doesn’t seem to bear out historically. The last time Harvard students waged a major campaign around a living wage was six years ago, and they occupied a building. These kids just stopped eating to bring attention to the cause. And guess what? It worked. Not only were these tactics far tamer than their predecessors’, the idea that the hunger strike would inspire a wave of copycats is just laughably naive. For a population supposedly so keen on imitating victories, we seldom threaten to blow up Widener Library — the tact that won us our Black Studies department back in ’69. Besides, anyone who’s spent time at Harvard college lately knows that when it comes to disruptive campus activism, there’s typically a whole lotta talk and not a ton of action. Few groups are organized and committed enough to pull off anything big, and fewer still manage to generate the kind of buzz that the Stand For Security coalition did. (Which is why news of the hunger strike even reached you in the first place, right?) No need to fret over Ivy League anarchy just yet, trust me.
There’s “depth of passion” for you – students who demand social change so strongly that they’ll accomplish it by any means necessary, man!!!…as long as it doesn’t result in a suspension, or being dragged.
Here’s a nutty ‘Lefty economics’ idea: seeking to minimize cost while maximizing benefit. Students wanted to attract attention to the campaign and symbolically highlight the terrible consequences of Harvard’s low wages. But they wouldn’t be much good to the cause if they got themselves kicked out of school. Hence the hunger strike, part of a series of other tactics including daily rallies, nightly vigils, phone lobbying, blogging, and targeted civil disobedience, all with the support of an enormous student group coalition. Sadly, it seems these meticulously planned efforts fail to meet your standards of activist martyrdom.
Phew. Seems I’ve gone and gotten all longwinded. Chalk it up to Harvard arrogance, I guess. Anyway, thanks for giving me the chance to reflect on our (successful) campaign. If you have any serious suggestions as to how we can best support the workers in our community, I would love to hear them.
June 27th, 2007 at 3:24 pm
Oye! Katie L. is just like my know-it-all sister…the more she is wrong the longer she talks.
“It’s charming … [600+ words later] …I would love to hear them.”
I agree with her 1st word in the final graph…”Phew.”
You’re not kidding.
June 27th, 2007 at 3:47 pm
[...] Sullivan links to TJICistan, referencing my How To Lose Five Pounds and Feel Totally Self-Righteous [...]
June 28th, 2007 at 12:57 pm
A comment on the statement that it isn’t a diet:
“At the University of California, some lived off a potion of lemon juice, maple syrup, and cayenne pepper.
This is not the latest dieting craze, but a controversial trend in student activism: hunger strikes…”
This is a diet formula, just google “lemonade diet” or visit http://www.thelemonadediet.com. What a coincidence that Beyonce hit the news with this diet a few months earlier. I’m sure it’s just a hunger strike for their cause, no personal benefits at all.
August 25th, 2008 at 7:58 am
[...] http://tjic.com/?p=6387 [...]
August 25th, 2008 at 10:32 am
“I read that Israel deals with hunger strikes by prisoners by barbecuing meat right outside their cells.”
One hopes for pork.