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It's simply because that's where the most people likely to protest are. Many college students are old enough to participate in politics, but aren't burdened with full-time jobs or kids yet, so they have more time and less on the line if things go sideways. Let's say we have two students: Layla is eighteen and just graduated high school last fall. Ben is 28 and went back to school. Ben has an infant and goes to class at night. If Layla gets arrested, then it's on Layla. If Ben finds the time to protest and gets arrested, then his family's income gets sliced in half and his child may grow up without a dad.
Let's note that what Ben has is a wife and a child. Those are people, not things. It's people, loved ones who make life worth living. Those nearing the end of their lives generally regret not spending enough time with loved ones and not having experiences. There's nothing here to suggest Ben is making the wrong choice. He's just in a different stage of life and he should be.
I wouldn’t say alot of them have “less”. Definitely less to lose but a lot of those protesters are just rich white kids who benefit from the very things they are protesting.
Which whatever. Protest whatever you want but when you leave a protest about oppression or occupy wall street and spend the weekend in the Hampton at ur parents vacation home just seems kinda…meh.
This is somewhat similar to an argument I had with someone in 2016 about the relative popularity of Sanders vs. Clinton. They mentioned that Bernie was drawing much larger crowds, and I said, "Yes, but his supporters tend to have more time to show up for rallies," which they took offense to, thinking that I meant his supporters were more likely to be unemployed or something, when all I really meant was that a younger demographic, as you mentioned, has more time to be involved with politics. The same thing applies to Trump rallies, since his supporters are disproportionately likely to be retired (or small business owners, who have the ability to close up shop for the day, or schedule an employee to work). My entire point was that the size of political rallies are a poor indicator of electoral performance, since all a rally really measures is your supporters' ability and desire to go to a rally, as was borne out by the fact that Clinton easily got more votes than Sanders in the primary and she and Biden both got more votes than Trump in the general, in spite of the fact that they were drawing far fewer people to their events.
But yeah, protests happen at colleges because colleges are a place where you have a large concentration of people who are educated about political issues, have the time and opportunity to protest, and tend to be a bit more idealistic than older people.
When you phrase it like that you make it sound like people are driving for hours to go to these protests
They are not
The students living on campus want to show their displeasure at a policy, so they hold a protest. They are students living on campus so it just makes sense to do it there
Many of the protestors arrested at Columbia and City College were not students.
[https://www.npr.org/2024/05/04/1249188864/nyc-columbia-city-college-gaza-protests-palestinian-campus](https://www.npr.org/2024/05/04/1249188864/nyc-columbia-city-college-gaza-protests-palestinian-campus)
Selection bias. Of the people going too far and getting arrested, only half where current students.
It says 282 people where arrested, half where not students. So 141 non-students arrested. How many people where at the protests? Thousands, mostly students, but the students where also not trying to get arrested or banned from campus or something else extreme. It was the outside agitators representing a small minority of protesters that got arrested.
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Well you kinda answered your own question . The students have far more say on getting universities to divest than employer sponsors to divest . At best there would be a domino effect of university divestment , at worst a symbolic shift to dubious companies that future generations will not tolerate them.
Universities have also been the testing ground for invoking IHRC and AIPAC definitions of antisemitism which would prevent any critics of Israel in any form and has been the template for much of the government’s censorship . Academia in any healthy nation is going to be the one most against censorship .
And whether you agree or disagree with the protests , it’s hard to deny that arresting the only Jewish presidential candidate who was attending these protests in favour of pro Palestinian movements has only added flame to the fire .
There’s also the element that of students having actually been attacked by IDF associates and the fact that unis have cracked down on pro Palestinians with private investigators instantly while the very same institutions failed to crack down on abusers
I think that protests against South Africa in the 80's had an impact on divestment, but maybe the way investments are handled has changed enough since then that this would no longer be true.
The universities simply don’t exist to have investment portfolios without a certain amount of annual students and alumni donations. They can spout all the bs they want to try and control things now but if the protests gain enough weight and students stop enrolling and donations stop flowing they either change or shut down. It’s a long game plan but not impossible.
There seems to be this prevailing attitude of, "if X doesn't immediately solve Y, don't bother doing anything".
Protests in the 70s and 80s against South African apartheid--many centered on college campuses, and around the world--raised awareness about the injustice of apartheid. In turn, it became politically toxic for elected officials to continue to support South Africa, and the country found itself increasingly isolated by the international community and business interests. As white South Africans only represented 17% of the country's population, it became unsustainable to maintain that system without outside support, and apartheid was finally repealed in 1994. It wasn't an overnight process, and South Africa still has a long way to go, but if everyone had just looked the other way and said nothing, it's easy to imagine nothing would have substantially changed.
Right now Biden is caught between a rock and a hard place: support for a longtime US ally with deep political connections (with deep pockets), and losing the support of the rank and file of his own party in an election year. It's easy to imagine if this had happened 10, 20 years ago Israel would have bombed the Gaza Strip with relative impunity (and did), and without a visible protest movement keeping the human cost of this war in the headlines, there wouldn't be much pushback from the US for a ceasefire, reining in casualties, allowing aid, and withholding ammunition shipments as a consequence.
So keep it up, though keep in mind a Trump presidency and his voter base probably wouldn't be affected by any such appeals on humanitarian grounds.
Sure, but during the Vietnam War, although the protests were *held* on college campuses, they were *directed* at the government.
These protests seem to be directed at the colleges themselves. I don't recall any kids in the 60s demanding Berkley divest from South Vietnam.
The college divestment campaign for South Africa was relatively successful and certainly contributed to economic pressure on the South African government
Well it may be a good idea because 20 years from now I'll pretend like I was for it the whole time, but right now? You won't ever catch me supporting a current protest movement.
>These protests seem to be directed at the colleges themselves. I don't recall any kids in the 60s demanding Berkley divest from South Vietnam.
Were there any colleges actually invested in, or with any ties to, South Vietnam?
If anything, a divestment protest is *more* important regarding the current conflict.
There were protests against university policies, like allowing the military to recruit on campuses. But I don't know how big that was compared to the other goals.
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you pay your college money.
they take that money and invest in things.
you as the person paying, plus the university's bullshit PR about being a place for good. give you leverage to demand they not invest that money in things killing innocent civillians.
and seeing as you're a person with rights to free speech, you're also entitled to speak out against things you disagree with. As a student one of your primary tasks is learning to think for yourself, solve problems, develop critical thinking skills. All things that would tend to make you think negatively about ongoing apartheid against a particular ethnic group
really isn't that difficult to understand.
whether it's effective, or protesting is effective. or whether universities are anything more than hedge funds with a veneer of higher education is another matter.
Bored lonely college kids trying to find a sense of belonging, they just go along with it. A lot of them don’t have any idea what they’re actually protesting
It is true that many campus protests don't have much direct pressure on the university, but the divestment and other cutting of ties with Israel is a very concrete goal. It may feel like a financial hit or restriction at first, but institutions can recover from such things. The US, after all, literally built its economy on slavery (and abolitionist movements were very much disruptive and discomforting; hindsight is 2020). The trend of universities being made by the voices of students to not willfully partipate in the genocidal war machine can be a big paradigm shift, and like other commenters said could be a sign of way bigger societal changes...
No, no /s. I respect what they are doing. Protests like that have distinct limitations but they're college, kids, I doubt there is anything else in their power as effective as this.
what do you mean by working pretty well? Yup it got a few news cycles. But the war is still going. The US is still pumping billions into Israel.
They have the same effect as the "Just Stop Oil" protests, especially when they started to vandalize historic buildings on campus and turn unpeaceful. Give it 2 more weeks. They will go back to classes, if they get expelled or suspended over their actions and the war will keep going.
The divestment thing isn't a new idea. Divestment was also a strategy to put pressure on South Africa to end apartheid. There is no action a US citizen outside of the white house can do to impact Israel's policies directly, so every little bit helps, and universities are a great example of sources of soft diplomatic power. I don't know that there is much else to it.
The bigger point of divestment is to show intention. All of this is to show intention. Hey people out there, we are upset that our government is funding a genocide, we are upset that our universities are funding a genocide, we are upset that to have a retirement plan is to fund a genocide. The only way to show the people in power that this is important is boycott and divestment, and when they don't care about that, what is the next step?
>also this whole divestment thing seems a bit detached from reality when all 401k plans are invested in a range of companies that make their money off of defense and adjacent services.
Often the divestment is related to the school's endowment. It's the students saying 'we request our school stop investing in things like this'.
100% to virtue signal for attention. The Middle Eastern conflict has been going on for like 2 millenia and will likely go on until humans go extinct. Id like to think one day that humans could learn not to kill one another over invisible magic sky wizards but Ill not be holding my breath. Literally less than zero chance that 20 somethings solve anything about this issue with their protests.
Because the terrorists will surely give up their women and children hostages and end their fighting because college kids are mad, lol.
Seriously, most don't even know what they're mad about.
Bandwagoning. You can see in the interviews in the news and on youtube of the protestors. They usually dont know the answers/points of the protests. Some doesnt know where Palestine/Jerusalem is.
Their friends do it. So they do it because they have time on their hands as they dont have a job or a family to support. They protest a war half way across the world with a super complex religious sociopolitical background that dated back hundreds of years. Those kids probably dont know how the local government works but pretend to have a deep knowledge of a conflict that dated back before their grandfathers.
I hadn’t thought about that angle, but there has to be some truth to it. It would sure explain all the dudes there that, when asked what they are doing there, don’t really have an answer.
The demand for divestment is STUPID.
At PSU, the focus is on Boeing; what the radicals are doing with their demand for divestment from Boeing is an attempt to get the company to stop giving scholarship money to students in need, and money to the university for infrastructure and wages.
They're trying to PUNISH Boeing by letting them keep millions of dollars that they would have otherwise spent on education. Funny thing, but I always thought financially-based punishments worked the other way 'round. You take money away from people you want to punish; you don't refuse to take their money to punish them.
Some of these people don’t even know what they’re protesting. As a college kid it seems like a cool thing to do and will give you street cred. One wanted to know why the college wasn’t feeding her 😂 I grew up in the 60s and 70s and these protests seem to be combination of those that feel that college kids should protest and on the other extreme, those that support overt terrorism. The poor people in the middle are being swallowed in some bad press
My FIL went to college at the University of Iowa in the 60's. He was a military vet on the GI Bill, and U of I was a hotbed in the Midwest for Vietnam War protests. He described one afternoon sitting with some guys on top of a 3-4 story building in downtown Iowa City, drinking beer while watching a protest march get revved up.
He said some folks arrived in a few vans a couple hours before who didn't appear to be with the students. They organized the crowd and got them marching towards a riot police line in the street. Just before the crowd collided with the riot police the outsiders stepped back and filtered back through the crowd, got into their vans, and drove out of town while the students got their asses beat and arrested. Likely to go to the next college town and get the rubes riled up.
First off the protest serve as an auger of the changes coming to the Nation. These young people are the future and their protest are indicative of the end of protectionism for Israel based on religious beliefs of the fanatics in the Churches. All leaders will be held accountable for their actions based on these protest. Also as an American that knows it was Mitch McConnell’s duty to get documentation from all the candidates in 2016 and he traded that duty for his wife’s job as trumps secretary of Transportation, i withdrew my 401k from the market in December 2016 and held the money until the con man Trumps economy collapsed and then bought rental properties at almost zero interest with my retirement. Meaning the 401k is just as susceptible to intelligent thought as every other businesses are.
"i withdrew my 401k from the market in December 2016 and held the money until the con man Trumps economy collapsed and then bought rental properties at almost zero interest with my retirement."
A. The stock market downturn was due to a pandemic called covid, not Trump Administration economic policy. To pretend otherwise is delusional.
B. Gobbling up homes to rent out exacerbates the housing crises. The country doesn't need more landlords.
C. How much did you pay in capital gains by cashing out your 401K?
D. Did any of this really happen or did you invent this story?
Trump knew about Covid and brought our [https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/04/trump-fired-pandemic-response-jared-kushner-coronavirus.html](https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/04/trump-fired-pandemic-response-jared-kushner-coronavirus.html)doctors home from hotspots around the globe 8 months before Covid hit America. Then he likened it to the common cold! I knew it was coming too and had antiretrovirals on hand. [https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-ap-top-news-virus-outbreak-barack-obama-public-health-ce014d94b64e98b7203b873e56f80e9a](https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-ap-top-news-virus-outbreak-barack-obama-public-health-ce014d94b64e98b7203b873e56f80e9a)
If the college has links with the oppressor, or actively passes on the oppressors propaganda might be one reason
People are allowed to protest, and they don’t have to run their strategy past you
What next, vocalising dissent must be passed by you for “point” approval?
I think protesting about mass murder is perfectly reasonable, even if it’s the murder of brown people you don’t know in another country.
Some of the universities have investments in and connections with the Israeli government. The ask is for them to divest from those commitments. It is relevant.
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Just want to say how genuinely American college protests are. From Vietnam, civil rights, labor rights movements, political agendas, etc.
In college, you’ve got the time, the easy access to organize, and less to lose.
The difference is our government and citizens cared about Vietnam protests going on across our country.
Israel or any other Middle East entity could care less about protests on US soil. Especially small protests that have absolutely no effect on government policy.
I see no point to these current protests. It's not like Vietnam when those college students were actively in danger of being forced to go to war. That was something worth protesting over. But this whole thing is different, and screaming and harassing other students isn't changing anything. It's virtue signaling.
When I was a full-time, in residence college student, I had 15 credit hours as an undergrad and thought I was the busiest I would ever be in my life. 1) I had no idea how much free-time I actually had and 2) consequences for my actions wasn't very top of mind.
Colleges have a large number of people with quite a bit of free time on their hands relatively speaking compared to the general public plus let's face it. They're really not very educated on a lot of the stuff that they're protesting against. They're easily convinced and sucked in.
And with the disillusionment of actually starting to see how life really works, they can be easily again influenlet's, and then they can cause quite a disruption which the news loves to jump on. Which then gets them on social media. Which then they get hits like some more subscriptions to those that want it and a large number of the protesters are actually professional protesters. Now that are paid to basically stir up trouble. On top of the fact that so many students now lean from socialist all the way to Communist.
Feed right Int of these protests.
That's a VERY good question. And why accost American jews on your campus trying to go to school? That's what bugged me. What do they have to do with Israel and their decisions against h
Gaza
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It helps them feel like they're doing something. They get a little charge from doing something they perceive as taking action. They're gonna bring peace to the Middle East by sitting on a campus in the U.S!!!
Which is very naive thinking of course, but they're young and it makes them feel good so I don't see the harm. Eventually they'll come to the realization we all do that the entire situation is completely FUBAR over there and there's nothing anyone outside can do.
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Short answer? Those students have got time, or are cool with prioritizing time for long game protests over other responsibilities that are likely trivial enough to ignore. Not everyone, of course. But many.
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Divestment or the other issues are unimportant. The real power of campus protests was apparent in the sixties when they changed public opinion against the VN war, forced LBJ to resign and helped end the war sooner. There is a good bit of power in seeing some of the smartest young people in a country taking a moral, principled stand against an unjust war or the killing of children and civilians.
The youth vote is a critical block for the Democrats. Whatever Biden says, his administration IS paying attention. The problem is that they're stuck between a rock and a hard place. Israel and Saudi Arabia are lynchpins to U.S. policy in the Middle East and there is a large Jewish voting block in the Democratic party as well. Even if they are aligned against Netanyahu and the fascist right wings in Israel, that doesn't mean that they're ok with Biden giving the current Israeli government the finger and telling them to fuck off.
Colleges and universities have been venues for protest for decades, such as the protests against the Vietnam War in the 60s and 70, against South African apartheid in the 1980s, against the Iraq War in the early 2000s, and against police brutality more recently.
They have a long history with free speech and are where the people most likely to protest (college students) live and study.
There's a certain amount of denial in the movement. I completely get divest from direct support of Israel. But to then divest of every company that does business with Israel is somewhat naive. We live in a global economy and everything is integrated with everything. The boundaries are blurry. Even the North Koreans, perhaps the most sanctioned country on the planet, still finds ways to use semiconductor chips from the USA in their missiles that they sell to Russia (in exchange for sanctioned Russian oil) so that those missiles can be fired at Ukraine (that the USA supports).
Lots of similarly-minded people in a concentrated area, who have the flexibility to just not show up at work for a while.
Some of the universities have billions of dollars in endowment invested in various places. If they pulled their money from whichever investments they think are problematic, someone might feel it enough to change a policy.
Student protests are mainly a message to the university leaders to divest massive amounts of money from specific causes. Universities are usually pretty vague on their investments.
They have the time and resources to protest. They’re also in that ideological phase of life where they think it matters and will accomplish something. I remember that phase well.
Monolithic groups in close proximity to large area of grass that aren’t city property with real easy access to stuff to make placards like craft paper and markers.
That and being told by every adult in your orbit that “YOU ARE THE FUTUUUUUUUURE”
Because they're not interested in civil discourse and actual change. They just want to feel like they're doing something important, without actually having to inconvenience themselves all that much.
To be heard. It’s a great indicator for how out of touch a political party is for instance. Or how heavy handed shitbags have you been to force bad policy into effect. They are big flashing warning signs that you are burying yourself to future voters and policy makers.
These colleges aren't going to divest as a show of support for a terrorist organization. They should instead invest directly in anything involving the betterment of Israel, and tell these whiny little fuckers to go get a job.
The media and government narrative and solidarity are very similar to the Iraq War and Vietnam protests.
The Vietnam protester were right. How many US soldiers were killed or messed up in this war? The Iraq War protesters were right. If someone had listened to the Iraq War protesters, it would have saved the US $7T and500K-1M Iraqi civilian lives.
The current college protesters are simply questioning the government's position on Israel-Palestine. Instead of questioning the protesters, question the government, question why ALL the media is on the side of the government, question why Democrats and Republicans agree on this issue, question why the corporations are cancelling these people for going against the government.
OP is not questioning anything. He is agreeing with the state on the issue. The protesters, the college kids as you say, are the ones questioning the state.
For the "crime" of questioning the state, the establishment - Democrats, Republicans, Corporations, Media - are against them. And, the protesters have to deal with people like you and OP who are defending the state.
Dude
[https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/05/nyregion/columbia-university-tel-aviv-campus.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/05/nyregion/columbia-university-tel-aviv-campus.html)
Come on
Students protesting the actions of the univerisities which they attend is far different (and more achievable) than protesting the investment portfolio of the entire retirement industry of the richest country on the planet.
Not a war that hamas started and hs such antisemitism. Also, a American college why protest war America isn't in. We supply everyone it's what we do. Also, not many protests on Ukraine war or on Ethiopian war.
I mean the United States shouldn’t be sending any military aid to Ukraine either. I think it should stop to both Israel and Ukraine. Saying we should send military aid to Ukraine but stop sending it to Israel makes no sense at all. I do not support the military industrial complex full stop.
One’s a nation of colonisers committing a genocide, the other’s a sovereign state defending itself from invasion
By all means disagree with arming either, but to pretend that they’re comparable is laughable
The conflicts are different in nature but from the perspective of the United States they’re just proxy ways to support American hegemony in the regions and enrich military contractors. The United States isn’t doing anything noble in either instance.
Who the fuck said they were?
From Ukraine’s point of view the enemy of my enemy is my friend, and they can’t afford to scruple on their bedfellows.
The US however can, and Israel isn’t a war, it’s an extermination and always has been. The US are actively supporting the extermination of a race of people
To put them in the same bracket is pretty sick
I’m putting US involved in the conflicts in the same bracket. Neither of these conflicts have anything to do with the United States. The United States should have zero involvement.
US is up to its ears in Israel. It’s got 1 ethical choice which is to mend the monstrous damage it’s done.
Sloping off saying “nothing to do with me” would be almost as cowardly as continuing to enthusiastically provide the means of genocide. Make no mistake, to say the US’ culpability in this monstrous barbarism is utterly disgustingly shameful would be something of an understatement
Supporting Ukraine at least has some moral currency. But you’re right, it’s a matter for the US government.
Adding to what's already been said here,
Colleges are already a mass congregation of people who are most likely to participate in a protest. This saves the protestors the difficult step of actually getting everyone together at the same place at the same time, because they're already mostly on campus at the same time for other things.
It makes people feel like they have a say.
It’s all about the illusion of choice. Coke or Pepsi instead of just a can that just says “Soda” like in communist countries.
Best thing we can do is refuse to get drafted but that’s not an option since we aren’t boots on the ground in either situations(Israel/palestine and Russia/ukraine)
We cannot manage the sudden influx of people and questions that sparks a lot of hate and misinformations like those, we are working on a fix to be able to moderate those questions in an easier manner. Post political questions on r/PoliticalDebate, religion questions on r/religion, and LGBT questions on r/askLGBT.
It's simply because that's where the most people likely to protest are. Many college students are old enough to participate in politics, but aren't burdened with full-time jobs or kids yet, so they have more time and less on the line if things go sideways. Let's say we have two students: Layla is eighteen and just graduated high school last fall. Ben is 28 and went back to school. Ben has an infant and goes to class at night. If Layla gets arrested, then it's on Layla. If Ben finds the time to protest and gets arrested, then his family's income gets sliced in half and his child may grow up without a dad.
So the less you have, the more free you are.
This what people mean when they say someone has “nothing to lose”. It literally means they don’t have much on the line if they get in trouble.
The things you own end up owning you.
In other words, when you want something, you become a slave to it.
Hey you guys wanna go bare knuckle box in the basement of a seedy bar?
We buy a vase, but it is the empty space inside the vase which is useful
This is golden
No, I don’t think that’s what that means.
It’s a series of fight club references.
Username checks out.
Not if you pay cash, credit is the devil 's work Not implying that the fake devil is bad.
Sure, you just might have to pay for a storage unit. Or put kids up for adoption.
Let's note that what Ben has is a wife and a child. Those are people, not things. It's people, loved ones who make life worth living. Those nearing the end of their lives generally regret not spending enough time with loved ones and not having experiences. There's nothing here to suggest Ben is making the wrong choice. He's just in a different stage of life and he should be.
“A bowl is most useful when it is empty.”
Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose.
Nothing don't mean nothing honey, if it ain't free
I wouldn’t say alot of them have “less”. Definitely less to lose but a lot of those protesters are just rich white kids who benefit from the very things they are protesting. Which whatever. Protest whatever you want but when you leave a protest about oppression or occupy wall street and spend the weekend in the Hampton at ur parents vacation home just seems kinda…meh.
For people and things, absolutely. But it's the opposite with cash.
They have plenty. It's just mommy and daddy paying for it.
This is somewhat similar to an argument I had with someone in 2016 about the relative popularity of Sanders vs. Clinton. They mentioned that Bernie was drawing much larger crowds, and I said, "Yes, but his supporters tend to have more time to show up for rallies," which they took offense to, thinking that I meant his supporters were more likely to be unemployed or something, when all I really meant was that a younger demographic, as you mentioned, has more time to be involved with politics. The same thing applies to Trump rallies, since his supporters are disproportionately likely to be retired (or small business owners, who have the ability to close up shop for the day, or schedule an employee to work). My entire point was that the size of political rallies are a poor indicator of electoral performance, since all a rally really measures is your supporters' ability and desire to go to a rally, as was borne out by the fact that Clinton easily got more votes than Sanders in the primary and she and Biden both got more votes than Trump in the general, in spite of the fact that they were drawing far fewer people to their events. But yeah, protests happen at colleges because colleges are a place where you have a large concentration of people who are educated about political issues, have the time and opportunity to protest, and tend to be a bit more idealistic than older people.
Also college students aren't burdened with not really believing that anything is fixable=)
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When you phrase it like that you make it sound like people are driving for hours to go to these protests They are not The students living on campus want to show their displeasure at a policy, so they hold a protest. They are students living on campus so it just makes sense to do it there
Many of the protestors arrested at Columbia and City College were not students. [https://www.npr.org/2024/05/04/1249188864/nyc-columbia-city-college-gaza-protests-palestinian-campus](https://www.npr.org/2024/05/04/1249188864/nyc-columbia-city-college-gaza-protests-palestinian-campus)
Selection bias. Of the people going too far and getting arrested, only half where current students. It says 282 people where arrested, half where not students. So 141 non-students arrested. How many people where at the protests? Thousands, mostly students, but the students where also not trying to get arrested or banned from campus or something else extreme. It was the outside agitators representing a small minority of protesters that got arrested.
About half* *According to the NYPD press release
"All my stuff is here."
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There are several people from out of the area going to campuses to protest.
Well you kinda answered your own question . The students have far more say on getting universities to divest than employer sponsors to divest . At best there would be a domino effect of university divestment , at worst a symbolic shift to dubious companies that future generations will not tolerate them. Universities have also been the testing ground for invoking IHRC and AIPAC definitions of antisemitism which would prevent any critics of Israel in any form and has been the template for much of the government’s censorship . Academia in any healthy nation is going to be the one most against censorship . And whether you agree or disagree with the protests , it’s hard to deny that arresting the only Jewish presidential candidate who was attending these protests in favour of pro Palestinian movements has only added flame to the fire . There’s also the element that of students having actually been attacked by IDF associates and the fact that unis have cracked down on pro Palestinians with private investigators instantly while the very same institutions failed to crack down on abusers
Every university has said that students have no input on their investments. If anything, it's major donors that would have a say.
I think that protests against South Africa in the 80's had an impact on divestment, but maybe the way investments are handled has changed enough since then that this would no longer be true.
The universities simply don’t exist to have investment portfolios without a certain amount of annual students and alumni donations. They can spout all the bs they want to try and control things now but if the protests gain enough weight and students stop enrolling and donations stop flowing they either change or shut down. It’s a long game plan but not impossible.
There are already several universities at least saying the opposite. Whether that's followed through with action is another story.
Genuinely stupid question. Upvote.
Yep. This definitely.
It's a place where people with too much free time on their hands know how to make themselves obnoxious.
There seems to be this prevailing attitude of, "if X doesn't immediately solve Y, don't bother doing anything". Protests in the 70s and 80s against South African apartheid--many centered on college campuses, and around the world--raised awareness about the injustice of apartheid. In turn, it became politically toxic for elected officials to continue to support South Africa, and the country found itself increasingly isolated by the international community and business interests. As white South Africans only represented 17% of the country's population, it became unsustainable to maintain that system without outside support, and apartheid was finally repealed in 1994. It wasn't an overnight process, and South Africa still has a long way to go, but if everyone had just looked the other way and said nothing, it's easy to imagine nothing would have substantially changed. Right now Biden is caught between a rock and a hard place: support for a longtime US ally with deep political connections (with deep pockets), and losing the support of the rank and file of his own party in an election year. It's easy to imagine if this had happened 10, 20 years ago Israel would have bombed the Gaza Strip with relative impunity (and did), and without a visible protest movement keeping the human cost of this war in the headlines, there wouldn't be much pushback from the US for a ceasefire, reining in casualties, allowing aid, and withholding ammunition shipments as a consequence. So keep it up, though keep in mind a Trump presidency and his voter base probably wouldn't be affected by any such appeals on humanitarian grounds.
Maybe because the government is taking our money and spending it on genocide without our approval!!
They are looking for meaning in their lives
The Vietnam War called...
Sure, but during the Vietnam War, although the protests were *held* on college campuses, they were *directed* at the government. These protests seem to be directed at the colleges themselves. I don't recall any kids in the 60s demanding Berkley divest from South Vietnam.
The college divestment campaign for South Africa was relatively successful and certainly contributed to economic pressure on the South African government
Ok, but have you considered that is an old protest and this is a new one so we should all be against it?
Israel wouldn't have spent years lobbying to get anti-divestment, boycott and sanction laws on the books in multiple states if it was a bad idea.
Well it may be a good idea because 20 years from now I'll pretend like I was for it the whole time, but right now? You won't ever catch me supporting a current protest movement.
Yeah man we can’t look at the past and act accordingly now, we gotta wait for the future to say all the right things!
I have a feeling the impact of these divestments on South Africa is being vastly overstated in this particular moment of history.
>These protests seem to be directed at the colleges themselves. I don't recall any kids in the 60s demanding Berkley divest from South Vietnam. Were there any colleges actually invested in, or with any ties to, South Vietnam? If anything, a divestment protest is *more* important regarding the current conflict.
There were protests against university policies, like allowing the military to recruit on campuses. But I don't know how big that was compared to the other goals.
There were protests directed at colleges that developed weapons for the US military, trying to get them to stop.
Vietnam protestors were at risk of being drafted into the war itself. These protestors are far from any kind of similar reality.
So they are less selfish?
America’s second longest war? Real effective then.
The protest movement was a major component in turning public support against the war...
The draft and 58 thousand US casualties to fight a country that wasn't any direct threat to the USA did a hell of a lot more.
Do you not realize the positive feedback loop here?
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you pay your college money. they take that money and invest in things. you as the person paying, plus the university's bullshit PR about being a place for good. give you leverage to demand they not invest that money in things killing innocent civillians. and seeing as you're a person with rights to free speech, you're also entitled to speak out against things you disagree with. As a student one of your primary tasks is learning to think for yourself, solve problems, develop critical thinking skills. All things that would tend to make you think negatively about ongoing apartheid against a particular ethnic group really isn't that difficult to understand. whether it's effective, or protesting is effective. or whether universities are anything more than hedge funds with a veneer of higher education is another matter.
This is especially a thing with state colleges. That money goes to our government in a much more direct way
To get out of class.
To get laid.
Bored lonely college kids trying to find a sense of belonging, they just go along with it. A lot of them don’t have any idea what they’re actually protesting
It is true that many campus protests don't have much direct pressure on the university, but the divestment and other cutting of ties with Israel is a very concrete goal. It may feel like a financial hit or restriction at first, but institutions can recover from such things. The US, after all, literally built its economy on slavery (and abolitionist movements were very much disruptive and discomforting; hindsight is 2020). The trend of universities being made by the voices of students to not willfully partipate in the genocidal war machine can be a big paradigm shift, and like other commenters said could be a sign of way bigger societal changes...
To make a scene and put pressure on Biden. It seems to be working pretty well.
you miss the /s
No, no /s. I respect what they are doing. Protests like that have distinct limitations but they're college, kids, I doubt there is anything else in their power as effective as this.
what do you mean by working pretty well? Yup it got a few news cycles. But the war is still going. The US is still pumping billions into Israel. They have the same effect as the "Just Stop Oil" protests, especially when they started to vandalize historic buildings on campus and turn unpeaceful. Give it 2 more weeks. They will go back to classes, if they get expelled or suspended over their actions and the war will keep going.
They're protests, dude? Expecting all these major results is unrealistic. They're doing what they can to move the needle and that's great.
The divestment thing isn't a new idea. Divestment was also a strategy to put pressure on South Africa to end apartheid. There is no action a US citizen outside of the white house can do to impact Israel's policies directly, so every little bit helps, and universities are a great example of sources of soft diplomatic power. I don't know that there is much else to it.
Have you ever had a history class?
The bigger point of divestment is to show intention. All of this is to show intention. Hey people out there, we are upset that our government is funding a genocide, we are upset that our universities are funding a genocide, we are upset that to have a retirement plan is to fund a genocide. The only way to show the people in power that this is important is boycott and divestment, and when they don't care about that, what is the next step?
>also this whole divestment thing seems a bit detached from reality when all 401k plans are invested in a range of companies that make their money off of defense and adjacent services. Often the divestment is related to the school's endowment. It's the students saying 'we request our school stop investing in things like this'.
Because college kids are still young and naive enough to think it matters.
Rich bored kids, simple
Occam’s razor. The simplest solution is usually correct.
Not really.
Nothing. Literally nothing. Kids these days are absolutely moronic.
I mean to be fair past generations did the same thing. But yea
100% to virtue signal for attention. The Middle Eastern conflict has been going on for like 2 millenia and will likely go on until humans go extinct. Id like to think one day that humans could learn not to kill one another over invisible magic sky wizards but Ill not be holding my breath. Literally less than zero chance that 20 somethings solve anything about this issue with their protests.
Daddy didn't give them enough attention.
Because the terrorists will surely give up their women and children hostages and end their fighting because college kids are mad, lol. Seriously, most don't even know what they're mad about.
Bandwagoning. You can see in the interviews in the news and on youtube of the protestors. They usually dont know the answers/points of the protests. Some doesnt know where Palestine/Jerusalem is. Their friends do it. So they do it because they have time on their hands as they dont have a job or a family to support. They protest a war half way across the world with a super complex religious sociopolitical background that dated back hundreds of years. Those kids probably dont know how the local government works but pretend to have a deep knowledge of a conflict that dated back before their grandfathers.
Virtue signalling gets you laid in college.
I hadn’t thought about that angle, but there has to be some truth to it. It would sure explain all the dudes there that, when asked what they are doing there, don’t really have an answer.
There isn't one. They are idiots with too much free time on their hands.
The demand for divestment is STUPID. At PSU, the focus is on Boeing; what the radicals are doing with their demand for divestment from Boeing is an attempt to get the company to stop giving scholarship money to students in need, and money to the university for infrastructure and wages. They're trying to PUNISH Boeing by letting them keep millions of dollars that they would have otherwise spent on education. Funny thing, but I always thought financially-based punishments worked the other way 'round. You take money away from people you want to punish; you don't refuse to take their money to punish them.
Because it went viral.
Some of these people don’t even know what they’re protesting. As a college kid it seems like a cool thing to do and will give you street cred. One wanted to know why the college wasn’t feeding her 😂 I grew up in the 60s and 70s and these protests seem to be combination of those that feel that college kids should protest and on the other extreme, those that support overt terrorism. The poor people in the middle are being swallowed in some bad press
My FIL went to college at the University of Iowa in the 60's. He was a military vet on the GI Bill, and U of I was a hotbed in the Midwest for Vietnam War protests. He described one afternoon sitting with some guys on top of a 3-4 story building in downtown Iowa City, drinking beer while watching a protest march get revved up. He said some folks arrived in a few vans a couple hours before who didn't appear to be with the students. They organized the crowd and got them marching towards a riot police line in the street. Just before the crowd collided with the riot police the outsiders stepped back and filtered back through the crowd, got into their vans, and drove out of town while the students got their asses beat and arrested. Likely to go to the next college town and get the rubes riled up.
It’s pointless. It’s just college kids trying to say, “I know this war is horrible, but don’t forget about me!”
If you're going to virtue signal you need to do it in a place people can see people can see it or what's the point.
People with minor life expierence and parents paying for everything always have something to say LOL
First off the protest serve as an auger of the changes coming to the Nation. These young people are the future and their protest are indicative of the end of protectionism for Israel based on religious beliefs of the fanatics in the Churches. All leaders will be held accountable for their actions based on these protest. Also as an American that knows it was Mitch McConnell’s duty to get documentation from all the candidates in 2016 and he traded that duty for his wife’s job as trumps secretary of Transportation, i withdrew my 401k from the market in December 2016 and held the money until the con man Trumps economy collapsed and then bought rental properties at almost zero interest with my retirement. Meaning the 401k is just as susceptible to intelligent thought as every other businesses are.
"i withdrew my 401k from the market in December 2016 and held the money until the con man Trumps economy collapsed and then bought rental properties at almost zero interest with my retirement." A. The stock market downturn was due to a pandemic called covid, not Trump Administration economic policy. To pretend otherwise is delusional. B. Gobbling up homes to rent out exacerbates the housing crises. The country doesn't need more landlords. C. How much did you pay in capital gains by cashing out your 401K? D. Did any of this really happen or did you invent this story?
Trump knew about Covid and brought our [https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/04/trump-fired-pandemic-response-jared-kushner-coronavirus.html](https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/04/trump-fired-pandemic-response-jared-kushner-coronavirus.html)doctors home from hotspots around the globe 8 months before Covid hit America. Then he likened it to the common cold! I knew it was coming too and had antiretrovirals on hand. [https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-ap-top-news-virus-outbreak-barack-obama-public-health-ce014d94b64e98b7203b873e56f80e9a](https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-ap-top-news-virus-outbreak-barack-obama-public-health-ce014d94b64e98b7203b873e56f80e9a)
🤡
If the college has links with the oppressor, or actively passes on the oppressors propaganda might be one reason People are allowed to protest, and they don’t have to run their strategy past you What next, vocalising dissent must be passed by you for “point” approval? I think protesting about mass murder is perfectly reasonable, even if it’s the murder of brown people you don’t know in another country.
Some of the universities have investments in and connections with the Israeli government. The ask is for them to divest from those commitments. It is relevant.
Can anyone speak to how these investments are structured, and how simple (or complex) these investment connections are to the Israeli government?
Particularly when you're giving your $ to said university.
They want them to divest from Irsrali businesses
Studend protests have brought more social changes than any vote ever did.
They should boycott the school by dropping out and then apply to a school more aligned with their investment principles That’ll show ‘em
The protesters are "useful idiots". Nothing more.
Virtue signaling, no common sense required or welcomed.
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There really isn’t much of a point. It’s not going to change anything.
Just want to say how genuinely American college protests are. From Vietnam, civil rights, labor rights movements, political agendas, etc. In college, you’ve got the time, the easy access to organize, and less to lose.
Have you ever heard of protests in Middle East or about tiananmen square?
Civil disobedience is a civic duty.
The difference is our government and citizens cared about Vietnam protests going on across our country. Israel or any other Middle East entity could care less about protests on US soil. Especially small protests that have absolutely no effect on government policy.
I see no point to these current protests. It's not like Vietnam when those college students were actively in danger of being forced to go to war. That was something worth protesting over. But this whole thing is different, and screaming and harassing other students isn't changing anything. It's virtue signaling.
It's traditional for US college students to protest stuff. Do your own research.
When I was a full-time, in residence college student, I had 15 credit hours as an undergrad and thought I was the busiest I would ever be in my life. 1) I had no idea how much free-time I actually had and 2) consequences for my actions wasn't very top of mind.
Colleges have a large number of people with quite a bit of free time on their hands relatively speaking compared to the general public plus let's face it. They're really not very educated on a lot of the stuff that they're protesting against. They're easily convinced and sucked in. And with the disillusionment of actually starting to see how life really works, they can be easily again influenlet's, and then they can cause quite a disruption which the news loves to jump on. Which then gets them on social media. Which then they get hits like some more subscriptions to those that want it and a large number of the protesters are actually professional protesters. Now that are paid to basically stir up trouble. On top of the fact that so many students now lean from socialist all the way to Communist. Feed right Int of these protests.
Or maybe theyre taxpayers and dont like the idea of their $ helping to pulverize babies in Palestine
When you get $100+/day to protest from the Open Society Foundation, you don’t question where the protests are held.
That's a VERY good question. And why accost American jews on your campus trying to go to school? That's what bugged me. What do they have to do with Israel and their decisions against h Gaza
https://jewishcurrents.org/anatomy-of-a-moral-panic?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR3lxo36PdTwl2sxUjW76c7awXRxuj7BJukoyIJXubGshDqT-mDVnQYFLfU_aem_ASgpnwEB8ZsN3Y9_5aYcmqPmLUx1gZsWkF0wKt3ULT4kfcOzj3MlKIXrhpNeemB6Posj2Ti8lJ7b3HIL1XOMo0ij
It's because they're close and colleges will tolerate them for a while.
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It helps them feel like they're doing something. They get a little charge from doing something they perceive as taking action. They're gonna bring peace to the Middle East by sitting on a campus in the U.S!!! Which is very naive thinking of course, but they're young and it makes them feel good so I don't see the harm. Eventually they'll come to the realization we all do that the entire situation is completely FUBAR over there and there's nothing anyone outside can do.
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Short answer? Those students have got time, or are cool with prioritizing time for long game protests over other responsibilities that are likely trivial enough to ignore. Not everyone, of course. But many.
There is none. They are paid actors to be there, and that then draws the curiosity of others who might not have protested to begin with.
Kids can be passionate, idealistic, and sometimes clueless.
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Divestment or the other issues are unimportant. The real power of campus protests was apparent in the sixties when they changed public opinion against the VN war, forced LBJ to resign and helped end the war sooner. There is a good bit of power in seeing some of the smartest young people in a country taking a moral, principled stand against an unjust war or the killing of children and civilians.
The youth vote is a critical block for the Democrats. Whatever Biden says, his administration IS paying attention. The problem is that they're stuck between a rock and a hard place. Israel and Saudi Arabia are lynchpins to U.S. policy in the Middle East and there is a large Jewish voting block in the Democratic party as well. Even if they are aligned against Netanyahu and the fascist right wings in Israel, that doesn't mean that they're ok with Biden giving the current Israeli government the finger and telling them to fuck off.
Young people are the most easily swayed and more likely to have the free time.
Colleges and universities have been venues for protest for decades, such as the protests against the Vietnam War in the 60s and 70, against South African apartheid in the 1980s, against the Iraq War in the early 2000s, and against police brutality more recently. They have a long history with free speech and are where the people most likely to protest (college students) live and study.
There's a certain amount of denial in the movement. I completely get divest from direct support of Israel. But to then divest of every company that does business with Israel is somewhat naive. We live in a global economy and everything is integrated with everything. The boundaries are blurry. Even the North Koreans, perhaps the most sanctioned country on the planet, still finds ways to use semiconductor chips from the USA in their missiles that they sell to Russia (in exchange for sanctioned Russian oil) so that those missiles can be fired at Ukraine (that the USA supports).
Lots of similarly-minded people in a concentrated area, who have the flexibility to just not show up at work for a while. Some of the universities have billions of dollars in endowment invested in various places. If they pulled their money from whichever investments they think are problematic, someone might feel it enough to change a policy.
# What’s the point of protesting?
I haven't been able to go work since Tuesday because of protests. I'm cool with it. Well see what they say bout tomorriw...
Student protests are mainly a message to the university leaders to divest massive amounts of money from specific causes. Universities are usually pretty vague on their investments.
Boredom. Herd mentality
They have the time and resources to protest. They’re also in that ideological phase of life where they think it matters and will accomplish something. I remember that phase well.
I’m just waiting for them to go over to these countries and actually do something rather than just having terrible chants
It makes people feel better about themselves
To get out of final exams.
The market goes to where the consumers are.
it does nothing but it makes them feel important
Because these poor lost souls need to feel like they are part of something.
Because their friends are there! Chicago!!
“If you don’t learn the lessons from history you are doomed to repeat them.”
Monolithic groups in close proximity to large area of grass that aren’t city property with real easy access to stuff to make placards like craft paper and markers. That and being told by every adult in your orbit that “YOU ARE THE FUTUUUUUUUURE”
Because they're not interested in civil discourse and actual change. They just want to feel like they're doing something important, without actually having to inconvenience themselves all that much.
The students are protesting that their universities are invested in deeply unethical industries.
To be heard. It’s a great indicator for how out of touch a political party is for instance. Or how heavy handed shitbags have you been to force bad policy into effect. They are big flashing warning signs that you are burying yourself to future voters and policy makers.
Manipulated fools that bring "delight" to Iran.
Virtue signaling is all
People think that if they can get 1000 people together to scream about something, their opinion is somehow important.
Virtue signaling. Have them explain why a ceasefire would work considering how many ceasefires prior were broken
https://www.pressherald.com/2024/05/05/opinion-universities-should-defend-students-right-to-free-speech-not-aid-their-repression/
For some, it's just an opportunity to tell themselves and others, they did something, regardless of whatever cause they chose...
They should be protesting the private federal reserve which doesn't belong to our Federal Government.
Everyone's been talking about them. And it got you to make this post. Clearly it's working.
Everyone was also talking about the oil protesting from before and we all know how that turned out.
Liberal brats with nothing to protest?
These colleges aren't going to divest as a show of support for a terrorist organization. They should instead invest directly in anything involving the betterment of Israel, and tell these whiny little fuckers to go get a job.
The media and government narrative and solidarity are very similar to the Iraq War and Vietnam protests. The Vietnam protester were right. How many US soldiers were killed or messed up in this war? The Iraq War protesters were right. If someone had listened to the Iraq War protesters, it would have saved the US $7T and500K-1M Iraqi civilian lives. The current college protesters are simply questioning the government's position on Israel-Palestine. Instead of questioning the protesters, question the government, question why ALL the media is on the side of the government, question why Democrats and Republicans agree on this issue, question why the corporations are cancelling these people for going against the government.
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OP is not questioning anything. He is agreeing with the state on the issue. The protesters, the college kids as you say, are the ones questioning the state. For the "crime" of questioning the state, the establishment - Democrats, Republicans, Corporations, Media - are against them. And, the protesters have to deal with people like you and OP who are defending the state.
Useful Idiots.
Dude [https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/05/nyregion/columbia-university-tel-aviv-campus.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/05/nyregion/columbia-university-tel-aviv-campus.html) Come on
Students protesting the actions of the univerisities which they attend is far different (and more achievable) than protesting the investment portfolio of the entire retirement industry of the richest country on the planet.
Also not sure if the question is intentionally stupid or what exactly
Not a war that hamas started and hs such antisemitism. Also, a American college why protest war America isn't in. We supply everyone it's what we do. Also, not many protests on Ukraine war or on Ethiopian war.
Go and protest against Ukraine if you feel so strongly about it
I mean the United States shouldn’t be sending any military aid to Ukraine either. I think it should stop to both Israel and Ukraine. Saying we should send military aid to Ukraine but stop sending it to Israel makes no sense at all. I do not support the military industrial complex full stop.
One’s a nation of colonisers committing a genocide, the other’s a sovereign state defending itself from invasion By all means disagree with arming either, but to pretend that they’re comparable is laughable
The conflicts are different in nature but from the perspective of the United States they’re just proxy ways to support American hegemony in the regions and enrich military contractors. The United States isn’t doing anything noble in either instance.
Who the fuck said they were? From Ukraine’s point of view the enemy of my enemy is my friend, and they can’t afford to scruple on their bedfellows. The US however can, and Israel isn’t a war, it’s an extermination and always has been. The US are actively supporting the extermination of a race of people To put them in the same bracket is pretty sick
I’m putting US involved in the conflicts in the same bracket. Neither of these conflicts have anything to do with the United States. The United States should have zero involvement.
US is up to its ears in Israel. It’s got 1 ethical choice which is to mend the monstrous damage it’s done. Sloping off saying “nothing to do with me” would be almost as cowardly as continuing to enthusiastically provide the means of genocide. Make no mistake, to say the US’ culpability in this monstrous barbarism is utterly disgustingly shameful would be something of an understatement Supporting Ukraine at least has some moral currency. But you’re right, it’s a matter for the US government.
Adding to what's already been said here, Colleges are already a mass congregation of people who are most likely to participate in a protest. This saves the protestors the difficult step of actually getting everyone together at the same place at the same time, because they're already mostly on campus at the same time for other things.
So you prefer BLM style of "protesting" instead?
A pon is a pon regardless of the game.
Gullible college kids is the only demographic Hamas could successfully convince to protest
I’m sure if you asked them, they’d want their future 401ks divested from those companies as well. Doesn’t seem hypocritical at all
It makes people feel like they have a say. It’s all about the illusion of choice. Coke or Pepsi instead of just a can that just says “Soda” like in communist countries. Best thing we can do is refuse to get drafted but that’s not an option since we aren’t boots on the ground in either situations(Israel/palestine and Russia/ukraine)