this post was submitted on 02 May 2024
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Hundreds of helmeted police swarmed the site of a pro-Palestinian protest at the University of California at Los Angeles early on Thursday, firing flash bangs, arresting defiant demonstrators and dismantling their encampment.

The pre-dawn police crackdown at UCLA marked the latest flashpoint in mounting tensions on U.S. college campuses, where protests over Israel's war in Gaza have led to student clashes with each other and with law enforcement.

"I'm a student here. I'm an English major," one student said to television cameras, as police dragged him away. "Please don't fail us. Don't fail us."

Live TV footage showed officers taking down tents, tearing apart barricades and removing the encampment, while arrested protesters sat with their hands restrained behind their backs with zip-ties.

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[–] [email protected] 82 points 3 months ago (5 children)

i cannot believe they think we are stupid enough to accept that shooting rubber bullets at unarmed student protestors on public property is justified and morally correct.

paternalistic bullshit like that breeds hatred and contempt; they are making their own enemies in order to justify more crackdowns, and more fascist behavior.

it's dark, but it will pass. i hope for the better.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 3 months ago

It won’t pass on its own though, collective political action is required to make it pass.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 3 months ago (1 children)

It especially pisses me off that they aren't even using them correctly.

They are not direct fire, you're supposed to bounce them off the ground.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 3 months ago

If you’re trying to use them correctly. Otherwise, they’re just “less lethal” and easier to deploy.

https://www.hrw.org/news/2011/12/02/eye-hunting-cairo-militarys-assault-reporters

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

Paternalistic?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago

It receives federal funds so yes in a limited way it is. Doesn't matter though because they have rights as a paying customer redressing both the government and their school.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Public property as we knew it in the 60's has been completely privatised. Our legal system definitions of public spaces haven't caught up with the modern reality of these spaces so let's not defend police brutality with this "was it REALLY a public space" semantic bullshit.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 3 months ago

I’m not defending anything, it’s just an important distinction

[–] [email protected] 61 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

UCLA CRACKDOWN CAME DAY AFTER VIOLENT CLASH

UCLA had canceled classes for the day on Wednesday following a violent clash between the encampment's occupants and a group of masked counter-demonstrators who mounted a surprise assault late Tuesday night on the tent city.

The occupants of the camp, set up last week, had remained mostly peaceful before the melee, in which both sides traded blows and doused each other with pepper spray.

It's an excellent analogue to what's going on in West Bank and Gaza. Violent Israeli settlers attack a peaceful Palestian camp, there is resistance to the aggression, then the big guns arrive to defend the Israelis and do the rest of the work to raid, displace, arrest and/or kill the Palestinian side.

[–] [email protected] 43 points 3 months ago (3 children)

UCLA is a public university. They have a right to protest there!

[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 months ago

Not against the militaries interests they don't, welcome to America

[–] [email protected] -1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

There are still time, place and manner restrictions on protests at a public university.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I didn't realize there was a time, place and manner for us to freely express ourselves in protest. I thought it was an American thing to protest. Not anymore I guess.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Even first amendment rights are not unlimited. Regardless of how you feel, it’s just a simple constitutional matter. This is like middle school civics stuff.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Public universities are public property and publicly funded. There is a right to protest there.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

With reasonable restrictions on time, place and matter decided by the university.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

If they are paying to go to the university and I'm paying taxes for them to go to the university, why does the university get to decide that they aren't allowed to exercise their first amendment rights?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago (1 children)

They are allowed to express their first amendment rights, but first amendment rights are not unlimited. See Ward v Rock Against Racism (1989) where the Supreme Court developed a test for time-place-manner restrictions.

You can disagree with the law and very well established Supreme Court precedent, but you can’t generally argue that the universities are violating the law by creating time, place and manner restrictions for free speech (unless they are failing the time-place-manner test).

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

In an opinion by Justice Kennedy, the Court rejected a First Amendment challenge to a New York City regulation that mandated the use of city-provided sound systems and technicians to control the volume of concerts in New York City's Central Park. The Court found that the city had a substantial interest in limiting excessive noise and the regulation was "content neutral." The court found that "narrow tailoring" would be satisfied if the regulation promoted a substantial government interest that would be achieved less effectively without the regulation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ward_v._Rock_Against_Racism

What on earth does that have to do with protesting on college campuses?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

You really think this was content neutral? The day before protesting at Indiana University started, they passed a new regulation barring protest camps in a field where there had been protest camps since the 1960s. I was in one in 1991 to protest the Gulf War. Then in 2024 they arrested 33 students and put a sniper on the roof.

This was absolutely not content neutral.

Also, what alternative avenues of communications do these students have to let their universities understand exactly what they are demanding?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Is unequivocally content neutral to initiate a new place restriction before any content is expressed in that place. If they subsequently allow other protests in that place, but continue to restrict Gaza protests in that place, then it is not content neutral.

Your second question is either disingenuous or involved zero actual effort on your end, or both. Obviously this is an emotional subject, but it doesn’t absolve from using critical thinking.

I’m not sure it’s helpful to continue, take care.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

Making a rule because you know a protest is about to happen is the opposite of neutral.

I'm not surprised you dismissed the second question since it's obvious it doesn't pass that test.

[–] [email protected] 41 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Breaking news, Violent pro Palestinian student protestors assault riot police fists with their faces. More at six!

Biden condemns the violence.

This is America. Land of the fascists and home of the corporate oligarchs and military industrial complex.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Wonder if/when he'll condemn the police brutality

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago

(He won’t)

[–] [email protected] -4 points 3 months ago (2 children)

And remember, you HAVE to vote for Biden. None of this happened under his administration.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Yes because Biden directed the police personally. You’re thinking of what Trump would do since he would just tweet directly at the police and tell them not to be gentle with the protestors.

Trump would be 1000% worse so stop with the “don’t vote for Biden and let Trump win” Russian propoganda.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago

He came out and made a big statement about how we "need order".

So yeah, couldn't be more clear.