Posted on 02/25/2009 8:18:53 AM PST by thinkingIsPresuppositional
The case against the millennial generation: exhibit # N87960
By Afghan Whig
I was going to write about something else tonight, but this is too good to ignore. Via Hot Air (warning: strong language): a video of the recent New York University "Kimmel occupation" being calmly dispersed. If you don't feel like watching the entire thing, (the narrator's a bit much to take), jump to the temper tantrum at 5:36.
The story is a that a group of mostly New York University students forcibly occupied the school cafeteria for three days. During their sleepover, they produced a bizarre list of demands, which includes, among other things, full disclosure of NYU's private budget, card check for a local union, a student elected finance committee, which will focus first on boilerplate leftist issues (investigation into possible "war profiteering," possibly boycotting Coca-Cola), paid scholarships for Palestinian students, and donations to the University of Gaza. The University promptly ignored the demands and broke up the packaged rebellion. The aftermath, in the words of 18-year old Mitchell Goulding: "The general consensus right now among the student body is that they are a bunch of idiots," (perhaps I'm too cynical about the younger generation).
To grasp the ridiculousness of the protestor's behavior, imagine the same approach applied to another criminal activity:
Cops: Freeze!
Bank robbers: No. We need to democratically decide whether or not we should freeze. This is supposed to be a consensus; I don't know if you guys understand that.
Cops: Put the money down!
Bank robbers: Are those guns? Don’t expect us to cooperate if you’re going to use devices of force.
Cops: Step out of the vault!
Bank robbers: You guys busted in here. Give us ten minutes to decide what we want to do. You're making us very upset, and we can't guarantee our cooperation if you don't negotiate with us.
Cops: Move over, ma’am.
Bank robbess: HE TOUCHED ME! HE @#$%^&! TOUCHED ME!
In another part of the bank:
Robber #1: O.K., we’ve got three duffle bags full of large bills. Those greedy corporate lackeys will be interested in that.
Robber #2: I’ve got Melanie’s diary.
Robber #1: What’s it say?
Robber #2: “I hate it when people touch me.”
Robber #1: They’ll definitely be interested in that. You know they have nothing better to do than obsess over our opinions.
In all seriousness, this is the perfect storm (such an overused term anymore) of the worst elements of left-wing protest:
1. Entitlement. The students presumed that the private property they were squatting on was their "space." The same mentality drives ACORN's latest escapades. Entitlement was also exposed when the narrator demanded that campus security tell him what they were doing, as if they answered to him.
2. An exaggerated sense of victimhood. The young woman screamed "he touched me!" with enough decibels to slice through a rock concert as campus police dragged her off of the balcony.
3. Convoluted notions of propriety. Is there anything more cloying than young adults using buzzwords such as "consensus" and "devices of force"? Like an immature version of the U.N., the students attempted to give an air of dignity to their radical politics by repeatedly calling for "dialogue."
4. Self-important rage. One gets the impression that some of the students were dying to be slighted, just so they could scream "(expletive) scumbags!" without seeming out of place.
5. Arrogance. I could probably roll this into entitlement, but when the narrator stated "...they need to come back here and report to us," pure arrogance is the first thing that came to mind.
6. Wistful symbolism. The girl holding up peace signs around 6:40 into the video was being passive-aggressive. Her silent protest reminded me of when Martin Sheen covered his mouth with a piece of duct tape with the word "peace" written on it a few years ago. It's such an obvious stunt, about.com archives a photo of it in their political humor section.
7. A conspiratorial worldview. I know I'm hard on the conspiracy theorists, but there are few things police are less interested in than a common college student's journal and computer files. I don't know if NYU's protestors know this, but cops can tell the difference between suspected terrorists and overly dramatic twenty-year-olds.
8. General cluelessness about the world at large. The narrator's nonsensical comment about "corporate water" towards the end suggests he hasn't grown out of the simplistic worldview that frames everything as a struggle between groups of victims and oppressors. The fact the students were demanding that a private entity publically disclose nothing less than it's entire corporate strategy also betrays naiveté on their part.
New York University should be proud of the way they handled the situation. They didn't cave into the student's unrealistic demands, and the campus police were able to keep composed in the face of ceaselessly aggrivating protestors. If the comments I've been reading on this story are accurate, than even some Obama supporters are turned off by the student's inchoate activism. That's right, the NYU protestors are even an embarassment to Democrats.
Cross-posted at The Sword and the Olive Branch.
I loved the ‘who can facilitate?’. Hopefully these punks will be expelled, sentenced, and sent to a jail/prison where they can ‘facilitate’.
ping for later...
NYU created these pissant students... paybacks are a b*tch
Slices to the bone.
I love it.
They've obviously spent far too much time in the government school environment.
Make them get a job, if anyone will take them.
Surely toilets need cleaned somewhere.
When will they be taking over the White House?
That was funny both the “serious” hippies who got ousted (I saw the video clip, wow what idiots) and the spoof you posted.
It looks like something that Woody Allen would have done when he was funny.
BTTT
View later BUMP...
The kid narrating and holding the camera isn’t even an NYU student. He goes to some small school in PA. Makes the protesting students look even more like tools/useful idiots.
The budget disclosure was to “expose” investments in Israel.
Whenever I see an article like this I wonder what Heinlein would do .... more specifically what he’d do in the context of Starship Troopers. Frankly I don’t know how to classify these kids. Are they mental babies like they appear and just need a sound spanking from their parents or should they be whipped in a public box like adults who throw a tantrum in public?
“i want to know how you’re spending my daddy’s money!”
The video has been removed.
Judge Smails: “Well the world needs ditch diggers too.”
Ooooooh. That long ago?
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