On June 6th, George Blumenthal was inaugurated as the 10th Chancellor of UC Santa Cruz during a ceremony on UCSC’s East Field. Students and workers, organized through the Student and Worker Coalition for Justice (SWCJ) and the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), held a 10-hour day of action to deliver a loud and clear message — end poverty wages at the University of California. George M. Marcus, a Regent of the University of California, was a passenger in one of the many cars rerouted or delayed by the demonstration.
Many cars on UCSC’s Hagar Drive had already turned around to avoid the demonstration, however a woman driving a Mercedes-Benz GL450 SUV decided to encroach upon the people in the intersection of Hagar and Coolidge Drive. After a couple of minutes, UC police officer James Lunnen directed the woman to turn the vehicle around. She began turning the SUV, but then stopped and George Marcus began shouting out the passenger window. Referring to the workers, he yelled that he would not give them anything and that he was a UC Regent.
I had been taking photos, so I took another photo. George Marcus violently smacked the camera I was holding with his open palm. I took another photo. After that, the woman drove the SUV away, and I took another photo. Read More and View Photos
On February 16th, 2007, a protest targeting Sam Farr, Representative for the 17th Congressional District, was held at the Santa Cruz County Building. In a comment posted on Santa Cruz Indymedia, Steven Argue explained the primary reason behind the protest, “While Sam Farr has voted against supplemental war appropriations, He has voted for well over a trillion dollars in “defense” (actually war funds) since the beginning of the Iraq war. Besides being used to put the world in terror of U.S. corporate interests through the massive military machine of the United States government, that money has also been used to directly occupy Iraq.” 
On August 8th, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was un-welcomed to Salinas High School by members of the American Federation of Teachers, Monterey Bay Central Labor Council, Watsonville Brown Berets and other demonstrators. With an escort of police in cruisers and on motorcycles, Schwarzenegger’s vehicle drove past a group of protesters and into a back entrance of Salinas High. Police quickly locked out the people who, in the theory of US Democracy, are supposed to be represented by the Governor. 
On July 25th, Santa Cruz activists, guided by the Coalition for Impeachment Now (COIN), attended the last Santa Cruz City Council meeting of the summer in an effort to get “our city representatives” to place a measure on the ballot in November calling for the impeachment of George Bush and Richard Cheney. 
