Denialism

Berkeley Tree Sitters Shake Down UC for $6M!

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by

Chris
in

The nerve! Carolyn Jones of the Chronicle reports:

In their most recent demand, the tree-sitters said they would come down if the university gives $6 million to environmental and Native American groups, creates a public committee on campus land use and allows protesters to use the stump from the oldest tree in the grove, which protesters dubbed “Grandma,” for a Native American drum.

The university offered to give protesters the stump and allowed them three two-hour meetings with high-ranking campus officials to discuss mitigating the loss of the oak grove, long-term plans for the southeast corner of campus and other related issues.


I generously offer the university my services: I will personally cause the tree sitters to leave the tree for a mere $1 million. Where can I buy a few hungry monkeys…

Comments

  1. Paul

    How many of these “tree sitters” actually are Native Americans?

    Reply
  2. I am so wise

    In regard to Native Americans and the environment, these guys suffer from some stale historiography. Historians have come to realize that Native Americans weren’t environmentally friendly, peaceful as some have claimed, or advanced as some claim with their woooesque “natural medicine.”

    Not that Native Americans are interesting, but research they were as diverse as the Europeans. Some were like Germany, some like Switzerland, and others like the Balkans.

    Reply
  3. mayhempix

    Sounds like they are commiting “treeson” to me.
    Pay me half a million and I”ll do it with a chainsaw.

    Reply
  4. Deepsix

    I remember watching the Cal vs UT game last year. You could see the “tree-sitters” all around the stadium. One of the announcers noted that if this was happening on the UT Knoxville campus, they would just cut the trees down with the “sitters” still in them.

    Reply
  5. Natalie

    Historians have come to realize that Native Americans weren’t environmentally friendly, peaceful as some have claimed, or advanced as some claim with their woooesque “natural medicine.”

    More accurately, “Native Americans” are not a monolithic group. Some tribes were peaceful, some were not, some were a mix, and they all changed over time, just like every other human society. Some native groups were more egalitarian than others, some practiced slavery to a greater extent, some had more medical knowledge than others, and so on.

    There is no reason to suppose that Native Ameicans would have all been similar, considering that we are usually talking about hundreds of years and millions of people, spread out over a huge continent. Lumping them all together would be akin to assuming that Europeans were all x because Celtic tribes were x, and y

    Reply
  6. Natalie

    Oops, hit enter before I finished typing. That last sentence should be:

    Lumping them all together would be akin to assuming that Europeans were all x because Celtic tribes were x, and at the time were all y because Middle Ages Romans were y.

    Reply
  7. bsci

    The university didn’t bother cutting down the trees while the lawsuits were happening and there was a judicial order to keep the trees up. They lost $750,000 to extra police on the site, but the rest of the losses were just waiting for the lawsuits to end. Even if they took the tree sitters down, they probably would have needed the extra police to keep people from constantly climbing back up.
    The day the lawsuits finally ended, the entire grove save one tree was removed. Now the sitters have no more food, less shade, fewer branches, and seriously think the university will give them $6million if they come down. This is more delusional thinking than the typical Berkeley loon.

    Reply
  8. ivy privy

    Isn’t extortion a felony?

    Reply
  9. azqaz

    “We must protect these magnificent trees! Urban sprawl is destroying the local ecosystems! My morals and conscience can be bought off for $6M and a stump!” This is repugnant. While I believe in conservation these are the types of tactics that turn me off to the “green movement” in general even though most of the participants aren’t like these tree sitters.

    Reply
  10. ivy privy

    It may be time to bring in the Black Helicopters and pluck them from the treetop.

    Reply

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