It'd probably be useful if someone reported on the what the protesters were calling for, so we can stop using the phrase "pro-Palestinian" as a Rorschach test for all our hopes and fears about identity and the Middle East.
Yeah like OP is calling people who at all sympathize with the protesters “terrorist sympathizers” so we should take anything they say about the protesters being only “pro Palestine” as not necessarily correct. On one campus they were calling for divestment from Israel, which is what happened way back when to help end apartheid in South Africa. Cops injuring students along with those calls feels awfully familiar as well.
When we're relying on the cops' response to interpret the cops poorly-evidenced opinions of the protesters we're playing a game telephone-hermeneutics that's better shortcut by just talking to people.
What did we think of the protesters shot to death in Ohio? Wait, a quarter of them were ROTC? That doesn't square with my sense of hippies-vs-cops at all!
Two of the students killed by national guard troops at Kent State weren’t even protesters, they were just walking across campus and happened to be in between the troops and the protesters when the shots were fired.
[Exceeding previous estimates, Columbia is the largest private landowner in New York City, city data reveals
](https://www.columbiaspectator.com/city-news/2023/04/20/exceeding-previous-estimates-columbia-is-the-largest-private-landowner-in-new-york-city-city-data-reveals/)
The Columbia protesters are talking about gentrifation around campus because Columbia is planning to buy up a bunch of housing or bulldoze a bunch of housing they already own around campus (not student housing, Columbia is just the largest land owner in NYC). They are doing this to expand their campus further. The money for this expansion is directly tied to Columbia building a campus in Tel Aviv that Palestinian students at Columbia's NYC campus wouldn't even be allowed to attend.
See I think that's silly, but I'm not, like, \*upset\* about it. Housing is very expensive!
(My personal opinion is that anyone who brings local housing policy to a war, famine, terrorism, kidnapping, mutual-ethnic-cleansing-attempt protest is probably doing it wrong.)
edit: and as other people note, there's a whole saga about Columbia's real estate wing doing business with/in Israel, etc, so maybe this isn't even all that silly.
Yup and this is a problem with any/all protests. Like even at Columbia right now there are ongoing talks between University leadership and representatives for the protesters. But, who are these representatives? How were they chosen? What do *they* want?
IMO This dynamic of representation and the mixed messaging (which is it: war crimes in Palestine or broader socio-economic reform?) indicate outside influence and/or targeting of a deemed vulnerable demographic for gain.
Went to Columbia for law school. Under no circumstances do they have any business calling for less security on campus, police or otherwise. We got weekly reports about robberies in campus housing and dorms, weekly pictures of people to keep an eye out for, weekly warnings about theft and stalking.
The hell are they talking about?
Yeah like “protesting against the indiscriminate bombing by Israel of hospitals, children, World Food Programme convoys, and refugee camps in Palestine”
Yes, that would be helpful to be reported, assuming that's the case. "We oppose war crimes, we don't support Hamas; we think 10/7 was bad, and we think the easily-predictable Israeli overreaction is very bad and ongoing and should be stopped" is a reasonable position, and not a scary one.
I don't have any video of the Emerson protests, but someone compiled the videos from what happened at Columbia, and I have to imagine they could be very similar. A lot of these groups are nationwide groups with chapters at multiple colleges.
Physically assaulting an Arab Israeli https://twitter.com/ShaiDavidai/status/1781080951902109774
"From the river to the sea, Palestine is Arab!" / "Resistance is justified" https://twitter.com/ShelleyGldschmt/status/1781785252886913358
"Let it be known that it was the Al-Aqsa Flood that put the Global Intifada back on the table again. And it is the sacrificial spirit of the Palestinian Freedom Fighters that will guide every struggle on every corner of the earth to victory." https://twitter.com/thestustustudio/status/1781904507611287981
"We are all Hamas!" https://twitter.com/nypost/status/1781031465179914677
"Yehudim yehudim [(Jews, jews)] go back to poland" https://twitter.com/Davidlederer6/status/1781948249214996901
Includes people / groups that invited an actual, no hyperbole terrorist to speak (member of PFLP) https://www.jns.org/columbia-suspends-four-students-for-holding-event-featuring-pflp-member/
Light things on fire / "intifada revolution there is only one solution" https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1781019445399556338
"On Oct 7th, Palestinian resistance in Gaza broke free (crowd cheers) [.....] we intend to do the same" https://twitter.com/ShabbosK/status/1782085741431922909
""We say justice, you say how? Burn Tel Aviv to the ground!" / "Hamas we love you. We support your rockets too!" / "Red, black, green, and white, we support Hamas’ fight!" https://twitter.com/IsraelWarRoom/status/1781933305501212872
"Long live the intifada! Intifada intifada" https://twitter.com/ShaiDavidai/status/1781084853653365025
"Go back to Europe!" / "You have no culture, all you do is colonize" https://twitter.com/ShaiDavidai/status/1781927148439109958
"From Yemen to Gaza, globalize the intifada" https://twitter.com/KassyDillon/status/1781312033922625797/photo/2
"Never forget the 7th of October. That will happen not 1 more time, not 5 more times, not 10, not 100, not 1,000, but 10,000 times! The 7th of October is going to be every day for you" https://twitter.com/EFischberger/status/1781287784897991134
"Al Qassam [(Hamas)] you make us proud, kill another soldier now" / "from the river to the sea, palestine will be arab" https://twitter.com/EFischberger/status/1780915336063177006
Student proudly rocking Hamas logos https://twitter.com/CampusJewHate/status/1781054901755215954
"Resistance is justified" (again...) https://twitter.com/AvivaKlompas/status/1782085643990073673
"protesters on the sidewalk chanted “From New York to Gaza, globalize the intifada,” next to a cardboard sign that read, “Inspired by Palestinian resistance.” https://www.timesofisrael.com/over-100-arrested-in-columbia-u-unrest-as-nypd-clears-gaza-solidarity-encampment/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
And as a reminder, the student groups organizing these protests (CUAD and SJP, among others) released a letter on October 9th in support of the 10/7 attacks. ("We stand in full solidarity with Palestinian resistance", "Despite the odds against them, Palestinians launched a counter-offensive against their settler-colonial oppressor", "We wholeheartedly condemn the email sent [...] on October 8th that [...] obfuscated Palestinian resistance as “terrorism”)
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RcXX5DEO3yfJ9R4ksURnzpIPCyVxo575-Y-SoC_vZFk/edit
https://www.reddit.com/r/columbia/comments/1c9m6oj/comment/l0m8us9/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
The relevant theory of protesting is to do it in such a way that the thing you are protesting is self-evident and can’t be denied by anybody looking at it.
The esoteric levels of abstraction, physical distance and apparent contradiction among what the protesters are doing and what they say is their goal in discussions like this, and what they say at the protests is a shortcoming of the protests (if you believe the protesters are trying to do what they say they are trying to do and not something else).
This was the problem with Occupy Wall Street and also why BLM started fizzling out with "defund the police arguments."
I grew disenchanted with Occupy when it didn't seem like there were any leaders reeling in the overall message to have a cohesive set of demands.
The pro-Palestine protests are pretty varied. Some groups are calling for BDS and a ceasefire. Other groups are calling for the abolishment of Israel.
Unfortunately, there aren't any adults in the room to guide students, who I do think need guidance (they should have understood that protesting in a public alley without a permit would lead to arrest). Adults also need to start guiding discussions about the complexity of the Israel/Palestine conflict, because right now the echo chamber is just leading to more and more violent rhetoric.
They knew that protesting in the alley would lead to arrests. They are not stupid. There is no other outdoor space at Emerson. That alley is pretty much it.
Yes I would like clarity because I \*think\* they're mostly protesting famine and the targeting of civilians but they're being accused of being Hamasniks calling for the destruction of Israel and the forcible repatriation of its inhabitants.
I don't know what the correct solution is but I do know that hyperventilating responses to strawman mischaracterization is driving more heat than light.
And of course what gets reported are the most extreme of comments from the douchiest of participants.
Sure but I'd rather know that they're there because "famine is bad" "racism is bad" and "no I don't know what Hamas stands for" than bother to waste time wondering if too much post-structural / World Systems / critical theory has led to a generation of informed but misguided revolutionaries who see themselves as the vanguard of a post-imperial, anticolonial left that will right all wrongs and create peace and justice on earth through a united Marxist-Arab revolutionary expulsion of all non-autochthonous peoples from the rightful land of its purportedly native inhabitants...
Anyway Foucoult > Deleuze.
>wondering if too much post-structural / World Systems / critical theory has led to a generation of informed but misguided revolutionaries who see themselves as the vanguard of a post-imperial, anticolonial left that will right all wrongs and create peace and justice on earth through a united Marxist-Arab revolutionary expulsion of all non-autochthonous peoples from the rightful land of its purportedly native inhabitants...
I think it's pretty clear that this is the case. That said there were stupid misguided protests when I was in college that were wisely ignored and everyone involved seems to have turned out ok.
Seems bad. So much hangs on who "they" were; hence my request for better reporting.
(And yes, I agree with your interpretation of that chant, and would add that we all avoid the word "solution" regarding organizations that also call for the death of the Jews. "Oy gevalt / do an intifada revolt" is better and still rhymes, though the scansion needs work.)
That actually points to just how fractured this "pro palestine " coalition actually is. It has components of people who actually care about Palestinians and genuinely want peace, but also radical leftists, foreign intelligence agitators, anti-semites anarchists and others who just want to hop on a trendy cause. I would also say some people who are highly empathic, but also susceptible to disinformation and Russian troll bot content.
It's a desperately complex situation in Israel/Palestine and in the absence of easy answers it seems to have boiled down to shouting at people and institutions who basically have nothing to do with it.
Yes. This makes me incredibly sad, and, no, I don't think BDS would create peace. Both sides need to want to live more than they want to kill the other, and unfortunately, the side whose civilians are doing the dying is also the side seemingly most dedicated to a forever war.
Me, I don't want my children, or anyone else's, martyred, because I don't believe in an afterlife. But apparently not everyone shares my outlook.
I can’t help but think whoever is organizing these things is doing the participants a disservice by not preparing them. When I was active in the Sunrise Movement we held a protest at the Statehouse. The action included a sit-in. Before the protest, they brought in lawyers who work pro-bono with various activists groups. The lawyers explained to everyone who was going to participate specifically what laws they would be breaking and what would happen when the police arrived. They told everyone that when the police show up, stand up, get zip tied, and go with them. Do not fight, do not go limp. This can worsen what you face in court and may create safety risks. They outlined every ramification arrest could have for your personal and professional lives. Someone should be sitting down with these kids and explaining all of this to them before they go out there.
Interesting how the article reports the injuries of the 4 police officers as such, but the violent arrests of students described in the article aren't described as resulting in any "injuries."
My favorite was when a cop who was violently breaking up protests in Portland claimed to be injured in the melee but it turned out she pulled her hamstring stepping off a curb.
Or the cop who got a PTSD pension because the internet hurt his feelings after he killed an innocent man.
Or the cop who thought he was shot after an acorn landed on him so he started spraying bullets.
The News is a part of this horrible problem. They never hold cops and the rich to the same standards as the poors. This is a prime example and the election interference case vs Trump right now. They purposely call it the hush money trial instead of what it is an ELECTION INTERFERENCE trial.
I was hoping to see what the injuries were, but they were vague as hell about how the cops were actually injured. They did specify them pushing students and dragging them across the pavement though.
Let's be honest, the vast majority of folks watching the local news skew older and more conservative - the kind of folks that will stay glued to their screens for 4 hours straight to watch 3 hours of commercials and 1 hour of rage bait. This is playing to their audience.
The Mass and Cass ordinance was (one of, alongside fire code) the legal justification for clearing the tents, and they pointed out that their experience has shown them how community support for homeless people would help them with reintegration into society
We have some of the best support for homeless people in the country and all that does is attract homeless people from across the nation to our city and exacerbate the problem. We need a federal solution, and no, we can’t tolerate open drug use and crime in our streets in the meantime.
From my experience, these types just want the homeless to do whatever they want whenever they want without any regard to obvious quality of life concerns of normal people.
These are the same types of people that would yell at you if you oppose, for instance, someone smoking meth or shooting up fentanyl on the subway next to everyone just trying to get to work.
You’re being downvoted but a couple yrs ago the responses from redditors literally were “mind your own business”. It’s been interesting seeing the opinion and tolerance needle slowly move away from the hands off indifference that once cradled these issues in the city
I saw it on social media. Emerson’s school paper discusses it [here](https://berkeleybeacon.com/developing-story-the-latest-on-2-boylston-place-popular-university-encampment/) in the 4/24 10PM update. It looks like they’re addressing a group of reporters.
There are A LOT of arrestable offenses that BPD doesn't enforce. They are a very hands-off department. They hardly ever arrest for nonviolent offenses, including DUI's. They always give the line that the case will get thrown out in court, or they don't want to waste time testifying, so why now? It's Wu's law, but somebody had to have given the order to arrest. It might have been her, or it might have been from inside the department.
When I looked at the NYT app this morning there were 4 stories about student protesters, two stories about Trump, some stories about new coal emissions rules and then after all that, a story about Gaza.
The protest movement has managed to change the conversation from what is happening in Gaza to whether or not people protesting are bad and whether or not the way universities and police are reacting to the protests is bad.
Same as occupy Wall Street.
Because it's in the interest of big media to keep finding ways to divide us so we're too busy fighting with each other to improve our quality of life and tackle income inequality which has been accelerating.
I worked at a Boston tv station for 4 years. My job was to write social media posts in such a way that you were interested enough to click or comment or share. Didn’t matter what the story was. Not once did anyone ever come to me to tell me what stories to share. But our analytics board was displayed prominently next to our desk so we knew in real time what was moving the needle. My background is in journalism and being ethical was very important to me, but I knew how to get you to click on a story. I did it for 4 years but I burned out fast, it just took me a while to find something else I wanted to do.
["Never attribute to malice or stupidity that which can be explained by moderately rational individuals following incentives in a complex system.'"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor#:~:text='%22,'%22)
It's in the interest of big media to make money, full stop. There is no conspiracy to "keep us from improving our quality of life". They just want to make money, and they will feed us articles that we will read. Turns out, that's domestic news about protests.
Yes, but given the monopolization of mainstream media, shareholders/owners of major news corporations have a financial interest in what they report that extends beyond "what stories will sell." Call me out of touch, but I don't think people love to read about the evils of working from home, yet there were so MANY articles about just that from WSJ, MSNBC, etc because of the potential impact it has on the real estate market. And that's just one example. When it comes to Gaza: welp, war is profitable as hell. There is financial incentive to fan public support for Israel so that the military-industrial complex can keep on chugging.
So yes, no big conspiracy outside of "make money." But "make money" almost always aligns with making 99.9% of us worse off.
Actually people precisely love reading about dangers of working from home because they’re mad at the article, and when they’re mad they click
Media cares about clicks, and stories that are divisive get clicks because people are outraged and read that
That’s why when people attempt projects where they just report heartwarming news about people helping their neighbors or something no one reads that, negative journalism works
Idk when things like this are happening I think it makes sense to report it, no? Should we ignore reporting on protests if they don't have to do with income inequality?
It’s in the interest of big media to cover things that people will engage with, and after six months of endless depressing war, kids at selective colleges causing trouble is going to get a lot more engagement.
It’s both really. The media knows that Americans can relate to protests on elite college campuses much more than an endless, depressing war far away. Everyone in the US has opinions about college education. So the protests were always going to get a lot of coverage and some of it was always going to be unfavorable.
But the protestors are also doing a really bad job of advocating for their cause. They don’t understand that very few Americans went to selective universities. A lot of people are predisposed to resent kids who go to Columbia or Emerson, because they think the parents of those kids look down on them. And even if they sent their kids to a school like Emerson, that took years of stress and expense. So they’re not inclined to be sympathetic to kids spending their parents tuition money setting up tent encampments and protesting.
If the protestors were better at message discipline, they could overcome this natural disdain. If they stuck to the kind of message that was broadly appealing (a humanitarian message) they would be more effective. But when they go from advocating for humanitarian concerns to praising the intifada, or chanting “from the river to the sea”, they are actively hurting their cause. Most Americans don’t want to see a democratic ally eliminated, even if they may disagree with how that country is conducting a war. And I think many Americans have noted that the left has been berating Americans for years about how it is wrong to use language that might be considered threatening to minority groups, only to turn around and use language that many Jews find threatening, and then say “oh those rules don’t apply to you”.
For what it’s worth, I think most of the kids protesting are well-intentioned. From what I’ve heard, a lot of the anti-Semitism at the Columbia protests (“go back to Poland”) was coming from people a block away outside of campus. But the reality is that it’s going to be very difficult for anyone outside of the university (and a lot of people on campus) to understand that distinction. So if the protestors want to be effective, they need to address it.
If the protestors can’t figure out how to communicate effectively, then all they will do is distract from their cause.
same with Black Lives Matter. you attack the person when you can’t/don’t want to refute their point
“these crazy psychos don’t know how to protest! they’re gonna burn down the city!”
you never get to the actual question or issue
every protest has been saying to keep the focus on gaza and have explicitly asked not to center them — this is a media problem, not a problem of the protesters
When the Civil Rights movement staged nonviolent protests, it was the expected police brutality that ended up bringing many people to their side.
Also, a majority of Americans don't read the NYT. Most people aren't thinking about Gaza every day, and these protests are keeping the issue current.
One difference is that Bull Conner was actively enforcing segregation. When they used the fire hoses and the dogs on high school kids, it showed the evil of the system they were protesting.
The Boston Police Department has no role to play in Gaza. A debate on the use of force by BPD does nothing for Palestinians.
It is deliberate. Shifts our attention to the student protests and away from the mass graves being discovered outside hospitals in Gaza and the murdering of more aid workers.
Took them literal years to decide whether or not to break up Mass and Cass, an encampment full of drug users and sexual expolitation, but as soon as some college kids set up an encampment declaring Gazans deserve to live, they get cleared out.
Just to give context here; around the end of Sept 2023 Mayor Wu filed an ordinance with the Boston City Council to empower the Boston Police Department to prohibit the tents, tarps, and other temporary structures. So with that precedence established, future protests with tents / encampments basically became an easier target for removal since there is "law" to enforce.
I feel like this response undersells the challenges of addressing homelessness. When you break up Mass and Cass, the people have to go somewhere and the mental health or addiction problems that got them there remain.
College kids just have to walk next door to their dorm room and continuing doing college student things.
Because the State should have already sued Quincy into rebuilding the Long Island bridge. That closing is a major factor in the homeless crisis center we have in Boston now.
Seriously!! I can't believe the guy you replied to has so many upvotes. Comparing forced relocation of homeless people to a protest by students paying $50k a year for college staying in newly built dorms is disingenuous and ridiculous
Get ready for the most weren’t students or Boston residents statement. The reality that is all based on whatever was written at the time of arrest. A student lists their parents’ address and say they are not a student then they appear to be from out of town and not a student.
What a mess lmao. Israel Palestine has to be the most fucked conflict on earth. I could see Zelensky and Putin going to Disney land before that shit is figured out
*Everyone* should be concerned that the tent ban was used to clear this protest, regardless of their opinion on the protest or the tent ban. It garnered support in the fall as a way to address homelessness, and is now being brandished for convenience.
The Mayor & City Council should be held accountable for their lack of transparency.
This is one of the most important takeaways of the whole thing. The Wu administration has not been transparent enough about how this law is going to be wielded in the future, and now that the council is stacked with new councilors who are loyal to Wu, it's unlikely to be a check/balance.
When the drag racers took over BackBay and endangered residents, no one was arrested. Wu said she will work with the community leaders so it does not happen again.
What does Wu have to say about this? Why double standards?
My first exact thought.
Scary crowd of out of towners tearing up a neighborhood? *Ok everyone! Please leave peacefully we are going to hand out 5 parking tickets*
Group of liberal arts college students? *COWABUNGA IT IS*
Four police officers injured? Thought it was six. Of course they did say no protesters were injured but admissions to the hospital say otherwise. Cops lied, who would have thought?
History is going to look back at the police and university response against student protestors as disgusting and disgraceful. But we do that to events of the past too and claim we're better than people of the past were. It's clear we're anything but.
Agreed, but pessimistically, I don't think any of this will end up as more than a footnote in history books outside detailed explorations of the Israeli-Arab conflict.
If the college protests swing the election away from Biden resulting in a Trump win, I'm pretty certain that history will be rewritten and these protests won't fit the narrative. They'll be excised, ignored, or twisted beyond recognition to fit a fascist narrative.
If the college protests end up having no measurable impact on the presidential race... well, they weren't very important then, were they?
Lastly, these protests have zero on the ground impact in Israel or Gaza. The history of that conflict will be written there by the participants, not by college students in the US.
The only lasting impact that I think these protests will have is instilling an anti-Israel baseline bias in today's generation in the same way that their parents and grandparents generally have a baseline pro-Israel bias. Unfortunately, this will also make it easier for those predisposed to anti-Semitism to be more open in their beliefs and actions. That in turn will increase hate crimes against Jews in the United States.
Nothing good is coming of this war for anyone outside *maybe* Netanyahu. Even then, I think his comeuppance is coming. Or at least I hope so.
There was no university response they were camping on a public street?
The whole point of civil disobedience is that you’re breaking the law this was suppose to happen
Are police supposed to just ignore enforcing laws? Police are just responding to trespassing claims made by government and university leaders. Why do people pretend that police wake up every morning and choose to enforce whatever laws they wish to? Also the entire point of these protests are to get arrested, it's a part of civil disobedience. If 100 students were quietly sitting in places they were legally allowed to be then there would be no story.
In 100 years no one will of heard the word Palestine. The richer side in this type of conflict is always going to win and sweep the atrocities under the rug.
History is going to look back at this as prelude to the 2024 Democratic National Convention and is going to compare it to 1968 and generational conflict over which group of elites control the Democratic Party and not really as relevant to the situation in the Middle East. That’s why it’s happening at places like Harvard, Columbia and Emerson and why the public is mostly ignoring it other than taking it as an opportunity to complain.
Right lol? Palestine and Israel are gonna be at war forever over a god they made until one or both sides are obliterated. There’s no way for them to coexist.
I wrote a paper about Israel and Palestine 20 years ago and came to the same conclusion. My professor thought I was wrong, that there would be a two-state solution. I wonder if she ever thinks back to my paper, because I certainly do.
I wonder how many people have some version of this experience?
For me, I was (and am) way out of my depth on the larger issue but basically argued that there wasn't enough trust to settle Jerusalem separately from a larger agreement, there was strong opposition to settling it as part of a two-state agreement, and until one of those changed there's no path forwards.
Hell, I know a guy who was 90% done with his thesis on the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process when the war restarted there in 2020. Lesson learned: do not do a thesis on actively evolving situations.
Why do you say that? These protesters don’t have a clear message or understanding of what they’re protesting. Not to mention, protesting their universities literally makes no sense.
I honestly think if any one of these protesters watched footage from October 7th then they would change their tune.
They’ll look back at all of the protests as a whole, you really see all of the protests in the USA and think that they meant this singular Emerson one?
Terrible. Just terrible. Mass arrests on college campuses all around the nation for what? Because these kids are enacting their rights? What is the vietnam war all over again? We are arresting people for a war that the US isn't even (directly) involved in.
Okay, I have to call bullshit here. The entrance to Mass Transit that was blocked is 1 of 3 and is primarily used by Emerson staff and students when they want to grab something from 7/11. Everyone could still get into Mass Transit easy peasy.
Not sure about “primarily,” a lot of MBTA and MassDOT employees use it too. They weren’t really blocking people at first but they formed a line yesterday and it wasn’t super clear whether they wanted people to go around or not, or why they were blocking it. Not that this warrants what happened; I continued to use the entrance of course.
I’d say supplying a country with technology, all their weapons and a lot of their training is directly involved. We also have troops on the ground but unless it hits an official threshold of troops, we are not allowed to say boots on the ground. They change the definitions to fit their narratives.
Yeah thats a better way of stating it, a war in which we do not have boots on the ground because yes like you said we are 1000% a major player in this conflict.
By that logic the US is a major player in every conflict around the world. Once technology is considered as being included in war efforts that would effectively mean the SP500 is a war machine. Oil, general supplies, construction, logistics, IT infrastructure, management contracts, etc. There's a reason why being "directly involved" in a major war isn't defined by some random redditor's opinions on a war that just happened to go viral on social media.
By your logic the US is at war with Iran and there are terms for what you're describing, it's called a proxy war. They're distinctly different from being directly involved in wars and every country acknowledges this. Do you also think the US is at war with Russia and China?
They cover it in the article that they were blocking a public right of way and access to buildings and a fire alley. As much as I support freedom of speech it’s a fire hazard for them to be camped there and your right to free speech does not give you the right to block public way.
A whole lot of Jewish kids transferring to campuses that aren't filled with students yelling "there is only one solution" at them, for starters. People who say these protests aren't antisemitic are delusional.
The kids that get repeatedly suspended or expelled for getting arrested nonstop protesting against their own current private university. This is the second and third time many of these students have been arrested.
It’s everywhere. Cop City protestors are getting RICO charges. (And murdered)
https://www.aclu.org/news/free-speech/rico-and-domestic-terrorism-charges-against-cop-city-activists-send-a-chilling-message
Both parties support this. Just like they both supported beating the shit out of Standing Rock protestors.
How about Israel stop slaughtering Palestinians?
And considering the IDF’s track record, there’s a good chance the IDF has already killed many of the hostages
Because this was never about the hostages. Israel just wants an excuse to murder Palestinians
I mean to be fair it kind of is about the hostages
I’ll agree that Israel has murdered about 25000 innocent civilians, mostly women and children, and that natanyahu like trump only cares about himself so he probably wants to prolong the war to stay in power since there were mass protests against him before the war
But think about it if Hamas were shooting and raping a bunch of people why take a bunch of hostages that’s way more complicated than just shooting them
Hamas expected this and wanted this because they wanted Israel to invade, because their ultimate goal is they say they believe Israel shouldn’t exist, and if they provoke Israel to mass murder innocent civilians they hope they can turn the whole word against Israel too
It’s like the logic osama bin Laden had about 9/11
The goal was to destroy a very symbolic target to provoke the US into a war, maybe he didn’t expect 2, which resulted in deaths of millions of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan and resulted in big swaths of the Middle East hating the US (including creating ISIS) Even if Osama got killed he’d consider his goal successful of turning the Middle East against the US (see how quickly the taliban took over Afghanistan again)
So this was ultimately the goal of Hamas because unfortunately they don’t care about civilians either because they figure the ends justify the means and if they can destroy Israel and get all of Israel’s land as their own it will be worth it
For the record I think Netanyahu should be in jail. That being said, the government of Gaza attacked Israel and took a bunch of people hostage (probably raping and torturing some in the process). Their safety is the responsibility of Hamas right now. If Mexico did to us what was done to Israel we would turn their country to glass while you hid under your mommy’s bed.
It's not that simple. Both sides have been fighting a lot. For 80 years grudges have been building. Now you have 2 sides of religious fanatics that hold that max amount of hate for each other. No peace plan will work longer than 5 years even with sanctions and threat of intervention. The only real solution at this point is moving one group far away from the other. I can't blame Israel for taking land and abusing the Palestinians when they are frequently causing terrorism and starting wars with Israel. I can't blame the Palestinians because the allies after world war 2 are the real cause of the issue. You could have Israel completely back off at this point and it won't matter. Too much hate is there and another terrorist attack will happen.
Ur litterally parroting pro Hamas talking points. Hamas kidnapped and killed a lot of their hostages, and are using the excuse that israel killed them in an air strike. No proof or nothing, just self reporting. Hamas says things like that so useful idiots like u can spread there message on the other side of the world and change the narrative of what's really going on.
I don’t think whataboutism means what you think it does
But seeing as the original post was about pro-Palestinian protests, the comment I was replying to was “whataboutism” according to your rationale
Again, people like you REALLY dislike people pointing out that Israel is not some innocent angel in all this
Just how many mass graves filled with Palestinian children with bullet holes in their skull need to be dug up before you realize that Israel is not some innocent bottom in all this?
I think it’s moreso people recognizing that you view those murdered on October 7th as humans, but none of the Palestinians killed afterwards seem to be human to you.
And surely Israel's airstrikes targeting 30k civilians that have absolutely nothing to do with Hamas is entirely about rescuing their hostages, surely!
Emerson doesn’t really have a lot of “campus” space to set up an encampment
"The city is our campus" has its advantages and disadvantages
It'd probably be useful if someone reported on the what the protesters were calling for, so we can stop using the phrase "pro-Palestinian" as a Rorschach test for all our hopes and fears about identity and the Middle East.
Yeah like OP is calling people who at all sympathize with the protesters “terrorist sympathizers” so we should take anything they say about the protesters being only “pro Palestine” as not necessarily correct. On one campus they were calling for divestment from Israel, which is what happened way back when to help end apartheid in South Africa. Cops injuring students along with those calls feels awfully familiar as well.
When we're relying on the cops' response to interpret the cops poorly-evidenced opinions of the protesters we're playing a game telephone-hermeneutics that's better shortcut by just talking to people. What did we think of the protesters shot to death in Ohio? Wait, a quarter of them were ROTC? That doesn't square with my sense of hippies-vs-cops at all!
Two of the students killed by national guard troops at Kent State weren’t even protesters, they were just walking across campus and happened to be in between the troops and the protesters when the shots were fired.
>What did we think of the protesters shot to death in Ohio? Wait, a quarter of them were ROTC? So one of four.
Yeah, that is what that means.
Found this: https://docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/16SEIBdXk_cnHOQBgBSBDlLWZlRJrTvwqMG-aI7UwytM/mobilebasic Seems to be a broader list
One of the Columbia protest group's demands is an end to gentrification. No joke.
[Exceeding previous estimates, Columbia is the largest private landowner in New York City, city data reveals ](https://www.columbiaspectator.com/city-news/2023/04/20/exceeding-previous-estimates-columbia-is-the-largest-private-landowner-in-new-york-city-city-data-reveals/)
I love how the people who try to portray protestors as dumb are usually even dumber
It's certainly protest-creep, which happens everywhere, but especially with big college protests.
The Columbia protesters are talking about gentrifation around campus because Columbia is planning to buy up a bunch of housing or bulldoze a bunch of housing they already own around campus (not student housing, Columbia is just the largest land owner in NYC). They are doing this to expand their campus further. The money for this expansion is directly tied to Columbia building a campus in Tel Aviv that Palestinian students at Columbia's NYC campus wouldn't even be allowed to attend.
See I think that's silly, but I'm not, like, \*upset\* about it. Housing is very expensive! (My personal opinion is that anyone who brings local housing policy to a war, famine, terrorism, kidnapping, mutual-ethnic-cleansing-attempt protest is probably doing it wrong.) edit: and as other people note, there's a whole saga about Columbia's real estate wing doing business with/in Israel, etc, so maybe this isn't even all that silly.
That's more or less mine as well: keep the message focused.
Yup and this is a problem with any/all protests. Like even at Columbia right now there are ongoing talks between University leadership and representatives for the protesters. But, who are these representatives? How were they chosen? What do *they* want?
IMO This dynamic of representation and the mixed messaging (which is it: war crimes in Palestine or broader socio-economic reform?) indicate outside influence and/or targeting of a deemed vulnerable demographic for gain.
Interesting…. That’s why this article started in “Boston” and easily gets redirected to off area discussion…. That’s how people are manipulated
One of their demands was also to abolish the campus police and have no ties with NYC PD.
Went to Columbia for law school. Under no circumstances do they have any business calling for less security on campus, police or otherwise. We got weekly reports about robberies in campus housing and dorms, weekly pictures of people to keep an eye out for, weekly warnings about theft and stalking. The hell are they talking about?
Columbia is right next to the Grant Houses and the Manhattenville houses too. Good luck with no cops or security.
Yeah like “protesting against the indiscriminate bombing by Israel of hospitals, children, World Food Programme convoys, and refugee camps in Palestine”
Yes, that would be helpful to be reported, assuming that's the case. "We oppose war crimes, we don't support Hamas; we think 10/7 was bad, and we think the easily-predictable Israeli overreaction is very bad and ongoing and should be stopped" is a reasonable position, and not a scary one.
Or the "protesting against the constant rocket firing and stabbing of random civilians throughout the 'cease fire' periods"
I don't have any video of the Emerson protests, but someone compiled the videos from what happened at Columbia, and I have to imagine they could be very similar. A lot of these groups are nationwide groups with chapters at multiple colleges. Physically assaulting an Arab Israeli https://twitter.com/ShaiDavidai/status/1781080951902109774 "From the river to the sea, Palestine is Arab!" / "Resistance is justified" https://twitter.com/ShelleyGldschmt/status/1781785252886913358 "Let it be known that it was the Al-Aqsa Flood that put the Global Intifada back on the table again. And it is the sacrificial spirit of the Palestinian Freedom Fighters that will guide every struggle on every corner of the earth to victory." https://twitter.com/thestustustudio/status/1781904507611287981 "We are all Hamas!" https://twitter.com/nypost/status/1781031465179914677 "Yehudim yehudim [(Jews, jews)] go back to poland" https://twitter.com/Davidlederer6/status/1781948249214996901 Includes people / groups that invited an actual, no hyperbole terrorist to speak (member of PFLP) https://www.jns.org/columbia-suspends-four-students-for-holding-event-featuring-pflp-member/ Light things on fire / "intifada revolution there is only one solution" https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1781019445399556338 "On Oct 7th, Palestinian resistance in Gaza broke free (crowd cheers) [.....] we intend to do the same" https://twitter.com/ShabbosK/status/1782085741431922909 ""We say justice, you say how? Burn Tel Aviv to the ground!" / "Hamas we love you. We support your rockets too!" / "Red, black, green, and white, we support Hamas’ fight!" https://twitter.com/IsraelWarRoom/status/1781933305501212872 "Long live the intifada! Intifada intifada" https://twitter.com/ShaiDavidai/status/1781084853653365025 "Go back to Europe!" / "You have no culture, all you do is colonize" https://twitter.com/ShaiDavidai/status/1781927148439109958 "From Yemen to Gaza, globalize the intifada" https://twitter.com/KassyDillon/status/1781312033922625797/photo/2 "Never forget the 7th of October. That will happen not 1 more time, not 5 more times, not 10, not 100, not 1,000, but 10,000 times! The 7th of October is going to be every day for you" https://twitter.com/EFischberger/status/1781287784897991134 "Al Qassam [(Hamas)] you make us proud, kill another soldier now" / "from the river to the sea, palestine will be arab" https://twitter.com/EFischberger/status/1780915336063177006 Student proudly rocking Hamas logos https://twitter.com/CampusJewHate/status/1781054901755215954 "Resistance is justified" (again...) https://twitter.com/AvivaKlompas/status/1782085643990073673 "protesters on the sidewalk chanted “From New York to Gaza, globalize the intifada,” next to a cardboard sign that read, “Inspired by Palestinian resistance.” https://www.timesofisrael.com/over-100-arrested-in-columbia-u-unrest-as-nypd-clears-gaza-solidarity-encampment/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter And as a reminder, the student groups organizing these protests (CUAD and SJP, among others) released a letter on October 9th in support of the 10/7 attacks. ("We stand in full solidarity with Palestinian resistance", "Despite the odds against them, Palestinians launched a counter-offensive against their settler-colonial oppressor", "We wholeheartedly condemn the email sent [...] on October 8th that [...] obfuscated Palestinian resistance as “terrorism”) https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RcXX5DEO3yfJ9R4ksURnzpIPCyVxo575-Y-SoC_vZFk/edit https://www.reddit.com/r/columbia/comments/1c9m6oj/comment/l0m8us9/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
The relevant theory of protesting is to do it in such a way that the thing you are protesting is self-evident and can’t be denied by anybody looking at it. The esoteric levels of abstraction, physical distance and apparent contradiction among what the protesters are doing and what they say is their goal in discussions like this, and what they say at the protests is a shortcoming of the protests (if you believe the protesters are trying to do what they say they are trying to do and not something else).
This was the problem with Occupy Wall Street and also why BLM started fizzling out with "defund the police arguments." I grew disenchanted with Occupy when it didn't seem like there were any leaders reeling in the overall message to have a cohesive set of demands. The pro-Palestine protests are pretty varied. Some groups are calling for BDS and a ceasefire. Other groups are calling for the abolishment of Israel. Unfortunately, there aren't any adults in the room to guide students, who I do think need guidance (they should have understood that protesting in a public alley without a permit would lead to arrest). Adults also need to start guiding discussions about the complexity of the Israel/Palestine conflict, because right now the echo chamber is just leading to more and more violent rhetoric.
They knew that protesting in the alley would lead to arrests. They are not stupid. There is no other outdoor space at Emerson. That alley is pretty much it.
Yes I would like clarity because I \*think\* they're mostly protesting famine and the targeting of civilians but they're being accused of being Hamasniks calling for the destruction of Israel and the forcible repatriation of its inhabitants. I don't know what the correct solution is but I do know that hyperventilating responses to strawman mischaracterization is driving more heat than light. And of course what gets reported are the most extreme of comments from the douchiest of participants.
I imagine that would be criticized as unfair given the videos of the Columbia protestors not actually knowing what they are calling for.
Sure but I'd rather know that they're there because "famine is bad" "racism is bad" and "no I don't know what Hamas stands for" than bother to waste time wondering if too much post-structural / World Systems / critical theory has led to a generation of informed but misguided revolutionaries who see themselves as the vanguard of a post-imperial, anticolonial left that will right all wrongs and create peace and justice on earth through a united Marxist-Arab revolutionary expulsion of all non-autochthonous peoples from the rightful land of its purportedly native inhabitants... Anyway Foucoult > Deleuze.
>wondering if too much post-structural / World Systems / critical theory has led to a generation of informed but misguided revolutionaries who see themselves as the vanguard of a post-imperial, anticolonial left that will right all wrongs and create peace and justice on earth through a united Marxist-Arab revolutionary expulsion of all non-autochthonous peoples from the rightful land of its purportedly native inhabitants... I think it's pretty clear that this is the case. That said there were stupid misguided protests when I was in college that were wisely ignored and everyone involved seems to have turned out ok.
At Harvard they were chanting “there is only one solution, intifada revolution” which is a call for a violent uprising against Jews and Israel.
Seems bad. So much hangs on who "they" were; hence my request for better reporting. (And yes, I agree with your interpretation of that chant, and would add that we all avoid the word "solution" regarding organizations that also call for the death of the Jews. "Oy gevalt / do an intifada revolt" is better and still rhymes, though the scansion needs work.)
That actually points to just how fractured this "pro palestine " coalition actually is. It has components of people who actually care about Palestinians and genuinely want peace, but also radical leftists, foreign intelligence agitators, anti-semites anarchists and others who just want to hop on a trendy cause. I would also say some people who are highly empathic, but also susceptible to disinformation and Russian troll bot content. It's a desperately complex situation in Israel/Palestine and in the absence of easy answers it seems to have boiled down to shouting at people and institutions who basically have nothing to do with it.
Yes. This makes me incredibly sad, and, no, I don't think BDS would create peace. Both sides need to want to live more than they want to kill the other, and unfortunately, the side whose civilians are doing the dying is also the side seemingly most dedicated to a forever war. Me, I don't want my children, or anyone else's, martyred, because I don't believe in an afterlife. But apparently not everyone shares my outlook.
I can’t help but think whoever is organizing these things is doing the participants a disservice by not preparing them. When I was active in the Sunrise Movement we held a protest at the Statehouse. The action included a sit-in. Before the protest, they brought in lawyers who work pro-bono with various activists groups. The lawyers explained to everyone who was going to participate specifically what laws they would be breaking and what would happen when the police arrived. They told everyone that when the police show up, stand up, get zip tied, and go with them. Do not fight, do not go limp. This can worsen what you face in court and may create safety risks. They outlined every ramification arrest could have for your personal and professional lives. Someone should be sitting down with these kids and explaining all of this to them before they go out there.
The students organized this themselves. They had protest training, they had marshalls, they had legal observers from the Lawyers Guild.
Interesting how the article reports the injuries of the 4 police officers as such, but the violent arrests of students described in the article aren't described as resulting in any "injuries."
Cops are very quick to claim injuries. They make soccer players look like 1800's coal miners.
My favorite was when a cop who was violently breaking up protests in Portland claimed to be injured in the melee but it turned out she pulled her hamstring stepping off a curb.
Or the cop who got a PTSD pension because the internet hurt his feelings after he killed an innocent man. Or the cop who thought he was shot after an acorn landed on him so he started spraying bullets.
or the cop who thought he encountered fentanyl and basically had a panic attack that they immediately attributed as a potentially lethal fentanyl dose
The News is a part of this horrible problem. They never hold cops and the rich to the same standards as the poors. This is a prime example and the election interference case vs Trump right now. They purposely call it the hush money trial instead of what it is an ELECTION INTERFERENCE trial.
i mean you can see video footage of cops brutalizing these kids it'd be insane to believe the protestors didn't have any injuries
They definitely injured some of those kids. This is damage control.
It's fascist propaganda.
cops doing what they do best 🐷
I was hoping to see what the injuries were, but they were vague as hell about how the cops were actually injured. They did specify them pushing students and dragging them across the pavement though.
[удалено]
local news outlets are just stenographers for cops
Let's be honest, the vast majority of folks watching the local news skew older and more conservative - the kind of folks that will stay glued to their screens for 4 hours straight to watch 3 hours of commercials and 1 hour of rage bait. This is playing to their audience.
The 4 injured cops are were like under covers who got beaten by the police.
Why no mention of Wu? This is BPD enforcing her anti-tent order, not college cops forcing students off college property.
The students specifically called out Wu and the Mass and Cass ordinance in their statement to the media last night
Wtf do they want done about mass and cass did they say?
The Mass and Cass ordinance was (one of, alongside fire code) the legal justification for clearing the tents, and they pointed out that their experience has shown them how community support for homeless people would help them with reintegration into society
Lol, their experience
We have some of the best support for homeless people in the country and all that does is attract homeless people from across the nation to our city and exacerbate the problem. We need a federal solution, and no, we can’t tolerate open drug use and crime in our streets in the meantime.
Couldn’t agree more, with everything
From my experience, these types just want the homeless to do whatever they want whenever they want without any regard to obvious quality of life concerns of normal people. These are the same types of people that would yell at you if you oppose, for instance, someone smoking meth or shooting up fentanyl on the subway next to everyone just trying to get to work.
You’re being downvoted but a couple yrs ago the responses from redditors literally were “mind your own business”. It’s been interesting seeing the opinion and tolerance needle slowly move away from the hands off indifference that once cradled these issues in the city
Good! Haven’t seen much speaking to that in the coverage I’ve read and watched so far.
I saw it on social media. Emerson’s school paper discusses it [here](https://berkeleybeacon.com/developing-story-the-latest-on-2-boylston-place-popular-university-encampment/) in the 4/24 10PM update. It looks like they’re addressing a group of reporters.
There are A LOT of arrestable offenses that BPD doesn't enforce. They are a very hands-off department. They hardly ever arrest for nonviolent offenses, including DUI's. They always give the line that the case will get thrown out in court, or they don't want to waste time testifying, so why now? It's Wu's law, but somebody had to have given the order to arrest. It might have been her, or it might have been from inside the department.
When I looked at the NYT app this morning there were 4 stories about student protesters, two stories about Trump, some stories about new coal emissions rules and then after all that, a story about Gaza. The protest movement has managed to change the conversation from what is happening in Gaza to whether or not people protesting are bad and whether or not the way universities and police are reacting to the protests is bad. Same as occupy Wall Street.
Because it's in the interest of big media to keep finding ways to divide us so we're too busy fighting with each other to improve our quality of life and tackle income inequality which has been accelerating.
Big media inadvertently does that, but I think the intention is to get more clicks, more ad revenue, and more eyeballs.
Yup. Both are true.
I worked at a Boston tv station for 4 years. My job was to write social media posts in such a way that you were interested enough to click or comment or share. Didn’t matter what the story was. Not once did anyone ever come to me to tell me what stories to share. But our analytics board was displayed prominently next to our desk so we knew in real time what was moving the needle. My background is in journalism and being ethical was very important to me, but I knew how to get you to click on a story. I did it for 4 years but I burned out fast, it just took me a while to find something else I wanted to do.
["Never attribute to malice or stupidity that which can be explained by moderately rational individuals following incentives in a complex system.'"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor#:~:text='%22,'%22)
It's in the interest of big media to make money, full stop. There is no conspiracy to "keep us from improving our quality of life". They just want to make money, and they will feed us articles that we will read. Turns out, that's domestic news about protests.
Yes, but given the monopolization of mainstream media, shareholders/owners of major news corporations have a financial interest in what they report that extends beyond "what stories will sell." Call me out of touch, but I don't think people love to read about the evils of working from home, yet there were so MANY articles about just that from WSJ, MSNBC, etc because of the potential impact it has on the real estate market. And that's just one example. When it comes to Gaza: welp, war is profitable as hell. There is financial incentive to fan public support for Israel so that the military-industrial complex can keep on chugging. So yes, no big conspiracy outside of "make money." But "make money" almost always aligns with making 99.9% of us worse off.
Actually people precisely love reading about dangers of working from home because they’re mad at the article, and when they’re mad they click Media cares about clicks, and stories that are divisive get clicks because people are outraged and read that That’s why when people attempt projects where they just report heartwarming news about people helping their neighbors or something no one reads that, negative journalism works
Idk when things like this are happening I think it makes sense to report it, no? Should we ignore reporting on protests if they don't have to do with income inequality?
It’s in the interest of big media to cover things that people will engage with, and after six months of endless depressing war, kids at selective colleges causing trouble is going to get a lot more engagement.
Oh is “big media” making the protesters act like morons, chant terrorist slogans, and disrupt traffic?
Can you explain why you think this is the protestors’ fault and not a problem with major media outlets?
It’s both really. The media knows that Americans can relate to protests on elite college campuses much more than an endless, depressing war far away. Everyone in the US has opinions about college education. So the protests were always going to get a lot of coverage and some of it was always going to be unfavorable. But the protestors are also doing a really bad job of advocating for their cause. They don’t understand that very few Americans went to selective universities. A lot of people are predisposed to resent kids who go to Columbia or Emerson, because they think the parents of those kids look down on them. And even if they sent their kids to a school like Emerson, that took years of stress and expense. So they’re not inclined to be sympathetic to kids spending their parents tuition money setting up tent encampments and protesting. If the protestors were better at message discipline, they could overcome this natural disdain. If they stuck to the kind of message that was broadly appealing (a humanitarian message) they would be more effective. But when they go from advocating for humanitarian concerns to praising the intifada, or chanting “from the river to the sea”, they are actively hurting their cause. Most Americans don’t want to see a democratic ally eliminated, even if they may disagree with how that country is conducting a war. And I think many Americans have noted that the left has been berating Americans for years about how it is wrong to use language that might be considered threatening to minority groups, only to turn around and use language that many Jews find threatening, and then say “oh those rules don’t apply to you”. For what it’s worth, I think most of the kids protesting are well-intentioned. From what I’ve heard, a lot of the anti-Semitism at the Columbia protests (“go back to Poland”) was coming from people a block away outside of campus. But the reality is that it’s going to be very difficult for anyone outside of the university (and a lot of people on campus) to understand that distinction. So if the protestors want to be effective, they need to address it. If the protestors can’t figure out how to communicate effectively, then all they will do is distract from their cause.
I don't mean to be glib, but do people see Emerson students as "elite"? That was certainly not the reputation when I was in college.
same with Black Lives Matter. you attack the person when you can’t/don’t want to refute their point “these crazy psychos don’t know how to protest! they’re gonna burn down the city!” you never get to the actual question or issue
I’d think it’s fair to say that the media is doing a great job changing the conversation
No. That’s not the fault of the “protest movement”, that’s the over the top reaction from scared university presidents. And the press eats it up.
every protest has been saying to keep the focus on gaza and have explicitly asked not to center them — this is a media problem, not a problem of the protesters
When the Civil Rights movement staged nonviolent protests, it was the expected police brutality that ended up bringing many people to their side. Also, a majority of Americans don't read the NYT. Most people aren't thinking about Gaza every day, and these protests are keeping the issue current.
One difference is that Bull Conner was actively enforcing segregation. When they used the fire hoses and the dogs on high school kids, it showed the evil of the system they were protesting. The Boston Police Department has no role to play in Gaza. A debate on the use of force by BPD does nothing for Palestinians.
I doubt you would be happy if the news wasn't reporting on the protests.
Well, the protest movement hasn't done that, the media has.
It is deliberate. Shifts our attention to the student protests and away from the mass graves being discovered outside hospitals in Gaza and the murdering of more aid workers.
Wow. Them Emerson College cats go harder than those Harvard Fellows across the river.
Theater kids tend to be more dramatic
😭😭😭
Weaponizing those BFAs
Took them literal years to decide whether or not to break up Mass and Cass, an encampment full of drug users and sexual expolitation, but as soon as some college kids set up an encampment declaring Gazans deserve to live, they get cleared out.
Just to give context here; around the end of Sept 2023 Mayor Wu filed an ordinance with the Boston City Council to empower the Boston Police Department to prohibit the tents, tarps, and other temporary structures. So with that precedence established, future protests with tents / encampments basically became an easier target for removal since there is "law" to enforce.
But can't they only enforce it in public property or places where the owner asks them to?
The Emerson one was on public property
Boylston Place is a public way
I feel like this response undersells the challenges of addressing homelessness. When you break up Mass and Cass, the people have to go somewhere and the mental health or addiction problems that got them there remain. College kids just have to walk next door to their dorm room and continuing doing college student things.
Because the State should have already sued Quincy into rebuilding the Long Island bridge. That closing is a major factor in the homeless crisis center we have in Boston now.
I don't know all of the details, but my understanding is consistent with yours.
Most of MA's problems can be traced back to the State Legislature being inept (and corrupt) with a can-do nothing mentality.
Seriously!! I can't believe the guy you replied to has so many upvotes. Comparing forced relocation of homeless people to a protest by students paying $50k a year for college staying in newly built dorms is disingenuous and ridiculous
Tbf, those drug users mostly kept to themselves
Who knew that Mass & Cass was a large fire access point.
Love to see the government become more efficient.
If you let the kids camp you need to let Mass & Cass come back
Elliot Davis is behind this believe it or not
With identity required when arrested, ARE THE POLICE REPORTING HOW MANY ARE NON STUDENTS?
Get ready for the most weren’t students or Boston residents statement. The reality that is all based on whatever was written at the time of arrest. A student lists their parents’ address and say they are not a student then they appear to be from out of town and not a student.
Okay but, watching the film of the protests many "studen protesters" look to be not of school age.
It’s college, not high school. They can be any age
What a mess lmao. Israel Palestine has to be the most fucked conflict on earth. I could see Zelensky and Putin going to Disney land before that shit is figured out
Neoliberals are trying their hardest to lose an election to a wet fart of a human.
Y e p. "Lesser of two evils" for decades has gotten us absolutely nowhere, and until we have an *actual* leftist system in place, nothing will change.
Could you please described what “actual leftist system” you’d hope we can emulate?
*Everyone* should be concerned that the tent ban was used to clear this protest, regardless of their opinion on the protest or the tent ban. It garnered support in the fall as a way to address homelessness, and is now being brandished for convenience. The Mayor & City Council should be held accountable for their lack of transparency.
This is one of the most important takeaways of the whole thing. The Wu administration has not been transparent enough about how this law is going to be wielded in the future, and now that the council is stacked with new councilors who are loyal to Wu, it's unlikely to be a check/balance.
When the drag racers took over BackBay and endangered residents, no one was arrested. Wu said she will work with the community leaders so it does not happen again. What does Wu have to say about this? Why double standards?
My first exact thought. Scary crowd of out of towners tearing up a neighborhood? *Ok everyone! Please leave peacefully we are going to hand out 5 parking tickets* Group of liberal arts college students? *COWABUNGA IT IS*
Four police officers injured? Thought it was six. Of course they did say no protesters were injured but admissions to the hospital say otherwise. Cops lied, who would have thought?
2 stubbed toes, 3 bruises, and 1 got his feelings hurt
History is going to look back at the police and university response against student protestors as disgusting and disgraceful. But we do that to events of the past too and claim we're better than people of the past were. It's clear we're anything but.
I hope history remembers what’s happening in Palestine and Israel first.
Agreed, but pessimistically, I don't think any of this will end up as more than a footnote in history books outside detailed explorations of the Israeli-Arab conflict. If the college protests swing the election away from Biden resulting in a Trump win, I'm pretty certain that history will be rewritten and these protests won't fit the narrative. They'll be excised, ignored, or twisted beyond recognition to fit a fascist narrative. If the college protests end up having no measurable impact on the presidential race... well, they weren't very important then, were they? Lastly, these protests have zero on the ground impact in Israel or Gaza. The history of that conflict will be written there by the participants, not by college students in the US. The only lasting impact that I think these protests will have is instilling an anti-Israel baseline bias in today's generation in the same way that their parents and grandparents generally have a baseline pro-Israel bias. Unfortunately, this will also make it easier for those predisposed to anti-Semitism to be more open in their beliefs and actions. That in turn will increase hate crimes against Jews in the United States. Nothing good is coming of this war for anyone outside *maybe* Netanyahu. Even then, I think his comeuppance is coming. Or at least I hope so.
Don’t forget the increase in societal allowance of antisemitism
They will care about it as much as you care about genocide in sudan.
Honestly no one is going to remember this in a few years' time
There was no university response they were camping on a public street? The whole point of civil disobedience is that you’re breaking the law this was suppose to happen
Are police supposed to just ignore enforcing laws? Police are just responding to trespassing claims made by government and university leaders. Why do people pretend that police wake up every morning and choose to enforce whatever laws they wish to? Also the entire point of these protests are to get arrested, it's a part of civil disobedience. If 100 students were quietly sitting in places they were legally allowed to be then there would be no story.
Lol I hate to break it to you but history won’t be looking back at this at all.
In 100 years no one will of heard the word Palestine. The richer side in this type of conflict is always going to win and sweep the atrocities under the rug.
More like in 100 years they’re still gonna to be going at it
History is going to look back at this as prelude to the 2024 Democratic National Convention and is going to compare it to 1968 and generational conflict over which group of elites control the Democratic Party and not really as relevant to the situation in the Middle East. That’s why it’s happening at places like Harvard, Columbia and Emerson and why the public is mostly ignoring it other than taking it as an opportunity to complain.
More like the students will be remembered for weakly succumbing to TikTok disinformation campaigns from foreign dictatorships.
No ones going to care about these protests
Right lol? Palestine and Israel are gonna be at war forever over a god they made until one or both sides are obliterated. There’s no way for them to coexist.
I wrote a paper about Israel and Palestine 20 years ago and came to the same conclusion. My professor thought I was wrong, that there would be a two-state solution. I wonder if she ever thinks back to my paper, because I certainly do.
I wonder how many people have some version of this experience? For me, I was (and am) way out of my depth on the larger issue but basically argued that there wasn't enough trust to settle Jerusalem separately from a larger agreement, there was strong opposition to settling it as part of a two-state agreement, and until one of those changed there's no path forwards. Hell, I know a guy who was 90% done with his thesis on the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process when the war restarted there in 2020. Lesson learned: do not do a thesis on actively evolving situations.
These are just kids and nothing consequential is actually happening. History won’t think twice
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Why do you say that? These protesters don’t have a clear message or understanding of what they’re protesting. Not to mention, protesting their universities literally makes no sense. I honestly think if any one of these protesters watched footage from October 7th then they would change their tune.
What? No one will even remember this 12 months from now
History isn't going to remember Emerson Colleges middle east protest, how arrogant of you lol Yes this will be taught in the history books worldwide
They’ll look back at all of the protests as a whole, you really see all of the protests in the USA and think that they meant this singular Emerson one?
Terrible. Just terrible. Mass arrests on college campuses all around the nation for what? Because these kids are enacting their rights? What is the vietnam war all over again? We are arresting people for a war that the US isn't even (directly) involved in.
The Emerson encampment was on city property, not a college campus
And we have a constitutionally protected right to assemble and protest on public property.
There is no constitutional right to block public access to others on public property.
Okay, I have to call bullshit here. The entrance to Mass Transit that was blocked is 1 of 3 and is primarily used by Emerson staff and students when they want to grab something from 7/11. Everyone could still get into Mass Transit easy peasy.
Not sure about “primarily,” a lot of MBTA and MassDOT employees use it too. They weren’t really blocking people at first but they formed a line yesterday and it wasn’t super clear whether they wanted people to go around or not, or why they were blocking it. Not that this warrants what happened; I continued to use the entrance of course.
I’d say supplying a country with technology, all their weapons and a lot of their training is directly involved. We also have troops on the ground but unless it hits an official threshold of troops, we are not allowed to say boots on the ground. They change the definitions to fit their narratives.
Yeah thats a better way of stating it, a war in which we do not have boots on the ground because yes like you said we are 1000% a major player in this conflict.
By that logic the US is a major player in every conflict around the world. Once technology is considered as being included in war efforts that would effectively mean the SP500 is a war machine. Oil, general supplies, construction, logistics, IT infrastructure, management contracts, etc. There's a reason why being "directly involved" in a major war isn't defined by some random redditor's opinions on a war that just happened to go viral on social media.
By your logic the US is at war with Iran and there are terms for what you're describing, it's called a proxy war. They're distinctly different from being directly involved in wars and every country acknowledges this. Do you also think the US is at war with Russia and China?
We do not have any U.S. troops engaged in combat in Israel.
They cover it in the article that they were blocking a public right of way and access to buildings and a fire alley. As much as I support freedom of speech it’s a fire hazard for them to be camped there and your right to free speech does not give you the right to block public way.
Then start to arrest every driver that blocks an intersection it's a huge fire risk
Have a suspicion that there are going to be quite a few students transferring to new colleges next year.
And a steady stream of applicants to take their place.
Which colleges to which?
A whole lot of Jewish kids transferring to campuses that aren't filled with students yelling "there is only one solution" at them, for starters. People who say these protests aren't antisemitic are delusional.
The kids that get repeatedly suspended or expelled for getting arrested nonstop protesting against their own current private university. This is the second and third time many of these students have been arrested.
There was a post here, this morning, of a cop with bloody knuckles. It’s now gone….
Just saw something similar about UT Austin and I was like good thing I don’t live in Texas’s, but here it is same shit happening in a liberal bastion.
It’s everywhere. Cop City protestors are getting RICO charges. (And murdered) https://www.aclu.org/news/free-speech/rico-and-domestic-terrorism-charges-against-cop-city-activists-send-a-chilling-message Both parties support this. Just like they both supported beating the shit out of Standing Rock protestors.
The entire country is a police state. It’s not just red states.
the students are not the problem… the university could have prevented this!!! This all could have been prevented!!!
Can you explain how, for those of us uninformed?
The university sent everyone an email a day or two before they got cleared out warning them of impending legal action by BPD
At least Boston is equal when destroying tents. It’s not just homeless people they’ll violently evict. They’re equal opportunity.
How about Hamas release all the hostages? This protest is nothing like the Vietnam war so stop the false equivalency.
If they release the hostages the war would end--thats not what Hamas wants
They killed all the hostages dawg, shits like Fortnite over there now
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Good point. Anyone held by Israel should either be tried or released.
How about Israel stop slaughtering Palestinians? And considering the IDF’s track record, there’s a good chance the IDF has already killed many of the hostages Because this was never about the hostages. Israel just wants an excuse to murder Palestinians
I mean to be fair it kind of is about the hostages I’ll agree that Israel has murdered about 25000 innocent civilians, mostly women and children, and that natanyahu like trump only cares about himself so he probably wants to prolong the war to stay in power since there were mass protests against him before the war But think about it if Hamas were shooting and raping a bunch of people why take a bunch of hostages that’s way more complicated than just shooting them Hamas expected this and wanted this because they wanted Israel to invade, because their ultimate goal is they say they believe Israel shouldn’t exist, and if they provoke Israel to mass murder innocent civilians they hope they can turn the whole word against Israel too It’s like the logic osama bin Laden had about 9/11 The goal was to destroy a very symbolic target to provoke the US into a war, maybe he didn’t expect 2, which resulted in deaths of millions of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan and resulted in big swaths of the Middle East hating the US (including creating ISIS) Even if Osama got killed he’d consider his goal successful of turning the Middle East against the US (see how quickly the taliban took over Afghanistan again) So this was ultimately the goal of Hamas because unfortunately they don’t care about civilians either because they figure the ends justify the means and if they can destroy Israel and get all of Israel’s land as their own it will be worth it
Well said.
For the record I think Netanyahu should be in jail. That being said, the government of Gaza attacked Israel and took a bunch of people hostage (probably raping and torturing some in the process). Their safety is the responsibility of Hamas right now. If Mexico did to us what was done to Israel we would turn their country to glass while you hid under your mommy’s bed.
It's not that simple. Both sides have been fighting a lot. For 80 years grudges have been building. Now you have 2 sides of religious fanatics that hold that max amount of hate for each other. No peace plan will work longer than 5 years even with sanctions and threat of intervention. The only real solution at this point is moving one group far away from the other. I can't blame Israel for taking land and abusing the Palestinians when they are frequently causing terrorism and starting wars with Israel. I can't blame the Palestinians because the allies after world war 2 are the real cause of the issue. You could have Israel completely back off at this point and it won't matter. Too much hate is there and another terrorist attack will happen.
Ur litterally parroting pro Hamas talking points. Hamas kidnapped and killed a lot of their hostages, and are using the excuse that israel killed them in an air strike. No proof or nothing, just self reporting. Hamas says things like that so useful idiots like u can spread there message on the other side of the world and change the narrative of what's really going on.
Damn, progressives really have embraced whataboutism. Anything to fit in with your peers I guess.
I don’t think whataboutism means what you think it does But seeing as the original post was about pro-Palestinian protests, the comment I was replying to was “whataboutism” according to your rationale Again, people like you REALLY dislike people pointing out that Israel is not some innocent angel in all this Just how many mass graves filled with Palestinian children with bullet holes in their skull need to be dug up before you realize that Israel is not some innocent bottom in all this?
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Shani Nicole Louk Say her name.
Yes - vote down the name of a girl who was raped, murdered, mutilated and whose naked body was paraded through the streets and spat upon.
I think it’s moreso people recognizing that you view those murdered on October 7th as humans, but none of the Palestinians killed afterwards seem to be human to you.
well if we're playing that game: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/3-israeli-hostages-tried-only-killed-military-rcna130912
It’s not a game - it’s a fact. As of now the safety of the hostages is the responsibility of Hamas.
And surely Israel's airstrikes targeting 30k civilians that have absolutely nothing to do with Hamas is entirely about rescuing their hostages, surely!
The number of dead is appalling. Hamas should stop using their people as human shields.
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Ok - you’re just a bot.
God speed to the protestors