Interesting Perspective on the Anti-war Protests

... Rather than allow tensions to fester and escalate, some college administrations agreed to"gasp"meet with students and hear them out. ...

Reminds me of what the CT State Police did during the BLM protests when a group shutdown I-84, a major interstate here in Connecticut).

Instead of forcibly removing the protesters from the road, the state police gathered with the protesters, listened to what they were saying, and talked with them.

Soon after, everyone peaceably left the interstate and traffic flow resumed.

@#1

Having said that...

... meet with students and hear them out ...

A significant portion of the people who were arrested at Columbia Univ and CCNY were not students at the college.

Protesters unaffiliated with CCNY, Columbia made up nearly half of arrests: police
abc7ny.com

@#2

More from the article cited in #2...

... Of the hundreds arrested during protests at City College of New York and Columbia University, police say nearly half of them were found to have no affiliation with the schools.

In a press conference on Wednesday, Mayor Eric Adams and NYPD officials announced that about 300 people were arrested overnight in intense protests at both city schools.

Approximately 134 of the 282 people taken into custody at Columbia University and CCNY were not affiliated with either school -- more than 47%. ...

"There were individuals on the campus that should not have been there," Adams said. "There were people who are professionals. We know the terminology 'outside agitator' was used during the Civil Rights movement, when people attempted to show that the movement was not legitimate, and we understand that."

@#7 ... These protests are the epitome of grass roots democracy in action.

Common folk banded together on an issue to get their voices heard and negotiated with the powers that be to enact change. ...

Band together, or agitate disruption?

If the overwhelming majority of the protesters at Columbia and CCNY had been students, I'd have a very different view (having protested when I was in college).

But it looks like the protests are driven mostly by ~outside agitators~ that aim for disruption, not discussion.

Who are these agitators and what country may be sponsoring their efforts?

Tangentially related...

Explainer: How US campus protests over Gaza differ from Vietnam war era
www.reuters.com

... A deep generational divide, anti-war protests on college campuses and a looming Chicago Democratic convention invite comparisons between today's protests against Israel's attacks in Gaza and the movement against the Vietnam War.

The 54th anniversary of the Kent State University shooting on Saturday, marks the day when the Ohio National Guard troops sent to quell campus protests shot 13 students, killing four and unleashing a surge of unrest across the country.

The campus protests over the past two weeks differ in both scale and motivation. Student bodies have changed, as has the Democratic Party. But given the tight rematch incumbent President Joe Biden, a Democrat, faces with Republican Donald Trump, they could hold political sway.

DEATH TOLLS

By 1970, the Vietnam War had been raging for five years, and Republican President Richard Nixon had announced an expansion of the war into Cambodia. By the end of 1970, nearly 1.8 million young American men had been enlisted and nearly 30,000 had died.

There are no U.S. troops fighting in Israel's war in Gaza, but many U.S. citizens have lost family members there. ...

[emphasis mine]

Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young - Ohio (1970)
www.youtube.com

Lyrics excerpt...

genius.com

...
[Chorus]
Tin soldiers and Nixon coming
We're finally on our own
This summer I hear the drumming
Four dead in Ohio

[Verse]
Gotta get down to it
Soldiers are cutting us down
Should have been done long ago
What if you knew her
And found her dead on the ground
How can you run when you know?

Tin soldiers and Nixon coming
We're finally on our own
This summer I hear the drumming
Four dead in Ohio
...

@#15 ... protesters will be shot ...

Former Pentagon chief Esper says Trump asked about shooting protesters (May 2022)
www.npr.org

... Esper said he and other top officials were caught off guard by Trump's reaction to the unrest in the summer of 2020.

"The president was enraged," Esper recalled. "He thought that the protests made the country look weak, made us look weak and 'us' meant him. And he wanted to do something about it.

"We reached that point in the conversation where he looked frankly at [Joint Chiefs of Staff] Gen. [Mark] Milley and said, 'Can't you just shoot them, just shoot them in the legs or something?' ... It was a suggestion and a formal question. And we were just all taken aback at that moment as this issue just hung very heavily in the air." ...