Peter Robinson, a former speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan, had an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal last week condemning the student protests in California for invoking the spirit of social justice movements from the 1960s and 70s. According to Robinson, the protests “demonstrated the entitlement mentality and self-absorption that has come to dominate much of higher education.”

We have here the vocabulary of the peace movement, of the struggle for decent conditions for migrants and other exploited workers, and of the civil-rights movement. Yet what did the protesters demand? Peace? Human rights? No. Money. And for whom? For the downtrodden and oppressed? No. For themselves. At a time when one American in 10 is unemployed and historic deficits burden both the federal government and many of the states, the protesters attempted to game the political system. They engaged in a resource grab.

Yeah, these whiny college students have it all: massive loan debt and a shrinking job market. Why should they complain about being exploited by the student loan industry or being victims of poorly managed state funds? So what if they have to spend more money to go to school longer or possibly not at all for a job that’s likely not waiting for them.

And what about the issues facing minority students that have also bubbled to the surface? I guess that doesn’t show that these protests are about more than just money or that they have something in common with the struggles of minority groups in the 60s and 70s.

It’s clear we all need a lesson in economic justice from Peter Robinson. How else are we going to understand why it’s not “entitlement mentality and self-absorption” when wealthy conservatives like Robinson and his colleagues at the Hoover Institution oppose taxing the rich?

Yup, if there’s one thing history has proven it’s that self-absorbed people love to protest, engage in nonviolent direct action, face possible arrest or even police brutality. Those are clearly the traits of people who feel a sense of entitlement, not people who feel burdened, exploited and marginalized.

Hundreds of thousands took part in the National Day of Action to Defend Public Education yesterday. It was the largest day of coordinated student protest in years. While much of it was focused on the university and state college campuses of California, where students face a 32 percent tuition hike, there were protests at campuses across the country on issues ranging from minority representation to privatization. According to Amy Goodman:

At the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, police used pepper spray to break up a student protest organized by Students for a Democratic Society. Fifteen students were arrested. At SUNY Purchase in New York protesters took over the Student Services Building. Students at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill staged a sit-in at the chancellor’s office. In Washington state, the Olympia Coalition for a Fair Budget held a mock funeral for public education and healthcare and brought a coffin to the state Capitol building. And here in New York City, students and teachers at the City University of New York rallied outside Governor David Paterson’s office.

Watch the above Democracy Now! segment for more details.

• Members of Greenpeace climbed the Benelux headquarters of Samsung, in Brussels, yesterday to protest its continued use of toxic substances despite committing to eliminate certain ones by 2010.

• More than 170 people gathered outside the RBC Annual General Shareholder Meeting yesterday in Toronto after a series of creative non-violent actions all morning to protest the bank’s leading role in funding the contentious Alberta tar sands.

• Over 200 University of California students went to the Capitol on Tuesday to oppose further cuts to higher education. Five were arrested for taking part in a sit-in at the office of Assemblyman Jim Nielson. A day of action is set to take place today in California and across the country to defend education at state colleges and universities.

• An Irish town council has removed a page in its guestbook signed by the Israeli ambassador to protest Israel’s diplomatic record after the alleged use of fake Irish passports by the Jewish state’s spies.

• Hundreds gathered at a noontime rally outside the New York State Capitol in Albany to protest Governor Paterson’s proposal to close as many as 90 state parks and historic sites for budgetary reasons.

• Environmentalists gathered outside the Presidential Office in Taiwan yesterday to call on President Ma Ying-jeou to change his policies and call a national convention on climate change.

• Hundreds gathered on the muddy grounds of Queen’s Park in Toronto on Tuesday afternoon to protest plans for a 900-megawatt gas-fired power plant in Oakville.

• Students at Sussec University in England are staging a sit-in to protest plans to make 115 staff redundant, which will close the environmental science degree and impact on English, history and life science departments.

• In Evansville, Indiana, a crowd estimated at 5,000 strong poured onto the shoulder and parking lot of the Evansville plant, protesting Whirlpool’s decision to shut down and ship jobs to Mexico.

• Carrefour SA’s 116 stores in Belgium were closed Saturday because of a strike over planned job cuts, said a company spokesman who put the resulting sales loss at the company-owned outlets at 14 million euros ($19 million).

• Scores of Jordanian politicians and trade union members staged a sit-in at the Trade Unions Complex in Amman on Saturday to denounce Israel’s addition of two West Bank holy sites to a list of Jewish heritage centers.

• Syrian Catholic Archbishop Basile Georges Casmoussa of Mosul led over 1,000 Iraqi Catholics in a silent protest on February 28 to demand that the government act to put a stop to violence against Christians there.

• In Nepal, the 48-hour sit-in protest of the Civil Movement for Democracy and Peace (CMDP), which began from Thursday in front of the Constituent Assembly building, to urge political parties to draft the constitution within the given time frame, concluded on Saturday at 8 am.

• Several Cuban dissidents say they will refuse food in protest at the death earlier this week of a jailed government opponent. Orlando Zapata Tamayo died on Tuesday in a hospital in the capital Havana after a hunger strike of 85 days. His death triggered international protests and Cuban President Raul Castro issued an expression of regret.

• Three Chinese death-row inmates who say they were tortured into confessing to crimes they didn’t commit have staged a hunger strike to draw attention to their case.

• Thousands of adherents of the National Popular Resistance Front (FNRP) marched in the Honduran capital Tegucigalpa Feb. 25 to protest the slaying of civil resistance leaders under what they still consider to be the “de facto regime” of President Porfirio “Pepe” Lobo despite the change in government last month. The rally concluded in front of the National Congress building, where the march was blocked by a military cordon.

• Hundreds of Dutch activists have walked out of a Mass in protest at a Roman Catholic policy of denying communion to practising homosexuals.

• On Thursday, protesting Guatemalan teachers in Melchor de Mencos blocked the Melchor Bridge with their bodies to stop vehicular passage through the border between Guatemala and Belize. According to union president Zetina, who spoke on behalf of the teachers, they are demanding a 16% salary increase from their Government, in addition to proper renovation of school buildings.

• Thirty-eight Jamaican women — all of them asylum seekers, some of whom have lived in the UK for as long as 10 years — are on hunger strike in holding facilities in the United Kingdom, in protest of their imminent deportation to Jamaica.

• Tens of thousands of protesters calling themselves the Purple People took to the streets of Rome on the weekend in a sign of mounting opposition to the Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi. The group, Il Popolo Viola, wore purple sweaters and scarves, Berlusconi masks or striped prison dress to protest against what they say is the undermining of Italian democracy by Mr Berlusconi in his battle with the country’s legal system.

• More than 30,000 people took to the streets of Athens Wednesday after two of Greece’s largest trade unions organized a nationwide strike to protest austerity measures aimed at reducing the country’s public debt. But the largely peaceful rally of disgruntled workers was unfortunately disrupted by a group of violent youths who clashed with police.

• Hundreds of rallies took place across the nation on Wednesday—the eve of President Obama’s White House Health Care Summit—and over a million signed a petition sent to Congress urging lawmakers to “finish the job and pass real health care reform.”

• Environmentalists in Australia marched on New South Wales Parliament yesterday to protest plans for new coal power stations at Bayswater and Lithgow.

• 5,000 indigenous Dongria Kondhs of India trekked to the abode of their presiding deity Niyam Raja on Sunday and designated it as inviolate to protest a controversial alumina refinery and bauxite mine project.

• More than 320 students, faculty and community members gathered Wednesday afternoon to demonstrate for sub-contract workers’ rights at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill.

• Hundreds of students from several Jordan, Utah district schools walked out of their classes Thursday morning to protest announced budget cuts that could slash teacher ranks, increase class sizes and impact extracurricular activities.

• Nine days after an off-campus student party mocked Black History Month, UC San Diego went through a day of protests, on Wednesday, drawing attention to the small number of African American students enrolled at the beachside campus.

• Classes at a secondary school in Midland, Ontario were disrupted Wednesday morning when nearly 200 students walked out to protest rumoured cuts in programming.

• Hundreds of students at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas walked out of class yesterday and gathered for a rally outside a building where lawmakers were holding a finance committee meeting. The lawmakers agreed to hear their concerns over the proposed budget cuts.

• At least 50 women at Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre in England entered the fourth day of a hunger strike yesterday to protest against their detention and conditions, with ­several reportedly fainting in corridors and almost 20 locked outdoors wearing few clothes.

• 200 people marched toward the US embassy in Port-au-Prince yesterday, crying out for food and aid, while about 50 more gathered outside the police headquarters where the Haitian government of President Rene Preval is temporarily installed. They chanted, “Down with Perval” as they protested conditions and Preval’s lack of leadership.

• Thanks to a sustained campaign by UK-based tribal rights group Survival International, the Church of England has dropped its 3.8 million pound stake in the controversial mining company, Vedanta Resources, citing concern over the company’s human rights record.

• Teachers, parents and school board members rallied outside Detroit Public Schools’ administrative offices to protest a new standardized test being administered this week, which they fear will be used as a political tool to lobby the state legislature for academic control over DPS.

• Around 400 workers from the Tanta Flax and Oils Company in Cairo staged an open-ended sit-in Monday to demand the payment of withheld salaries.

• On Saturday, some 6,000 people gathered at a rally in Tokyo calling for the withdrawal of U.S. Marine base stationed on the Japanese island of Okinawa.

• Russian police broke up anti-Kremlin protests in Moscow and St. Petersburg on Sunday, and detained more than 100 demonstrators, including several opposition leaders.

• More than 150 inmates at a prison in Spuz, outside Podgorica, Montenegro launched a hunger strike last Wednesday, claiming guards are abusing them. This is the second such protest in ten days.

• In India, 10,000 teachers from 35 central universities began a two-day strike last Thursday, demanding changes in the regulation on service conditions which seeks to link their promotion to output.

• Dozens of students at Little Miami High School in Cincinnati walked out of class Monday morning on the eve of a critical levy vote. The walkout was followed by a sit-in at the school.

• A large number of staff at Copenhagen’s Kastrup airport, including security personnel, walked off the job yesterday and attended union meetings in protest against plans to outsource two employee canteens. Other employees who have downed tools include baggage handlers, the fire department, cleaning crews, technicians and drivers.

• Immigrants held in a South Texas detention center have begun an indefinite hunger strike. Its the second mass hunger strike in a year. Some of the detainees say they’ll refuse to eat until they are released.

• The Sheikh Yassin coalition organized a protest outside the Egyptian embassy in Paris on Saturday, demanding that Egypt stop building an underground steel barrier on the border with the Gaza Strip.

• Palestinians took part in a protest in Gaza City yesterday, calling for the release of their loved ones imprisoned in Israeli jails.

• Hundreds of Notre Dame University students and faculty members gathered on campus yesterday to demand more equality for LGBT students. The protest was in response to an anti-gay comic strip which appeared in the student paper a few weeks ago.

• Climate activists in South Lanarkshire closed down one of Scotland’s main coal terminals yesterday when one of the protesters chained himself to a digging machine. This led to 11 coal trucks queuing at the terminal’s gate and prevented a coal train being loaded.

• Dozens of people gathered in front of Camp Phoenix, an ISAF military base in the eastern part of Kabul, to protest the death of a civilian by NATO forces. They blocked the road that links the Afghan capital to eastern provinces.

• Roughly 100 members from the UAW and Teamsters unions and their supporters gathered outside the Japanese Embassy in Washington yesterday to protest Toyota’s decision to close a California plants and hire nonunion carhaulers.

• Hundreds of students and alumni packed the steps of the Mississippi State Capitol in Jackson yesterday to show their support for higher education funding and their opposition to proposals that call for merging some Mississippi universities.

• About 1,400 construction workers defied a court order to end their strike at the $13 billion liquefied natural gas project in Western Australia. The strike started Jan. 22 to protest Woodside Petroleum Ltd.’s plans to make the workers change accommodation every month instead of providing permanent housing.

• Five concerned parents barricaded themselves inside a primary school in Glasgow this week to protest proposals to shut down the school. It was the latest in a series of school occupations which have taken place over the past year.

• Thirteen people were arrested Tuesday at a protest outside the White House against US militarism abroad. The activists lay down on the sidewalk after reading the names of Americans, Iraqis and Afghans killed in US wars.

Steep tuition raises at California universities have spurred widespread student protests and sit-ins.  These actions were reportedly “the tipping point” that prompted Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to ask a very good question:

Thirty years ago 10 percent of the general fund went to higher education and 3 percent went to prisons.  Today almost 11 percent goes to prisons and only 7 1/2 percent goes to higher education.  Spending 45 percent more on prisons than universities is no way to proceed into the future.  What does it say about a state that focuses more on prison uniforms than caps and gowns?

Unfortunately, in this State of the State address, Schwarzenegger found only half the answer.  He proposed a constitutional amendment to prohibit California from spending more on prisons than on higher education. To achieve that goal, he recommended privatizing at least some of California’s prisons.  “Competition and choice are always good,” Schwarzenegger optimistically declared.

Other states have tried privatization.  And cost-savings promised by private prisons “have simply not materialized,” according to the Department of Justice (p.68).  But while cost-savings have been scarce, security breaches have been abundant.  One survey found 49% more inmate-on-staff assaults and 65% more inmate-on-inmate assaults in private facilities than in comparable public ones.

Private corporations seek profits by cutting corners.  They attract less-qualified workers by providing inferior wages and benefits than state agencies.  The California Correctional Peace Officers Association has already condemned Schwarzenegger’s proposal.  Private prisons also generate profits by cutting prisoners’ food, medicine, drug treatment, GED classes, and reentry planning.

That’s a mistake.  Inmate welfare is not just a Constitutional requirement; it’s smart policy.  Education, drug treatment, and release planning reduce recidivism.

The California student protests against tuition hikes succeeded in capturing Schwarzenegger’s attention.  California students shouldn’t stop there.  The current proposal pits the interests of students against those of prisoners.  Both groups in fact seek a shared outcome: greater access to public education.

There’s a better way to reduce prison costs: reduce the prison population (e.g., Michigan in recent years).  End lengthy sentences for nonviolent offenders.  Expand probation, parole, and “specialty courts” that emphasize treatment over incarceration for addicted and mentally ill offenders.  Schwarzenegger is right to question prison costs, but his privatization proposal isn’t the answer.

A pro-Kurdish demonstrator flashes a victory sign during a sit-in protest in central Istanbul on January 3. Hundreds of Kurdish women gathered in central Istanbul to protest against a ban on the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party.

• More than 100 demonstrators were detained Tuesday evening at a rally in downtown San Francisco held by hotel workers who have been without new contracts since August, police and rally organizers said. Unite Here Local 2 President Mike Casey estimated 1,300 demonstrators took part in yesterday’s action.

• More than 2,800 Chuquicamata and Mina Sur miners in Chile did not report to work on Monday to protest the wage and bonus package offered by Codelco, which is the world’s largest copper producer.

• In Manhattan yesterday, about 100 people protested the detention of Jean Montrevil, a Haitian who has had a green card since 1986 but, owing to a drug conviction for which he served time in the 1990s, has been subject to supervision and was detained by U.S. Immigration authorities on December 30. Ten protesters were arrested after failing to heed a police order to disperse as they blocked traffic.

• Angry farmers wearing broad-brimmed hats and cracking kangaroo-hide whips rallied outside Parliament in Canberra on Monday as one of their colleagues, sheep farmer Peter Spencer, entered his 43rd day on a hunger strike to demand compensation for Australian climate change policy.

• A two-day strike by Kenya’s matatu minibus taxis, which had stranded thousands of commuters, has been called off after government intervention. Matatu operators agreed to go back to work after the government promised to deal with their grievances.

• Virgin Trains booking office staff have gone on a 24-hour strike on one of Britain’s busiest rail lines, in protest of the company’s planned cutbacks.

• San Diego City College students were escorted out of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Front Street office Monday afternoon after they staged a sit-in during the morning to protest recent budget cuts in higher education.

• Anti-wall activists demonstrated outside Israel’s Ofer Prison near the West Bank city of Ramallah on Monday to demand the release of detained activist Jamal Juma to concide with the convening of his military court hearing.

A post over at the NYC gossip blog Gawker posed a rather strange question in regards to the recent student protests against the University of California budget cuts:

Why are college student protesters so annoying these days? (Were they always annoying, no matter what generation?) Seriously, I’m asking. I know I should feel good about youthful idealism and bright naive hopes that total overhaul is possible, but I don’t.

The author acknowledged that they are “fighting for something good” but found “the tactics and the attitude so irksome, so stubbornly pop-political and self-concerned.” He cited the disappointment of a group of students when they weren’t arrested for occupying a campus building as an example.

They wanted the outrage and the belligerence and the fighting. So they could get a louder point across? Yes, probably. But also, maybe, so they could have war stories and battle scars, so they could feel the selfish swell of having done something monumental and risky and public. “Weren’t you one of those kids,” awed anti-Zionist freshmen will whisper to these now wizened and graying seniors. “Yeah, you know” they’ll say, propping a ratty black utility soldier boot up on the dumpster dived coffee table. “It just needed to be done.”

This characterization of what might have been going through the students’ minds is a bit unfair, if not unrealistic. It seems highly unlikely that someone motivated entirely by a selfish desire for glory would commit themselves to an action that could result in being pepper sprayed and beaten by police, which is exactly what happened to student protesters at UCLA. The UC Berkeley students who occupied Wheeler Hall faced even worse in the form of rubber bullets. So if there were a few students upset about not being arrested, perhaps they can be forgiven. It’s not hard to imagine how preparing oneself for a harsh potential outcome might be a bit of a let down when it doesn’t come to pass.

Certainly there were faults with some of the student protests—vandalism, for one, which only ever works against the overall message. But, by and large, I think the students who took action against a 32 percent tuition raise and the loss of quality professors and programs should be commended for their efforts. I see nothing “irksome” or “stubbornly pop-political” with thousands of students risking personal welfare (and over 200 getting arrested) to oppose budget cuts caused by reckless spending and growth. Shouldn’t education be one of the last institutions to suffer from such stupidity?

It wouldn’t be wise to discount any student protest of this magnitude. History shows that they have been vital and necessary. Just look at the Free Speech Movement that took place at Berkeley 45 years ago. The last thing anyone would call it or its charasmatic leader, Mario Savio, is annoying. As he famously said, “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. 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.”

• Iranian riot police fired tear gas in clashes with thousands of opposition supporters who shouted anti-government slogans during a Shiite mourning event on Saturday. On Sunday, at least 15 protesters were killed as the demonstrations, which at times turned violent, continued. 

• Students at several universities in Germany staged a campus sit-in over Christmas to protest the worsening of study conditions and rising fees.

• Members of two of Turkey’s largest unions started work after an hour-long delay Friday to protest layoffs and the closure of offices that resulted from privatization. They plan to continue holding one hour protests every week until the ruling party hears their demands.

• Palestinians have held a mass demonstration against Egypt’s construction of an underground wall along the border with the Gaza Strip which claimed its first victim on Friday.

• More than 200 workers organized a sit-in Thursday morning in front of the Social Affairs Center in Jabriya, Kuwait to protest the withholding of their salaries for more than seven months, bad housing conditions and not having their residency permits renewed.

• Rallies, hunger strikes and demonstrations continued for the fourth consecutive day on Saturday in the Telangana region of India, where the demand for a separate state keeps gaining momentum.

• Taxi drivers in the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki went on strike Saturday to protest the murder of a fellow taxi-driver in the region of Pylaia on Christmas Day.

In China, more than 1,000 people took to the streets in a district of Guangzhou to protest against the building of a waste incinerator near their homes.

• Over 250,000 public sector workers in Ireland, including teachers, nurses and civil servants, went on strike on Tuesday in protest against government plans to cut pay and prevent the national debt from spiraling out of control.

• In Turkey, public employees across the country are set to take part in a nationwide strike today to protest the government for failing to meet their demands on collective bargaining and strike rights.

• The first education sector strike in France since the beginning of the academic year got underway Tuesday. The educational professionals were joined by striking postal workers, who are protesting the privatisation of postal services.

• Workers at Repsol’s La Pampilla oil refinery in Peru said on Tuesday they had started a two-day strike to pressure the company for better benefits and to end forced overtime.

• Players from a lower-league Portuguese football club have vowed to continue with a hunger strike, which began on Friday, in protest at the fact they have not been paid for six months.

• The Pompidou Centre was forced to shut down on Monday after staff went on strike to protest planned job cuts at the Parisian mecca of modern and contemporary art.

• In Nepal, thirteen student unions on Monday announced a five-day long agitation protesting Tribhuvan University’s recent decision to hike tuition fees ten fold in all its constituent and affiliated colleges.

• A hunger strike by opponents of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has grown, with 24 university students vowing not to eat until the Organization of American States sends a delegation to Venezuela to review allegations of human rights abuses.

• In South Africa, Musina municipal workers staged a sit-in on Tuesday in protest against alleged corruption and financial mismanagement by officials.

• Around 200 people blocked the entrance to the Parliament House in Canberra Australia this morning to press Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to secure a strong, legally binding treaty at the upcoming UN Climate Meeting in Copenhagen. Police arrested approximately 150 people taking part in the nonviolent direct action.

• Four people were arrested yesterday morning after they walked into Fort Benning during a protest against the activities of the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, which has a record of training some of the most brutal Latin American military officers. This year marked the 20th annual protest at Fort Benning, which was sparked after six Jesuit priests were massacred in El Salvador in 1989.

• Two “concerned citizens” locked down to a drill rig on Coal River Mountain’s Bee Tree mountaintop removal site yesterday morning, effectively stopping the blasting, while two others held a banner with the message “Save Coal River Mountain”.

• Hundreds of clergymen, congregants and reform advocates lined the sidewalks outside Independent U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman’s Stamford home Sunday night in a show of support for universal health care.

• About 70 University of California, Santa Cruz students ended their occupation of the main campus administrative building without arrest yesterday morning. This was the latest protest at a UC campus since the university announced a 32 percent tuition increase and cuts in funding on Thursday. 41 students were arrested on Friday for occupying a Berkeley building most of the day.

• Thousands of workers protested in four Dutch cities on Saturday against a government decision to increase the state retirement age from 65 to 67 by 2025.

• Thousands of Spanish farmers marched on Saturday through the streets of Madrid, halting traffic to protest the low prices they receive for their produce which they say is leading them to financial “ruin.”

• About 2,000 students blocked the exits of a building where University of California regents voted to hike tuition 32 percent next year. After the vote was announced students lay down en masse to symbolize what they called the death of an affordable UC education.

• Dozens of protesters gathered outside Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig’s office in Midtown Manhattan on Wednesday to protest a fundraiser for the notoriously racist settler community of Hebron being held at Citi Field, home of the New York Mets, this Saturday.

• Greenpeace activists released a floating banner inside the Chamber of Commerce Regional Government Affairs convention in San Francisco yesterday to protest Chamber president Tom Donahue’s lobbying for big polluters. The banner read “Donahue’s Climate Lies: Bad for Business, Bad for America.”

• Two priests and 25 tribal leaders from Mindoro Island (200 kilometres south of Manila) have gone a hunger strike to stop three nickel mine operations that will eventually cover almost 20 per cent of the island’s land mass.

• More than 100 youth climate activists lay down in the lobby of a Royal Bank of Canada branch in Fort Providence, Northwest Territories and pretended to be dead in protest of the banks’ funding of Alberta tar sands projects.

• After a 45-minute sit-in to protest budget cuts, SUNY students held a mock eulogy mourning many of the programs that could be eliminated.