All posts tagged: protesting

Protesters Protesting Protesters – OpentheWord.org

Protesters Protesting Protesters – OpentheWord.org

Published by skeptic

Credit: Logan Weaver, @lgnwvr, unsplash.com I’m old enough, that when I was in high school, we had protesters. The issue, in those years, was mostly the Vietnam War. Some perpetual protesters were friends or acquaintances of mine, but they had their own protest movement, like a religion, and they lived it. I remember green army surplus jackets, fist pumps, and people shouting slogans at every school assembly. That was life in the seventies. Now, the protesters are back, but this is a new generation. My schoolmates probably got haircuts and good jobs, after they graduated. The new generation of protesters are political leftists, like in my younger years, and they are described as Politically Correct / PC (that is an old title), or woke (some people are offended by this title), Progressive, or just Leftist. Now they have many issues to protest, and not just a war in Asia. I don’t know who even remembers the Vietnam War, today, but there are other things to protest and argue about; very many. Now we even have …

The students protesting in Dublin are on the right side of history – and they know it | Owen Jones

The students protesting in Dublin are on the right side of history – and they know it | Owen Jones

Published by skeptic

Who tends to get the big foreign policy calls right: student protesters, or their detractors? Answering this question, it turns out, is useful if you don’t want to end up judged poorly by history. Student protesters were vilified when they stood against the Vietnam war, yet now, who would have wanted to be on the side that denigrated them variously as naive, dupes and extremists? How should we look back at the students suspended after walking out of lessons in protest at the impending war in Iraq in 2003? Today we might say they come off looking pretty good, having had far more foresight than the seasoned politicians and ageing media commentators who cheered that particular cataclysm on back then. That legacy loomed large on Wednesday in a courtyard at Trinity College Dublin, filled with students waving Palestinian flags alongside the Irish tricolour, as the triumphant student union president, László Molnárfi, told them their protests would succeed in Ireland, the US and across the world “because our cause is right”. The students were jubilant, because …

Stack Overflow Bans Users for Protesting Against It Selling Their Answers to OpenAI as Training Data

Stack Overflow Bans Users for Protesting Against It Selling Their Answers to OpenAI as Training Data

Published by skeptic

“Why does OpenAI get to profit from our work?” Scraping By Stack Overflow, the go-to forum for programmers and software developers, announced a partnership with OpenAI to sell the site’s data — including its users’ forum posts — to train ChatGPT. But the move has proved highly controversial. As Tom’s Hardware reports, many Stack Overflow users are now attempting to edit or remove their posts to protest their answers being used to bolster OpenAI’s large language model. That mild disobedience has incurred bans by Stack Overflow’s moderators, who say the deletions go against the site’s policy. One Stack Overflow user by the name of Ben, who claims to be a UI programmer at Epic Games, said they were suspended for seven days for editing their highest-rated answers in protest, writing in one post: “Why does OpenAI get to profit from our work?” “It’s just a reminder that anything you post on any of these platforms can and will be used for profit,” the user wrote in a thread on X, formerly Twitter. “It’s just a …

A new generation of Vietnamese migrants is protesting against their home government

A new generation of Vietnamese migrants is protesting against their home government

Published by skeptic

More than 200 mostly young people gathered outside the Vietnamese embassy in London to protest against Vietnam’s ruling communist party, demanding the release of all prisoners of conscience and to call for democratic reforms. What was interesting about this protest, that I attended in December 2023, was the age of the protesters. They were mostly young people who grew up in Vietnam, and this was the first protest many had ever participated in, having only left the country a few years ago. Back in Vietnam, there is almost no space to challenge communist rule and values. These citizens grew up in a nation where TV, radio and education were heavily censored by the authorities, and there was limited access to international media. Critical voices were stifled, so most people understandably don’t get involved in politics. This changes when younger people move abroad, as I have learned during my ongoing research with recent immigrants to the UK. With access to independent, more critical news sources, wider discussions and alternative opinions, migrants tell me that they feel …

Professors Are Helicopter Protesting With Students

Professors Are Helicopter Protesting With Students

Published by skeptic

“I am a professor! I am a professor of economics!” said Caroline Fohlin, face down, pinned to the ground by police at Emory University, in Atlanta, during campus demonstrations in late April. Her glasses had been thrown from her face, her head knocked against the concrete. While Fohlin’s words might be taken to suggest entitlement—a belief that her faculty status should confer immunity—I heard something else: an appeal to neutrality. It seemed to me that Fohlin was not in the quad to join the students in their protest of the war in Gaza: She was just trying to look out for them. Other faculty members have been roughed up too. Video showing the arrest of Emory’s philosophy-department chair, Noëlle McAfee, went viral. So did a clip of the Dartmouth historian Annelise Orleck getting knocked over and zip-tied. At Washington University in St. Louis, where I am on faculty, Steve Tamari, a history professor at nearby Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville, was filmed being tackled and dragged by police; Tamari says he was hospitalized with broken …

‘I feel disgusted and ashamed’: Bristol student camp one of many protesting at university ties to Israel | Universities

‘I feel disgusted and ashamed’: Bristol student camp one of many protesting at university ties to Israel | Universities

Published by skeptic

The collection of 12 tents pitched in a soggy garden at the heart of Bristol university’s campus is on a much smaller scale than the Palestine solidarity encampments sweeping the US. But the outrage at what this new generation of student activists regard as the complicity of education institutions in Israel’s assault on Gaza is just as raw. “It makes me feel sick to my stomach,” said Olivia [not her real name], a second-year student at the university, outside the camp on Friday. “I feel deeply disgusted and ashamed. This protest is absolutely the least I can do for someone studying at a university that is so complicit.” Like many of the students involved in the protest, she doesn’t want to share her name. “There could be academic repercussions [for students taking part]: anything from being banned from university buildings to suspensions and expulsions,” she said. “This has happened in the UK, but not at this university so far.” At least seven similar encampments have sprung up at British universities in the past week, including …

Catholic Bishop joins cease-fire prayer vigil protesting weapons for Israel

Catholic Bishop joins cease-fire prayer vigil protesting weapons for Israel

Published by Sam

WASHINGTON (RNS) — Calling the White House “a symbol of ongoing support for destruction of human lives,” Catholic Bishop John Stowe appeared at a prayer vigil outside the presidential mansion on Friday (May 3), joining a group of religious demonstrators as they urged President Joe Biden to back a permanent cease-fire in Gaza and halt offensive weapons shipments to Israel. Stowe said the protesters hoped to appeal to Biden’s Catholicism, saying the group intended to deliver a new letter signed by more than 200 U.S. Catholic leaders, including a cardinal, an archbishop and several nuns, to the president, urging him to do more to stop the violence. Activists read the letter aloud during the demonstration. It is rare in recent years for an active American Catholic bishop to participate in a political demonstration. The Catholic hierarchy more commonly expresses its views as a group as the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, most often in written statements. Stowe, who heads the Catholic diocese of Lexington, Kentucky, is president of Pax Christi USA, a Catholic anti-war advocacy …

Why are Pakistan’s wheat farmers protesting against the government? | Food News

Why are Pakistan’s wheat farmers protesting against the government? | Food News

Published by Sam

Islamabad, Pakistan – Tens of thousands of farmers in Pakistan are holding protests in several cities over the government’s decision not to buy their wheat, causing them huge losses in income. The farmers in Punjab, the country’s largest province and often called the “bread basket” of Pakistan, are demanding that the government stop wheat imports that have flooded the market at a time when they expect bumper crops. At a protest in Lahore, the provincial capital, on Monday, police violently pushed back the farmers with batons and arrested dozens of them. Here is what we know about the issue so far: What triggered the protests? The farmers are furious about the import of wheat in the second half of last year and the first three months of this year, resulting in an excess of wheat in the market and reducing prices. Agriculture is one of the most significant income sectors in Pakistan, making up nearly 23 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) of the country. Wheat makes up 2 percent of the whole. Following …

Why Are Pro-Palestine Students Protesting In The US?

Why Are Pro-Palestine Students Protesting In The US?

Published by Sam

Student protests have erupted around the US over the ongoing war in Gaza as demonstrators call for their universities to cut ties with Israel. More than a thousands demonstrators have now been arrested over the encampments taking place all over the country. As tensions continue to rise and universities struggle to cope, here’s what you need to know. What has happened at US universities? Pro-Palestine protesters have been staging rallies, sit-ins, hunger strikes and encampments to pressure their own institutions into action. More than a thousand protesters have subsequently been arrested in the US, while some have clashed with the police – sparking concerns about freedom of expression. The chaos has even sparked a reaction from the UN human rights chief, Volker Turk, who said on Tuesday: “I am concerned that some of law enforcement actions ac ross a series of universities appear disproportionate in their impacts.” He added: “It must be clear that legitimate exercises of the freedom of expression cannot be conflated with incitement to violence and hatred.” With graduation ceremonies scheduled to …

Nearly 300 people arrested this weekend protesting war in Gaza

Nearly 300 people arrested this weekend protesting war in Gaza

Published by skeptic

Members of the Washington University community are arrested on Saturday, April 27, 2024. Eric Lee/St. Louis Public Radio hide caption toggle caption Eric Lee/St. Louis Public Radio Universities across the country turned to forced removal of pro-Palestinian protests and encampments this weekend as more and more students mounted organized opposition to Israel’s handling of the war in Gaza. On Saturday, more than 275 people were taken into custody on campuses from Arizona to Massachusetts. Beginning at 11 p.m. Friday night, campus police at Arizona State University — one of the nation’s largest public colleges — started to warn a group of protesters that their gathering on Alumni Lawn was “unauthorized.” After the group refused to leave, campus police arrested 72 people for trespassing by early Saturday morning, according to a university release. Students protest the Israel-Hamas war at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., on Saturday. Protests and encampments have sprung up on college and university campuses across the country to protest the war. Cliff Owen/AP hide caption toggle caption Cliff Owen/AP Students protest the …