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jonny (good kind)

You wont believe the number of stormtroopers theyre deploying against unarmed students unless you see it. This is just one side: at least 7 police departments with at least two layers at every point of egress, with several layers in back for rear control and rotation. They've got the army out against your kids for having the audacity to do whatever they can to stop a genocide

#UCIrvine

96 comments
jonny (good kind)

This police state is your police state. This police state stands between you and any brighter future you might imagine. This fight is your fight

Ryan Randall :OpenAccess: :hc:

@jonny Furthermore, this particular campus was designed as a series of chokepoints in the wake of 1960s student uprisings.

Its campus design highlights how much of the last 60+ years of American built space is a physical apparatus for the police state & social control.

bdonnelly

@ryanrandall @jonny Yeah, I did undergrad at SUNY Purchase which was built in the 70s. The entire campus architecture was built around not allowing the students to seize buildings and creating choke points for students and access points for large groups of riot cops

PedestrianError :vbus: :nblvt:

@Theblueone @ryanrandall @jonny Not just campus design, the whole US built environment. Every modern suburban neighborhood is designed for limited ways in & out and to virtually require car ownership to access anything. “Urban renewal” projects bulldozed neighborhoods where protesting residents could block off a street and have multiple escape routes for highways and buildings like these campuses.

sidereal

@PedestrianError @Theblueone @ryanrandall @jonny And they built elevated freeways through many of those neighborhoods so the military could deploy through and above them, and control the high ground in riot situations.

Every aspect of American society is about control.

Zagone

@sidereal @PedestrianError @Theblueone @ryanrandall @jonny

This is an interesting take on the elevated highways.

I've always heard it described as White suburban commuters having no respect for the now Black neighborhoods they fled decades earlier.

Ryan Randall :OpenAccess: :hc:

@zagone @sidereal @PedestrianError @Theblueone @jonny

It's been more than a decade since I've relevant stuff by folks like Mike Davis, Edward Soja, or Samuel Delany, but there's almost certainly multiple people who've written about the material & planning histories of this part of the built environment.

You definitely might look to things on Robert Moses's changes to NYC transportation as a start: npr.org/2020/07/05/887386869/h

Folks like Nick Mitchell and others have also done a lot to connect how campuses & suburbs & prisons work as "warehousing" of people treated as surplus.

Here's a conference panel I desperately tried to type notes on: ryanpatrickrandall.com/our-con

I've also heard good arguments—again, can't remember exactly from where—that whiteness was reinforced/encouraged by the production of suburbs. Making people isolated & structurally encouraging housing to be treated as an investment reduces social ties and makes it harder to organize unions or other working political groups.

@zagone @sidereal @PedestrianError @Theblueone @jonny

It's been more than a decade since I've relevant stuff by folks like Mike Davis, Edward Soja, or Samuel Delany, but there's almost certainly multiple people who've written about the material & planning histories of this part of the built environment.

FoolishOwl

@ryanrandall @zagone @sidereal @PedestrianError @Theblueone @jonny It's struck me how most workplaces I've been in are designed as fortresses, with walls and controlled points of entry with guards. And somewhere I read an article about how the "corporate campus" was designed to isolate workers, so they don't leave the work site even for meals.

Ryan Randall :OpenAccess: :hc:

@foolishowl @zagone @sidereal @PedestrianError @Theblueone @jonny Many workplaces are totally designed as fortresses, self-contained little citadels! Higher education campuses often are, too!

Mike Davis's book _City of Quartz_ talks about the idea of "Fortress LA", which is sort of that same logic but expanded to neighborhood and city-wide scales.

theconversation.com/the-unfulf

I remember him (or maybe Frederic Jameson?) talking about how common it is for business architecture to have basically 1 or 2 stories of effectively ramparts at ground level in cities, with few or no windows. That might be in Davis's book _Ecology of Fear_?

Davis's writing really sticks with me, so if you like reading, he's a great author to consider. I think he also did a bunch of interviews and podcasts in the last 10 years or so, before he recently passed away.

@foolishowl @zagone @sidereal @PedestrianError @Theblueone @jonny Many workplaces are totally designed as fortresses, self-contained little citadels! Higher education campuses often are, too!

Mike Davis's book _City of Quartz_ talks about the idea of "Fortress LA", which is sort of that same logic but expanded to neighborhood and city-wide scales.

sidereal

@foolishowl @ryanrandall @zagone @PedestrianError @Theblueone @jonny This is one reason why workplace mapping is an important part of union organizing

FoolishOwl

@sidereal @ryanrandall @zagone @PedestrianError @Theblueone @jonny I've usually kept an eye out for where people could reach workers with leaflets and such outside the gaze of corporate security. The trick to organizing workers inside is to have a means of communication outside.

CedarTea

@foolishowl
I've had managers mention the work of Bentham on their management techniques to me. They seemed genuinely shocked when I objected to using prison design in the workplace.

@ryanrandall @zagone @sidereal @PedestrianError @Theblueone @jonny

tonic

@Theblueone @ryanrandall @jonny a friend of mine attends purchase rn and she told me it was literally like designed by a prison architect??? which actually doesn't surprise me lmfao

bdonnelly

@tonicfunk @ryanrandall @jonny I think that's incorrect. The architect behind the master campus plan was Edward Larrabee Barnes who certainly did some judiciary buildings, but no prisons as far as I can tell...

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_L

Bill Reese

@Theblueone @ryanrandall @jonny Fellow alum here.

It was also constructed in such a way that it could easily be converted into a prison if the school should, you know, fail.

They've done a lot to beautify it in the years since I graduated, which is crazy. I wanted that ugly modernist nonsense forever.

CobaltRose

@ryanrandall @jonny if it’s so untenable as a defensive position, why not spill the protest out into the streets?

jonny (good kind)

@cobaltrose
@ryanrandall
Im not organizing at Irvine, but id guess its hard to sustain a roving encampment and also have impact

⚡️Miriam | Hyenagirl64 🇵🇸

@ryanrandall @jonny they even have underground escape tunnels to evacuate the admins and staff in the event the admin building is besieged.

The campus itself is a circle so any protest will not be visible to most of the students. the middle of the circle is a park on low ground so students can be funneled into it and the park flooded with tear gas.

And ofc, the surrounding community is hostile so students don’t really have good places to meet up outside of class and frequently have to live far away from the school and commute in. Most students aren’t there outside of class hours.

@ryanrandall @jonny they even have underground escape tunnels to evacuate the admins and staff in the event the admin building is besieged.

The campus itself is a circle so any protest will not be visible to most of the students. the middle of the circle is a park on low ground so students can be funneled into it and the park flooded with tear gas.

Frank Bennett

@ryanrandall @jonny That's ... interesting. Because the Japanese campus from which I retired a couple of years ago (Nagoya University) had a central quad with planters arranged with exactly that aim, and in response to Vietnam war protests. (They're no ripping it up for a new building.)

OTOH the earlier protests lead to an agreement with the police that they would not enter campus grounds. Unlikely to hold if there were serious protests, but still important symbolism.

Brahn

@jonny show me what fear looks like.

Nils Skirnir

@jonny

If there was any doubt that US was a police state……
#police #authoritarian #biden #dnc

DELETED

@jonny this is what happens when you let aipac train murdercop departments

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@Ponygirl @jonny

The tiktok ban was an illegal bill of attainder for the most enolument clause violating org in the history of the republic AND an abridgement of free speech

Ponygirl

@rticks @jonny And orchestrated by the Zionists who own us.

DELETED

@Ponygirl @jonny

Their ties into capitalism are deeply disturbing but it is to me more a combination of disturbed conservative zionist nihilionares and disturbed conservative monotheist nihilionares but there seems a third technofascist contingent that likes to use Israel to test the weapons they will use on us when capitalism is at its end and they live in their hardened arcologies

Zionists dont own us, but Zionism does cast a long scary shadow on the free world

Ponygirl

@rticks @jonny The weapons testing theory makes my skin crawl.

DELETED

@Ponygirl @jonny As it should but do you think the Aipac and nihilionare obsession with electing vichydem murdercop windowfucker mayors in blue cities is a coinkydink?

Ponygirl

@rticks @jonny "There are no coinkydinks in politics"

DELETED

@Ponygirl @jonny I mean, fictional politics re the movie Dave or the Prince and the Pauper but in the real world I gotta admit I am drawing a blank

Hunterrules

@jonny look how confused the officers look there just like "what are we supposed to do?"

Kevin Karhan :verified:

@jonny I wish I could even fake to be surprised, but that's facist Amerikkka for ya...

localzuk

@jonny yet Americans keep voting for this sort of policing.

Sailor Disco 🏳️‍🌈 he/they

@localzuk @jonny It’s scary how many Americans support this kind of policing. My dad thinks this is a proportionate response to property damage. He was particularly fixated on the horror of desks being broken as a red line for some reason. Decades of being fed network news and his takeaway is "but what about the poor property?" I don’t think he’s alone in his opinion.

DELETED

@SailorDisco @localzuk @jonny

How many old and dying Americans

Rob the young and pay for it in the future

Jennifer

@localzuk @jonny well we thought we were voting against this kind of crap in 2020.

Bishop6 (Ed Alan T.)

@jonny And typical American goes, "If they didn't want to face the Nazi stormtroopers, they should have not been so anti-semetic, right?"

Cabbidges

@jonny
What a lot of money wasted on armour.

Tom Bellin :picardfacepalm:

@jonny I believe it because the goal is to break up the protests without killing the students who are peaceful.

The key to not killing the peaceful students is that the cops have to not be scared.

The key to making sure the cops aren't scared is to have 10 cops for every student.

the cake is offline

@tob @jonny wrong. They key is to stop anyone from speaking out against the perpetual looting of the USian treasury by the military industrial complex. They don't actually give a shit if students are killed, except that it's an election year, so they have to be *nominally* careful.

This is about ENFORCING OBEDIENCE. That's it. That's all it is. That's all it EVER is with fascists...and they're ALL fascists. Republicans. Democrats. Cops. Fascists. Every fucking one.

Tom Bellin :picardfacepalm:

@cakeisnotalie @jonny I don't think that is what is happening at all. Sometimes, a pipe is just a pipe.

The protesters are disrupting the campus (as they should), and the administration is responding in an entirely predictable way.

the cake is offline

@tob @jonny You're wrong. Full stop. Look at who invests in the university. Look at their investment with the military-industrial complex for research...the list goes on. You're just wrong, sir. Sorry to say. I wish it were otherwise. I wish it were as simple as you suggest. But it's just not.

the cake is offline

@tob @jonny No. Only the truth matters. And enough research into this has been done by enough people that the truth is out.

Molytov :donor:

@tob @jonny If police are scared of peaceful protests against genocide to the point where they're willing to kill them if they feel the slightest bit 'threatened,' they shouldn't be given guns and body armor.

Tom Bellin :picardfacepalm:

@molytov @jonny Scared police are ready to kill anyone and everyone.

If you want them to not kill people, then you have to make them feel safe.

Those are the rules.

jonny (good kind)

@tob
@molytov
Pretty shit rules "the cops are violent so therefore we need more cops."

Have u considered.... thinking about this in any other way

Tom Bellin :picardfacepalm:

@jonny @molytov If you or I made the rules, then it wouldn't be like that.

The scared cops make the rules.

decapitae

@jonny The end of The United States is when it turns on itself to enact the exact same conditions that caused it to form in the first place. Police are the tools of dictators, brainwashing is the recruitment process for tools.
Remember when you assert your freedoms, not to treat the oppressor violently as they have treated you. That's what small petty insecure humans do. Try to be the better person, and rehabilitate them, don't use them as slaves, as an ideally free society has none.

Elon Musk ✅🧿

@jonny Don't worry. I'm told if we vote for Biden he'll stop the fascism.

Wait...

Zagone

@MaxPow3r11 @jonny

This is the whole "Lesser Evil" problem -- which I'm not of a mind to rehash here at length.

If we don't vote for Biden, is there enough force and power ready to Rock on the side of the Left to deal with the imminent fascist right-wing revolution?

We are not, unfortunately, about to have a left-wing revolution (although the students are doing a good job).

Elon Musk ✅🧿

@zagone @jonny These look like Biden's fascists to me though...so why are we expected to believe that this fascist will somehow stop or slow the fascist+?

Zagone

@MaxPow3r11 @jonny

They are Biden's (or the local university or town's) fascists.

You have to ask yourself if the progressive left-wing is really in position with the groundswell of support needed to command the sweeping changes needed before the election next fall?

If not, not voting for Biden facilitates the far worse Christi-fascist revolution that IS ready to sweep the USA. That would be Trump & Project 2025.

And yes, Democratic voters need to start caring about youth & minorities.

Dan Neuman

@jonny They could have left the kids alone, but they had all this riot gear just sitting there collecting dust.

GhostOnTheHalfShell

@jonny

Christ. I am just old enough to remember Vietnam protests at Berkeley, as toddler. My parents marched, one of them a student. This is insane.

The state is overreacting. Like it was run by a plutocracy not a republic. Oh whoops I said it.

Maggie Maybe

@jonny all I see when I look at this is Biden standing at the podium screaming “fund the police!” After a whole bunch of people voted for him because he ran on the opposite.

#GenocideJoeHasToGo

Dblohangel

@jonny I'll say this: If any students sustain serious injury , or even death, with our cracked team of reporters we'll never know what happened. Just like a real Banana Republic.

Seiðr

@jonny This would be the moment to go on a "unvoluntary bank withdrawal of funds" spree all over the city.

A human being

@jonny America shames itself more with every passing day. Police state

Rythur

@jonny

They're fighting a concept (left-wing political thought), not students.

Their response makes more sense when viewed from the correct perspective.

The students just happen to be there.

the cake is offline

@rythur @jonny they are fighting to prevent anyone from questioning the perpetual siphoning of every last cent they can possibly siphon out of the USian treasury and into the military-industrial complex. That's why giving money and bombs to Israel is so important: all that money gets spend right back on the military-industrial complex, and all those politicians get a truckload of cash for enabling it.

This is about enforcing obedience so they can loot the whole country. It's never been about anything else.

@rythur @jonny they are fighting to prevent anyone from questioning the perpetual siphoning of every last cent they can possibly siphon out of the USian treasury and into the military-industrial complex. That's why giving money and bombs to Israel is so important: all that money gets spend right back on the military-industrial complex, and all those politicians get a truckload of cash for enabling it.

Delia Christina

@jonny

This is an orgy of power.
Irvine's admin should be absolutely effing ashamed of doing this to their students.

Annelies Kamran

@jonny it would be a shame if someone were to allow a bag of ball bearings to burst on the top step

DELETED

@jonny I would totally abandon these schools. It’s very clear who they work for. The interesting part is the students will choose where their kids go… If society makes it that far… 💔

PedestrianError :vbus: :nblvt:

@jonny A society that quibbles about whether it can afford to feed its schoolchildren lunch or build a sidewalk when it builds a street for motorists should not be able to afford this many police even if police were nice public servants who cleaned up trash and proactively fixed quality of life issues instead of just punitively arresting, beating, shooting, and intimidating people.

stux⚡

@jonny WTF..

Are they preparing for war?

(I suggest send them Storm Troopers to Ukraine and fight a real enemy)

:blahaj: Why Not Zoidberg? 🦑

@stux @jonny Police is in a perma-state of war against anyone who is not pro war.

stux⚡

@WhyNotZoidberg @jonny It sure looks like that!

Those troopers should be so ashamed of being there with such a force, disgusting

David

No doubt they all have bone spurs

the cake is offline

@stux @jonny but USian police are fascists. They are on Russia's side, because Russia is the kind of nation they want to create and live in...as long as they are on the side of the oppressor, of course.

Hannu Ikonen

@jonny State equivalent of truck nuts dangling from the rearview mirror of an oversize F350.

the cake is offline

@hannu_ikonen @jonny Fffffffrrrrrrreeeeeeeddddooooommmmmmmmmm!!!!! 🦅 🦅 🦅

wannabe axolotl

@jonny having gone through Occupy Oakland, I can very much believe the numbers of stormtroopers. There they arrested over 700 people in one night. The response is always the same when social movements gain power and threaten the status-quo.
The more repression, the more you know you're doing the right thing. Keep fighting!

DELETED

@jonny @shansterable

Your tax dollars hard at work protecting university admins and regents from experiencing accountability to the people who make their jobs relevant.

I used to be a university fundraiser. I would look at this scene, knowing I was never going to get a dime out of any of these people or their parents for school programs and scholarships. Why would they?

Hannu Ikonen

@jonny Upping the ante as they are now down in 83% of the swing states in polls.

They'll push it to the brink of deploying national guard, right up to that point, but stop from doing so to avoid the negative attention.

NosirrahSec 🏴‍☠️

@jonny Someone explain to me why we need that many fat, armed, pigs to assault students for protesting *checks notes* GENOCIDE (again)

Jennyqos

@jonny total overload for a peaceful protest. The poor souls in Gaza need us to keep highlighting the atrocities. 😢

Old Grumpy Game Guy

@jonny@neuromatch.social damn!! If only the cops at Uvalde had that same level of energy.

NovaCora 🐻‍❄️🐻‍❄️🐻‍❄️

@jonny They feel so threatened that they sent an army on protesters. Lovely.

georgebaily

@jonny when you hit a nerve of the status quo....

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