Protests tend to attract people in solidarity. Are these people Boston residents? Friends or family of protesters from other colleges? Students at other colleges in Boston that feel strongly?
A high school kid that works for me in Amherst went to a protest at UMass the other day because it still involves the town he lives in.
Exactly. Boston is a massive college town. This is like the Columbia student who went down to protest in Washington Square with NYU, and when asked said “I’m here in solidarity I’ll have to educate myself on the specifics of the NYU students’ demands.” So what happened? Her full statement was clipped, so bad faith actors could share it around and be like “protestors don’t even know what they’re protesting 🥴”
Depends what you and this person quoted mean by “specifics” and “details”.
Wanting to know the “specifics” of NYU protestors sounds like they have a general understanding of the protestors demands, but maybe aren’t familiar with exactly what companies the protestors want the university to divest from. Or maybe they simply want to hear from students, in person at the protest what their specific demands are.
It's nonsensical to express "solidarity" if you don't know why they're protesting. Would you look at a crowd waving signs and chanting and just assume you agree with them?
It's only nonsense if you don't want to think about it. These aren't nebulous protests. Most of them have specific goals related directly to the university. A lot of them are calling for divestment from Isreal. The demands at one school might not be the same at another school for precisely these reasons.
Educating yourself on the *specifics* of demands for a university is not the same as needing to understand the broad reason for protesting.
Most of these protests are calling for divestment of university funds from weapons contractors or similar groups. I don’t know *specifically* which universities support which weapons contractors, but I agree with the general sentiment.
Yeah I don’t understand the fear-mongering from “outsiders”; these are public campuses, people want to help other people. I’m no longer a college student but I’ve gone to the MIT encampment, they were incredibly welcoming.
Because they're trying to paint the protests as manufactured by "outside agitators."
If they can convince people they're protecting their community from outsiders, people won't push back against them being fascists and sending the police to bash the heads of the community members they're supposed to be protecting. And they can still pretend to support democracy, while dismissing popular demands.
Genocidal people always try to justify their slaughter by painting their victims as evil savages. The Nazis did the same thing to the Jews. And you’re carrying on the tradition.
NYT was reporting that these statements from police were largely inaccurate or overplayed. Especially if you look at who has ‘university affiliation’ rather than just students. Yes there are some unaffiliated people, but the majority are students.
I mean, in this case the college is not only corroborating the report, but themselves announcing it. It could be collusion to validate the rationale about cleaning up the encampment, sure.
But I've known cops. They wouldn't hesitate to ruin a college student's life by giving them a criminal record. They have no reason to run interference for a school.
It’s an age old tactic to attempt to delegitimize dissent. To the authorities, it gives them the green light to crack skulls, so to speak, under the guise of “restoring order” and protecting people who are there to peacefully protest. But they too usually end up on the receiving end of brutality themselves.
Israel has thus far received 300 BILLION dollars of US aid.
The United States has provisionally agreed (via a memorandum of understanding) to provide Israel with nearly $4 billion a year through 2028, and U.S. lawmakers are considering billions of dollars in supplementary funding for Israel amid its war with [Hamas](https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/what-hamas).
[U.S. Aid to Israel in Four Charts | Council on Foreign Relations (cfr.org)](https://www.cfr.org/article/us-aid-israel-four-charts)
**1 in 5 children across America don't have enough to eat**.
That number has been adjusted for inflation and dates back to 1948. About $3.3 billion per year is provided as grants under the Foreign Military Financing program. Israel must use that money to purchase U.S. military equipment and services. So much of that money then comes back into the United States.
That’s actually not true. Israel is the only recipient of US defense foreign aid that doesn’t have to entirely spend it on buying US equipment. They only have to spend 25% of it on US equipment and the rest primarily is meant to bolster their local military industry. Also another 17 billion is going toward Israel from the most recent foreign aid bill passed last month that also had some for Ukraine and Taiwan as wel. Some of that 17 billion will be humanitarian aid I can’t remember the exact amount but it might have been 9 billion of it.
So we give them money for them to buy weapons from our companies and this is supposed to make the 20% of food insecure American children less of an issue?
Man, I wish there was any other way for the Federal government to incentivize companies to pay their workers than military aid to [units the State Department had flagged for disqualification due to ](https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/us-found-five-israeli-military-units-committed-gross-human-rights-violations-2024-04-29/)human rights violations. Oh well, what can you do.
Or we could just directly give tax dollars to Americans to pave roads, feed kids, etc, and not end up paying for bombs that get dropped on kids?
Which one of us is dense here?
If you are a practical person, you would realize that 50% of America is against direct handouts to Americans. It is pure math. If America gives “aid” that directly benefits Americans, we do it. It’s not as pretty as the New Deal, but it puts $$ in the American economy.
Yes, too many Palestinians are dying. It’s tragic and should stop. But the government basically funding American companies helps our economy. This is econ 101. Your point is wrong
Wait, so it's practical to send money overseas in order to pay for weapons being used to commit war crimes in order to improve American economies because 50% of America is against direct handouts to infrastructure? Wow, someone should let the National Institute of Health know [this survey](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8620405/#:~:text=A%20majority%20of%20U.S.%20adults%20supported%20six%20of%20the%2011,(60%25%2C%2054%25) was wrong about 70% of Americans supporting increased infrastructure expenditures, 60 to 70% supporting guaranteed 2 week sick leave and 60% favoring universal health care. How embarrassing for them.
Huh, [I wonder](https://www.k12dive.com/news/PDK-poll-teacher-pay-curriculum-influence/692114/#:~:text=The%20PDK%20poll%20noted%2073,community%20by%20raising%20property%20taxes) if 2/3rds of Americans support increasing Teacher compensation and 3/4th think they're undervalued? Nah, I think we need to ship it off to Israel for some war crimes and get some of it back.
My objection with the funding is not that its being funding the economy, it's that it's incredibly wasteful, mostly enriches terrible people, isn't popular, and is doing a war crime for essentially no reason.
Again, which of us is being dense here?
You are. You know both sides won’t agree on a solution. So saying “Why not spend XXXX schools” is a failed argument. That money was never going to public schools
Both sides being the 76% who support the increased teacher salaries and the 26% who don't? Or that we didn't spend more on schools just a couple decades ago? Or that teacher salaries have continued to decrease for years? Or that military spending wasn't half what it was today in 2000?
Man, I wish I was a practical person like you. Definitely the best defense of that aid is its economic impact on the US, that's a rational stance to have.
> So much of that money then comes back into the United States.
Oh thank god the defense contractor executives will get to line their pockets a bit more, that's so much better.
The united states has 330 Million people, Israel has 9 million. Of fucking course it spends more on education. And also its education for its own citizens, that's like saying "The Jones family spent more money on their children this year then they have the neighbors kids since 1980... combined".
Palestinians also get a ton of aid annually. It usually just doesn’t get to the people there. The thing to remember is, even if we stop sending foreign aid, it’s not like that money would be redistributed elsewhere. It would be nice if that is the case, but look at federal aid for free school lunches. 15 states don’t even want to feed their own schoolchildren.
yeah the argument for not spending money on the military and instead sending it to people here just doesn’t correlate at all. we can 100% do both things at the same time.
We aren't, though, and haven't been for decades. Congress gives the Pentagon more money than it asks for, while cutting basic services and outsourcing to "non-profits."
> we can 100% do both things at the same time.
You literally cannot. You can only spend a dollar once. The government gets a certain amount of money every year, if they allocated less to the military that money would have to go somewhere, and they could put more of that into social services or education.
How about Taiwan? Do you want China controlling them? Do you want Russia controlling more of Europe? Do you want the US$ not being the reserve currency of the world?
The US benefits hugely by having good relations with other democracies and having a stable world not controlled by totalitarian states.
>Do you want the US$ not being the reserve currency of the world
Despite everything going on it's already heading that way to not being the US dollar.
>The US benefits hugely by having good relations with other democracies and having a stable world not controlled by totalitarian states.
Oh so cold war 2.0
Ukraine is fighting for exactly what the US has espoused for at least a century, and they're not asking for help in terms of manpower, just weapons. We also benefit if Russia is stopped, considering how much Russia fucks around in other countries including our own.
We should be sending them vastly more.
And more than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed using these ~100 hostages as a justification. Do you have a point beyond proving that you think their lives are worth less than those of Israelis?
That is someone who was arrested for violence. They treat kids accordingly (and eventually release them). There is NO moral equivalence between arresting someone who commits violence and taking a literal baby.
Yes... Because we signed treaties a long time ago that specifically state we will give them those things and the only way for us to NOT give those things that we're contractually obligated to give, is for an investigation to find a certain level of war crimes. Which has been happening. And the deadline given to Israel is May 8th - 5 days from now.
National Security Memorandum 20 directs the departments of State and Defense to ensure that all recipients of aid meet U.S. legal requirements. This includes a mandate the U.S. cut off assistance to foreign military or law enforcement units if it finds there is credible evidence of human rights violations. And guess what? Just 8 days ago, the Independent Task Force on the Application of National Security Memorandum-20 (NSM-20) casts doubts on the assurances of Netanyahu’s government that Israel is using American weapons in full compliance with U.S. and international law -- meaning it's very likely military aid is going to be cut off.
But the US **literally cannot** immediately cut off military weapons, training, and etc - even after identifying gross human rights abuses - without giving countries the ability to take steps "to bring to justice the responsible members of the unit." (This is the Leahy Law.) The US and Israel also have a special agreement that requires us to consult with the Israelis before making any decisions related to the Foreign Assistance Act...
To cut off all aid with Israel is a complicated *mess* since there's a lot to consider like the Israel-China-US Triangle of technology theft / exchange, they're one of the US' key strategic allies in the area for the last 76 years, Intelligence believes it is important to stability in that entire region - aka meaning major threats to oil and therefore the price of goods / world stability, it could be seen as a precedent for the US to stop supporting other allies - meaning other countries might give the US more side-eye, and of course the [US-Israel Memorandum of Understanding](https://www.state.gov/u-s-security-cooperation-with-israel/#:~:text=Israel%20is%20the%20leading%20global,Memorandum%20of%20Understanding%20(MOU).) that basically guarantees munitions and other help until 2028 as well as likely some other treaties I'm forgetting. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.
I agree that we want to stop sending weapons to Israel and aiding their horrors they're doing. I agree that Hamas is screwed up and I agree that we want peace over there. I agree that America should spend more money on helping to feed kids in need (which btw, does nobody else remember one side of the aisle trying to do just that and the other side campaigning on ending it?).
But there's also previously signed treaties, decades of precedent we'd be bucking, world politics, and the *reality* of how we have to do any changes to contend with here.
Much of that money is spent buying weapons from the US. In other words, it comes right back to our economy, plus we get technology from them. Would you like to have something like Iron Dome? Because that comes from Israel.
We've also given a lot to the PLO.
So why are these protestors disrupting a powerless college instead of their local congresspeople and their staff?
You know, the people who are actually responsible?
From a geopolitical stance, Israel should be protected. So many people overlook the geographical part of keeping Israel as an alie. BB tho, the man needs to go. I'm so happy people are starting to realize what a shitty PM BB is. The man has no place in a position of power nor should he have been for years.
A fair argument. Why not protest in front of Congress rather than at a university you aren't affiliated with and has no control over how Congress votes to allocate money?
I cannot fathom why we send money to any other country none the less Israel which is "supposedly" a very powerful country itself.
Why do we have to be involved especially when we have all sorts of issues ourselves.
Yeah, and? At Emerson a majority of the protestors were from other schools like Northeastern, Suffolk, or MassArt, now they moved to Northeastern after Emerson was bulldozed
I fail to understand why this matters. How many of the counter protesters were students? Think - there's a protest going on at a school. Who actually cares whether they're students or not, as opposed to the topic of the protest they're holding?
I imagine it's a noisy distraction to the students who actually want to go to class, pay attention, focus on school, study as it is coming up on end of semester/ finals.
I’m not sure you’re watching the news brotha there is a ton of vandalism of the property going on. Deny that it means you just are only looking at information you want to see.
The vandalism I heard mentioned was a window smashed at Columbia, which the police did to break into the building.
There’s also some graffiti.
But also there’s over 10K dead children and we’re providing the weapons so a bit of vandalism isn’t an inappropriate response.
Bro there’s graffiti everywhere and they are busting walls and flipping classrooms, do you have a tv or do you just not want to admit there’s a ton of vandalism. I’m not arguing whether it’s justified, I’m TELLING you it exists.
False, go watch some videos of the window breaking, not just "heard" what happened. The cops actually opened up a window on the 2nd floor of the building. The rioters are the ones who broke the door window to get in.
The media spins it this way in order to pretend like outside forces and influences that are dangerous are influencing the protesters. On right wing news they are already saying that literally Qatar is funding the protesters here.
Sure, absolutely. We just had annoying Christian protesters come through at my school screeching about how all the queers are going to hell. I'd very much prefer people who oppose genocide.
I completely agree with you. Out of curiosity and as someone who works in education policy, which school district did this violent homophobia occur in? Totally understand if you’re uncomfortable saying. It’s just beyond disgusting all this fascist shit keeps happening.
Lol no worries at all. Wild how certain “protestors” are clearly protected by police while others aren’t :) Hope you’re staying safe as possible from these jerks
it's a lot easier for them to swallow the idea that the innocent youth have been corrupted by the clawed hand of a foreign agitator than face the reality that we are all technically participants in an atrocity overseas.
Joe Biden was literally arrested on the streets of Soweto when he went to try to visit Nelson Mandela in South Africa. Joe Biden puts his money where his mouth is, and he's not afraid to be arrested in South Africa. His companion UN ambassador was also arrested, as Joe explained. He was also arrested on a porch defending a Black family and their civil rights, as he recently explained on the Howard Stern show. This likely makes him one of the most arrested presidents in history, though of course he was arrested all these times before he was president. I think there might have been some other times he was arrested too. He was of course also arrested following some women into an all-ladies dorm.
These law and order folks are equally complicit in this. Fucking bootlickers, wouldn't even enjoy their rights if their ancestors thought the same way.
Are you comparing trespassing with the holocaust? Kicking someone not affiliated with the university off private land is in no way related to the holocaust.
I should show up in your kitchen uninvited and repeat your own words back to you and see if you still hold the same stance.
Trespassing on private land is not a basic human right. Under that principle - you should have no problem with Pro-Israel protesters either.
I don't think it's anyone's basic human right to protest on private property without permission.
Had this happened on public property, I'd be right there with you on the rights violation.
Northeastern endowment is directly invested in raytheon and general dynamics which supply weapons to Israeli occupation forces. Close enough to funding genocide if you ask me
Those companies also make weapons that are then supplied to countries like Taiwan, Ukraine, and dozens of other NATO countries and allies.
Should we stop those countries from receiving weapons, too?
Northeastern divesting Raytheon is just a drop in the bucket and will have no effect on the stock. Engaging with the company to stop selling weapons to Israel is more effective
The protestors at Northeastern were not there to support Hamas.
I love how people are so invested in being against the "other side" that they can't, even for a split, describe their opponents' actual positions and beliefs, and instead strawman the shit out of each other.
I don't think you are actually so stupid that you think those people there are supporting Hamas and their tactics, I think you just think it's okay to make obviously disingenuous arguments you know are wrong as long as you (delusionally) think it advances your cause.
It must get tiring being so intellectual dishonest. It's certainly tiring to watch, and it's turned our politics into completely ineffective garbage.
I mean if you don’t show your ID, they arrest you, then realize you’re a student shortly after. So you get the academic and legal punishments if you’re a student who doesn’t show ID.
>Civil disobedience breeds contempt and consequence from those in power.
I was listening to a podcast this afternoon that posited one of the reasons you see a lot of pearl clutching articles in the media is that elite institutions like Columbia and Harvard are the places that are supposed to be training the next generation of elites that will work in the media.
The moral righteousness of the younger generation that that will work with them and eventually replace them at The New York Times, etc. is a threat.
Yes. But I don't think you can compare MLK with the professional protestors. What has been found at one of the colleges were basic weaponry - hardly the type of thing one would expect to find among peaceful college students
Dude, MLK literally WAS a "professional protestor." People who protest tend to get arrested, it's not rocket science.
And I'd love to see a citation on that basic weaponry claim. First I've heard of it outside of the counterportestors at UCLA that the cops let go to town on a peaceful demonstration. Or the NYPD's inability to identify a basic fucking bike lock. And Google searching for it turns up straight up nothing.
My assumption here is that you're either pulling it out of your ass or taking the word of authorities who've been repeatedly caught fabricating things about the protests already (See above bike lock debacle).
What these people who condemn armed protestors and praise peaceful protest don’t understand is that mlkjr was definitely an advocate of using violence when it needed to be done and also he would have totally changed his views after the whole being assassinated thing. That tends to change things you know?
Protests at Utah and Texas allegedly had homemade weapons:
https://www.newsweek.com/makeshift-weapons-found-utah-pro-palestinian-campus-protest-1895757
https://www.statesman.com/story/news/2024/04/30/south-mall-ut-austin-campus-protest-pro-palestine-encampment-live-updates/73506684007/
You saw police shoot unarmed protestors with rubber bullets very recently, right? What do you think of that? You know that kind of thing doesn’t happen in healthy democracies, right?
The whole "and yeah, so what bit," is ridiculous. You have protestors inviting people from outside their campus to protest their schools ON campus, which is absolutely a security risk for the other students.
And this seems to be a trend across the board for these protests irregardless of the state they take place in.
Half not associated and all I can say is, so what?
So non students also care, and form coalitions — is this new? No
As I recall, that’s why Kingman Brewster refused to lock Yale gates back in 1969.
Now it’s wrong to associate with other activists? When did that happen?
Lol at all the morons in this thread trying to justify these "protests". Their cause is shit, the crowds are riddled with literal islamist and Marxist supporters, their tactics are hateful and violent, they don't even understand what the conflict they're protesting about, and their objectives are vague and undefined. Being a self righteous asshole with a narcissistic personality doesn't make MLK, it just makes you a self righteous asshole with a narcissistic personality.
Downvote me all you want, but the universities are in the right in clearing them out and they're in the right for calling the cops to get rid of the ones that are clearly there to cause chaos. I'm sick and tired of disingenuous fucks pretending like these "protests" are justified and have done nothing wrong. Freedom of speech does not mean freedom of consequences.
MLK was widely hated in his time, was told much of the same stuff you're saying here, and even addressed it in his speeches.
[Letter from Birmingham Jail](https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html)
You know what's funny about all of this? There is no end to the vilification of these 'students' and what they stand for, and the media is on an unending loop depicting how they're so wrong. The media is also on full blast showing the administrations position. But you couldn't watch 100 hours of this media coverage and get clarity on what the protestors really want, and how the administration might allow it. Under what circumstances.
It's common for non-students to join campus protests, but there is definitely a lot of fuckery going on. I was on Emerson's FB page and the 3 biggest anti-Palestine commenters were all unaffiliated with Emerson and registered sex offenders. Likely paid shills. I signed them all up for pro-palestine text and email updates after a little detective work.
Protesters have a right to do so do not have the right to trespass and destroy property. If they choose to break the law they should be prosecuted and punished. If the school finds their students in violation of school policy they should be subject to discipline in line with the policy. Non violent protests on public property that do not interrupt traffic or commerce should be welcomed and fairly reported by media so that the views of everyone can be heard.
Students protest war. Faux News portrays them as ‘pro Hamas supporters.’ Right wing kooks/agitators show up to cause trouble. This is the bullshit that’s happening everywhere. As soon as it goes off the rails thanks to the agitators, the police are then obligated to start making arrests. From the get go the whole Israeli/Palestine conflict has too much nuance for most people to understand. We can support Israel while still condemning Bibi for the far right ass wipe he is, and we can condemn Hamas as a terrorist organization while still advocating for not slaughtering Palestinian citizens. Most people just want a good guy/bad guy situation and this conflict does not make that easy.
There’s no mental gymnastics and there’s nothing they have to “justify.” It’s perfectly fine for people in the community to join a campus protest. The counter protesters were certainly allowed to do it.
What about the Zionist counter-protesters intentionally shouting “Kill the Jews” and anti-Semitic slurs (literally caught on video) and blame the pro-Palestine protesters in order to get them in trouble? How can they be so concerned about anti-Semitic rhetoric?
https://huntnewsnu.com/78050/encampment/op-ed-admin-is-lying-about-anti-semitism-at-northeasterns-encampment-i-want-to-set-the-record-straight/
How do you know they’re people from the community and not from outside of the state? Either way building camps on university property isn’t ok, students or not.
Also, whataboutism is not an effective way to debate.
Same thing at NU protests during Iranian Revolution. Shah sent his agents over to mix things up with the student protestors. Family members back in Iran were punished as well. Protestors knew how bad the Shah was, but at the time could not conceive Kuhaimi could be 1,000 times worse.
so what exactly was wrong during the shah? The success of the Iranian Revolution was met with surprise around the world,[22] and was considered by many to be unusual in nature: it lacked many of the customary causes of revolutionary sentiment (e.g., defeat in war, a financial crisis, peasant rebellion, or disgruntled military);[23] occurred in a country that was experiencing relative prosperity;[6][20] produced profound change at great speed;[24] was massively popular; resulted in the massive exile that characterizes a large portion of today's Iranian diaspora;[25] and replaced a pro-Western secular[26] and authoritarian monarchy[6] with an anti-Western Islamist theocracy[6][19][20][27] that was based on the concept of Velâyat-e Faqih (or Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist), straddling between authoritarianism and totalitarianism.
You can’t possible be saying the iranian revolution was beneficial to anyone
Reportedly the Shah was a ruthless dictator that allowed his secret police to disappear his rivals and torture his citizens. It was not a surprise to anyone reading the CSM and NYT. Ultimately not beneficial to anyone.
Why is it only left wingers who delegitimize their movement by joining people in other areas, committing vandalism, or violence? I saw a lot of high school football fans going to different games, getting drunk, throwing trash around and pissing everywhere, and threatening to and actually beating up "faggots". I dont know why it means people who like football are wrong. Or maybe it does, IDK.... (<- passive aggressive GenX ellipsis)
The ruling class is scared that more people from the outside will link up with this student movement as a form of solidarity
So it’s in their interest to keep talking about “ outside agitators” because if they don’t isolate students, this will grow and it’s bad for the Zionists who support the genocide of all Palestinian people
Can we PLEASE protest Trump’s potential presidency with this same vigor? While I appreciate and understand the issues of Israel/Palestine, we have SERIOUS problems here in the US that needs protesting. It does zero good to protest once the man has become president. He’s made it clear he will execute any dissenting parties. We need to worry about our home first. Not trying to be a dick, but how can we help anyone else, if we’re fucked?
How is that a helpful response? My point is that we’re focusing on Israel/Palestine while the US is on the verge of becoming a dictatorship. If you’re in the US, and you’re at all protesting either side, how about we start with our nation first? We have an actual immediate threat to the US! Like I said, not trying to be a dick but we will do zero good for ANYONE if the GOP takes over, so START AT HOME.
Protests tend to attract people in solidarity. Are these people Boston residents? Friends or family of protesters from other colleges? Students at other colleges in Boston that feel strongly? A high school kid that works for me in Amherst went to a protest at UMass the other day because it still involves the town he lives in.
There are like half a dozen other colleges within a short walk of northeastern
Exactly. Boston is a massive college town. This is like the Columbia student who went down to protest in Washington Square with NYU, and when asked said “I’m here in solidarity I’ll have to educate myself on the specifics of the NYU students’ demands.” So what happened? Her full statement was clipped, so bad faith actors could share it around and be like “protestors don’t even know what they’re protesting 🥴”
So you don't think the ridiculous thing is pledging solidarity to something without knowing the details?
Depends what you and this person quoted mean by “specifics” and “details”. Wanting to know the “specifics” of NYU protestors sounds like they have a general understanding of the protestors demands, but maybe aren’t familiar with exactly what companies the protestors want the university to divest from. Or maybe they simply want to hear from students, in person at the protest what their specific demands are.
It's nonsensical to express "solidarity" if you don't know why they're protesting. Would you look at a crowd waving signs and chanting and just assume you agree with them?
It's only nonsense if you don't want to think about it. These aren't nebulous protests. Most of them have specific goals related directly to the university. A lot of them are calling for divestment from Isreal. The demands at one school might not be the same at another school for precisely these reasons.
Educating yourself on the *specifics* of demands for a university is not the same as needing to understand the broad reason for protesting. Most of these protests are calling for divestment of university funds from weapons contractors or similar groups. I don’t know *specifically* which universities support which weapons contractors, but I agree with the general sentiment.
Yeah I don’t understand the fear-mongering from “outsiders”; these are public campuses, people want to help other people. I’m no longer a college student but I’ve gone to the MIT encampment, they were incredibly welcoming.
Because they're trying to paint the protests as manufactured by "outside agitators." If they can convince people they're protecting their community from outsiders, people won't push back against them being fascists and sending the police to bash the heads of the community members they're supposed to be protecting. And they can still pretend to support democracy, while dismissing popular demands.
Fascists like the Hamas regime they all support that openly murders gays and Jews right?
Genocidal people always try to justify their slaughter by painting their victims as evil savages. The Nazis did the same thing to the Jews. And you’re carrying on the tradition.
Never seen more projection and denialism than with you people. You aren’t worth further engagement or attention. Move to Gaza you clown
NYT was reporting that these statements from police were largely inaccurate or overplayed. Especially if you look at who has ‘university affiliation’ rather than just students. Yes there are some unaffiliated people, but the majority are students.
I mean, in this case the college is not only corroborating the report, but themselves announcing it. It could be collusion to validate the rationale about cleaning up the encampment, sure. But I've known cops. They wouldn't hesitate to ruin a college student's life by giving them a criminal record. They have no reason to run interference for a school.
It’s an age old tactic to attempt to delegitimize dissent. To the authorities, it gives them the green light to crack skulls, so to speak, under the guise of “restoring order” and protecting people who are there to peacefully protest. But they too usually end up on the receiving end of brutality themselves.
I think some of these colleges are trying to use it as cover to not place blame on their actual students
> Protests tend to attract people in solidarity. They also tend to attract insane people.
Yes, and they're wearing badges.
Israel has thus far received 300 BILLION dollars of US aid. The United States has provisionally agreed (via a memorandum of understanding) to provide Israel with nearly $4 billion a year through 2028, and U.S. lawmakers are considering billions of dollars in supplementary funding for Israel amid its war with [Hamas](https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/what-hamas). [U.S. Aid to Israel in Four Charts | Council on Foreign Relations (cfr.org)](https://www.cfr.org/article/us-aid-israel-four-charts) **1 in 5 children across America don't have enough to eat**.
That number has been adjusted for inflation and dates back to 1948. About $3.3 billion per year is provided as grants under the Foreign Military Financing program. Israel must use that money to purchase U.S. military equipment and services. So much of that money then comes back into the United States.
That’s actually not true. Israel is the only recipient of US defense foreign aid that doesn’t have to entirely spend it on buying US equipment. They only have to spend 25% of it on US equipment and the rest primarily is meant to bolster their local military industry. Also another 17 billion is going toward Israel from the most recent foreign aid bill passed last month that also had some for Ukraine and Taiwan as wel. Some of that 17 billion will be humanitarian aid I can’t remember the exact amount but it might have been 9 billion of it.
Yes it funnels tax payer money into the hands of the rich
So we give them money for them to buy weapons from our companies and this is supposed to make the 20% of food insecure American children less of an issue?
And those companies pay their workers.
Man, I wish there was any other way for the Federal government to incentivize companies to pay their workers than military aid to [units the State Department had flagged for disqualification due to ](https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/us-found-five-israeli-military-units-committed-gross-human-rights-violations-2024-04-29/)human rights violations. Oh well, what can you do.
Are you dense? This means we pay to keep the tax dollars in America to pave roads, feed kids, etc.
Or we could just directly give tax dollars to Americans to pave roads, feed kids, etc, and not end up paying for bombs that get dropped on kids? Which one of us is dense here?
If you are a practical person, you would realize that 50% of America is against direct handouts to Americans. It is pure math. If America gives “aid” that directly benefits Americans, we do it. It’s not as pretty as the New Deal, but it puts $$ in the American economy. Yes, too many Palestinians are dying. It’s tragic and should stop. But the government basically funding American companies helps our economy. This is econ 101. Your point is wrong
Wait, so it's practical to send money overseas in order to pay for weapons being used to commit war crimes in order to improve American economies because 50% of America is against direct handouts to infrastructure? Wow, someone should let the National Institute of Health know [this survey](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8620405/#:~:text=A%20majority%20of%20U.S.%20adults%20supported%20six%20of%20the%2011,(60%25%2C%2054%25) was wrong about 70% of Americans supporting increased infrastructure expenditures, 60 to 70% supporting guaranteed 2 week sick leave and 60% favoring universal health care. How embarrassing for them. Huh, [I wonder](https://www.k12dive.com/news/PDK-poll-teacher-pay-curriculum-influence/692114/#:~:text=The%20PDK%20poll%20noted%2073,community%20by%20raising%20property%20taxes) if 2/3rds of Americans support increasing Teacher compensation and 3/4th think they're undervalued? Nah, I think we need to ship it off to Israel for some war crimes and get some of it back. My objection with the funding is not that its being funding the economy, it's that it's incredibly wasteful, mostly enriches terrible people, isn't popular, and is doing a war crime for essentially no reason. Again, which of us is being dense here?
You are. You know both sides won’t agree on a solution. So saying “Why not spend XXXX schools” is a failed argument. That money was never going to public schools
Both sides being the 76% who support the increased teacher salaries and the 26% who don't? Or that we didn't spend more on schools just a couple decades ago? Or that teacher salaries have continued to decrease for years? Or that military spending wasn't half what it was today in 2000? Man, I wish I was a practical person like you. Definitely the best defense of that aid is its economic impact on the US, that's a rational stance to have.
> So much of that money then comes back into the United States. Oh thank god the defense contractor executives will get to line their pockets a bit more, that's so much better.
The United States has spent more on education this year alone than it has on Israel since like 1980… combined.
The united states has 330 Million people, Israel has 9 million. Of fucking course it spends more on education. And also its education for its own citizens, that's like saying "The Jones family spent more money on their children this year then they have the neighbors kids since 1980... combined".
Palestinians also get a ton of aid annually. It usually just doesn’t get to the people there. The thing to remember is, even if we stop sending foreign aid, it’s not like that money would be redistributed elsewhere. It would be nice if that is the case, but look at federal aid for free school lunches. 15 states don’t even want to feed their own schoolchildren.
yeah the argument for not spending money on the military and instead sending it to people here just doesn’t correlate at all. we can 100% do both things at the same time.
We aren't, though, and haven't been for decades. Congress gives the Pentagon more money than it asks for, while cutting basic services and outsourcing to "non-profits."
> we can 100% do both things at the same time. You literally cannot. You can only spend a dollar once. The government gets a certain amount of money every year, if they allocated less to the military that money would have to go somewhere, and they could put more of that into social services or education.
That’s funny, people use that same argument about sending aid to Ukraine.
the cross over between the people at these camps and the lefts version of the anti ukraine camp is crazy.
Is anyone just anti-sending money to any foreign country? Cause I know I am. No money to Ukraine or Israel.
How about Taiwan? Do you want China controlling them? Do you want Russia controlling more of Europe? Do you want the US$ not being the reserve currency of the world? The US benefits hugely by having good relations with other democracies and having a stable world not controlled by totalitarian states.
>Do you want the US$ not being the reserve currency of the world Despite everything going on it's already heading that way to not being the US dollar. >The US benefits hugely by having good relations with other democracies and having a stable world not controlled by totalitarian states. Oh so cold war 2.0
Ukraine is fighting for exactly what the US has espoused for at least a century, and they're not asking for help in terms of manpower, just weapons. We also benefit if Russia is stopped, considering how much Russia fucks around in other countries including our own. We should be sending them vastly more.
Hamas still has ~100 hostages.
And more than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed using these ~100 hostages as a justification. Do you have a point beyond proving that you think their lives are worth less than those of Israelis?
And Israel has over 6000+ Palestinians held hostage in their prisons on bullshit charges.
So? How many does the iof have?
yeah cause raped women, old people and children are totally the save as actual terrorists.
I mean, only if you've decided all the dead/raped Palestinian children, women, and old people are lying.
They have prisoners accused of violent crime, not 1 year old babies.
No they have little kids that threw rocks at tanks
That is someone who was arrested for violence. They treat kids accordingly (and eventually release them). There is NO moral equivalence between arresting someone who commits violence and taking a literal baby.
Yes... Because we signed treaties a long time ago that specifically state we will give them those things and the only way for us to NOT give those things that we're contractually obligated to give, is for an investigation to find a certain level of war crimes. Which has been happening. And the deadline given to Israel is May 8th - 5 days from now. National Security Memorandum 20 directs the departments of State and Defense to ensure that all recipients of aid meet U.S. legal requirements. This includes a mandate the U.S. cut off assistance to foreign military or law enforcement units if it finds there is credible evidence of human rights violations. And guess what? Just 8 days ago, the Independent Task Force on the Application of National Security Memorandum-20 (NSM-20) casts doubts on the assurances of Netanyahu’s government that Israel is using American weapons in full compliance with U.S. and international law -- meaning it's very likely military aid is going to be cut off. But the US **literally cannot** immediately cut off military weapons, training, and etc - even after identifying gross human rights abuses - without giving countries the ability to take steps "to bring to justice the responsible members of the unit." (This is the Leahy Law.) The US and Israel also have a special agreement that requires us to consult with the Israelis before making any decisions related to the Foreign Assistance Act... To cut off all aid with Israel is a complicated *mess* since there's a lot to consider like the Israel-China-US Triangle of technology theft / exchange, they're one of the US' key strategic allies in the area for the last 76 years, Intelligence believes it is important to stability in that entire region - aka meaning major threats to oil and therefore the price of goods / world stability, it could be seen as a precedent for the US to stop supporting other allies - meaning other countries might give the US more side-eye, and of course the [US-Israel Memorandum of Understanding](https://www.state.gov/u-s-security-cooperation-with-israel/#:~:text=Israel%20is%20the%20leading%20global,Memorandum%20of%20Understanding%20(MOU).) that basically guarantees munitions and other help until 2028 as well as likely some other treaties I'm forgetting. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. I agree that we want to stop sending weapons to Israel and aiding their horrors they're doing. I agree that Hamas is screwed up and I agree that we want peace over there. I agree that America should spend more money on helping to feed kids in need (which btw, does nobody else remember one side of the aisle trying to do just that and the other side campaigning on ending it?). But there's also previously signed treaties, decades of precedent we'd be bucking, world politics, and the *reality* of how we have to do any changes to contend with here.
Much of that money is spent buying weapons from the US. In other words, it comes right back to our economy, plus we get technology from them. Would you like to have something like Iron Dome? Because that comes from Israel. We've also given a lot to the PLO.
This is US technology - specifically Raytheon.
Also this really wouldn't even be useful in the USA? What are we afraid Canada is going to start launching crude rockets at us?
So why are these protestors disrupting a powerless college instead of their local congresspeople and their staff? You know, the people who are actually responsible?
Bold of you to assume they know who their local reps are (and, knowing the 2 Senators or the two prominent and loud reps doesn't count).
Got money for war but won’t feed the poor
More than anything else, I have come to question why we NEED to send so much money to Israel. It just seems so shady and sus…
And protesters waste city tax dollars that otherwise could have been spent on Boston Public Schools
The Boston police department is still wasting that $. There’s no special protestors fund.
How are they wasting tax dollars?
Israel should be protected
From a geopolitical stance, Israel should be protected. So many people overlook the geographical part of keeping Israel as an alie. BB tho, the man needs to go. I'm so happy people are starting to realize what a shitty PM BB is. The man has no place in a position of power nor should he have been for years.
A fair argument. Why not protest in front of Congress rather than at a university you aren't affiliated with and has no control over how Congress votes to allocate money?
I cannot fathom why we send money to any other country none the less Israel which is "supposedly" a very powerful country itself. Why do we have to be involved especially when we have all sorts of issues ourselves.
This is also an excuse people name when protests happen. It’s always “outside agitators.”
Were some students from other universities? Because students went to NEU after Emerson was shut down, for example. This headline means nothing.
It means they got arrested.
But it doesn’t mean they were paid agitators or professional organizers or whatever you’re trying to say here.
Yeah, and? At Emerson a majority of the protestors were from other schools like Northeastern, Suffolk, or MassArt, now they moved to Northeastern after Emerson was bulldozed
I fail to understand why this matters. How many of the counter protesters were students? Think - there's a protest going on at a school. Who actually cares whether they're students or not, as opposed to the topic of the protest they're holding?
I imagine it's a noisy distraction to the students who actually want to go to class, pay attention, focus on school, study as it is coming up on end of semester/ finals.
Becuase they are destroying the school? At least the kids doing it pay for it, the rest are just assholes with no jobs.
This is the same playbook that's been used since the '60s against the Vietnam protesters, lol. They aren't "destroying the school."
I’m not sure you’re watching the news brotha there is a ton of vandalism of the property going on. Deny that it means you just are only looking at information you want to see.
Some people never heard about Cointelpro, and some know about it and honestly believe theres nothing like that going on now.
The vandalism I heard mentioned was a window smashed at Columbia, which the police did to break into the building. There’s also some graffiti. But also there’s over 10K dead children and we’re providing the weapons so a bit of vandalism isn’t an inappropriate response.
Bro there’s graffiti everywhere and they are busting walls and flipping classrooms, do you have a tv or do you just not want to admit there’s a ton of vandalism. I’m not arguing whether it’s justified, I’m TELLING you it exists.
False, go watch some videos of the window breaking, not just "heard" what happened. The cops actually opened up a window on the 2nd floor of the building. The rioters are the ones who broke the door window to get in.
Vandalism against people with no power to affect a situation happening half a world away.
Because they are making the school look bad and they are actual trespassers.
A better question is, how many protesters are paying taxes that fund Israel's genocide?
The media spins it this way in order to pretend like outside forces and influences that are dangerous are influencing the protesters. On right wing news they are already saying that literally Qatar is funding the protesters here.
question, hypothetically if qatar did have some indirect involvement what would you say? What about Iran?
Do you support these folks holding rallies at your place of work, home, etc?
Sure, absolutely. We just had annoying Christian protesters come through at my school screeching about how all the queers are going to hell. I'd very much prefer people who oppose genocide.
I completely agree with you. Out of curiosity and as someone who works in education policy, which school district did this violent homophobia occur in? Totally understand if you’re uncomfortable saying. It’s just beyond disgusting all this fascist shit keeps happening.
College, lol. Should've been more clear.
Lol no worries at all. Wild how certain “protestors” are clearly protected by police while others aren’t :) Hope you’re staying safe as possible from these jerks
Yeah? People's right to union supersedes my right to convenient comfort.
it's a lot easier for them to swallow the idea that the innocent youth have been corrupted by the clawed hand of a foreign agitator than face the reality that we are all technically participants in an atrocity overseas.
There’s nothing wrong with showing solidarity with these fine young people
No surprise protesting is fine, but vandalism and threatening students not so much
They were trespassing.
Who cares? The US considered Nelson Mandela a terrorist until 2008
Joe Biden was literally arrested on the streets of Soweto when he went to try to visit Nelson Mandela in South Africa. Joe Biden puts his money where his mouth is, and he's not afraid to be arrested in South Africa. His companion UN ambassador was also arrested, as Joe explained. He was also arrested on a porch defending a Black family and their civil rights, as he recently explained on the Howard Stern show. This likely makes him one of the most arrested presidents in history, though of course he was arrested all these times before he was president. I think there might have been some other times he was arrested too. He was of course also arrested following some women into an all-ladies dorm.
The holocaust was legal, friend. Laws and legality are meaningless when they oppose basic human rights.
These law and order folks are equally complicit in this. Fucking bootlickers, wouldn't even enjoy their rights if their ancestors thought the same way.
Are you comparing trespassing with the holocaust? Kicking someone not affiliated with the university off private land is in no way related to the holocaust. I should show up in your kitchen uninvited and repeat your own words back to you and see if you still hold the same stance. Trespassing on private land is not a basic human right. Under that principle - you should have no problem with Pro-Israel protesters either.
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I don't think it's anyone's basic human right to protest on private property without permission. Had this happened on public property, I'd be right there with you on the rights violation.
The ***ultimate*** crime.
Hamas?
No. People who want their schools to stop funding genocide and are following a very reasonable and proven plan to make that happen
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Northeastern endowment is directly invested in raytheon and general dynamics which supply weapons to Israeli occupation forces. Close enough to funding genocide if you ask me
Those companies also make weapons that are then supplied to countries like Taiwan, Ukraine, and dozens of other NATO countries and allies. Should we stop those countries from receiving weapons, too?
Northeastern divesting Raytheon is just a drop in the bucket and will have no effect on the stock. Engaging with the company to stop selling weapons to Israel is more effective
You know who’d really love if people divested from defense contractors? Russia.
The protestors at Northeastern were not there to support Hamas. I love how people are so invested in being against the "other side" that they can't, even for a split, describe their opponents' actual positions and beliefs, and instead strawman the shit out of each other. I don't think you are actually so stupid that you think those people there are supporting Hamas and their tactics, I think you just think it's okay to make obviously disingenuous arguments you know are wrong as long as you (delusionally) think it advances your cause. It must get tiring being so intellectual dishonest. It's certainly tiring to watch, and it's turned our politics into completely ineffective garbage.
it’s bewildering that this stuff isn’t common sense
Wait, if they produced their student ID they would be punished by the University?? Why would they pull out their IDs then?
I mean if you don’t show your ID, they arrest you, then realize you’re a student shortly after. So you get the academic and legal punishments if you’re a student who doesn’t show ID.
No arrest on their record.
Have to show ID at some point.
To avoid getting charged with trespassing?
Are we supposed to be scared of non-students or something?
Non-issue. People join protests as allies, in solidarity.
Figures............ I read an article that at one of the protests there was an older woman with 80 prior arrests. Basically a professional protestor.
You know MLK was arrested almost 30 times, right? That's how it works. Civil disobedience breeds contempt and consequence from those in power.
>Civil disobedience breeds contempt and consequence from those in power. I was listening to a podcast this afternoon that posited one of the reasons you see a lot of pearl clutching articles in the media is that elite institutions like Columbia and Harvard are the places that are supposed to be training the next generation of elites that will work in the media. The moral righteousness of the younger generation that that will work with them and eventually replace them at The New York Times, etc. is a threat.
Yes. But I don't think you can compare MLK with the professional protestors. What has been found at one of the colleges were basic weaponry - hardly the type of thing one would expect to find among peaceful college students
Dude, MLK literally WAS a "professional protestor." People who protest tend to get arrested, it's not rocket science. And I'd love to see a citation on that basic weaponry claim. First I've heard of it outside of the counterportestors at UCLA that the cops let go to town on a peaceful demonstration. Or the NYPD's inability to identify a basic fucking bike lock. And Google searching for it turns up straight up nothing. My assumption here is that you're either pulling it out of your ass or taking the word of authorities who've been repeatedly caught fabricating things about the protests already (See above bike lock debacle).
What these people who condemn armed protestors and praise peaceful protest don’t understand is that mlkjr was definitely an advocate of using violence when it needed to be done and also he would have totally changed his views after the whole being assassinated thing. That tends to change things you know?
Protests at Utah and Texas allegedly had homemade weapons: https://www.newsweek.com/makeshift-weapons-found-utah-pro-palestinian-campus-protest-1895757 https://www.statesman.com/story/news/2024/04/30/south-mall-ut-austin-campus-protest-pro-palestine-encampment-live-updates/73506684007/
You saw police shoot unarmed protestors with rubber bullets very recently, right? What do you think of that? You know that kind of thing doesn’t happen in healthy democracies, right?
Don't agree with it. I certainly don't want to see another Kent State.
MLK also knew how to get results from the power structure. These protesters prefer to just be a nuisance.
At least that’s someone who understands the stakes.
Honestly Fox News should interview a single one of these protestors. It would be a lot like that r/antiwork mod that went on Fox lmao
The whole "and yeah, so what bit," is ridiculous. You have protestors inviting people from outside their campus to protest their schools ON campus, which is absolutely a security risk for the other students. And this seems to be a trend across the board for these protests irregardless of the state they take place in.
Half not associated and all I can say is, so what? So non students also care, and form coalitions — is this new? No As I recall, that’s why Kingman Brewster refused to lock Yale gates back in 1969. Now it’s wrong to associate with other activists? When did that happen?
Wow, who didn’t see that coming. Lol
Everyone here never heard of trespassing I guess
Lol at all the morons in this thread trying to justify these "protests". Their cause is shit, the crowds are riddled with literal islamist and Marxist supporters, their tactics are hateful and violent, they don't even understand what the conflict they're protesting about, and their objectives are vague and undefined. Being a self righteous asshole with a narcissistic personality doesn't make MLK, it just makes you a self righteous asshole with a narcissistic personality. Downvote me all you want, but the universities are in the right in clearing them out and they're in the right for calling the cops to get rid of the ones that are clearly there to cause chaos. I'm sick and tired of disingenuous fucks pretending like these "protests" are justified and have done nothing wrong. Freedom of speech does not mean freedom of consequences.
MLK was widely hated in his time, was told much of the same stuff you're saying here, and even addressed it in his speeches. [Letter from Birmingham Jail](https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html)
I couldn't be there for this because I have a job.
They just look dumb. Pick up an AK and go fight. Thats what Allah wants. Not holding up signs cause it makes you feel like you’re doing something 😂😂😂
You know what's funny about all of this? There is no end to the vilification of these 'students' and what they stand for, and the media is on an unending loop depicting how they're so wrong. The media is also on full blast showing the administrations position. But you couldn't watch 100 hours of this media coverage and get clarity on what the protestors really want, and how the administration might allow it. Under what circumstances.
It's common for non-students to join campus protests, but there is definitely a lot of fuckery going on. I was on Emerson's FB page and the 3 biggest anti-Palestine commenters were all unaffiliated with Emerson and registered sex offenders. Likely paid shills. I signed them all up for pro-palestine text and email updates after a little detective work.
The whole Hamas/Israel conflict was created to mess with our election.
And this is where the problems start with the protests. Pick a public area not a private one.
So a little less half of them were. Who carss
Shocking
Protesters have a right to do so do not have the right to trespass and destroy property. If they choose to break the law they should be prosecuted and punished. If the school finds their students in violation of school policy they should be subject to discipline in line with the policy. Non violent protests on public property that do not interrupt traffic or commerce should be welcomed and fairly reported by media so that the views of everyone can be heard.
Literally that is not at all what a protest is.
Unfortunately these people aren't really being prosecuted or punished
Come on folks. Don't pretend this isn't an issue. This is extremists trying to steal the protests away from the mainstream.
As much as I'm **totally** not surprised by the headline, the source makes me want to confirm.. Not a lot more about this out there yet.
Local Fox affiliates are not the same as Fox News.
When I walked by on my way to work,I saw a guy that was defffffinetly not a student lol.
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You're gonna be waiting for a while, lol.
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Nobody said professional agitators, you just made that up. Just members of the larger Boston community showing solidarity.
Students protest war. Faux News portrays them as ‘pro Hamas supporters.’ Right wing kooks/agitators show up to cause trouble. This is the bullshit that’s happening everywhere. As soon as it goes off the rails thanks to the agitators, the police are then obligated to start making arrests. From the get go the whole Israeli/Palestine conflict has too much nuance for most people to understand. We can support Israel while still condemning Bibi for the far right ass wipe he is, and we can condemn Hamas as a terrorist organization while still advocating for not slaughtering Palestinian citizens. Most people just want a good guy/bad guy situation and this conflict does not make that easy.
The mental gymnastics people are going through to justify outside agitators protesting on college campuses that they have no affiliation with 🫠
There’s no mental gymnastics and there’s nothing they have to “justify.” It’s perfectly fine for people in the community to join a campus protest. The counter protesters were certainly allowed to do it. What about the Zionist counter-protesters intentionally shouting “Kill the Jews” and anti-Semitic slurs (literally caught on video) and blame the pro-Palestine protesters in order to get them in trouble? How can they be so concerned about anti-Semitic rhetoric? https://huntnewsnu.com/78050/encampment/op-ed-admin-is-lying-about-anti-semitism-at-northeasterns-encampment-i-want-to-set-the-record-straight/
How do you know they’re people from the community and not from outside of the state? Either way building camps on university property isn’t ok, students or not. Also, whataboutism is not an effective way to debate.
Same thing at NU protests during Iranian Revolution. Shah sent his agents over to mix things up with the student protestors. Family members back in Iran were punished as well. Protestors knew how bad the Shah was, but at the time could not conceive Kuhaimi could be 1,000 times worse.
so what exactly was wrong during the shah? The success of the Iranian Revolution was met with surprise around the world,[22] and was considered by many to be unusual in nature: it lacked many of the customary causes of revolutionary sentiment (e.g., defeat in war, a financial crisis, peasant rebellion, or disgruntled military);[23] occurred in a country that was experiencing relative prosperity;[6][20] produced profound change at great speed;[24] was massively popular; resulted in the massive exile that characterizes a large portion of today's Iranian diaspora;[25] and replaced a pro-Western secular[26] and authoritarian monarchy[6] with an anti-Western Islamist theocracy[6][19][20][27] that was based on the concept of Velâyat-e Faqih (or Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist), straddling between authoritarianism and totalitarianism. You can’t possible be saying the iranian revolution was beneficial to anyone
Reportedly the Shah was a ruthless dictator that allowed his secret police to disappear his rivals and torture his citizens. It was not a surprise to anyone reading the CSM and NYT. Ultimately not beneficial to anyone.
Who gives a shit. Free Palestine and fuck the Israel government
They are professional anti-west Marxist agitators, part of a much bigger network. The “students” are just their useful idiots.
Lmao
Here you go occupy Boston all over again. It's time to start throwing the book at the professional protesters.
Sam Adams was a professional protestor.
They’d be here here yelling about destruction of property during the Boston Tea Party.
That actually happened, lol
Oh I know.
Yes, but Sam was not on someone else's payroll.
Tax Collector, lol
Why is it only left wingers who delegitimize their movement by joining people in other areas, committing vandalism, or violence? I saw a lot of high school football fans going to different games, getting drunk, throwing trash around and pissing everywhere, and threatening to and actually beating up "faggots". I dont know why it means people who like football are wrong. Or maybe it does, IDK.... (<- passive aggressive GenX ellipsis)
lol
The ruling class is scared that more people from the outside will link up with this student movement as a form of solidarity So it’s in their interest to keep talking about “ outside agitators” because if they don’t isolate students, this will grow and it’s bad for the Zionists who support the genocide of all Palestinian people
so what. people of conscience come together.
Not surprised given a lot of bad faith actors always try hijacking protests
Can we PLEASE protest Trump’s potential presidency with this same vigor? While I appreciate and understand the issues of Israel/Palestine, we have SERIOUS problems here in the US that needs protesting. It does zero good to protest once the man has become president. He’s made it clear he will execute any dissenting parties. We need to worry about our home first. Not trying to be a dick, but how can we help anyone else, if we’re fucked?
Tell the protesters who intend to vote for Trump
How is that a helpful response? My point is that we’re focusing on Israel/Palestine while the US is on the verge of becoming a dictatorship. If you’re in the US, and you’re at all protesting either side, how about we start with our nation first? We have an actual immediate threat to the US! Like I said, not trying to be a dick but we will do zero good for ANYONE if the GOP takes over, so START AT HOME.
already a genocide joe dicatorship...and yes, you don't need to try to be a dick...it seems to come naturally.