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The protesters in the encampment at the U of M packed up and left on their own after a negotiated settlement. A vastly superior outcome than riot cops busting in with tear gas and concussion grenades.

https://www.mprnews.org/story/2024/05/02/university-of-minnesota-protests-divestment-agreement

Naturally, some were furious that negotiations took place at all.

That's a great solution and I'm glad it worked out.

It takes two parties willing to negotiate, to come to a negotiated settlement.

Unfortunately in many of the cases around the country, the protestors are unwilling to negotiate.  Indeed they've openly stated before, and during their illegal encampment/occupation protests, that they intentionally plan to disregard the campus rules and state and local laws that are in place to protect ALL of the students and staff, not just a vocal minority.  Not only are they unwilling to negotiate, their stated and sole purpose is to flaunt the rules.

There is no negotiating with people who have taken that stance.  Which is why I'm proud of UT for being proactive for removing the protestors that were intentionally breaking the law and intentionally tempting violence so they could then claim oppression.  It's a coward's tactic and I'm glad that it was thwarted at Texas.

UT has always been a protest-heavy campus.  Austin is a very liberal city within the heart of a very conservative state, and UT is the epicenter of that liberalism.  This year alone, students have organized scores of legitimate, peaceful protests and rallies that had no incidents.

This, was not that.  These protestors had no intentions of a peaceful protest within the rules, and in fact stated such, as one of their goals, many times.  Removing the ones that were breaking the law was essential.

Otherwise Texas could look just like UCLA, Columbia, or Portland State right now.

No thanks.

Students can be disciplined of course, nonstudents cannot, except by some police action.

And only the ones physically apprehended can be disciplined and/or charged with criminal activity.  The rest are unidentifiable due to the masks and disguises they chose to wear.

Masks and disguises that were somehow necessary for a peaceful protest, of course.

And only the ones physically apprehended can be disciplined and/or charged with criminal activity.  The rest are unidentifiable due to the masks and disguises they chose to wear.

Masks and disguises that were somehow necessary for a peaceful protest, of course.

But of course!

Get a load of this one. GWU called the DC police. The police won't come.


https://www.wsj.com/articles/george-washington-university-protests-metropolitan-police-pamela-smith-ellen-granberg-784d9845?st=ek4mr1qhjdpbffg&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
https://www.wsj.com/articles/george-washington-university-protests-metropolitan-police-pamela-smith-ellen-granberg-784d9845?st=ek4mr1qhjdpbffg&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

Most of them seem, to me, to be peaceful, so far.  They occupy some turf and camp out and chant etc.  

folks breaking the law should be held accountable and punished

I am fascinated by construction of stuff.  Humans can do neat things when we're not blowing things up.  This is near us, another building among many.  It takes a while for the "site prep" and foundational stuff, and then the building grows like kudzu.  I presume they drop off the steel and other stuff at night, concrete trucks run nonstop.  I like to walk around and marvel at how fast they can erect these things.  Most around us are in the 30-40 story range, this one is to be 60 and will stand out a bit.

https://www.skyscrapercity.com/cdn-cgi/image/format=auto,onerror=redirect,width=1920,height=1920,fit=scale-down/https://www.skyscrapercity.com/attachments/20240430_204310-jpg.7155019/

There is an obvious calculus in building something related to how many workers you can hire and how much that might accelerate progress versus investing a lot of money and having no return for a longer period of time.

The whole effort fascinates me, just scouting sites, securing funding,  bidding on property, buying it, getting approvals, then demolition, the above site was where our post office was, and some other buildings.  Then they excavated down 40-60 feet into what is solid granite around here (gneiss).  They trucked in massive amounts of rebar and started the below grade garage part.  Now they're up 2-3 floors, and build more than a floor a week.