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| Home Front: Culture Wars |
| Breaking: Revolution Over, NYU Cafeteria Liberated, Hippies Arrested! |
| 2009-02-20 |
| Followup, see below. So much for the revolution. Security guards on Friday dragged the last of the renegade New York University students out of a campus cafeteria where they had been holed up in protest for three days. "Solidarity! Solidarity!" the fist-pumping rebels yelled as they were ousted from the Kimmel Center. Four students tried to flee a balcony after campus cops breached their barricade. Others were physically removed - and unceremoniously dumped outside. "He picked me up by the shoulders and dragged me through the door," complained protest organizer Farah Khimji, a 20-year-old sophomore. "I was physically subdued. I was thrown to the ground." Wah, wah! How dare they resist our coercion! The rest of the two dozen or so protesting students left like lambs, and were greeted outside with cheers by supporters like 21-year-old senior, Clara Green. "We're not going to take it any more," Green yelled. "This is our university. We should be allowed to stay. This is unfair and unjust." It would appear that she is in favor of the nuts running the asylum. Many of the other NYU students who stopped to watch the revolt fizzle said they still didn't know what the rebels were trying to accomplish. "They're requesting so many different things," said Ryan Jacobson, a 19-year-old freshman. "None of it actually seems doable." Senior NYU vice-president Lynne Brown said that whatever it was, the protesters didn't get it. "We've seen this crap before. We're not a bunch of 1930s communist youth league grads like the 60s administrators." NYU did not "bend" to student demands and all the malcontents are banned from all NYU buildings - including the dorms - until their expulsion hearings, Brown said. "This was an inappropriate forum for protests." The writing was on the wall at 10 a.m. when four student negotiators went up to the sixth floor of the building to talk with NYU officials - and were ambushed by campus cops. Ambushed? This is almost too good to be true. It could only hve been better if the cops had been on horseback, wearing cossack fur hats, and waving sabers. After that, campus security tore down the barricades barring the entrance to the third floor cafeteria and started evicting the Take Back NYU! Coalition protesters. When the group took over the cafeteria, their stated cause was a demand for greater transparency in the NYU budget. Then came talking points in which the protestors also demanded scholarships for Palestinian students - and for supplies to be donated to the Islamic University of Gaza. Naturally, probably hoping to get some sympathetic oil-tick to bankroll their NYU officials gave them until 1 a.m. Friday to clear out. Some of the students left; some stayed. And about half an hour after the deadline passed, a fight broke out between some of the students and the law. "We were peacefully demonstrating our right of free speech, then the police just had to lay it down," said an NYU sophomore who asked not to be identified. Students said baton-waving police beat up about a dozen students. The NYPD denied the claim and NYU officials said at least one security guard was hurt in the tussle. Two people were arrested. Alex Deschamps, 21, was charged with unlawful assembly, inciting a riot, resisting arrest and obstruction of governmental administration. Jonah Calhoun, 21, was charged with criminal possession of a weapon - a small folding knife. Make my day, punk. They also wanted scholarships for Palestinian students and NYU loot to help re-build the terrorist arsenal/university that was bombed out in Gaza. |
| Posted by:Atomic Conspiracy |
| #5 Where did "freedom of speech" turn into "entitlement to be listened to"? |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles the flatulent 2009-02-20 18:44 |
| #4 I'm disappointed no baton-noggin thonking happened. Might beat a little sense into these simpletons. Expulsion will do wonders for their self-esteem. I only feel bad for the one or two guys who were only there "for the hippie p*ssy" |
| Posted by: Frank G 2009-02-20 18:42 |
| #3 "Deja vous all over again." Re-living the 60's? Seems to be a Democrat thingee. |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2009-02-20 18:27 |
| #2 They have a first amendment right to say anything they want. They do not have a right to occupy private property that they do not own. |
| Posted by: Rambler in Virginia 2009-02-20 18:23 |
| #1 "Come and see the violence inherent in the system! Help, help! I'm being repressed!" |
| Posted by: SteveS 2009-02-20 18:08 |