Hi. To try to calmly explain a bit, "End Budget Cuts, Don't Raise Our Fees!" is not the self-contradictory statement you make it out to be. On the one hand, although state revenues are down, state spending priorities are all messed up (e.g., we spend way too much jailing people for non-violent drug offenses for stuff like pot, constantly increasing state spending on the prison system - while cutting support for education). On the other hand, the UC system's spending priorities are also screwed up with may more than is rationale going to capital investment. It is true that the Regents lack authority to correct these problems and, to the extent the protest moves only the Regents, it is indeed a waste of time. However, if the protests are regarded more as simply putting a foot down against the log-jam of a larger political situation - it's quite sane.

Also, "presenting solutions" is really not the protesters' obligation in a situation like this. Forcing a crisis that elevates as far as possible and draws attention are reasonable ends in and of themselves. These kinds of action are how, historically, political debates shift focus. Solutions are not hard to come by. There is no shortage of them. The state needs escape from prop 13, from ballot initiative spending mandates, from its high incarceration rate, and so forth. Implementing those solutions requires action by voters, the legislature, the regents, and so forth.

You have to start somewhere and that's what your peers did today.

Incidentally, the violence score appears to be roughly: Protesters - shoving some crowd control barriers; Cops - clubbing with batons, indiscriminate use of pepper spray, and allegedly at least one rubber bullet fired.