May 4, 2024

The NYT looks into the "outside agitator" rhetoric.

Yesterday, I noted the NYPD report that "More than a quarter of protesters arrested Tuesday at Columbia and 60 percent at the City College of New York had no connections to the schools." I asked: "But who are the outside agitators? If they are not students, who are they? How about some details? Lots of them were arrested. Why isn't there a torrent of detail about what sort of people they are?"

This morning I see the NYT doing something that seems to be answering my question. The headline is "The Mayor Called Them Outside Agitators. Many of Them Beg to Differ. City officials have blamed 'external actors' for escalating demonstrations at Columbia University and elsewhere, but student protesters reject the claim."

This article set off my bullshit detector:

1. I want to know who the non-students actually are, not — as the headline has it — that they "beg to differ" and "reject the claim." Of course, they wouldn't like their antagonists' effective rhetoric.

2. The article has 5 authors.

3. The article begins with 3 paragraphs cherry-picking 3 particularly nice non-students — a saxophonist, and gardener, and a nanny!

But let's look at the substance:
A New York Times review of police records and interviews with dozens of people involved in the protest at Columbia found that a small handful of the nearly three dozen arrestees who lacked ties to the university had also participated in other protests around the country. One man who was taken into custody inside Hamilton Hall, the occupied campus building, had been charged with rioting and wearing a disguise to evade the police during a demonstration in California nearly a decade earlier.

That man, James Carlson, 40, "was also accused of setting an Israeli flag on fire with a lighter at another protest outside Columbia’s campus last month, court records show." 

But the [NYT] examination also revealed that far more of the unaffiliated protesters had no such histories. Rather, they said, they arrived at Columbia in response to word of mouth or social media posts to join the demonstration out of some combination of solidarity and curiosity.

There was little evidence to suggest they had helped organize or escalate the protests, and many were arrested without having ever set foot on campus....

Little evidence... but have you investigated to the point where, if there is evidence, you would have found it, or are we presuming in favor of the protesters' characterization of themselves? 

Mr. Adams has said that even a small number of outsiders can inflame tensions and cause protests to veer into violence.

That is, maybe the outsiders didn't start the protest but they are responsible for the escalation into violence. (Did you notice that Biden* and others are using the word "violence" to include breaking into buildings? That's also effective in talking about January 6th.)

Back to the NYT article:

[A]s evidence that the campus has been infiltrated, [Adams] has pointed to the presence there at various times of a 63-year-old career activist, Lisa Fithian, and Nahla Al-Arian, the wife of a man who faced terrorism charges in Florida nearly 20 years ago, and whose daughter was a graduate of Columbia’s journalism school.
Ms. Fithian, who has written a book on protest tactics and charged money to run demonstrations and teach techniques for taking over the streets, was captured on video Tuesday apparently urging counterprotesters to step aside so that Hamilton Hall could be barricaded. She has denied playing any larger role in organizing the Columbia protests. Neither woman was present during the police sweeps on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, on the front page of the NYT next to this article, there's "How Counterprotesters at U.C.L.A. Provoked Violence, Unchecked for Hours/The New York Times used videos filmed by journalists, witnesses and protesters to analyze hours of clashes — and a delayed police response — at a pro-Palestinian encampment on Tuesday." 

That article has 8 authors.

A New York Times examination of more than 100 videos from clashes at the University of California, Los Angeles, found that violence ebbed and flowed for nearly five hours, mostly with little or no police intervention. The violence had been instigated by dozens of people who are seen in videos counterprotesting the encampment.

Here, the NYT pinpoints the instigators: It's the counterprotesters. And we see that word "violence" — "violence ebbed and flowed"... "violence had been instigated." But it seems to have been well within the traditional definition of violence:

The videos showed counterprotesters attacking students in the pro-Palestinian encampment for several hours, including beating them with sticks, using chemical sprays and launching fireworks as weapons.... 
It is not clear how the counterprotest was organized or what allegiances people committing the violence had. The videos show many of the counterprotesters were wearing pro-Israel slogans on their clothing. Some counterprotesters blared music, including Israel’s national anthem, a Hebrew children’s song and “Harbu Darbu,” an Israeli song about the Israel Defense Forces’ campaign in Gaza.

_______________________

* From "Remarks by President Biden on Recent Events on College Campuses":

Peaceful protest in America — violent protest is not protected; peaceful protest is. It’s against the law when violence occurs. Destroying property is not a peaceful protest. It’s against the law. Vandalism, trespassing, breaking windows, shutting down campuses, forcing the cancellation of classes and graduations — none of this is a peaceful protest.

71 comments:

Iman said...

They’ve arrested many people, why aren’t they making info on their identities available? Americans have a right to know.

iowan2 said...

Sherlock Holmes eliminated the impossible. What was left was the probable.

The impossible. The outside agitators are not FBI undercover agents. They are not paid informants working for one of a dozen state and federal agencies.

Like Charlottesville and Jan 6th

RideSpaceMountain said...

We know exactly who the outside agitators are, and they work at the New York Times.

Bill, Republic of Texas said...

You know I'm starting to think the NYT is not as objective or neutral as I've always thought. I must say Althouse's bullshit detector is pretty sensitive.

tommyesq said...

charged money to run demonstrations and teach techniques for taking over the streets

There's a sucker born every minute.

iowan2 said...

There was little evidence to suggest they had helped organize or escalate the protests, and many were arrested without having ever set foot on campus....

That is standard constitutional procedure. Just look at the Jan 6 protest. I think one or more proud boys are in jail now, that were never present.

rwnutjob said...

Occupy Wall Street, BLM, LBQwerty, trans, hamassholes, and yes J6.

All with professional outside agitators, paid for by marxist billionaires.

GatorNavy said...

Hmmm, perhaps violence is inherent in the system. But seriously, I don’t expect the university bureaucrats to do anything to the outside agitators(anyone who is not enrolled at said university) other than speechify. Look at UW Madison, it is not a private university and any number of bureaucrats, whether Law Enforcement, UW system bureaucrats or from Governor Evers office could remove the outside agitators, arrest them, indict them, prosecute them and then jail or fine them. None of this is likely to happen because only Jews are being targeted.
In the meantime, come see the violence inherent in the system.

David Blaska said...

Tin pot dictators blame "The Other." It was the basis for Mein Kampf. The question not asked is why are college campuses such fertile ground for such febrile nonsense?

Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...

If it makes the left look bad - blame others.

I was expecting more "Russian disinformation" blaming.

BUMBLE BEE said...

Omission, thy name is NYT.
But, they have a history with Nazis.
Clinging feverishly to the label called journalism.

Leland said...

Destroying property is not a peaceful protest.

Media in 2020 claimed otherwise. For all the talk of violence now and on Jan. 6th, we still have the videos of reporters standing in front of looters and burning buildings claiming BLM was peaceful protests. They also don’t remind everyone that Kamala pledged to pay for “protesters” bail and defense. Did she do that as a donation, legal fees, or campaign contribution?

Captain BillieBob said...

Did you really expect an in depth investigation by the NYT?
In another post yesterday someone listed one of the major funders of the latest round of campus riots.
Campus riots a just a prelude to larger riots to come over the summer months leading up to the conventions.
Gonna be a long hot summer.

narciso said...

The times that covered for fidel that put bill ayers on the cover on september 11th that lied in sanford ferguson baltimore say it aint so

planetgeo said...

Ann, every morning as you emerge from the unbelievable muck of the NY Times, you remind me of a clip I recall from "Weather Gone Viral". It shows the rain-swollen street of a busy Asian city with people walking knee-deep in muck from a stopped-up sewer-hole. Suddenly some shirtless dude smoking a cigarette dangling from his lower lip strolls over to the fully submerged sewer hole and casually disappears down in it, still smoking. Surely he's going to die. But no. Moments later he emerges from the sewer-hole. As the waters and the muck quickly subside, he just casually strolls away.

That's you, Althouse. Smoke on, baby. Smoke on.

rhhardin said...

The outsiders are the media, and their clickbait audience.

gilbar said...

a small handful of the nearly three dozen arrestees

how MANY is a "small handful"?? 4? 8? 16? i don't know.
i DO know that "nearly three dozen arrestees" means LESS THAN 36 people
4 would be OVER TEN PERCENT of less than 36
8 would be MORE THAN ONE OUT OF 5
16 would be MORE THAN half

WHAT IS a "small handful" ???

Tina Trent said...

I've been saying for too many years fo count that this is a decades-long, entirely orchestrated political movement to destroy America. It's nice to see that others are finally, slowly seeing through the fog of journalism and denial.

I'm glad there were no police for the first five hours at the Califirnia riots. If there had been, they would be called the instigators.

This is what they want; this is what they get.

Another 800 or so Chicago cops plan to transfer, quit or retire before the DNC. Give Chicago voters what they want too, good and hard. Remember, for 8 years, Obama practically lived with the popularizers of the American anti-police movement, while elites en masse professionally lied about it. So let's call this DNC The Obama Riot. Right on schedule, right on time.

Sydney said...

Meanwhile, just one reporter at The Free Press was able to locate sources of outside agitators:

https://www.thefp.com/p/student-protest-guides-violence-micro-intafada

"'The Do-It-Yourself Occupation Guide,” which was shared 24 hours after Columbia protesters broke into Hamilton Hall, was written by organizers of the Occupy Wall Street movements from 2009 to 2012. According to an editor’s note, it was updated in 2024 “in light of a nationwide resurgence of student occupations.” Another guide is produced by Palestine Action US, a radical organization closely tied to Fergie Chambers, the multimillionaire communist heir who has advocated for making “people who support Israel actually afraid to go out in public.” The language in the Palestine Action US guide is echoed in other manuals produced by students at Yale, Columbia, and Emory. Another guide—or “zine” as it’s officially called—states that it was written 'by anarchists in Europe and North America.'”

Big Mike said...

Ms. Fithian, who has written a book on protest tactics and charged money to run demonstrations and teach techniques for taking over the streets, was captured on video Tuesday apparently urging counterprotesters to step aside so that Hamilton Hall could be barricaded. She has denied playing any larger role in organizing the Columbia protests.

She’d say that if it was true and she’s say that if she was in it up to her eyebrows.

Neither woman [Lisa Fithian, and Nahla Al-Arian] was present during the police sweeps on Tuesday.

In other words, as longtime professionals they know how to avoid the cops.

Yancey Ward said...

Small handful out of about 3 dozen- so what is a small handful? Or was this article written by rabbits that can't count past 4?

Aggie said...

"There was little evidence to suggest they had helped organize or escalate the protests, and many were arrested without having ever set foot on campus...."

The reason that there is 'little evidence', or no evidence, is because leaving 'no evidence' of collaboration / collusion is an operational objective of Direct Action. It's like observing that there was no ballot-counting fraud in the last election, knowing full well that the practice of not verifying signatures, a form of ballot fraud, is successful precisely because there is no evidence, once this step is taken. The ballot simply goes into the pile to be counted.

Direct Action tactics use compartmentalization and shared objectives to avoid a trail that law enforcement can use to show cause. So, it looks like the NYT is playing games with the truth again, doesn't it?

narciso said...

Al arian whose father was a pij fundraiser that one

Money Manger said...

…many were arrested without having ever set foot on campus…

Huh???

They were nursing a cup of coffee at Tom’s Diner on 113th Street?

AMDG said...

Meanwhile, on the front page of the NYT next to this article, there's "How Counterprotesters at U.C.L.A. Provoked Violence, Unchecked for Hours/The New York Times used videos filmed by journalists, witnesses and protesters to analyze hours of clashes — and a delayed police response — at a pro-Palestinian encampment on Tuesday."

——————-

This is incorrect. The violence had two sources:

1. The Hamas supporters insisting on illegally impeding the free movement of Jewish students. This is violence.

2. The refusal of the administration to do anything about #1.

If authorities refuse to enforce the law other people will step in to do so.

Iman said...

Well said, narciso @8:18am!!!

Temujin said...

The NY Times is large on numbers of reporters (13 for these two articles) and small on specifics. Large on anecdotes, small on specifics...but I'm repeating myself.

I can find out more about who is behind the campus disruptions just browsing some key names on X than I can from the full force and attention of our 'paper of record'. Speaking of which, you don't have matching, quality made tents, and hundreds of umbrellas just show up, coincidentally at multiple campuses across the country. And layers of plywood? Anyone bought plywood lately? Not cheap. This has been planned for weeks, it is well funded, and It will not end this weekend. It will, in fact, increase over the next few months.

This summer should be a hot time in the old town. Every old town.

Whiskeybum said...

“[A]s evidence that the campus has been infiltrated, [Adams] has pointed to the presence there at various times of a 63-year-old career activist, Lisa Fithian, and Nahla Al-Arian, the wife of a man who faced terrorism charges in Florida nearly 20 years ago, and whose daughter was a graduate of Columbia’s journalism school.

Thus, another left-wing activist “journalist” is born. If you come from an activist background, then journalism is the career for you, unless you consider that too lowly and instead go to law school to become an activist judge or a politician.

Meade said...

gilbar said...

“WHAT IS a "small handful" ???”

Why, it’s exactly the size of a large handful, of course.

NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...

The "Outside Agitator" rhetoric is an attempt to make sure that certain right thinking people don't lose their jobs/internships/professorships and save face. It reminds me of the Irish independence movement's habit of putting failed uprisings (no matter how badly planned) down to betrayal by "paid spies and informers".

Sally327 said...

These campuses seem so unsafe, the way anyone can show up and camp out. I wonder what the crime stats are usually.

Maybe that's why the "outside agitator" concept is being preented as essentially benign, just simple honest folk influenced by social media.

Sebastian said...

So, wait, NYT covers for the left?

wildswan said...

Leaders are always "a small handful" aren't they?
The NYT is not telling the story; it's busily camouflaging important presences while pretending to earnestly survey the landscape for those same presences which it does not find.

Lefty protest leaders are not police officers wearing a gold-braided cap that says CAPTAIN, heading a uniformed squad and visibly leading the carrying out of established tactics. They wear regular protest clothes (sweatshirts, hoodies and so on), shield their faces and demonstrate tactics but fade away as soon as others pick up on the actions they model. That's the lefty way and the NYT should be able to present these facts and find these people. But it can't be done by staying in the newsroom, monitoring social media feeds and PR outputs and reporting on such monitoring. ChatGPT could do all that. Maybe someday the NYT reporter's job will be to sit in the newsroom and collate the social media outputs; input select outputs into Chat GPT; input Chat's output to the editorial desk; and head for the door, intending to input a bar's output.

Big Mike said...

I have made a handful of assumptions regarding what happened at UCLA.

One thing is factual: a Jewish coed was knocked down and kicked by the pro-Palestinian mob to the point of unconsciousness.

What I am assuming is that the counter-protesters were young Jewish men bent on revenge and educating the pro-Palestinian mob about the meaning of “never again.” If so, good for them. I’ll let the anti-Semites react with feigned horror. “Punch back twice as hard,” some guy said.

Why were the police so laggardly in at least separating the two groups? Perhaps the cops had absorbed so much abuse from the pro-Palestinian mob that they were inclined to sit back and watch the bodies bounce. But to me it’s more likely that they had orders (from the LAPD hierarchy? from campus officials? both?) on the mistaken assumption that any violence would be initiated by the pro-Palestinian mob and thus it was in some sense okay. (It has not escaped my notice that, if the police were absorbing abuse from the mob, they may have found the non-intervention order especially easy to obey.)

The article is behind a paywall but so far I have read nothing that suggests my hypotheses are in error.

Rusty said...

Tina Trent said...
"I've been saying for too many years fo count that this is a decades-long, entirely orchestrated political movement to destroy America. It's nice to see that others are finally, slowly seeing through the fog of journalism and denial.

I'm glad there were no police for the first five hours at the Califirnia riots. If there had been, they would be called the instigators.

This is what they want; this is what they get.

Another 800 or so Chicago cops plan to transfer, quit or retire before the DNC. Give Chicago voters what they want too, good and hard. Remember, for 8 years, Obama practically lived with the popularizers of the American anti-police movement, while elites en masse professionally lied about it. So let's call this DNC The Obama Riot. Right on schedule, right on time."

CPD is already understaffed by 1000 cops losing another 800 will be devastating. Especially during the Democrat convention. Which looks like a repeat of 1968.

Rusty said...

Tina Trent said...
"I've been saying for too many years fo count that this is a decades-long, entirely orchestrated political movement to destroy America. It's nice to see that others are finally, slowly seeing through the fog of journalism and denial.

I'm glad there were no police for the first five hours at the Califirnia riots. If there had been, they would be called the instigators.

This is what they want; this is what they get.

Another 800 or so Chicago cops plan to transfer, quit or retire before the DNC. Give Chicago voters what they want too, good and hard. Remember, for 8 years, Obama practically lived with the popularizers of the American anti-police movement, while elites en masse professionally lied about it. So let's call this DNC The Obama Riot. Right on schedule, right on time."

CPD is already understaffed by 1000 cops losing another 800 will be devastating. Especially during the Democrat convention. Which looks like a repeat of 1968.

Robert Cook said...

"Outside agitators" is a bullshit term used by the authorities going back decades, most prominently used to invalidate organizers and protesters in the Civil Rights Movement. It is used when the authorities are frightened by the strength that accrues to the weak who come together to work toward a focused goal. It seeks to imply that shadowy external (i.e., "illegimate") forces are at play for malignant purposes, and, by definition, cannot be a body of legitimate homegrown actors voicing their disagreement with a prevailing social or political condition.

narciso said...

because they dismantled the intel unit under wilhelm, they still don't have a precise organizational chart, but dhs which spends its time, geotagging every one who was in a square mile of the Capital, surely knows as with finsec, who spent its time tracking trump related transactions,

narciso said...

look at who is in charge from the DA to the Mayor to the Governor, they had to tread very lightly in San Angeles,

Narayanan said...

with drone / camera technology available why no [h]over-coverage of these events ?

web-cam streaming etc?

are the 'deplorable' ignorant, and incompetent, afraid of heights?

John henry said...

Doesn't "little evidence" mean the same as "some evidence"

John Henry

John henry said...

Scott Adams pointed out two things that he had noticed about the demonstrations

First, he heard no male voices in the chanting. He said there were some guys chanting but the chanters were so overwhelmingly female that he could not hear any male voices.

Second, he pointed out that leading a chant like this requires some expertise. A novice with no experience can't just get up and effectively lead the chant. it requires Rhythm and intonation skills.

John Henry

John henry said...

What about demonstrators Who are Students But also Professional, in the sense that they charge for their services Agitators? Joanna King-Slutzsky seems to be in her mid to late 30s. She is a PhD student at Columbia. Her dissertation topic is a hoot. I posted on that a couple days ago. She makes her living as a teacher and a student at Columbia. But she also offers her services For organizing and leading demonstrations According to Some info I have seen posted by her

John Henry

Night Owl said...

These campus protests are making it more difficult for an already weak Biden during an election year. His shills in the media must be desperate to change focus. So, everyone, let's not dwell on the anti-semitic and pro-nazi slogans being shouted by our future leaders at these progressive ivy league schools. Instead, let's focus on this mystery group of agitators leading these poor children astray. Oh, who could they be? Will we ever know?

Gimme a break.

Leftist protests always turn violent. Democrat leaders encourage it. Maxine.Waters "get in their face"; Obama, "if they bring a knife to the fight, we break a gun." During the "mostly peaceful" riots of the last election cycle Kamala Harris said, "They’re not gonna let up and they should not." Democrats thrive on violence.

Maybe It's a mystery to the new york times, but the rest of us know what "sort of people" these agitators are; they're Democrat voters.

John henry said...

So you are saying they are ALL students, cook?

The arrest reports seem to disagree with you. Who should I believe, you or my lying eyes?

John Henry

The Real Andrew said...

“ CPD is already understaffed by 1000 cops losing another 800 will be devastating. Especially during the Democrat convention. Which looks like a repeat of 1968.”

I’m wondering if it’s going to be even worse. Back in 60’s Chicago, you had a popular mayor who stood with the police. There was a certain pride in and for the city. Now, the current mayor is one in a string of failures, and the police have no reason to think that the mayor has their backs. Plus the police know any action they take against the protesters could cause them to be demonized and worse. I think the protestors are going to have much more free rein.

Night Owl said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Skeptical Voter said...

Our host is looking for substance in a NYT article? She might as well search for fool's gold. It would be more rewarding.

Jonathan Burack said...

The only question is whether the NY Times is complicit or terminally stupid.

n.n said...

A Whitmer conspiracy? A Pelosi-rrection? Maybe. There is precedent to hunt them, indict them, and throw them all in jail. Also, in Democratic jurisdictions, Capitol punishment is a viable Choice to relieve their "burden".

Jupiter said...

Not sure I follow the kerfuffle. Some of the assholes breaking the law at Columbia aren't paying a hundred grand a year for the privilege? That's whose problem?

Tina Trent said...

Lisa Fithian and Jihadist Sami Al-Arian's Jihadist wife were actually on that campus giving instructions? Then they would have left. You will not see either of them getting arrested at a protest. Both should be executed for treason. Al-Arian was rightfully deported long ago. The ladies will be in a nice hotel or on to the next recruitment event.

I've been around Lisa Fithian. Violence and hatred and rage literally radiate off her. I wouldn't say this about many people. I'm sure she has tortured and killed people. She colludes with foreign dictators.

The scale of this movement is massive. They recently held 70 different trainings around the country just to recruit for fighting the new police training center in Atlanta. The training in Atlanta alone had 350-400 participants, mostly university students. When they train students, the students have to join affinity groups. Unknown to many naive participants, professsional, paid activists pretend to be newcomers too and carefully screen the participants through these groups. They make them show ID and do sophisticated computer research on them. They recruit the ones with the most vile intent and/or special skills and assign them to lead the others. Layers upon layers of secret meetings are held at every training, off-site. From the outside, it can look benign -- all making paper mache banners and eating skanky rice and beans. But somewhere nearby, people from well-funded trainer (terrorist) groups are recruiting new leadership and plotting the sophisticated series of events to turn each "peaceful" event violent, while using the lesser recruits as plausible deniability.

When you get past the naive students and homeless people being used as human shields, it's a different world. I made it into a leadership tent in Tampa once in 2012. French or Quebequois activists from Food Not Bombs wearing expensive bumwear sat in an expensive tent full of real food and expensive computer terminals. Outside the nice, reinforced tent, a homeless encampment was being drenched by a tropical storm, with overflowing buckets of straw and human shit sitting next to mid-level radicals stirring big pots of rice and beans, and deranged homeless men being paid and fed to patrol the area.

My non-olifactory point is that being an insider or outsider has nothing to do with whether you're also a student. At each training, some of the students will be vetted and interrogated and are then new "insiders" who must only prove themselves to rise in the "professional" ranks. Veteran reporters at the Times know this. They're just lying.

Also, they have begun removing the names of their organizations from the professional signage. You don't see many WOW or ANSWER or even union emblems on signs anymore. This thing is getting darker.

Joe Smith said...

They are communist agitators...the usual BLM Occupy WS crowd.

The Rent-a-Mob if you will.

They are the shock troops of the democrat party.

They loot, burn, and pillage on orders from above, funded by Soros and other leftists.

The FBI could shut it all down but they don't.

Joe Smith said...

I want all of these schools and blue cities burned to the ground.

And only then do I want arrests, prosecutions, convictions, and executions when possible.

All done to the letter of the law.

JK Brown said...

My how far we have come since Chris Cuomo in 2020 asked

Cuomo: Show me where it says protests are supposed to be polite and peaceful.

https://youtu.be/EAe86my9r7A

Or are they only to be peaceful when it is a Democrat who will be hurt by the unrest?

RCOCEAN II said...

"It is not clear how the counterprotest was organized or what allegiances people committing the violence had."

Yeah, its all a great MYSTERY when you don't want to do any reporting to find out who they are. The counter-protesters were thugs who attacked Pro-Palestinian people. They were organized by Jewish groups, and so it must remain "Unclear" who they are.

Of course, the constant use of the word "Violence" to mean almost anything has turned it into a Propaganda/Smear word. Violence means attacking other people. It does not mean "breaking into a building" or "Tresspassing" or talking or shouting. These things can be unlawful. But they are NOT violence. Silence DOES NOT equal Violence.

You can say that's not Peaceful. OK, but don't misuse the word violence. And BTW, another trick used by the NYT's is write in a passive manner to hide who was the aggressor at UCLA and who was doing what. "Violence broke out" "Violence ebbed and flowed" are meainingless words designed to hide the fact that the Counter-protestors attacked first, and kept on attacking.

JK Brown said...

The protests are coming from inside the faculty lounge. The humanities and social science (excl:econ) lounge to be specific.

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2024/05/the-daily-chart-finding-the-rot-at-columbia.php

That an the law school faculty. But to be fair, once you get a BA in humanities/soc-sci and realize you've no job prospects, the next iteration is law school.

YoungHegelian said...

Oh, good Lord, how stupid or willfully blind are the reporters from the NYT? The "outside agitators" are ADVERTISING their presence everywhere during the rallies!

During the rallies, look carefully at the pre-printed signs in block lettering, often in yellow or green (like here). Look at the bottom of the signs. They'll often say either Party for Socialism and Liberation or International ANSWER.

And who are these people? Well, the Party for Socialism and Liberation is a self-proclaimed Marxist-Leninist party. Here's their Wikipedia page. ANSWER stands for Act Now to Stop War and End Racism and is a coalition of various lefty groups, including several Marxist-Leninist groups such as the Workers World Party and the aforementioned Party for Socialism and Liberation. Here's ANSWER's wiki page.

Wow, that was really fucking difficult wasn't it? Over the years, I looked at photos of the demonstrations and saw the same two groups had their names at the bottom of the printed signs at every almost demonstration, and then I googled their names! What an incredible investigative journalist I am sitting comfortably at my PC in suburban DC! Just think of what a world-famous, well-funded, professional group of journalists could do with such blatant links to outside agitators!

Wait, what? Nevermind...

JIM said...

By Biden's definition the riots of 2020 were not legal, but shoot howdy didn't the Left enthusiastically embrace them. With Pelosi and "Mamala" both encouraging more violence. The DNC convention in Chicago should be a real barn burner this year. Bring marshmallows.

effinayright said...

So, Cook: Lisa Fithian is NOT an "outside agitator", though she offers her services as one, for money, and was present at the Columbia protests?


Tina Trent said...

I think Robert Cook is just naive but also sincere.

I think he can open his eyes.

And I am very grateful Inga posted the other day. Missed you. Hope you are well.

Everything isn't politics, right?

Greg the Class Traitor said...

Ms. Fithian, who has written a book on protest tactics and charged money to run demonstrations and teach techniques for taking over the streets, was captured on video Tuesday apparently urging counterprotesters to step aside so that Hamilton Hall could be barricaded. She has denied playing any larger role in organizing the Columbia protests. Neither woman was present during the police sweeps on Tuesday.

Wow, so someone whose business is paying people to be terrorists was there egging teh students on to engage in criminal acts, then bugged out before the cops started arresting people.

Which argues that the whole "we looked at teh people arrested" line is complete garbage, and they KNOW it's complete garbage. Since the "outside agitators" make sure to take off before it's too late, unlike their patsies.

Greg the Class Traitor said...

A New York Times examination of more than 100 videos from clashes at the University of California, Los Angeles, found that violence ebbed and flowed for nearly five hours, mostly with little or no police intervention. The violence had been instigated by dozens of people who are seen in videos counterprotesting the encampment.

The violence was instigated by the people in the encampment. Who then shut down for the evening, so the counter-proteges brought the counter-violence to them.

As was just, right, and proper.

And yes, the cops sat back and watched. Just as they sat back and watched while the "pro-Palestinian" thugs illegal and with threats of force blocked "Zionists" from entering the student library.

Live by the sword. Die by the sword

Dr Weevil said...

Big Mike (9:36am):
Following all this on Twitter, I have read that (some of? most of?) the counter-protesters at UCLA were heard speaking to each other and cursing in Farsi, so many think they were Iranian Jews, of whom there is no shortage in LA. Whether they were "were organized by Jewish groups" as RCOCEAN II (12:24pm) boldly states, or just gathered spontaneously, like all the frat boys defending Old Glory on various campuses, is a good question.

I also read that the UCLA protesters who complained about how long it took for the police to show up to protect them from the counter-protesters were too stupid or arrogant or hypocritical (not mutually exclusive) to take down their prominent "All Cops Are Bastards" signs before calling 911.

Everyone:
Every time I see Lisa Fithian's name I misread it as Filthian and mishear it as Raggedy Ann's much nastier sister Filthy Ann.

phantommut said...

"Outside agitators" is a bullshit term used by the authorities going back decades, ...

What do you call a field of random tents scattered out randomly?

A festival.

What do you call a field of identical tents arranged in an orderly fashion?

An encampment.

Iman said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Iman said...

“First, he heard no male voices in the chanting. He said there were some guys chanting but the chanters were so overwhelmingly female that he could not hear any male voices.”

Scott Adams forgets that the male protesters - and there are large numbers of them - are afflicted with low levels of testosterone. That’s why they mince about with their masks and Rubbermaid shields®, sissy slapping all who try to go about their business.

Tina Trent said...

Gatornavy: you're full of shit. Police aren't allowed to do anything but follow orders.

Change your name, or I'll change it for you. I come from a real Navy family, and my father would be the first person defending Jewish people.

Capice?

Tina Trent said...

Iowan2: get a fucking grip. These people are real, unlike the ones in your head.

Josephbleau said...

What is the difference between the Palestinian girl protester and the hippie girl protester? The distinction is found by whether they get stoned after or before forcible sex.

There it is, I have done it.

Rusty said...

Robert Cook said...
"Outside agitators" is a bullshit term used by the authorities going back decades, most prominently used to invalidate organizers and protesters in the Civil Rights Movement."

Mmmm. Not so much. I noticed that when our little town,(pop. 23000), was the home of the offices of a less then committed Republican Senator if there was controversial legislation on the table people from all over the place would show up. Signs already printed. Places like Oregon, Washington, Vermon and New Hampshire. They'd run around shouting and stealing things but that was about it.