US Politics, May 2024: They Shoot Puppies, Don't They?

I always took "outside agitators" to mean "people who don't give a fuck and just want to cause trouble showing up under the guise of a cause", so that they can basically say "the people we arrested were all THOSE guys, the peaceful ones we didn't arrest", much like "the people we bombed in Gaza were all militants, they're the only ones who died" bullshit.

Much like the time the Maple Leafs lost a playoff game and their fans rioted and social media/the news initially reported it was actually anarchists who had pre-planned a riot and that it had nothing to do with hockey, which was proven to be false in later police statements (they were indeed just angry hockey fans)

It just lets officials have their cake and eat it too, "we support the protests, just not those guys who actually are just violent people here to cause trouble and take advantage of the kids, see we were actually looking out for the students"

I think there's something deeper here, which is when we come across viewpoints we disagree with, we can think of them as permanently fixed, part of their identity. I don't think this is necessarily true, people change their minds and lots of things, they hold contradictory beliefs, some beliefs are low conviction

One of the things that has maybe got lost along the way somewhere is the idea of persuasion, why is engagement or persuasion on anything ever necessary when everything is self-evident and everything is a manifestation of the same thing. I think one of the goals of engagement is to try and shift people's perspective on things

I think something which I've started to notice more, is people criticising others for parroting talking points from the likes of Putin, Biden, Hamas, or Mourinho rather than engaging with the talking points directly.

― anvil, Saturday, May 4, 2024 10:13 AM bookmarkflaglink

Yeah it's basically

Person: says thing
Other people: uh oh, saying that thing means you're a <convenient label>
Original person: oh I see, you're one of those <convenient labels>

And then they both ignore each other or tell each other to harm themselves and never actually discuss anything. It's basically Messi fanboys v Ronaldo fanboys for every topic.

Not that every bullshit statement is worthy of debate, but people seem less willing than ever to have any kind of discussion without this or accusing each other of "gaslighting" or "perpetuating harm" and the winner is who dispenses the most effective insults

This is pretty much the only place I'm willing to have any serious discussions any more

outside agitators is false flag bullshit

kent state never meant a thing to me. not when millions in south east asia go un-mourned in this country. no catchy songs for them. you can't even read books about them here. you can buy a million books about u.s. soldiers losing their innocence though. or about hippies finally stopping the vietnam war in 1975. actually i have no idea if that's a book. it sounds like a bestseller though.

Xpost Man you said it better in only six words.

Otm

scott that seems wildly ahistorical and disconnected from reality; at best myopic

"outside agitators is false flag bullshit"

i agree. i still think colleges would use them as an excuse though. its convenient to blame the outsiders.

those counterprotesters in california were scary though. they looked like skinheads. or cops. i am afraid more proud boy types will start showing up to these things. my kid is camping out up in montreal. which is fine as long as he doesn't get himself deported.

these guys wanted to hurt people:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/05/03/us/ucla-protests-encampment-violence.html

outside agitators is false flag bullshit

this can't be repeated enough

"scott that seems wildly ahistorical and disconnected from reality; at best myopic"

i'm wildly immature when it comes to politics. i stopped growing at 16. its a shame. i try to fight it. i have never in my life heard an american citizen in my presence express remorse or sadness for any of the murder inflicted upon the people of Vietnam or Iraq or Afghanistan. i don't think people here even think about it. which makes me want to say: fuck them. fuck this place. i would move if i had the money. but i don't. so here i am. it's mean. i know. i just never fucking need to hear about kent state ever again. great photo. we love the photo. it should be on the flag.

oh shit sorry i think i need more coffee! my bad. i didn't sleep well...

"outside agitators is false flag bullshit"

i agree. i still think colleges would use them as an excuse though. its convenient to blame the outsiders.

those counterprotesters in california were scary though. they looked like skinheads. or cops. i am afraid more proud boy types will start showing up to these things. my kid is camping out up in montreal. which is fine as long as he doesn't get himself deported.

these guys wanted to hurt people:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/05/03/us/ucla-protests-encampment-violence.html🕸

yes but "outside agitators" =! "counterprotesters" surely? two different things?

One of these friends was a student at ucla in the 80s and was part of the divestment from South Africa protests and apparently the university didn’t have the cops come and brutalize people back then

They sure are, but if complicit university administrators cared about their students they'd call these counter-protestors the real "outside agitators." xpost

Yeah sleeve otm … the claim was not in re the counterprotestors

apparently the university didn’t have the cops come and brutalize people back then

yep, see my post above about my experiences at IU, we met with the administration more than once (they still did not divest, iirc)

"yes but "outside agitators" =! "counterprotesters" surely? two different things?"

yes. definitely.

and i do fear trump/tiki torch people will start to gravitate to these protests more and more. just for the violence.

Lol at “wearing a disguise”

https://i.imgur.com/9ZM6RTj.jpg

"hello, fellow kids"

Fwiw covering your face was illegal (but rarely enforced) in a lot of states pre covid.

Before the pandemic, this level of masking wasn’t common — or legal. For more than 150 years, New York prohibited masks in public places; other states adopted similar laws, which made it easier to break up Ku Klux Klan gatherings and aided prosecutors as they built cases.

Thirteen years ago, when the NYPD broke up Occupy Wall Street protests, some of the activists there were charged under the anti-mask law. At the start of the Trump presidency, face masks at protests were identified with “black bloc” tactics that anonymized anarchists; in 2017, some left-wing counter-protesters of the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville faced felony charges for violating anti-mask laws.

But back to the earlier discussion… there’s a lot on social media about how to organize and media toolkits etc that are produced by non-students… but the semantics of “outside agitators” is definitely not meant to refer to this stuff

Well yes, I am very well aware of that which is why I thought it was lol … basically it should have read: had the AUDACITY to try and avoid being recognized and arrested by cops!!

i kinda wondered about all the keffiyehs. people don't consider it appropriation i guess. i did read that in europe they detain people who wear them at protests.

x-post

Scott… almost makes me want to reread the old vampire weekend thread lol

Currently the NYT says “external actors” as opposed to outside agitators

i remember when maria was going to WTO protest meetings in philly and there were totally cops at her meetings and all they talked about was causing violence. that was a crazy time. she made me march in the streets! i hate crowds. plus, i ran into ramona africa and she always freaked me out. or maybe that was the republican convention...one or the other.

i did read that in europe they detain people who wear them at protests.

Which country/countries?

"But activists say police in France and Germany - which have cracked down on pro-Palestinian protests - have cautioned, fined or detained people wearing it."

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/palestinian-keffiyeh-scarves-controversial-symbol-solidarity-2023-12-14/

these people are fucking evil

When protests are not about actually explaining your cause or trying to engage journalists who are there to listen. ⁦@Peggynoonannyc⁩ describes her visit to Columbia before the raid. pic.twitter.com/S2fxZZVXwe

— Peter Baker (@peterbakernyt) May 4, 2024

Get a load of what that turd Noonan assembled into words:

The Vietnam demonstrations came to a country at relative peace with itself and said: Wake up! The Hamas demonstrations come to a country that hasn’t been at peace with itself in a long time. It watched, and thought: More jarring hell from kids with blood in their eyes making demands.

The people of my liberal-left town were relieved to see the NYPD come in, drag the protesters away, restore order, and let people clean things up.

People want peacefulness. They want to go about their lives. It’s not too much to ask.

Ah yes Peter Baker, the guy who doesn't vote because he wants to remain doggedly neutral and unbiased in his reporting.

the farmer's market is literally outside my office door and there is a folk singer who has been singing the words "shut down the system now" over and over in a tuneless warble thru an amp for what feels like 10 minutes straight. i want to shut it down alright. shut down my ears!
there is usually a pretty sizable pro-palestine group at the intersection on saturdays. haven't looked yet today. waiting for that guy to stop before i go buy some potatoes.

Don’t even get me started on today’s McWhorter column, which is so ahistorical as to be infuriating

Get a load of what that turd Noonan assembled into words:

_The Vietnam demonstrations came to a country at relative peace with itself and said: Wake up! ._

Grandma was drunk on the morning's fourth martini.

The Vietnam demonstrations happened at a comparable time of the country having intractable political differences akin to now.

There were even maoist-Stalinist factions being taken seriously!!

Newspaper editors aren’t what they used to be

Also as tables mentioned upthread… 54th anniversary of kent state.

We are devo in a not good way

you have to remember that the average age of a times reader is 758 years old.

I am a times reader!

I only got the wordle in 5, but no mistakes on Connections all week!

haha. good going, old-timer!

wall street journal headline today:

*Activist Groups Trained Students for Months Before Campus Protests*

yesterday, the headline was:

*Colleges Have a New Source of Protest on Their Hands: Irate Parents*

they do have a pretty interesting story about radio journalists at columbia.

Inside Columbia’s Tumultuous Protests, as Told by Student Radio Journalists
WKCR’s 19-person team, some of the few journalists to remain on campus, went from jazz to on-the-ground news coverage

https://www.wsj.com/us-news/inside-columbias-tumultuous-protests-as-told-by-student-radio-journalists-4a6fd494

wordle and spelling bee are the only reason we pay for the NYT

I definitely think that you are otm scott about some of the language from the universities about outside actors/agitators is related to avoiding being sued by parents + conservative shit-stirrers like that republican congresswoman who probably otherwise dgaf about jews (perhaps we should call them outside agitators)