“Beats not bombs” protests government spending
Peace (Evelyn Caicedo)
The Poetry Club has employed very controversial topics into their forums in the free-speech quad. Their recent protest named “Beats not Bombs” on Feb. 23 was about students being left to fend for their country when they should be continuing their education.
‘Beats not Bombs’ is a gathering from the Poetry Club who are aiming to protest the [unfair] spending of money on warfare when [America] is still cutting funds from education,” said poetry club member Adam Davis, 26, communications.
They also called their protest “Books not Bombs” because they believed that students should be given the choice of an affordable education before entering in the National Guard.
“[Our protest] is basically a way for us to express how our tax money is used,” said Loki Freeman, president of the Poetry Club. “We think that it is misappropriated towards war, meanwhile our schools continue to struggle.”
However, the protest brought up opinions within the club. Some of the club members disagreed on the topic of protest.
“I think we should be a peace rally rather than an anti-war protest,” said club member Zach Churchill, 20, music therapy, “because then we are giving too much energy into the idea of war when our main focus should be peace.”
In all, the day was combined with painting peace signs on willing faces, citing poetry from anti-war poets, and beats from the bongo that could be heard all through the quad.
The main message the club wanted to bring to the quad was simply to “bring the troops home to put that money back into our schools, education, and onto our children’s future,” Freeman said. “If we don’t educate the country, then what kind of country are we going to have?”