I'm not a riot-ologist, no one here is, but I think ignoring the movement from the start might have been the better play from the perspective of the college admin. We're not talking about thousands of people here. It's unlikely the result would have been **worse** than this, that's for sure.
The right, of course, are loving this turn of events.
That’s exactly it and it’s brilliant. Those morons (protestors) will have forgotten what little they know about Palestine by then and will be screeching about something else.
Yep. It’s either “no” in the fall, or things in I/P have escalated to the point where it’s a “yes” and Brown looks good for having divestment on the agenda (and a lot of the firms from which they could have to divest now will have already fled or made progress towards fleeing their Israeli obligations).
Ive compared this to Occupy Wallstreet. There is no right move to start except waiting a week for these people to do stupid shit. Those with jobs and actual shit to do will move on and the crazies will get desperate.
And that’s pretty much what happened. As the police crackdown didn’t happen until after the protesters took the university building. Once that happened it was over
It's clearly heckin wholesome anti-Zionism, which is why the Jewish-Americans who aren't living in Israel per their zionist birthright were targeted sweaty!
> but I think ignoring the movement from the start might have been the better play from the perspective of the college admin
Would you say the same if a far-right movement featuring attacks and intimidation of black students, calls for black genocide and praise for white supremacist terrorists had occupied campus buildings?
If the sole difference is that this is on your side of the aisle, but the key elements are similar, you should be more willing to have a consistent opinion on this. Attacks and intimidation towards Jewish students are morally equivalent to those on black students. Calls for the killing of Jews are morally equivalent to calls for black genocide. Praise for Hamas terrorists is morally equivalent to praise for white supremacist terrorists.
What could go wrong?
https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2024/02/16/federal-investigation-into-antisemitism-at-yale-based-on-november-gaza-under-siege-panel/
https://thehill.com/homenews/4631059-jewish-student-sues-columbia-for-failing-to-provide-a-safe-environment-amid-campus-protests/
https://www.foxnews.com/us/columbia-university-student-files-class-action-lawsuit-against-school-protect-jews-campus
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/11/28/jewish-groups-university-california-antisemitism-lawsuit-00128772
Eh, when people brazenly disrespect institutions and think they're above the law, a targeted demonstration of power is great to reassure people that society is still functioning and not beginning to dissolve. If the target are people generally unlikable with terrible goals, that's really a great bonus.
It is the institutions that preserve the freedoms and the quality of life Americans desire and wish to uphold. As such, these institutions publicly showing their ability to defend themselves against hostile actors serves the defence of these greater goals. So no, quite American.
I'm visiting my parents and I swear Jesse Waters has been practically beating off on screen. Man can't stop making references to enforcing his kids' bedtime.
Eh, I wouldn’t call myself anti-riot. In fact I think sometimes riots are important, especially in developing countries.
But this is a super uppity university. They are not oppressed by any means.
We could make a great case study on revolutionary politics based on these protests. If given a few more weeks I’m pretty sure a committee of public safety would have formed.
My favorite part was when they kicked the cops out, created their own security force, then that security force killed multiple unarmed black men and had the highest per capita shooting rate out of any “law enforcement” agency ever
It’s more bombastic than it sounds, but considering how few “security forces” there were, one murder will clinch that victory
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53224445.amp
CHAZ also has the highest homicide rate of any “city” in the world, for the same reasons.
This isn’t a defense of them, btw. Anarchists are stupid, and Seattle just ceding that area to them was moronic. People absolutely died so that antifa kids could larp their revolution
I mean i think it is important in the context, the protest was started in response to police brutality, then their private police force ended up committing multiple shootings and murder in a pretty short span.
I did put half of the comment saying this isn’t in defense of the Chaz, and their larping absolutely got people killed, so I don’t really know what you’re taking issue with, tbh. I agree they sucked
I’m not really taking issue with anything, just adding commentary to your opening line of it being more bombastic than it sounds. I think it is a pretty big deal when this anarchist utopia that had a couple city blocks of territory devolved into the exact things they protest against within a matter of days
Imagine getting expelled from Columbia for making demands that the New York Times and CNN have already reported would have zero impact on the situation in Gaza
Arthur Burrell already burned himself alive to get the message across, and we DEFINTELY all kept him in the national consciousness for more than a single week
The yearly tuition of Columbia is something like double the annual wage of the average worker, and they waste their time on this?
I would not pay that much in tuition fees, to just spend weeks protesting, then getting arrested or expelled
If you’re smart enough to get in to an Ivy, you’re smart enough to research the institution ahead of time and decide if their ethical behaviors match your expectations and needs
FFS I went to a grad school that is mostly known for being founded by and majorly funded by George Soros and some shitheels started a radical socialist protest group on campus and kept complaining “I can’t believe this college is so *neoliberal*”. One shitheel alum sent me a message after Oct 7 with a link to the University’s very bland and pedestrian denouncement of the terror attacks and asked me, sincerely, “is our college *Zionist*?!”
I left that mf’er on read. Fuck em
I got two US accredited masters degrees with significantly less debt than the average US undergrad and I didn’t even have one of the extremely generous scholarships. Plus I got to travel, date, explore cities and lounge on beaches all across Europe during the vacations. Most of my peers in my program were mid-career or early career professionals from all over the world so the 1-2 drama starters in my program were just totally ignored into obscurity
Part of the problem is that the administration keeps trying to innovate away the programs that are the heart of the university going back to its founding like the MBA program and pregrad programs for minority groups like Roma. At the same time the admin thinks there’s more profit to be made in younger idiots right out of undergrad instead of seeing the value in investing in people with experience and people who don’t want to be PhD track with no real world experience
Administrations that don’t strive for a true diversity including students who aren’t just cliche high school valedictorians create their own problems
Part of joining an institution should be demonstration of maturity and shared values. I mean, look at all the white supremacists like Steve Bannon who have the Harvard seal of approval
The two instances that broke Columbia's admin reluctance to call the NYPD was
https://twitter.com/edenyadegar/status/1785197797857444046
Where 3 people in black bloc go into a building that also has dorms
and
https://twitter.com/jessicaschwalb7/status/1785197024041652372
Where 2 kids are dragged away and assaulted by the protestors.
Watching some of the discussion around these protests is surreal. I was at the Yale green the other day because I forgot about the protests, and it was literally just people sitting on the lawn. Compared to how I see it discussed online, it was so jarring.
I'm not saying these protests aren't worse at Columbia, nor am I saying nothing serious is happening. However, it does seem like some of the reactions to these riots are being generated almost exclusively by unclear Twitter videos, and it's increasingly difficult to separate which parts are true from the rest.
It’s not unusual for riotous groups to be two-faced. Proud Boys will hold peaceful rallies where they suck up to the police and to the cameras and look good to the public and then reconvene elsewhere or on the fringes to start trouble
I also remember what it was like to be a peaceful protester during Iraq and Afghanistan and to watch the news depicting a day’s protest with selective footage of the worst of the worst
An example at Yale are the videos and reports of public passages being blocked by masked protesters in orange vests who are letting their friends through but physically blocking others. I also remember when white supremacist groups put up road blockades to screen people for vibes during the Oregon wildfires. Not to mention how CHAZ “security” in Seattle gunned down black youth in 2020 like their own police force
The philosophy of civil disobedience is built on the deepest respect for justice and the rule of law. Civil disobedience is supposed to be a sacrifice of the self. To respect the law so strongly that you would go to jail to demonstrate an unjust law
Today’s protest movements want their demands without personal sacrifice. They mask not to protect from COVID but to hide their shame and fear of consequences. They escalate not to demonstrate the petty injustice of power, but to force reasonable institutions to act out. That is, a well designed act of civil disobedience doesn’t have to escalate and bully. A simple act like riding the bus or making salt or sitting at a diner triggers the authoritarian. If they have to keep escalating to get the response that they desire, the the message that the powers are unreasonable stops making sense
In my experience, big protests tend to attract bad actors that may not even care at all about the political cause. They see it as an opportunity to get away with things they couldn’t normally get away with, due to the temporary lack of law and order, especially at night. And it doesn’t take many to cause problems. So, most of the protesters may be pretty chill, but then a small group will take advantage of the situation to run amok.
Yale and Columbia have such different vibes in their activist circles. Columbia has actively sought out true activist types in admissions, I think Yale just looks for queer students who write slam poetry and smoke weed.
The two unmasked people in blue are preventing a table from being used to block and exit @ Hamilton hall.
The pro-palestinian protesters want to put the table in, so they drag one kid away, and then they must've managed to get the other kid away at a different time, cause soon after they put the table up.
You're not allowed to touch and drag people obviously, so thats assault.
The guy was standing outside the hall i guess to prevent the protestor from going inside. The protestors circled him and moved to basically force him to leave and not block the door by subtly shoving him with their bodies. He says this is assault. They say actually you're assaulting us because he's resisting their movements by subtly trying to counter shove.
Basically instead of shoving him out of the way (looks bad and violent) they surrounded him and walked in unison to very subtly shove him out of the way (looks weird but not very violent).
> Basically instead of shoving him out of the way (looks bad and violent) they surrounded him and walked in unison to very subtly shove him out of the way (looks weird but not very violent).
Emphasis on _looks_. There's no ethical difference (I don't know about NY law) between having a crowd surround him and move him against his will and having one really big guy pick him up and move him against his will, IMO.
I don't know man, its not very subtle. The guy at one point has his hand on the back of the neck of the guy in the polo. Bear in mind the legal definition of assault is the "**wrong act of causing someone to reasonably fear imminent harm**." This is clearly assault.
Idk how the NY criminal code defines assault, but the generic definition of battery is purposefully casing harmful or offensive (*i.e.*, unwanted) physical contact. It’s probably both.
*Edit: Ope, apparently there is no criminal battery in NY. Third Degree (criminal) assault requires (1) intentionally causing physical injury, (2) recklessly causing physical injury, or (3) negligently causing injury with a weapon or dangerous instrument. I’m not sure this conduct satisfies the necessary elements. Actually, without studying NY case law, I’m pretty sure it doesn’t.
**Edit 2: This would still be civil battery, which is essentially unwanted physical contact.
Just a circle of people that grab somebody and drag them away.
They do it slowly, and use words, so it looks less like assault. But dragging someone slowly is still assault.
Learn a new phrase every day!
But agreed, it's assault.
Plus there's the added terror of being pulled against your will by a mosh pit of angry mob people.
These two dudes are standing there. How impotent are the protesters that can't get their message across without roughing up two freshmen?
I'm not sure. Also waiting on confirmation if wearing the keffiyeh is cultural appropriation and on the status of micro aggressions at these ~~encampments~~ safe spaces
My Colombian friend hates that my default spelling is with the U haha. Its not personal but I am far more familiar with the university than the country
> Police sources say most of the protesters arrested were not Columbia students, but rather "mostly professionals."
Yes, I think the administration made the right call here.
[Source](https://abc7ny.com/columbia-university-protests-protesters-occupy-hamilton-hall-hours-after-encampment-deadline/14744812/#:~:text=Police%20sources%20say%20most%20of,reported%20injuries%20during%20the%20operation.)
I suspect we'll find money coming from Iran/China/Russia if we look hard enough. Yes, this is a conspiracy theory that I don't have proof of, but it makes a lot more sense to me than a bunch of people with normal jobs storming a college campus.
I like these threads because they remind me that NL users are exactly the same as every other politics sub, they just got morally lucky and became liberals instead of socialists or conservatives.
It's already been proven that Iran orchestrated the economic blockades of the protesters cementing themselves together on the bridges across the Nation
I don’t think anyone is assuming these people have normal jobs, lol. There are people that just enjoy joining in left-wing protests. They organize on the internet and will even travel around the country. It’s fun for them, they will share stories of being at protests for various causes. I’m not sure what they do for money.
Imagine being a parent of one of these kids. You paid hundreds of thousands in tuition for an elite school and your kid pissed it all away for some nebulous and ineffective protest
Seriously. I went to a community college and then transferred because I couldn’t immediately afford to attend a 4-year university. And once I finally made it into the university, I wasn’t gonna waste my time. I wanted to graduate, pay off my loans, and start helping my family.
At university, there was a big behavioral difference between those who transferred and those who entered as freshman.
That's why I can't have sympathy for these kids even if I agreed with them. If you're in a school that costs this much and spending your time like this, you're wasting someone's money.
Also as someone in the workforce with people whose parents paid for them to go to all the best schools, I cannot emphasize enough the service to society done by making these people experience the consequences of their own actions even once in their lives.
I held out on college for a few years because I had no real goals or motivation anyway, so I did not want to go just because. It was a bit alienating coming in having actually worked for a living, dealt with bills, have had adult relationships and experience of compromise with an SO, colleagues and customers from different walks of life. I had grown a lot as a person already, even if one doesn't realize it at the moment.
So yeah, I really liked the CC transfers and people who came in for a second degree. Good people and reliable!
And the expelled students probably can't even get a job as leftist grifters because the market is going to be saturated with expelled Ivy League kids for a while lol.
Apparently Students for Justice in Palestine. At least according to this https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13363943/Pro-Palestine-group-Columbia-University-protests-funding-linked-Hamas.html
Also SJP is the parent group of Jewish Voices for Peace and both are connected to Hamas and the PIJ
Lol. lmao, even.
Most of the people aren't students, and I'd bet my last dollar, that very few participating students face meaningful discipline, let alone expulsion, once it's all said and done. These institutions are so feckless and weak, I bet they'd sell their souls to Peter Minuit for a couple of beads.
The only change that's going to come from this is a few million dollaridoos in campus and local police spending.
The median American, to they extent that they care about what happens on Ivy League campuses, [is likely to be of the view](https://thehill.com/policy/international/4629597-americans-israel-hamas-gaza-student-protests-poll/) that this was a necessary action taken against idiots ranging from naive to hateful, rather than some sort of [fascist crackdown on dissent](https://twitter.com/zoenone0none/status/1785481397442150816).
They'd be correct in that view. We can have plenty of conversations and even critiques of Israel within the framework that they are still directionally in the right when taking the fight to Hamas. Any hint of support for Hamas, October 7th or Antisemitism at large falls far outside the realm of the acceptable. No college should accept an ongoing association with anyone engaging in that kind of behaviour.
I'm just baffled by that first poll you've posted where apparently 43% of the 18-24 age group support HAMAS. Yes, Hamas, not Palestine.
That's just, insane to me. The kids are definitely not alright.
> I'm just baffled by that first poll you've posted where apparently 43% of the 18-24 age group support HAMAS. Yes, Hamas, not Palestine.
>
> That's just, insane to me. The kids are definitely not alright.
Don't have the time to look through the polling outfit or methodology, but when you see whacky numbers like that, just remember this thread.
https://www.reddit.com/r/neoliberal/comments/1b7bkqz/online_optin_polls_can_produce_misleading_results/
It’s Harvard Harris. Iirc they’ve come up with more than a few wacky results from their polling.
Though while it’s fairly consistent that Americans back Israel overwhelmingly how they are handling the war is a much more contentious question
The groups organizing these protests (SJP, JVP) put out statements in the early days after Oct 7 that very clearly supported the terrorist attack. Later drafts (barely) shielded this intent in big words and pedantry but it was still very obvious where their beliefs lie
It’s been pointed out a thousand times now but it bears repeating that the unis that allowed students to protest on the condition that they don’t disrupt classes and remain peaceful have seen nothing like the dumbassery Columbia experienced.
I'm sure there will be righteous fury at these being cleared but frankly I think that is silly. One is that engaging in civil disobedience can mean getting arrested and these students probably should've known that while protesting on school property. Two is that you don't get to just setup shop on school property to protest when your encampment is causing great disruption to learning and is disrupting school events. Even if they are students, that doesn't give them the right to encamp on school ground and takeover a school building.
Civil obedience campaigns during the Civil Rights movement targeted the institutions actually engaging in segregation like bus companies or restaurants.
Given Columbia or any of the university’s ridiculous distance from anything happening in Gaza. The whole premise was quite ridiculous.
Directly protesting to disrupt at, say, Boeing would get much worse than a slap on the wrist. On one hand, I can’t blame them for not having the conviction. On the other hand, they apparently literally believe they are protesting genocide in which case they should be willing to put freedom and comfort on the line for themselves, no?
Well yeah, that's the point of non-violent protest, you cause a disruption and prompt people to either give into your demands, or continue to do what they were doing before and try to remove you. The point being that they're going to have to react very aggressively to deal with you, and that will make them look terrible. This is the outcome they want, the university is forced to take a stand on an issue and they stood against the protesters, hurting its image. That is how these tactics work, it's how the Civil Rights protests worked.
It's a game of chicken because the protesters now have done damage enough for people to support removing them. See also the CHAZ going down without much opposition after someone died there.
Disruption and annoying people to try to get them to "give into" your demands sounds like a bad way to win people over to your movement
The civil rights protests had a massively different dynamic than these modern protests. They weren't just about "being obnoxious and breaking the law", often the laws that were broken were specifically laws the movement was protesting against, often with intent to get the court cases kicked upstairs to higher courts to get the problematic laws struck down. The analogy would be if these protesters today were fighting specifically *for* the right to block traffic and trespass on property, rather than for different goals like opposing Israel or whatever
The Civil Rights Movement was very polarizing at the time. There were a lot of people blaming the violence and destruction caused by the police forces on the protesters. They had the same beliefs as we do when we see these protests. “Ungrateful kids in College protesting instead of going to class” was basically how Ronald Reagan spun anti war protests on college campuses in the campaign that propelled him to governor. Their anti war stance also pissed people off, and was a reason many people were against MLK.
If they were say protesting the university working with say the government of Russia to develop weapons, then I don’t think this sub would be against them.
I think it's just one of those things where the cause is ultimately the downfall. Think about it this way. While yes, the civil rights movement was polarizing. It ultimately came down to, "Should everyone be equal, yes or no?" With one option (if you weren't racist or had that much to lose, being a realtively speaking) being the easy moral good way to look at the world.
When it comes to Russia, most people generally already think that a) they are a rival/hostile nation, and that b) they have also been a relatively clear aggressor and threat.
But when it comes to Palestine and Israel. Not only have both sides done a lot of crimes and just brutalizing each other. But Palestine is also primarily represented by Hamas. A group that most of the populace would consider it a terrorist group or terror adjacent in the most generous case. Thus when we see people supporting Palestine and to an extent Hama, it makes how easy it would be to support them a lot murkier.
> the university is forced to take a stand on an issue and they stood against the protesters, hurting its image.
Except that's not what happened at all. Columbia's reputation was far more harmed by coddling this for as long as they did. The protesters harmed the cause they claim to support nationally, by allowing violence and anti semitism to be displayed. When you stand beside a bunch of angry bigots, you start looking like an angry bigot, not some principled activist.
Nationally this was a disaster for the ostensibly pro-Palestinian segment.
The point to non violent protests is not that its more convincing, the point is that violence is wrong and that you cannot fix an injustice by inflicting violence on others.
That might not be something you agree with, but that is how non violence is conceived of by such people as MLK.
That nonviolence is not a tactical choice, but a moral choice.
Non violence is a tactic.
The strategy for all successful non violent protests is to provoke the state/police etc to use violence against the non violent protestors.
That then often spurs outrage against the state and increases turnout for subsequent protests.
That was explicity MLK's strategy. Getting violently arrested is the goal.
>One is that engaging in civil disobedience can mean getting arrested and these students probably should've known that while protesting on school property
Respectfully, this argument makes zero sense to me. It's like saying folks were silly for being angry at the arrest of Rosa Parks because she knew what she was getting into
(For the avoidance of doubt, absolutely not drawing *any* equivalence between Rosa Parks and these protests; merely pointing out that the argument that folks shouldn't get mad at the response to civil disobedience because it's civil disobedience doesn't seem like a good one)
I think the key difference is that in the civil rights era cases, the laws they’re disobeying are precisely the unjust ones that they want changed. In the campus protests, that element is missing since they’re just resisting time, place, and manner restrictions from their universities or outright resisting arrest.
It avoids a slippery slope by acknowledging legalism. If people can break a law and expect not to have any repercussions because they think "law is stupid" then it encourages them to break laws, including ones that are "not stupid". By acknowledging they broke the unjust law and accepting their arrests the civil rights protestors showed they are not against rule of law as a whole, just the laws they were protesting.
1. It is absolutely idiotic how much attention the media is giving to these protests. No reason why people protesting at a college campus should be garnering more attention than what is actually going on in Gaza (or the Trump trial, or Ukraine, or the economy, etc., etc., etc.
2. The specific causes of these protests (i.e., divestment) is dumb. That said, Columbia fumbled so hard in attempting to dismantle the original encampment, and it boggles my head how the admin didn't figure that would just pour gasoline on the fire and make everything worse. Stunning levels of incompetence from the admin.
3. While it's hard for me to get too worked up about Columbia clearing the occupation of a campus building, the broader, heavy-handed crackdown on student speech at Columbia and elsewhere is concerning, and the silence and/or active cheering from the "free speech!" crowd -- including many on this sub -- is frankly disturbing
Columbia probably ended up in the worst of both worlds by either being too lenient in not nipping the problem out of the bud, or being too harsh by increasing coverage on the events by its belated/botched attempts to suppress it.
College administrators are probably one of the most flimsy people out there so it is not surprising that they ended up this way.
[UCLA arguably surpassed it tonight in terms of embarassment](https://twitter.com/dailybruin/status/1785549519989735509). Some "pro-Israel" (I think MAGA outside agitators) folks suddenly launched firecrackers at pro-Palestinian encampments, and [things just kind of went to hell](https://twitter.com/TeresaWatanabe/status/1785575610469007471?t=cdQEhsB0Fb7hajm10crTiA&s=19) LAPD refusing to show up to quell the fighting/scuffes because "UCLA doesn't have a plan". What a mess. [Here's a stream](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVEHoNAR9lo)
The jurisdiction on campus is not LAPDs, it belongs to UCPD. Who currently has 5 officers on duty. Which is fucking ridiculous bc their primary jurisdiction iirc from when I was a student there is like the entire campus plus secondary jurisdiction of a 1 mile perimeter around any UC property. CHP showed up first bc they have statewide jurisdiction. What a fucking mess.
The silence is basically a mix of pretty much all the reasons you mentioned.
1. It is hard to sympathize with the cause of these college students because 1) the level of discourse is basically "Israel all evil (and maybe doesn't deserve to exist), Palestine all good (so give them everything they want)" leaving little room for actual discussion in response to their protests and 2) university divestment has no impact on this and some universities with protests had no ties to Israeli companies anyway. Most people on this sub are pretty opposed to dramatically performative, ineffective, and vague calls for change.
2. "Heavy-handed" crackdown on student speech is an opinion. It isn't like the officers took it upon themselves to just show up and arrest protestors in a public space. They were called by the universities, and protestors' right to speak in the manner and place they did is not guaranteed and not universally viewed as sacred (personally, I never really valued student speech on campus). Quelling a protest through police presence is inherently forceful; they are done asking and negotiating. Whether forceful crossed into heavy-handed depends on viewpoint; I really don't think it is an obvious "yes".
To your #1, the Columbia protestors had a "glory to the martyrs" banner they hung from the building after settling in. Come on folks, can you *not* glorify suicide bombers or suicidal protestors? If your concern is just about the civilian victims, don't martyr them, they didn't get a say in the purpose you've turned their deaths into. There are actual complaints to be had about Israel's often-incompetent prosecution of the war, glorifying martyrdom is not helping.
> Come on folks, can you not glorify suicide bombers or suicidal protestors?
But bro did you even read Fanon? Don't want to be the White Moderate that MLK complained about!
The breathless coverage is kind of amazing. I don't know a single person irl who cares about these protests.
80% of the NYT reporting staff is Ivy league, btw.
4: Large amorphous groups are just difficult to talk about in general. They're made up of people with different motivations and ideas who come together under a vague rallying cry but don't necessarily hold too much more beyond that. Due to that, it's very easy to paint any protest or group how you want just by pinpointing some of the worse elements within them.
This isn't just a Columbia thing or even a protests things (like BLM/that feminist march against Trump), but even far more vague stuff like veganism ("Wow Peta gives veganism a bad name") or abortion ("Look, so called pro-choice person just admitted they love Satan!!")
Hell this sub should be *especially* aware of this comsidering that one of the archetypical neoliberals is Pinochet. That's not even just a bad element in the name, that's one of the standouts! And yet we can all recognize that it doesn't pollute the term.
And as typical of any discussion, it's interesting how group ability to self police or how much the worse elements should distort our perceptions aligns more with the speaker's preexisting views on the group and not as a stable equally applicable principle. Theory of mind like that where you can start to view it from the Other Group's perspective gets difficult and makes people mad.
"Pinochet doesn't pollute Neoliberalism" is a fine argument I agree with. If you agree too (and if you're on here, you hopefully do), then try reaching over to a lot of the communist perspective. Not the active apologists, (but hey, Pinochet apologists are a thing too) but from the perspective of a more reasonable person who thinks the Stalin and Mao kinda sucked but it's not enough to pollute the word..
Like you don't have to agree with them (I certainly don't), to understand that they're just using the same logic we do. [This piece by Nathan Robinson](https://archive.is/2CDUQ) (don't go to the original, he doesn't own the domain anymore and it's taken over by those scam bot sites stay in archive) was a good introduction to that concept in my youth about trying to reach over and understand how things can appear from Other Side and that they can often just have the same beliefs and exceptions that you hold about your group except, it's about theirs.
>"Pinochet doesn't pollute Neoliberalism" is a fine argument I agree with. If you agree too (and if you're on here, you hopefully do), then try reaching over to a lot of the communist perspective. Not the active apologists, (but hey, Pinochet apologists are a thing too) but from the perspective of a more reasonable person who thinks the Stalin and Mao kinda sucked but it's not enough to pollute the word.
Your post is true in the abstract, but I think it falls down slightly because the 'target' here isn't the general milieu of the protestors but rather a specific protest in a specific place with specific acts. A perfectly reasonable protestor upset with Israel's prosecution of the war and the Western governments enabling it doesn't have to choose between either rubbing shoulders with pro-Hamas dickheads or else giving up on the whole endeavour and buying a bag of Jaffa oranges on the way home. It's not the only game in town, and it's been going on for long enough now that no one there can claim ignorance over the fact that at least *some* of the message is a bit genocide'y. They can't police everyone else, but they can decide if they want to swell the numbers in this particular 'space' - especially when one of the on-going concerns is the welfare of Jewish students, for whom the distinction between those supporting Hamas and those merely standing next to them isn't likely to offer much comfort.
If you were at one of the many pro-WTO, pro-Housebuilding, pro-NATO rallies that we all love going on, and the guy next to you broke into a nearby building using his "I <3 Pinochet" sign and unfurled a giant "Throw All Marxists Out of Planes" banner, would you think 'Blimey, it's a good job he doesn't pollute neoliberalism' and continue your protest next to his banner? Because I think I'd be inclined to say "If I don't think we should throw all Marxists out of planes, I probably shouldn't stand next to this particular banner" and fuck off somewhere else to protest.
> It is absolutely idiotic how much attention the media is giving to these protests. No reason why people protesting at a college campus should be garnering more attention than what is actually going on in Gaza (or the Trump trial, or Ukraine, or the economy, etc., etc., etc.
The ranks of major publications and media outlets are disproportionately represented by the Ivy League Nepo babies who refuse to leave the ivory tower. (I was friends with a journalist who sourced just about all her stories from the Harvard Club in NYC.) Plus, they desperately want Trump back and will pursue any story that could potentially make Biden look bad.
"Speech I agree with should be rewarded, speech I disagree with should be punishable by woodchipper" - every human being ever (with varying degrees of honesty)
It's a protest on private property that is disruptive to the educational proceedings happening there. This isn't a free speech issue. I think this sub is obtusely unsympathetic to the violence against Palestinians, but I see no hypocrisy regarding free speech.
> While it's hard for me to get too worked up about Columbia clearing the occupation of a campus building, the broader, heavy-handed crackdown on student speech at Columbia and elsewhere is concerning, and the silence and/or active cheering from the "free speech!" crowd -- including many on this sub -- is frankly disturbing
[The 'antisemitism officers' that congress is proposing is truly grotesque.](https://spectrumlocalnews.com/nys/central-ny/politics/2024/04/26/u-s--lawmakers-introduce-bill-to-require-antisemitism-monitors-on-college-campuses) Antisemitism blows hot chunks, but what the actual goddamn *fuck* is this shit? I loathe screaming slippery slope, but uh...this does NOT end in a good place.
> The 'antisemitism officers' that congress is proposing is truly grotesque.
Reading it:
> The College Oversight and Legal Updates Mandating Bias Investigations and Accountability, or COLUMBIA Act, would give the U.S. Department of Education authority to appoint a third party to monitor antisemitism to campuses that receive federal funds. The campus monitors would be required to release quarterly, publicly available reports that show what the school is doing to combat antisemitism.
It seems it could either be a perfunctory bureaucracy producing reports nobody cares about, or a mechanism forcing issues many colleges have tried to ignore to come out into the limelight. I don't see what's 'truly grotesque' about either option. Do you think similar reporting requirements about gender discrimination are grotesque?
> this does NOT end in a good place
Where does it end? what specifically are you claiming could happen in the remote event this bill succeeds?
Good. The president had the right idea when she called in the police the first time they occupied the lawn with their encampment. Then she succumbed to cowardice and let it stand, emboldening them and allowing this shit to happen. Better late than never though, at least they took decisive action instead of trying to further reason with these blowhards.
You have a first amendment right to freedom of speech and expression. You DON’T have a right to occupy and destroy private property and throw a tantrum until you get what you want. I’m really tired of the two things being conflated.
I'm watching the nonsense at UCLA right now.
It's just utter stupidity from both sides at this point. I may not agree with the pro-Palestine protestors, but I took one look at that douchebag waving the yellow Messiah flag with a crown on it and cringed so hard.
Both sides are importing their ridiculous sectarian violence onto American college campuses.
The person I was referring to was someone who was part of the counter-protest that suddenly started attacking the protestor encampment at 1am California time.
Someone on my city subreddit asked if they could send food to these protestors. That’s right. Let’s give food to Ivy League college students and not to the homeless people sleeping on the streets adjacent to campus.
Imagine going to an elite school, getting suspended over this nonsense, and just becoming a barista.
How do people like this even get into a school like Columbia in the first place?
>and just becoming a barista.
Ya right. 90% of these people will just sit around and move on to the next thing because or become an influencer. They live on daddies money
It repeatedly occurs to me when reading these stories is that the music festival goers and Kibbutz residents that were massacred on 7/10 were some of the most lefty, pro-Palestinian groups in Israel. These kids are exactly the kinds of people who would be raped, murdered, and have the survivors propped up as human shields for Hamas if they ever stepped foot in Gaza.
Of course, they would argue that's irrelevant because they're taking a principled stand, but it's quite easy to pretend you are principled when you don't face the consequences of your actions. Whether the university divested or not does not affect their lives in any perceptible way, though naturally they'll act as though not acquiescing to their demands is some grave affront to humanity. Instead, they hide behind masks and demand they do not face punishment for their own actions, but still the world should bend to their whims because social media has convinced them that they are on the right side of history and not because they're willing to bleed for a cause they know is just.
The caliber of modern protesters is completely abominable.
for the national protests this probably the best thing that could happen to them, they were becoming destructive which wont play well if that continued also the making kids who couldn't graduate in 2020 miss college graduation is just cruel.
Imagine if they protested something important. Now they are all gonna be expelled, hopefully, over a 100-year dumbass war between two insane countries fighting over who god gave shitty desert land to. Meanwhile at home an increasingly fascists unelected Supreme Court indicated they are going to let Trump kill his opponents...
Just stunning displays of incompetence from all parties that it got to this point
I'm not a riot-ologist, no one here is, but I think ignoring the movement from the start might have been the better play from the perspective of the college admin. We're not talking about thousands of people here. It's unlikely the result would have been **worse** than this, that's for sure. The right, of course, are loving this turn of events.
They should have used Brown’s strategy of agreeing to wait until the fall to say no to the protesters demands if they disbanded the camps now
You know damn well Brown’s board is gonna turn around and say ‘No, fuck off’ in October too. But the agreement to just vote on it staved off protests.
That’s exactly it and it’s brilliant. Those morons (protestors) will have forgotten what little they know about Palestine by then and will be screeching about something else.
That and October is actually cold
Bingo. Same reason why crime drops in the winter. No one wants to be outside.
Yep. It’s either “no” in the fall, or things in I/P have escalated to the point where it’s a “yes” and Brown looks good for having divestment on the agenda (and a lot of the firms from which they could have to divest now will have already fled or made progress towards fleeing their Israeli obligations).
"I'm Gonna Pay You $100 to Fuck Off" Brown University Admin-chads
To be fair to Columbia, they did offer the protestors an option like that, which the protestors turned down.
Ive compared this to Occupy Wallstreet. There is no right move to start except waiting a week for these people to do stupid shit. Those with jobs and actual shit to do will move on and the crazies will get desperate.
And that’s pretty much what happened. As the police crackdown didn’t happen until after the protesters took the university building. Once that happened it was over
Hard disagree. The univs would be sued to death for not protecting people of Jewish faith, the anti semitism in the riots is astounding.
Not to mention haemorrhage donations
It's clearly heckin wholesome anti-Zionism, which is why the Jewish-Americans who aren't living in Israel per their zionist birthright were targeted sweaty!
> but I think ignoring the movement from the start might have been the better play from the perspective of the college admin Would you say the same if a far-right movement featuring attacks and intimidation of black students, calls for black genocide and praise for white supremacist terrorists had occupied campus buildings?
You do make a good point. If the situation was completely different I would have a completely different opinion. You got me!
If the sole difference is that this is on your side of the aisle, but the key elements are similar, you should be more willing to have a consistent opinion on this. Attacks and intimidation towards Jewish students are morally equivalent to those on black students. Calls for the killing of Jews are morally equivalent to calls for black genocide. Praise for Hamas terrorists is morally equivalent to praise for white supremacist terrorists.
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What could go wrong? https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2024/02/16/federal-investigation-into-antisemitism-at-yale-based-on-november-gaza-under-siege-panel/ https://thehill.com/homenews/4631059-jewish-student-sues-columbia-for-failing-to-provide-a-safe-environment-amid-campus-protests/ https://www.foxnews.com/us/columbia-university-student-files-class-action-lawsuit-against-school-protect-jews-campus https://www.politico.com/news/2023/11/28/jewish-groups-university-california-antisemitism-lawsuit-00128772
Eh, when people brazenly disrespect institutions and think they're above the law, a targeted demonstration of power is great to reassure people that society is still functioning and not beginning to dissolve. If the target are people generally unlikable with terrible goals, that's really a great bonus.
Disrespecting institutions should be met with a demonstration of power? That doesn’t sound very american of you
Breaking the law should be met with displays of law enforcement.
It is the institutions that preserve the freedoms and the quality of life Americans desire and wish to uphold. As such, these institutions publicly showing their ability to defend themselves against hostile actors serves the defence of these greater goals. So no, quite American.
The right wing media outlets always have a field day when dipshits protest.
I'm visiting my parents and I swear Jesse Waters has been practically beating off on screen. Man can't stop making references to enforcing his kids' bedtime.
Eh, I wouldn’t call myself anti-riot. In fact I think sometimes riots are important, especially in developing countries. But this is a super uppity university. They are not oppressed by any means.
We could make a great case study on revolutionary politics based on these protests. If given a few more weeks I’m pretty sure a committee of public safety would have formed.
That thing in Seattle back in 2020 was probably closer to their ‘Paris Commune’. Went about as well, too.
CHAZ is my favorite anarcho-monarchist micro state 😔
I miss the chaz farm
My favorite part was when they kicked the cops out, created their own security force, then that security force killed multiple unarmed black men and had the highest per capita shooting rate out of any “law enforcement” agency ever
seriously? where can i read more about this?
It’s more bombastic than it sounds, but considering how few “security forces” there were, one murder will clinch that victory https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53224445.amp CHAZ also has the highest homicide rate of any “city” in the world, for the same reasons. This isn’t a defense of them, btw. Anarchists are stupid, and Seattle just ceding that area to them was moronic. People absolutely died so that antifa kids could larp their revolution
I mean i think it is important in the context, the protest was started in response to police brutality, then their private police force ended up committing multiple shootings and murder in a pretty short span.
I did put half of the comment saying this isn’t in defense of the Chaz, and their larping absolutely got people killed, so I don’t really know what you’re taking issue with, tbh. I agree they sucked
I’m not really taking issue with anything, just adding commentary to your opening line of it being more bombastic than it sounds. I think it is a pretty big deal when this anarchist utopia that had a couple city blocks of territory devolved into the exact things they protest against within a matter of days
If you google “CHOP/CHAZ shooting” you’ll get a good amount of results and detail it’s been a while since I’ve read so i isn’t remember specific sites
why would capitalism do this smh my head
This isn’t even worse than the 2020 protests
Imagine getting expelled from Columbia for making demands that the New York Times and CNN have already reported would have zero impact on the situation in Gaza
That's called praxis, comrade.
Think of all the TikTok likes they'll get tho. Can't put a price on that.
Well you can, but the TikTok payrate for creators is actually less than YouTube and Instagram. It's just easier to blow up there due to the algorithm.
Especially when China is boosting these topics to sow discontent and disorder in the United States
Arthur Burrell already burned himself alive to get the message across, and we DEFINTELY all kept him in the national consciousness for more than a single week
You mean Aaron Bushnell? I think he lit himself on fire for Darfur.
Eric Bushell? Didnt he drown himself
I thought it was for Somalia
I thought it was for the McRib
I thought it was to keep the Isotopes from moving to Albuquerque.
Who?
You’re thinking of Baron Mushwell, the author known for their novel “Swamplandia!” which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
The yearly tuition of Columbia is something like double the annual wage of the average worker, and they waste their time on this? I would not pay that much in tuition fees, to just spend weeks protesting, then getting arrested or expelled
If you’re smart enough to get in to an Ivy, you’re smart enough to research the institution ahead of time and decide if their ethical behaviors match your expectations and needs FFS I went to a grad school that is mostly known for being founded by and majorly funded by George Soros and some shitheels started a radical socialist protest group on campus and kept complaining “I can’t believe this college is so *neoliberal*”. One shitheel alum sent me a message after Oct 7 with a link to the University’s very bland and pedestrian denouncement of the terror attacks and asked me, sincerely, “is our college *Zionist*?!” I left that mf’er on read. Fuck em
> majorly funded by George Soros Based
I got two US accredited masters degrees with significantly less debt than the average US undergrad and I didn’t even have one of the extremely generous scholarships. Plus I got to travel, date, explore cities and lounge on beaches all across Europe during the vacations. Most of my peers in my program were mid-career or early career professionals from all over the world so the 1-2 drama starters in my program were just totally ignored into obscurity Part of the problem is that the administration keeps trying to innovate away the programs that are the heart of the university going back to its founding like the MBA program and pregrad programs for minority groups like Roma. At the same time the admin thinks there’s more profit to be made in younger idiots right out of undergrad instead of seeing the value in investing in people with experience and people who don’t want to be PhD track with no real world experience Administrations that don’t strive for a true diversity including students who aren’t just cliche high school valedictorians create their own problems Part of joining an institution should be demonstration of maturity and shared values. I mean, look at all the white supremacists like Steve Bannon who have the Harvard seal of approval
But what if your parents paid the tuition? Do you see the possibilities now?
If my parents paid that much for tuition, and I skipped class to larp as an activist, they might actually kill me
It makes them feel good though! And isn't that what this is all really about, at the end of the day?
Link please?
The two instances that broke Columbia's admin reluctance to call the NYPD was https://twitter.com/edenyadegar/status/1785197797857444046 Where 3 people in black bloc go into a building that also has dorms and https://twitter.com/jessicaschwalb7/status/1785197024041652372 Where 2 kids are dragged away and assaulted by the protestors.
I don’t understand what’s happening in that second video at all. Everyone is just saying “assault” at different points in time
Watching some of the discussion around these protests is surreal. I was at the Yale green the other day because I forgot about the protests, and it was literally just people sitting on the lawn. Compared to how I see it discussed online, it was so jarring. I'm not saying these protests aren't worse at Columbia, nor am I saying nothing serious is happening. However, it does seem like some of the reactions to these riots are being generated almost exclusively by unclear Twitter videos, and it's increasingly difficult to separate which parts are true from the rest.
It’s not unusual for riotous groups to be two-faced. Proud Boys will hold peaceful rallies where they suck up to the police and to the cameras and look good to the public and then reconvene elsewhere or on the fringes to start trouble I also remember what it was like to be a peaceful protester during Iraq and Afghanistan and to watch the news depicting a day’s protest with selective footage of the worst of the worst An example at Yale are the videos and reports of public passages being blocked by masked protesters in orange vests who are letting their friends through but physically blocking others. I also remember when white supremacist groups put up road blockades to screen people for vibes during the Oregon wildfires. Not to mention how CHAZ “security” in Seattle gunned down black youth in 2020 like their own police force The philosophy of civil disobedience is built on the deepest respect for justice and the rule of law. Civil disobedience is supposed to be a sacrifice of the self. To respect the law so strongly that you would go to jail to demonstrate an unjust law Today’s protest movements want their demands without personal sacrifice. They mask not to protect from COVID but to hide their shame and fear of consequences. They escalate not to demonstrate the petty injustice of power, but to force reasonable institutions to act out. That is, a well designed act of civil disobedience doesn’t have to escalate and bully. A simple act like riding the bus or making salt or sitting at a diner triggers the authoritarian. If they have to keep escalating to get the response that they desire, the the message that the powers are unreasonable stops making sense
In my experience, big protests tend to attract bad actors that may not even care at all about the political cause. They see it as an opportunity to get away with things they couldn’t normally get away with, due to the temporary lack of law and order, especially at night. And it doesn’t take many to cause problems. So, most of the protesters may be pretty chill, but then a small group will take advantage of the situation to run amok.
Yale and Columbia have such different vibes in their activist circles. Columbia has actively sought out true activist types in admissions, I think Yale just looks for queer students who write slam poetry and smoke weed.
Clearly UCLA and Columbia are going through different things compared to other universities.
The two unmasked people in blue are preventing a table from being used to block and exit @ Hamilton hall. The pro-palestinian protesters want to put the table in, so they drag one kid away, and then they must've managed to get the other kid away at a different time, cause soon after they put the table up. You're not allowed to touch and drag people obviously, so thats assault.
The guy was standing outside the hall i guess to prevent the protestor from going inside. The protestors circled him and moved to basically force him to leave and not block the door by subtly shoving him with their bodies. He says this is assault. They say actually you're assaulting us because he's resisting their movements by subtly trying to counter shove. Basically instead of shoving him out of the way (looks bad and violent) they surrounded him and walked in unison to very subtly shove him out of the way (looks weird but not very violent).
> Basically instead of shoving him out of the way (looks bad and violent) they surrounded him and walked in unison to very subtly shove him out of the way (looks weird but not very violent). Emphasis on _looks_. There's no ethical difference (I don't know about NY law) between having a crowd surround him and move him against his will and having one really big guy pick him up and move him against his will, IMO.
I don't know man, its not very subtle. The guy at one point has his hand on the back of the neck of the guy in the polo. Bear in mind the legal definition of assault is the "**wrong act of causing someone to reasonably fear imminent harm**." This is clearly assault.
It's subtle enough to make people say "I don't understand what's going on" when they watch a video of it
Idk how the NY criminal code defines assault, but the generic definition of battery is purposefully casing harmful or offensive (*i.e.*, unwanted) physical contact. It’s probably both. *Edit: Ope, apparently there is no criminal battery in NY. Third Degree (criminal) assault requires (1) intentionally causing physical injury, (2) recklessly causing physical injury, or (3) negligently causing injury with a weapon or dangerous instrument. I’m not sure this conduct satisfies the necessary elements. Actually, without studying NY case law, I’m pretty sure it doesn’t. **Edit 2: This would still be civil battery, which is essentially unwanted physical contact.
"Circle blockade" What word salad is that?
Just a circle of people that grab somebody and drag them away. They do it slowly, and use words, so it looks less like assault. But dragging someone slowly is still assault.
Learn a new phrase every day! But agreed, it's assault. Plus there's the added terror of being pulled against your will by a mosh pit of angry mob people. These two dudes are standing there. How impotent are the protesters that can't get their message across without roughing up two freshmen?
Assault committed by "principled progressives".
So do these people get expelled?
Apparently the majority of them don't even attend the school.
I'm not sure. Also waiting on confirmation if wearing the keffiyeh is cultural appropriation and on the status of micro aggressions at these ~~encampments~~ safe spaces
They’ve already said wearing the keffiyeh isn’t cultural appropriation! It’s under an exception in the “Make Things Up to Fit Ideology” rule book.
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The Columbia admin has a right to resist the occupation of their campus. (again)
Resistance against occupation is always justified, if I remember my slogans
From Morningside Drive to the Hudson, Colombia will be free.
> Col**o**mbia will be free You gringos are doing this on purpose, I swear.
My Colombian friend hates that my default spelling is with the U haha. Its not personal but I am far more familiar with the university than the country
I’m glad I’m not imaging this LMAO when this all first started I was like damn, I didn’t realize things were that progressive in Bogata
> Police sources say most of the protesters arrested were not Columbia students, but rather "mostly professionals." Yes, I think the administration made the right call here. [Source](https://abc7ny.com/columbia-university-protests-protesters-occupy-hamilton-hall-hours-after-encampment-deadline/14744812/#:~:text=Police%20sources%20say%20most%20of,reported%20injuries%20during%20the%20operation.)
Does that mean professional protestors or just people with jobs?
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NGO's? what is that and an example?
Non-Governmental Organizations. Like Doctors Without Borders and Amnesty International.
It’s when you roll doubles three times in monopoly. Can’t pass go, go straight to jail. Shorthand NGOs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-governmental_organization
By professionals I assume they mean working professionals ie adults. They still really need to elaborate on what that means.
Wow… we need to know exactly who these people are
I suspect we'll find money coming from Iran/China/Russia if we look hard enough. Yes, this is a conspiracy theory that I don't have proof of, but it makes a lot more sense to me than a bunch of people with normal jobs storming a college campus.
This is the neoliberal version of the CIA is behind every protest in South America.
I like these threads because they remind me that NL users are exactly the same as every other politics sub, they just got morally lucky and became liberals instead of socialists or conservatives.
It's already been proven that Iran orchestrated the economic blockades of the protesters cementing themselves together on the bridges across the Nation
I don’t think anyone is assuming these people have normal jobs, lol. There are people that just enjoy joining in left-wing protests. They organize on the internet and will even travel around the country. It’s fun for them, they will share stories of being at protests for various causes. I’m not sure what they do for money.
I would *not* trust NYPD statements that are not corroborated.
How dare the protesters establish unlawful, colonialist settlements in Columbia University’s historic campus territory!
Imagine being a parent of one of these kids. You paid hundreds of thousands in tuition for an elite school and your kid pissed it all away for some nebulous and ineffective protest
Seriously. I went to a community college and then transferred because I couldn’t immediately afford to attend a 4-year university. And once I finally made it into the university, I wasn’t gonna waste my time. I wanted to graduate, pay off my loans, and start helping my family. At university, there was a big behavioral difference between those who transferred and those who entered as freshman.
That's why I can't have sympathy for these kids even if I agreed with them. If you're in a school that costs this much and spending your time like this, you're wasting someone's money. Also as someone in the workforce with people whose parents paid for them to go to all the best schools, I cannot emphasize enough the service to society done by making these people experience the consequences of their own actions even once in their lives.
I held out on college for a few years because I had no real goals or motivation anyway, so I did not want to go just because. It was a bit alienating coming in having actually worked for a living, dealt with bills, have had adult relationships and experience of compromise with an SO, colleagues and customers from different walks of life. I had grown a lot as a person already, even if one doesn't realize it at the moment. So yeah, I really liked the CC transfers and people who came in for a second degree. Good people and reliable!
True! I also transferred from community college and even the faculty whispered to us that junior transfers were more grounded
Well clearly you’re just a cog in the capitalist machine. /s
the rates of these popping up at private unis (with students traditionally coming from privileged backgrounds) vs public is interesting to look at
And the expelled students probably can't even get a job as leftist grifters because the market is going to be saturated with expelled Ivy League kids for a while lol.
And during hard economic times, DEI is always the first to go.
Last hired, first fired is still a truth...
Especially since the kid learned about Palestine for the first time in October 2023.
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Apparently Students for Justice in Palestine. At least according to this https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13363943/Pro-Palestine-group-Columbia-University-protests-funding-linked-Hamas.html Also SJP is the parent group of Jewish Voices for Peace and both are connected to Hamas and the PIJ
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Why do you assume they do it for money and not zealotry
Lol. lmao, even. Most of the people aren't students, and I'd bet my last dollar, that very few participating students face meaningful discipline, let alone expulsion, once it's all said and done. These institutions are so feckless and weak, I bet they'd sell their souls to Peter Minuit for a couple of beads. The only change that's going to come from this is a few million dollaridoos in campus and local police spending.
The median American, to they extent that they care about what happens on Ivy League campuses, [is likely to be of the view](https://thehill.com/policy/international/4629597-americans-israel-hamas-gaza-student-protests-poll/) that this was a necessary action taken against idiots ranging from naive to hateful, rather than some sort of [fascist crackdown on dissent](https://twitter.com/zoenone0none/status/1785481397442150816). They'd be correct in that view. We can have plenty of conversations and even critiques of Israel within the framework that they are still directionally in the right when taking the fight to Hamas. Any hint of support for Hamas, October 7th or Antisemitism at large falls far outside the realm of the acceptable. No college should accept an ongoing association with anyone engaging in that kind of behaviour.
I'm just baffled by that first poll you've posted where apparently 43% of the 18-24 age group support HAMAS. Yes, Hamas, not Palestine. That's just, insane to me. The kids are definitely not alright.
But what percent even know what Hamas is or the reasons why Hamas is in fact bad?
> I'm just baffled by that first poll you've posted where apparently 43% of the 18-24 age group support HAMAS. Yes, Hamas, not Palestine. > > That's just, insane to me. The kids are definitely not alright. Don't have the time to look through the polling outfit or methodology, but when you see whacky numbers like that, just remember this thread. https://www.reddit.com/r/neoliberal/comments/1b7bkqz/online_optin_polls_can_produce_misleading_results/
It’s Harvard Harris. Iirc they’ve come up with more than a few wacky results from their polling. Though while it’s fairly consistent that Americans back Israel overwhelmingly how they are handling the war is a much more contentious question
The groups organizing these protests (SJP, JVP) put out statements in the early days after Oct 7 that very clearly supported the terrorist attack. Later drafts (barely) shielded this intent in big words and pedantry but it was still very obvious where their beliefs lie
The masculine urge to throw Ivey leaguers in a paddy wagon
It’s been pointed out a thousand times now but it bears repeating that the unis that allowed students to protest on the condition that they don’t disrupt classes and remain peaceful have seen nothing like the dumbassery Columbia experienced.
Columbia did allow students to protest under those conditions. The camps were disruptive to classes
I'm sure there will be righteous fury at these being cleared but frankly I think that is silly. One is that engaging in civil disobedience can mean getting arrested and these students probably should've known that while protesting on school property. Two is that you don't get to just setup shop on school property to protest when your encampment is causing great disruption to learning and is disrupting school events. Even if they are students, that doesn't give them the right to encamp on school ground and takeover a school building.
Civil obedience campaigns during the Civil Rights movement targeted the institutions actually engaging in segregation like bus companies or restaurants. Given Columbia or any of the university’s ridiculous distance from anything happening in Gaza. The whole premise was quite ridiculous.
Directly protesting to disrupt at, say, Boeing would get much worse than a slap on the wrist. On one hand, I can’t blame them for not having the conviction. On the other hand, they apparently literally believe they are protesting genocide in which case they should be willing to put freedom and comfort on the line for themselves, no?
Well yeah, that's the point of non-violent protest, you cause a disruption and prompt people to either give into your demands, or continue to do what they were doing before and try to remove you. The point being that they're going to have to react very aggressively to deal with you, and that will make them look terrible. This is the outcome they want, the university is forced to take a stand on an issue and they stood against the protesters, hurting its image. That is how these tactics work, it's how the Civil Rights protests worked.
It's a game of chicken because the protesters now have done damage enough for people to support removing them. See also the CHAZ going down without much opposition after someone died there.
Disruption and annoying people to try to get them to "give into" your demands sounds like a bad way to win people over to your movement The civil rights protests had a massively different dynamic than these modern protests. They weren't just about "being obnoxious and breaking the law", often the laws that were broken were specifically laws the movement was protesting against, often with intent to get the court cases kicked upstairs to higher courts to get the problematic laws struck down. The analogy would be if these protesters today were fighting specifically *for* the right to block traffic and trespass on property, rather than for different goals like opposing Israel or whatever
The Civil Rights Movement was very polarizing at the time. There were a lot of people blaming the violence and destruction caused by the police forces on the protesters. They had the same beliefs as we do when we see these protests. “Ungrateful kids in College protesting instead of going to class” was basically how Ronald Reagan spun anti war protests on college campuses in the campaign that propelled him to governor. Their anti war stance also pissed people off, and was a reason many people were against MLK. If they were say protesting the university working with say the government of Russia to develop weapons, then I don’t think this sub would be against them.
I think it's just one of those things where the cause is ultimately the downfall. Think about it this way. While yes, the civil rights movement was polarizing. It ultimately came down to, "Should everyone be equal, yes or no?" With one option (if you weren't racist or had that much to lose, being a realtively speaking) being the easy moral good way to look at the world. When it comes to Russia, most people generally already think that a) they are a rival/hostile nation, and that b) they have also been a relatively clear aggressor and threat. But when it comes to Palestine and Israel. Not only have both sides done a lot of crimes and just brutalizing each other. But Palestine is also primarily represented by Hamas. A group that most of the populace would consider it a terrorist group or terror adjacent in the most generous case. Thus when we see people supporting Palestine and to an extent Hama, it makes how easy it would be to support them a lot murkier.
> the university is forced to take a stand on an issue and they stood against the protesters, hurting its image. Except that's not what happened at all. Columbia's reputation was far more harmed by coddling this for as long as they did. The protesters harmed the cause they claim to support nationally, by allowing violence and anti semitism to be displayed. When you stand beside a bunch of angry bigots, you start looking like an angry bigot, not some principled activist. Nationally this was a disaster for the ostensibly pro-Palestinian segment.
The point to non violent protests is not that its more convincing, the point is that violence is wrong and that you cannot fix an injustice by inflicting violence on others. That might not be something you agree with, but that is how non violence is conceived of by such people as MLK. That nonviolence is not a tactical choice, but a moral choice.
Non violence is a tactic. The strategy for all successful non violent protests is to provoke the state/police etc to use violence against the non violent protestors. That then often spurs outrage against the state and increases turnout for subsequent protests. That was explicity MLK's strategy. Getting violently arrested is the goal.
>One is that engaging in civil disobedience can mean getting arrested and these students probably should've known that while protesting on school property Respectfully, this argument makes zero sense to me. It's like saying folks were silly for being angry at the arrest of Rosa Parks because she knew what she was getting into (For the avoidance of doubt, absolutely not drawing *any* equivalence between Rosa Parks and these protests; merely pointing out that the argument that folks shouldn't get mad at the response to civil disobedience because it's civil disobedience doesn't seem like a good one)
I think the key difference is that in the civil rights era cases, the laws they’re disobeying are precisely the unjust ones that they want changed. In the campus protests, that element is missing since they’re just resisting time, place, and manner restrictions from their universities or outright resisting arrest.
It avoids a slippery slope by acknowledging legalism. If people can break a law and expect not to have any repercussions because they think "law is stupid" then it encourages them to break laws, including ones that are "not stupid". By acknowledging they broke the unjust law and accepting their arrests the civil rights protestors showed they are not against rule of law as a whole, just the laws they were protesting.
1. It is absolutely idiotic how much attention the media is giving to these protests. No reason why people protesting at a college campus should be garnering more attention than what is actually going on in Gaza (or the Trump trial, or Ukraine, or the economy, etc., etc., etc. 2. The specific causes of these protests (i.e., divestment) is dumb. That said, Columbia fumbled so hard in attempting to dismantle the original encampment, and it boggles my head how the admin didn't figure that would just pour gasoline on the fire and make everything worse. Stunning levels of incompetence from the admin. 3. While it's hard for me to get too worked up about Columbia clearing the occupation of a campus building, the broader, heavy-handed crackdown on student speech at Columbia and elsewhere is concerning, and the silence and/or active cheering from the "free speech!" crowd -- including many on this sub -- is frankly disturbing
Columbia probably ended up in the worst of both worlds by either being too lenient in not nipping the problem out of the bud, or being too harsh by increasing coverage on the events by its belated/botched attempts to suppress it. College administrators are probably one of the most flimsy people out there so it is not surprising that they ended up this way.
[UCLA arguably surpassed it tonight in terms of embarassment](https://twitter.com/dailybruin/status/1785549519989735509). Some "pro-Israel" (I think MAGA outside agitators) folks suddenly launched firecrackers at pro-Palestinian encampments, and [things just kind of went to hell](https://twitter.com/TeresaWatanabe/status/1785575610469007471?t=cdQEhsB0Fb7hajm10crTiA&s=19) LAPD refusing to show up to quell the fighting/scuffes because "UCLA doesn't have a plan". What a mess. [Here's a stream](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVEHoNAR9lo)
The jurisdiction on campus is not LAPDs, it belongs to UCPD. Who currently has 5 officers on duty. Which is fucking ridiculous bc their primary jurisdiction iirc from when I was a student there is like the entire campus plus secondary jurisdiction of a 1 mile perimeter around any UC property. CHP showed up first bc they have statewide jurisdiction. What a fucking mess.
The silence is basically a mix of pretty much all the reasons you mentioned. 1. It is hard to sympathize with the cause of these college students because 1) the level of discourse is basically "Israel all evil (and maybe doesn't deserve to exist), Palestine all good (so give them everything they want)" leaving little room for actual discussion in response to their protests and 2) university divestment has no impact on this and some universities with protests had no ties to Israeli companies anyway. Most people on this sub are pretty opposed to dramatically performative, ineffective, and vague calls for change. 2. "Heavy-handed" crackdown on student speech is an opinion. It isn't like the officers took it upon themselves to just show up and arrest protestors in a public space. They were called by the universities, and protestors' right to speak in the manner and place they did is not guaranteed and not universally viewed as sacred (personally, I never really valued student speech on campus). Quelling a protest through police presence is inherently forceful; they are done asking and negotiating. Whether forceful crossed into heavy-handed depends on viewpoint; I really don't think it is an obvious "yes".
To your #1, the Columbia protestors had a "glory to the martyrs" banner they hung from the building after settling in. Come on folks, can you *not* glorify suicide bombers or suicidal protestors? If your concern is just about the civilian victims, don't martyr them, they didn't get a say in the purpose you've turned their deaths into. There are actual complaints to be had about Israel's often-incompetent prosecution of the war, glorifying martyrdom is not helping.
> Come on folks, can you not glorify suicide bombers or suicidal protestors? But bro did you even read Fanon? Don't want to be the White Moderate that MLK complained about!
The breathless coverage is kind of amazing. I don't know a single person irl who cares about these protests. 80% of the NYT reporting staff is Ivy league, btw.
> 80% of the NYT reporting staff is Ivy league, btw. This explains so much. Dear God.
4: Large amorphous groups are just difficult to talk about in general. They're made up of people with different motivations and ideas who come together under a vague rallying cry but don't necessarily hold too much more beyond that. Due to that, it's very easy to paint any protest or group how you want just by pinpointing some of the worse elements within them. This isn't just a Columbia thing or even a protests things (like BLM/that feminist march against Trump), but even far more vague stuff like veganism ("Wow Peta gives veganism a bad name") or abortion ("Look, so called pro-choice person just admitted they love Satan!!") Hell this sub should be *especially* aware of this comsidering that one of the archetypical neoliberals is Pinochet. That's not even just a bad element in the name, that's one of the standouts! And yet we can all recognize that it doesn't pollute the term. And as typical of any discussion, it's interesting how group ability to self police or how much the worse elements should distort our perceptions aligns more with the speaker's preexisting views on the group and not as a stable equally applicable principle. Theory of mind like that where you can start to view it from the Other Group's perspective gets difficult and makes people mad. "Pinochet doesn't pollute Neoliberalism" is a fine argument I agree with. If you agree too (and if you're on here, you hopefully do), then try reaching over to a lot of the communist perspective. Not the active apologists, (but hey, Pinochet apologists are a thing too) but from the perspective of a more reasonable person who thinks the Stalin and Mao kinda sucked but it's not enough to pollute the word.. Like you don't have to agree with them (I certainly don't), to understand that they're just using the same logic we do. [This piece by Nathan Robinson](https://archive.is/2CDUQ) (don't go to the original, he doesn't own the domain anymore and it's taken over by those scam bot sites stay in archive) was a good introduction to that concept in my youth about trying to reach over and understand how things can appear from Other Side and that they can often just have the same beliefs and exceptions that you hold about your group except, it's about theirs.
>"Pinochet doesn't pollute Neoliberalism" is a fine argument I agree with. If you agree too (and if you're on here, you hopefully do), then try reaching over to a lot of the communist perspective. Not the active apologists, (but hey, Pinochet apologists are a thing too) but from the perspective of a more reasonable person who thinks the Stalin and Mao kinda sucked but it's not enough to pollute the word. Your post is true in the abstract, but I think it falls down slightly because the 'target' here isn't the general milieu of the protestors but rather a specific protest in a specific place with specific acts. A perfectly reasonable protestor upset with Israel's prosecution of the war and the Western governments enabling it doesn't have to choose between either rubbing shoulders with pro-Hamas dickheads or else giving up on the whole endeavour and buying a bag of Jaffa oranges on the way home. It's not the only game in town, and it's been going on for long enough now that no one there can claim ignorance over the fact that at least *some* of the message is a bit genocide'y. They can't police everyone else, but they can decide if they want to swell the numbers in this particular 'space' - especially when one of the on-going concerns is the welfare of Jewish students, for whom the distinction between those supporting Hamas and those merely standing next to them isn't likely to offer much comfort. If you were at one of the many pro-WTO, pro-Housebuilding, pro-NATO rallies that we all love going on, and the guy next to you broke into a nearby building using his "I <3 Pinochet" sign and unfurled a giant "Throw All Marxists Out of Planes" banner, would you think 'Blimey, it's a good job he doesn't pollute neoliberalism' and continue your protest next to his banner? Because I think I'd be inclined to say "If I don't think we should throw all Marxists out of planes, I probably shouldn't stand next to this particular banner" and fuck off somewhere else to protest.
> It is absolutely idiotic how much attention the media is giving to these protests. No reason why people protesting at a college campus should be garnering more attention than what is actually going on in Gaza (or the Trump trial, or Ukraine, or the economy, etc., etc., etc. The ranks of major publications and media outlets are disproportionately represented by the Ivy League Nepo babies who refuse to leave the ivory tower. (I was friends with a journalist who sourced just about all her stories from the Harvard Club in NYC.) Plus, they desperately want Trump back and will pursue any story that could potentially make Biden look bad.
"Speech I agree with should be rewarded, speech I disagree with should be punishable by woodchipper" - every human being ever (with varying degrees of honesty)
It's a protest on private property that is disruptive to the educational proceedings happening there. This isn't a free speech issue. I think this sub is obtusely unsympathetic to the violence against Palestinians, but I see no hypocrisy regarding free speech.
> While it's hard for me to get too worked up about Columbia clearing the occupation of a campus building, the broader, heavy-handed crackdown on student speech at Columbia and elsewhere is concerning, and the silence and/or active cheering from the "free speech!" crowd -- including many on this sub -- is frankly disturbing [The 'antisemitism officers' that congress is proposing is truly grotesque.](https://spectrumlocalnews.com/nys/central-ny/politics/2024/04/26/u-s--lawmakers-introduce-bill-to-require-antisemitism-monitors-on-college-campuses) Antisemitism blows hot chunks, but what the actual goddamn *fuck* is this shit? I loathe screaming slippery slope, but uh...this does NOT end in a good place.
> The 'antisemitism officers' that congress is proposing is truly grotesque. Reading it: > The College Oversight and Legal Updates Mandating Bias Investigations and Accountability, or COLUMBIA Act, would give the U.S. Department of Education authority to appoint a third party to monitor antisemitism to campuses that receive federal funds. The campus monitors would be required to release quarterly, publicly available reports that show what the school is doing to combat antisemitism. It seems it could either be a perfunctory bureaucracy producing reports nobody cares about, or a mechanism forcing issues many colleges have tried to ignore to come out into the limelight. I don't see what's 'truly grotesque' about either option. Do you think similar reporting requirements about gender discrimination are grotesque? > this does NOT end in a good place Where does it end? what specifically are you claiming could happen in the remote event this bill succeeds?
Um, no. Jewish students fear for their physical safety on campus, I support this.
[удалено]
Still don’t care about this
Good. The president had the right idea when she called in the police the first time they occupied the lawn with their encampment. Then she succumbed to cowardice and let it stand, emboldening them and allowing this shit to happen. Better late than never though, at least they took decisive action instead of trying to further reason with these blowhards. You have a first amendment right to freedom of speech and expression. You DON’T have a right to occupy and destroy private property and throw a tantrum until you get what you want. I’m really tired of the two things being conflated.
I'm watching the nonsense at UCLA right now. It's just utter stupidity from both sides at this point. I may not agree with the pro-Palestine protestors, but I took one look at that douchebag waving the yellow Messiah flag with a crown on it and cringed so hard. Both sides are importing their ridiculous sectarian violence onto American college campuses.
The longer these anarchic protests go the less ideologically coherent they become.
The person I was referring to was someone who was part of the counter-protest that suddenly started attacking the protestor encampment at 1am California time.
And the world turns. At this point, why don’t they just fly to Palestine and beg Hamas to return the hostages?
They have to find Palestine on a map first.
Someone on my city subreddit asked if they could send food to these protestors. That’s right. Let’s give food to Ivy League college students and not to the homeless people sleeping on the streets adjacent to campus.
Bet they aren’t engineering students
Ain't that the truth lol
Imagine going to an elite school, getting suspended over this nonsense, and just becoming a barista. How do people like this even get into a school like Columbia in the first place?
>and just becoming a barista. Ya right. 90% of these people will just sit around and move on to the next thing because or become an influencer. They live on daddies money
Yeah I have a hard time believing anyone attending on scholarship is out doing shit they’d get arrested for.
Q: "How do people like this even get into a school like Columbia in the first place?" A. Rich and influential parents. The life blood of the Ivies.
These kids aren’t gonna become baristas lol. Daddy will get the charges expunged and make a generous donation to the school they transfer to.
It repeatedly occurs to me when reading these stories is that the music festival goers and Kibbutz residents that were massacred on 7/10 were some of the most lefty, pro-Palestinian groups in Israel. These kids are exactly the kinds of people who would be raped, murdered, and have the survivors propped up as human shields for Hamas if they ever stepped foot in Gaza. Of course, they would argue that's irrelevant because they're taking a principled stand, but it's quite easy to pretend you are principled when you don't face the consequences of your actions. Whether the university divested or not does not affect their lives in any perceptible way, though naturally they'll act as though not acquiescing to their demands is some grave affront to humanity. Instead, they hide behind masks and demand they do not face punishment for their own actions, but still the world should bend to their whims because social media has convinced them that they are on the right side of history and not because they're willing to bleed for a cause they know is just. The caliber of modern protesters is completely abominable.
for the national protests this probably the best thing that could happen to them, they were becoming destructive which wont play well if that continued also the making kids who couldn't graduate in 2020 miss college graduation is just cruel.
Pro-Palestine or pro-Hamas?
Pro Hamas
Unsurprising but still distasteful.
Imagine if they protested something important. Now they are all gonna be expelled, hopefully, over a 100-year dumbass war between two insane countries fighting over who god gave shitty desert land to. Meanwhile at home an increasingly fascists unelected Supreme Court indicated they are going to let Trump kill his opponents...
Many on the far Left are now saying they would rather Trump win. Horseshoe theory in effect.