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PaperclipPerfector  11d ago (text post)   25183 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 22, 2024

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Students from various campuses have occupied the Columbia University campus in New York City in protest of Israel. There reports and videos circulating of protestors harassing Jewish students on or near campus grounds. The NYPD has deployed officers to surround the campus and has established filtration checkpoints to prevent outside agitators from entering campus. Various Columbia alumni have expressed concern with Columbia’s handling of the situation. All classes are now online at least for today. Similar protests are happening at Yale and various other campuses across the country.

Edit: Congressman Josh Hawley has called on President Joe Biden to deploy the National Guard to Columbia and other universities to protect Jewish students on campus.

Edit: NYU has ordered their encampment to disperse and the NYPD is moving in to clear the demonstrators.

Edit: I’m seeing footage of NYU professors being marched out of the campus in zip ties. Cal Poly Humbolt students have barricaded themselves inside a campus building with furniture.

Edit: University of Texas, Austin student protestors are being dispersed by police. And possibly vanned. Protests now seem to be nationwide.

Edit: Mass arrests beginning at USC protests.

Edit: Tasers and rubber bullets being deployed against protestors at Emory University in Georgia.

Edit: There appear to be police snipers monitoring protests at Ohio State University.

I mean, what do these people hope to accomplish? Like what are their demands?

Surely they know that Columbia university can’t actually affect any Israeli policies.

Remember that everyone said this exact same thing about BLM protests in 2015. The movement was a joke, just some crazy college kids.

This is just another loop on the death spiral.

BLM turned out and had specific demands of people near enough to have to listen to them. Those demands were, at first, fairly reasonable(cops wear body cams) so they were met.

By contrast the pro-Palestine protestors are demanding Israel dissolve itself. Not only is this a much bigger ask than ‘put cameras on your police’ Israel really doesn’t care and doesn’t have to listen at all.

I don't recall anyone actually being against body cams, aside from some griping about the cost. IME most cops want to wear them because they're great at rebutting false accusations of misconduct and brutality.

I haven't noticed the sibling's comment that BLM is actually against them now, though maybe I haven't been paying enough attention. I suppose it wouldn't surprise me all that much though. I still recall the case where the cops shot a black teenage girl who was actively in the process of stabbing another girl, it was caught on bodycam quite clearly, and BLM still threw a fit, though a bit more muted.

fairly reasonable(cops wear body cams)

I am all for this. But then when it started to be implemented, BLM's rhetoric turned around, at least locally. The stated rationale was privacy. But cynically, I think it was because too many (but not all!) of their rallying cases wound up having video evidence that contradicted the simple narrative that spun out of the initial reports.

I remember articles from the activist groups demanding that body cam footage be sealed and only released at the request of the accused. Remind me to find them later.

Yeah, that sounds familiar. If you happen to come across those links, it'd be nice to have them here for reference, but no worries if not. :-)

As far as I know, BLM always opposed body cams.

BLM is just a three word slogan. To the extent that it became a real-world organization it was largely a grift.

People then, as now, were attracted to the movement for all sorts of reasons. Some people made reasonable demands. Most did not.

As usual, the communists showed up as they do whenever people are angry about something.

There was no "good BLM" that got corrupted. It was always just an organic blob that was fanned by street anger, irresponsible news media, and Marxist organizations. The white people who were at those protests in 2014 are the same as the white people at the anti-Jewish protests today. Eventually they'll get bored and move on to the next thing, looking for self-actualization that will never arrive.

BLM is just a three word slogan. To the extent that it became a real-world organization it was largely a grift.

I agree, but I would say that the lack of specific demands was also one of its strengths.

If you make a specific demand, it ties you down. It reveals your cards. The other side can respond in various clear ways. They can give you the demand, which immediately ends the negotiation. They can negotiate, aiming for somewhere in the middle. Or they can refuse, and offer various reasons why those demands are unreasonable. Either way, it gives them a logical path out.

Instead of making demands, it's pure "id." It keeps the other side guessing, pleading. "Just tell me what you want!!!" "No." The classic example is the wife who is angry at her husband, but won't tell him why she's angry or what she wants him to do. "If you really loved me, you'd know without me telling you." It keeps him guessing, keeps him on an endless treadmill of trying to do things for her in a futile attempt to satisfy her that will never end. Plus, for a political movement, it brings together all sorts of people who probably wouldn't agree on any one specific demand.

looking for self-actualization that will never arrive

Seems like it does arrive for them, in the sense that they get to be a part of a change in zeitgeist. I imagine it feels pretty fulfilling to get in early on the next big political thing.

Ego satiation doesn't put food on the table. Once there material wealth was present for the taking, the infighting crippled the movement. The BLM formal organization milked the feel-good donations dry before collapsing, immediately calling the general public racist for not continuing to support Buy Large Mansions. While the grifter and the do-gooder may be seperate bodies, neither side manages to get their preferred outcome.

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