ncsupack1 said:
Not violent? Have you seen UCLA or Columbia?
Yeah.
What are you comparing this to? Being at the public library on a Saturday afternoon?
Or other actually heated political/university protests in our country's history?
The insinuation on here that I'm responding to by Gulf - but others are also making innuendos - is that there is something larger at work here.
My question to anybody that's saying that - that no one on here can seemingly answer - is what exactly makes these protests look different than other protests in our country's past?
As hokie has pointed out many times and it seems like we all agree, a lot of these college kids seem like they're cosplaying actual protesters. A lot don't even seem to know what exactly they're protesting or to have a coherent message or 'ask'. They just seem like they want to protest something. The closest they've come is this divestment stuff that's nebulously impactful to the actual Israel war effort, at best. And they know they hate civilian suffering in Gaza - we all do. But just like every other country in a similar position, Israel defending itself is ugly on the ground and comes with tragic consequences for civilians that Hamas embeds themselves with.
This all seems far less organized, less vitriolic, and more mundane than the big protests in our nation's history during the Civil Rights movement and Vietnam, for example, or the big Women's Lib or LGBT or even the Rodney King or BLM protests.
It seems much more like Occupy Wall Street or Tea Party protests than any of those.
So again, what makes these protests different in y'all's eyes such that you evidently think, "uh oh, this could be bad?"