Divestment fails at Berkeley

Update: In the time it took to write this, it looks like the divestors, knowing the vote was going down for them, decided to table the motion until their next meeting, extending Berkeley's pain for at least another week. (Was it just me, or did anyone else following the meeting via the UCBDIVEST Twitter feed recall BDSers screaming IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS just an hour or two ago that a vote MUST BE TAKEN NOW!) <!--break--> Thursday, April 15, 2010 BDS Loses Big at Berkeley Well, it looks like the Berkeley Student Senate (or ASUC) wasn’t “in the bag” for divestment after all. After a debate that began at 7 PM last night and looks to be just wrapping up now (at 6:30 AM, West Coast Time), a vote was finally taken with regard to overturning the Student President’s veto of the UC Berkeley divestment bill. An override required 15 votes to pass (or two-thirds of the Senate) and the final count turned out to be 12 for, 7 against and 1 abstention (down from 16 for and 4 against the first time around). And so BDS loses again. (I never tire of typing that sentence.) And this time, they not only lost on friendly ground (the most sympathetic-to-their-issue campus in America), but they managed to pull off a defeat with virtually the entire BDS pantheon (Chomsky, Tutu, Klein) behind their efforts. They lost despite support from virtually the entire global BDS network applying pressure to ASUC members. They lost with the support of vast stretches of Berkeley’s Balkanized student organizational leadership behind them. And they lost after arguing this issue in an all-night session that ended with what sounded like some serious bullying of Senators who chose to not join the boycott crew.

<p>Update: In the time it took to write this, it looks like the divestors, knowing the vote was going down for them, decided to table the motion until their next meeting, extending Berkeley's pain for at least another week. (Was it just me, or did anyone else following the meeting via the UCBDIVEST Twitter feed recall BDSers screaming IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS just an hour or two ago that a vote MUST BE TAKEN NOW!)</p> <!--break--><p>Thursday, April 15, 2010<br /> BDS Loses Big at Berkeley</p> <p>Well, it looks like the Berkeley Student Senate (or ASUC) wasn’t “in the bag” for divestment after all.</p> <p>After a debate that began at 7 PM last night and looks to be just wrapping up now (at 6:30 AM, West Coast Time), a vote was finally taken with regard to overturning the Student President’s veto of the UC Berkeley divestment bill. An override required 15 votes to pass (or two-thirds of the Senate) and the final count turned out to be 12 for, 7 against and 1 abstention (down from 16 for and 4 against the first time around).</p> <p>And so BDS loses again. (I never tire of typing that sentence.) And this time, they not only lost on friendly ground (the most sympathetic-to-their-issue campus in America), but they managed to pull off a defeat with virtually the entire BDS pantheon (Chomsky, Tutu, Klein) behind their efforts. They lost despite support from virtually the entire global BDS network applying pressure to ASUC members. They lost with the support of vast stretches of Berkeley’s Balkanized student organizational leadership behind them. And they lost after arguing this issue in an all-night session that ended with what sounded like some serious bullying of Senators who chose to not join the boycott crew.</p>