this post was submitted on 09 May 2025
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... Columbia University administrators called in the New York Police Department (NYPD) on Wednesday evening to violently suppress and shut down a pro-Palestinian student occupation of the campus’ Butler Library. Approximately 78 protesters were arrested just over a year after the police-state crackdown at Columbia last April, when the NYPD swarmed the campus to arrest over 100 students and break up the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment.”

On Wednesday afternoon, a group of around 100 anti-genocide student protesters took over Butler’s main reading room and renamed it the “Basel Al-Araj Popular University,” after the Palestinian activist and writer killed by Israeli forces in 2017.

The students’ demands include Columbia’s financial divestment from Zionist organizations, an academic boycott of complicit institutions, cops and ICE off campus and amnesty for all university members unfairly targeted and disciplined for pro-Palestinian actions.

Columbia’s Public Safety officers immediately responded and violently barred protesters from leaving unless they showed identification, which created a prolonged standoff...

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[–] Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca 129 points 2 days ago (22 children)

If peaceful protest is going to be consistently met with violent police response; maybe they should stop being peaceful from the outset.

[–] Lyra_Lycan@lemmy.blahaj.zone 52 points 2 days ago (3 children)

I wonder how long it will take for enough to realise their government is not compatible with protests. Peer pressure does not encourage authoritarians.

[–] Sweetpeaches69@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." -JFK

[–] xintrik@lemm.ee 22 points 2 days ago

The running platform was making empathetic people angry; small scale protests are a badge of honor and large scale protests are a mild annoyance to be dealt with however they deem fit.

[–] standarduser@lemm.ee 7 points 2 days ago (1 children)

It won’t happen at this rate. Last thing that was closest to that was the CHOP zone in Seattle a few years ago. And that still fell through. Most protest folks that participate won’t fight back since most are against baring arms and only want it to be via peace since they are too afraid to die for something. They will shift that fear on to their peers and react as well with “I don’t want to have people miss me” or “I don’t have the time to up and remove my life from what I’ve worked towards so far”

[–] fluxion@lemmy.world 31 points 2 days ago (2 children)

If security shows up to stop protestors from leaving, they aren't there to secure the peace, they are there to oppress.

[–] geneva_convenience@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 day ago (2 children)

They should start doing minor acts of vandalism in places where there are no cameras like emptying all the toilet rolls all the time. But not too obviously and consistently. Just occasionally when they enter a toilet.

[–] gradual@lemmings.world 3 points 23 hours ago

Personally, I'm all for vandalizing the property of zionists and their supporters.

It shouldn't even be that difficult. Could probably rig up a drone to drop bricks or paint on their cars, for example.

[–] lud@lemm.ee 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

What would the accomplished by doing that?

seems like it would just make a lot of people angry without letting them know who did it.

[–] geneva_convenience@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 day ago

Tank the universities rating and cost it financially.

[–] TheOubliette@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Sure, but let's step back and analyze it a little more.

Protest itself does not achieve political change. Its usefulness is in direct action or in recruiting those present into further action, education, and organizations. Liberal protests are state-sanctioned parades. Real protests tend to have an actual action to take, demands to be met, people to impact, costs to incur on others.

The terminology of "peaceful protest" is already poisoned and should be questioned. The media and politicians - and those propagandized downstream, all conflate private property destruction and violence. If a protest breaks windows, suddenly it is no longer "peaceful" and can be rejected by the propagandized as invalid and not to be supported. The US is full of such good little piggies, happy to align with the ruling class picking their pocket and doing actual violence because they exist exclusively in a world of capitalist propaganda.

Under these auspices, all direct action that the capitalist system wants to crush is, will, and has been labelled terrorism. It's already done this for private property destruction by environmentalists, peace activists during all major wars (except WWII, where American Nazis were coddled and of course did not damage private property), labor organizers, anti-segregation organizers, socialists, communists, Mexicans, Chinese, Native Americans, etc. They happily do it again against anti-genocide protesters, particularly because they can play on the islamophobic use of the terrorism label at the same time. Like all fascistic logic, they must frame themselves as the true victims, so they also happily call every critic of Israel an antisemite.

All of this bombards the US population 24/7. Americans exist in a haze of accusations and terms they barely understand, trying to slot it into what could only charitably called an ideology - the naked reactionaries in red and the obfuscated reactionaries in blue.

All of this is to say that the greatest barrier in the US is education, and education begins with agitation, e.g. these protests in any form. Get as many people as possible to show up to the next thing, to organize the next thing, and spread knowledge.

[–] TWeaK@lemm.ee 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Under these auspices, all direct action that the capitalist system wants to crush is, will, and has been labelled terrorism.

Fun fact that runs parallel to your point: it's not terrorism if you only destroy property.

Terrorism is defined as using violence (or the threat of violence), against civilians, in pursuit of a political goal. All 3 requirements must be met for it to be terrorism: violence, civilians, politics.

Burning down a Tesla dealership is thus not terrorism. It is violent, and it's definitely political, but the target is not civilians but property. In a similar manner, the destruction of the NordStream pipeline was also not terrorism, by definition.

On the flipside, you can argue that some things politicians do are terrorism - if you remove someone's disability benefits that could cause them tangible harm, and thus could be considered violence, in which case a politician attacking someone's benefits would be committing terrorism against the benefit recipients. It's also plain to see that invading a country, slaughtering a bunch of people, and bringing some back as hostages is terrorism; but so is raising entire cities and levelling buildings full of civilians.

Terrorism has many different flavours under its definition, yet so many people just have a vague idea of what terrorism is in their minds that doesn't hold any rationality.

[–] TheOubliette@lemmy.ml 2 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

Fun fact that runs parallel to your point: it's not terrorism if you only destroy property.

Terrorism is defined as using violence (or the threat of violence), against civilians, in pursuit of a political goal. All 3 requirements must be met for it to be terrorism: violence, civilians, politics.

Many people who only damage property are still labeled as terrorists by the powers that be. The dictionary can be quite misleading, as it does not really analyze inconsistent usage, particularly for political or propaganda purposes.

For example, "ecoterrorists". Classically labeled as such even when just destroying property. Or even sometimes just for slowing down logistics. Predominately First Nations protesters and activists were labelled "ecoterrorists" by Rick Orman, citing examples like chaining themselves to equipment.

The inconsistent usage has at least two means of biased use. I've already mentioned one, which is using the term for those damaging private property or slowing down enterprise, i.e. equating damage to private property as violence (when private enterprise seizes land or destroys water this is never called ecoterrorism). The other is in inconsistent application: it is a label only routinely used by the targets of capitalist-run states. When their states destroy entire cities and target civilians, it is not called terrorism. When their targets go after a politician insteas of strictly military installations, suddenly they are terrorists. Hell, they can be called terrorists even when going after only military targets. The actusl use of the term corresponds to the means used and the political and ethnic background of those engaging in the acts more than whether the acts are violence for political (isn't everything political?) ends. Terrorism is when a car bomb and not a JDAM.

The real meaning of terrorism must be understood through describing its actual mainstream use. Descriptivism not prescriptivism, lest we miss the reality of propaganda. This is important because the term will continue to be used as I described and to justify rounding up protesters that occupy buildings or block highways or burn down a Tesla dealership. It doesn't really matter ehat the dictionary says, tge law will say enough, the cops will arrest on orders of preventing "terrorism", the judge will convict and sentence based on calling a dumpster fire terrorism, and one might even get sent to a black site to contain such "dangerous" people, "terrorists".

And this is not new. Anarchists and other cool people were lazily labelled exactly the same way over a century ago for the same types of acts.

[–] TWeaK@lemm.ee 2 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

Your reply is very well written and on the whole I agree. The one thing I would say is that I am not simply dismissing the mainstream usage of the word, but pointing out its misuse as intentional deception given that the usage contradicts what the word describes. I aim to point out that the word is actively being used for propaganda, and encourage others to associate it as such.

[–] TheOubliette@lemmy.ml 1 points 7 hours ago

Thanks!

I would say that if a word has been misused for a century it actually just has a new meaning. And I'm not aware of it ever being used consistently.

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