A peaceful action at the school near Atlanta, Georgia, was met with violent use of force and 28 arrests of students and faculty
The university’s response was likely the quickest show of police force in response to a divestment protest among the dozens nationwide that have occurred in recent weeks. It was also probably the only one where pepper balls, stun guns and rubber bullets were used against students, faculty and community members – at one of the few student protests in the south to date.
Gen-X here. I am very curious to find out what percentage of Boomers that were very much so in favor of the university campus protests against the Vietnam war are now calling these Zoomers terrorists and justifying the use of force by the police.
Perception of the vietnam war protests at the time were also very split, and I would be very unsurprised to find that the people most against the student protests now are, or are the children of people who were very against the social movements of the 60s. The 60s were also an incredibly divided time in the US politically. Nixon won the whitehouse in 1968, and the civil rights movement had met extremely bitter opposition.
What's even better is that one of their greatest protest singers called out that pattern at the time:
Sure, once I was young and impulsive
I wore every conceivable pin
Even went to socialist meetings
Learned all the old union hymns
Ah, but I've grown older and wiser
And that's why I'm turning you in
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal
The university is not publicly owned, they can have people removed under various laws like trespassing or disturbing the peace. They aren't exactly being removed and arrested because of what they are saying, but because they are rightfully upsetting the university by being there and being a nuisance.
If I am at your house protesting you eating meat and I set up my camp on your front lawn, you can have the police remove me by force after I have been asked to leave and my rights would not be violated in that removal. Same sort of thing is going on with the university protests.
If they were protesting in a public park and had all the permits they needed(permitted protest is a funny concept) and violated zero laws(while protesting lol), then the police came and ordered them to disperse, they didn't, then the police began using riot control tactics and arresting people, that would violate first amendment law.
It is insane how the US is not only destroying the international order built after ww2 to keep Israel genocidal war criminals out of consequences, but also now crack down on their own citizens to abolish constitutional rights. And this doesn't happen under Trump. This happens under Biden and the Democrats.
You are lied to be your political class. You are robbed by your political class. And by voting "the lesser of two evils" every time, all you get is the next election being between the evil you wanted to prevent before and a worse evil.
Look at the timeline for Columbia and other universities. The heads got shunned for allegedly allowing antisemitism, by allowing students to voice a different opinion than the US mainstrem on Israel and Palestine.
If Biden wouldn't take the stance of pretending human rights to be an issue, while illegally by US rules arming IDF units the US recognizes as war criminals, by continuously blocking any motion at the UN to facilitate a ceasefire or a way for membership of Palestine, he and is administration are creating the environment in which it is deemed encouraged to crack down on peaceful protests.
The Georgia governor, Brian Kemp, issued a statement saying: “College campuses … in Georgia … will never be a safe haven for those who promote terrorism and extremism that threatens the safety of students.”