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60+ students occupy uni building in protest

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Re: 60+ students occupy uni building in protest

Postby Jono on Sat Mar 07, 2009 2:00 pm

mhuzzell wrote:Jono, your wilful misterpretations (or blinkered misunderstanding?) of the last few posts -- indeed, of the occupation in general -- barely dignifies even this much of a response.

Fin.


Nothing to do with it being 11.15 in the evening then?

As for my supposed 'misrepresentation'; I hold my hands up to the first two. I admit to holding the idea of participatory democracy with derision. For reasons I have explained earlier I believe the concept to be, at best, a flawed claim to full-representation , and at worst a cloak under which people can hide from any kind of responsibility for their actions. Ergo, I reserve the right to royally take the piss out of it!

As for the rest, please feel free to respond, assuming you can be bothered to do so!
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Re: 60+ students occupy uni building in protest

Postby Lukey2 on Sat Mar 07, 2009 3:20 pm

Do you maybe remember your first post?

munchingfoo wrote:Shouldn't the University just call the police to remove them?


Although I'd like to give you full marks for honesty, you cannot be both "on the fence" and at the same time in favour of using police to remove the protesters.
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Re: 60+ students occupy uni building in protest

Postby Haunted on Sat Mar 07, 2009 3:32 pm

Lukey2 wrote:Do you maybe remember your first post?

munchingfoo wrote:Shouldn't the University just call the police to remove them?


Although I'd like to give you full marks for honesty, you cannot be both "on the fence" and at the same time in favour of using police to remove the protesters.


I fail to see how his question dictates his political opinion. Isn't it perfectly legitimate that when private property is illegally seized that the police be called in to sort out the situation? It's credit to the university that they didn't go down this route but they would've been perfectly within their right to.

Perhaps you would care to answer: Why shouldn't the police have been called in to remove them?
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Re: 60+ students occupy uni building in protest

Postby Lukey2 on Sat Mar 07, 2009 3:57 pm

Haunted wrote:
Lukey2 wrote:Do you maybe remember your first post?

munchingfoo wrote:Shouldn't the University just call the police to remove them?


Although I'd like to give you full marks for honesty, you cannot be both "on the fence" and at the same time in favour of using police to remove the protesters.


I fail to see how his question dictates his political opinion. Isn't it perfectly legitimate that when private property is illegally seized that the police be called in to sort out the situation? It's credit to the university that they didn't go down this route but they would've been perfectly within their right to.

Perhaps you would care to answer: Why shouldn't the police have been called in to remove them?


To say that the police should be called is to implicitly say that the protesters have no right to protest. Although he was not speaking about Gaza, he was making a political statement by saying that we had no right to make a political statement. As for why they shouldn't have called the police? I think the vice-principals never really entertained that on account of it being against their interests. The University would have gotten bad publicity, and the occupiers would have gained further ground by being able to tout themselves as victims. Of the 20+ occupations that have taken place in the last two months, the one at Cambridge has attracted the most negative attention. They knew that calling the police would have probably have hurt the university's reputation, which is why--contrary to the lying e-mail that was sent around--they negotiated instead.
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Re: 60+ students occupy uni building in protest

Postby What? on Sat Mar 07, 2009 4:03 pm

Or maybe, as the room you occupatorzerzed wasn't being used for quite a while there was little need to do anything in terms of your removal as long as you weren't offensive in the press and didn't damage anything. All the University had to do was make sure nothing happened that could create a shitstorm in the press and they could stop there. Which is how the reality sounds too.
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Re: 60+ students occupy uni building in protest

Postby Haunted on Sat Mar 07, 2009 4:14 pm

Lukey2 wrote:To say that the police should be called is to implicitly say that the protesters have no right to protest.

I would like to protest the monarchy by occupatoring buckingham palace. Tell me why the police shouldn't be called?
There's accepted legal forms of protest, and then there is illegal/criminal activity.
Although he was not speaking about Gaza, he was making a political statement by saying that we had no right to make a political statement.

You'll have to point out where he said that you "have no right to protest".
As for why they shouldn't have called the police? I think the vice-principals never really entertained that on account of it being against their interests.

Yes, that is what happened, but you didn't answer the question. Why shouldn't the police have been called?
The University would have gotten bad publicity, and the occupiers would have gained further ground by being able to tout themselves as victims.

Again, this is PR. I want to know in terms of legality why the police shouldn't have been called to remove the people.
Of the 20+ occupations that have taken place in the last two months,

As an aside why are we still having trouble with numbers here? Surely it is an easy matter to find out.
the one at Cambridge has attracted the most negative attention. They knew that calling the police would have probably have hurt the university's reputation, which is why--contrary to the lying e-mail that was sent around--they negotiated instead.

I could not care about Cambridge, this is superfluous.
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Re: 60+ students occupy uni building in protest

Postby Jono on Sat Mar 07, 2009 4:24 pm

Lukey2 wrote:
To say that the police should be called is to implicitly say that the protesters have no right to protest.


Not really. More like he's saying that the protesters have no right to protest in that paticular way. Lets be clear, no reasonable person is denying THEright to protest. Take the LRN! rally. Some quaters lambasted it as an ineffective or counter-productive gesture, but no one was denying that LRN had every right to do it.

In contrast, the Occupation of a building which the protestors did not own, however you dress it up, was breaking the law. Not a serious breach of the law, but a breach nontheless. The protestors had no right to be there. The University, as a property owner, would have been entitled to forcibly evict the protestors had they so chosen (and as they seemed to intimate towards on the Wednesday). That they didn't was an eminently sensible and pragmatic desicion. But let's have no confusion here, the occupation was illegal direct-action.
Now some people weren't happy about the content of that last post. And we can't have someone not happy. Not on the internet.
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Re: 60+ students occupy uni building in protest

Postby munchingfoo on Fri Dec 23, 2011 5:55 am

I am Occupating this thread in solidarity with nostalgic humour.

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I'm not a large water-dwelling mammal Where did you get that preposterous hypothesis? Did Steve
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