Merged Protests disrupt college campuses / Campus Protests

[Donal]

Engaging in vandalism and destruction should HARDEN the views of the colleges, against giving in to any demands.

I 100% support peacefully and civilly convincing universities to divest and disengage from Israel. AND I 100% support colleges telling kids who engage in property destruction and vandalism to **** off and enjoy their time in prison.

It ain't the protestors driving APCs into school buildings.

 

[theprestige]

It ain't the protestors driving APCs into school buildings.

They're too busy destroying the buildings from the inside.

 

[Donal]

Ya, where do they think they are? The Capitol Building?

 

[theprestige]

Ya, where do they think they are? The Capitol Building?

Portland State University library is closed for repairs until the fall. This is from damaged caused by the protesters themselves, not by the police efforts to remove them. It's just straight up vandalism of the commons.

At least TGZ is actually making an effort to try to rationalize the destruction, even if he's clearly no more aware of the nature and scope of the destruction than you are.

 

[d4m10n]

Ya, where do they think they are? The Capitol Building?

This is a fascinating comparison.

Angry protesters nursing a profound sense of injustice occupy government owned buildings in order to prevent the business of the day from going forward and thereby bring about policy reversal.

Whether you think this is acceptable or not may require further elaboration.

 

[angrysoba]

This is a fascinating comparison.

Angry protesters nursing a profound sense of injustice occupy government owned buildings in order to prevent the business of the day from going forward and thereby bring about policy reversal.

Whether you think this is acceptable or not may require further elaboration.

I think attempting to draw the parallels between January 6th and the students are way off. January 6th was specifically about trying to block the democratic transfer of power. That makes it a much bigger deal than the mere destruction of property.

The destruction of property is wrong in both cases, of course, and it is pretty silly to expect no repercussions for that.

That said, the right to protest even to the point of annoying other students and faculty on campus should be protected.

Some of the events seem to have been met with heavy-handed policing, and in some cases this is because certain politicians want to be seen to be responding to anti-Israel protests.

 

[angrysoba]

Checked it out on Google Books and it's pretty sympathetic to terrorists. On page 18 they have a picture of "Wafa Idris, the first female 'suicide bomber' or self-martyr... before her mission to a Jerusalem shopping center."

This is part of a section talking about how feminist terrorist organizations are. No, I'm not kidding. Talking directly about Idris and others:

"...women have been front-line actors and consequently, pioneer recasters of gender roles."

Note as well the scare quotes around suicide bomber and the corrected term of self-martyr (which conveniently ignores the fact that on her "mission", Idris killed an elderly Israeli man and injured over 100 others). It also ignores the fact that the reason Idris was willing to become a murderer was because she was depressed because her first cousin (and husband) divorced her when she couldn't get pregnant, and as a divorced woman she had no real place in Palestinian society.

This is just missing the point.

What the students are doing is not terrorism, and the fact that you can find a book on campus about terrorism (even if it is insufficiently condemnatory about terrorism*) doesn't prove otherwise.


(*I notice I have a book by the same author about the Easter Rising. I suppose if the students had read that they would be wearing balaclavas (instead of keffiyeh), flying the Irish tricolor and blowing up cars with semtex).

 

[Roboramma]

It is funny how it is only one side that has to be 100% peaceful.

the college is allowed to employ force to remove students, but students are not allowed to use force not to be removed.

It is always thus. those who can call on the cops get to do as much violence and property damage as they want, and those who can't get their stuff destroyed, get beaten and killed.

And unless it affects YOU directly, you can't see your hypocrisy.

This sounds like you are promoting the view that the state should not have a monopoly on violence? I think that's actually one of its most important functions.

Of course sometimes that monopoly on violence is misused, and morally speaking if someone responds to such injustice with violence in self-defense I think that can be entirely justified. If a police officer starts to beat you for no reason and you fight back, you shouldn't be charged with resisting arrest, he should be charged with assault. But this isn't because the state monopoly on violence is illegitimate, it's because injustice is illegitimate.

To argue that the protestors have a right to violently resist police removal you need to argue that the police removal is itself an injustice. Generally this would be something like because their removal of the protestors is itself illegal (though I can imagine cases where the police are following the law, but laws are unjust). Another possibility is that the removal itself is justified but the police used excessive force in executing that removal. In that case some response on the part of the students could be reasonable.

Those aren't the things you argued though, instead you at least seem to be claiming that the monopoly on violence is itself the problem.

 

[Stacyhs]

like 3/4 of these posts are just boomer facebook memes and "GET OFF MY LAWN!"

Can you be more specific and give actual examples, with links, of these posts that are "just boomer facebook memes"?

 

[gabeygoat]

Here at Portland State, it's known that many of the protesters are not students. The city is blessed with a perennial class of protesters, who are always down to clown.

I don't see that it matters that much if non students are also protesting. It's a public university

 

[Gulliver Foyle]

To be effective, protests need to be noticed. Getting notice by disruption and vandalism tends to be counterproductive - the resentment far outweighs the benefit of getting noticed.

The history of recent protests in the US puts the lie to this. Right wing protests which are always violentand destructive get narya wordof censure until they go after the people they are supposed to be supporting whereas the left wing protests, the vast majority of which are peaceful (and the majority of the violence is caused by right wing thugs "counter-protesting") get smeared with all sorts of imprecations, simply becauseof the protestors political alleigance.

It's become increasingly clear over the last few weeks that the US right to frre speech has an invisible rider "as long as it's reich-wing".

 

[d4m10n]

I think attempting to draw the parallels between January 6th and the students are way off. January 6th was specifically about trying to block the democratic transfer of power. That makes it a much bigger deal than the mere destruction of property.

The protesters in both cases are supporting the side which desires less democracy and more authoritarianism; the main difference is where in the world such policies will be implemented.

 

[Donal]

Portland State University library is closed for repairs until the fall. This is from damaged caused by the protesters themselves, not by the police efforts to remove them. It's just straight up vandalism of the commons.

Oh no. That is certainly worse than a US ally using US weapons and support to wipe out an entire university and education system.

At least TGZ is actually making an effort to try to rationalize the destruction, even if he's clearly no more aware of the nature and scope of the destruction than you are.

Its more of an "I don't care" issue. I value human life more than property.

 

[Donal]

Can you be more specific and give actual examples, with links, of these posts that are "just boomer facebook memes"?

75% of the ones before I made that comment...almost 3 weeks ago.

 

[angrysoba]

The protesters in both cases are supporting the side which desires less democracy and more authoritarianism; the main difference is where in the world such policies will be implemented.

Huh??!?!?

That's an extremely dim-witted rationalization for your absurd false equivalence.

It's far more likely that the student protesters are, for the most part (though with obvious exceptions), not protesting in favour of authoritarianism, but simply protesting because they have seen horrific images of bombing on their screens.

Student protesters also protested America's war in Vietnam, but not because (with some exceptions) they were just in favour of Communism, but because they were against the war.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

A 100% peaceful protest on public land is a lot less likely to attract the attention of the police.

"less likely" aka, "when can use force against them whenever we want".

You are admitting that one side gets to use violence and the other might or might not be the victim of violence if they are deemed 1000% peaceful by those willing to use violence against them.

BTW, the police carry guns, do you think protesters should arm themselves too?

No, hence the moral right, nay obligation, to cause monetary harm to those in a position of responsibility and power to fix the issue being protested against/for. This is rarely the cops, though burning down an empty Police Station is widely accepted as an appropriated reaction to police violence.

You don't fight fire with fire, you do it by being smart and make sure that the fire burns whatever the people in charge of the fire department hold most dear.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

I can understand and forgive the wear and tear that arises from having to deal with a sit-in or a lockdown.

I can even understand and forgive sabotaging the tools of oppression.

I can't understand just smashing up the commons - things like the city's only community computer resource center set up for disabled access - until you get your way.

Or rather, I can understand it fine, just not in the context of TGZ's idea of ethical destruction in the service of a good cause. When armies do this, it's a war crime. When insurgents do this, it's terrorism. When protesters do this, it's in exactly the same moral category as those two things. And that's why I don't forgive it.

this is nonsense.

We are not, never ever, talking about critical infrastructure.
Nor are we talking about threats to lives - unlike what Companies have done since forever - hire thugs to hurt and kill protesters and strikers.

The entire point is to cause monetary pain to the group responsible for the pain to the protestors. So much monetary pain that they realize that it is cheaper to accede to the demands than pay for Pinkertons and scabs.

 

[d4m10n]

That's an extremely dim-witted rationalization for your absurd false equivalence.

I am indeed dim-witted this early in the a.m. but you should consider addressing the argument instead of the arguer.

It's far more likely that the student protesters are, for the most part (though with obvious exceptions), not protesting in favour of authoritarianism, but simply protesting because they have seen horrific images of bombing on their screens.

If you march with people who are openly supporting the violent expulsion of Jews by any means necessary, from the river to the sea, you are supporting an inherently authoritarian project. Hamas may or may not be the specific form that authoritarianism project takes, but it will be some form of theocratic rule which excludes Semitic monotheists who follow the wrong holy text.

 

[Hercules56]

Ya, where do they think they are? The Capitol Building?

this is nonsense.

We are not, never ever, talking about critical infrastructure.
Nor are we talking about threats to lives - unlike what Companies have done since forever - hire thugs to hurt and kill protesters and strikers.

The entire point is to cause monetary pain to the group responsible for the pain to the protestors. So much monetary pain that they realize that it is cheaper to accede to the demands than pay for Pinkertons and scabs.

So you condone violence and destruction of property and vandalism by protesters?

 

[8enotto]

It's worth a look at the players here too. Kids who worked straight out school in blue collar jobs or service jobs have few fantasy ideals about the world. It's a tough place and winning is hard.

College grads as well as college students postpone the reality kick to the head early on and spend years getting spoonfed fantastic ideals of what could be or what thier professor might want to be a reality despite the big outside world not working like that.

Come a war and OMG people, innocent people, are getting dead as collateral damage to two powerful groups trying to kill each other. Never mind one is actively using them as a human shield.

The blue collar kid has a better understanding of taking losses out of personal experience, the college kids latch on to a stupidly simple concept that them protesting on campus in CA will somehow affect two warring factions in the middle east that are currently burying family and friends to prove whom is right.

They think they can change the opinions of top government agencies that chose to support one side or the other. Maybe they can, most times it fails miserably.
Meanwhile parts of a campus are getting smashed up, the educational process of the college is disrupted and parents are still paying tuition for Jr to show his support for terrorists putting babies up as a human shield.

Hint, for right or wrong the government has much better Intel on what's going on there than Billy and Jane on the campus. They act on interests of a greater scale of worldwide risk in many cases. Yeah, somebody is gonna die in the crossfire meanwhile. It's impossible to save everyone.

Most times Billy and Jane benefit far more from the actions of thier government long term than what the cause the cut classes for would ever do for them.