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Wednesday, May 1, 2024

Chaos invites chaos

The ticking time bomb created by an escalating situation at the encampment went off. UCLA managed to outdo Columbia by leaving a chaotic situation in place. The encampment, per se, could have been a peaceful means of protest had it not blocked access to public areas and buildings. As we noted in an earlier post, the idea that you could just run the clock and nothing bad would happen was conceivable at Berkeley with its semester coming to an end. But as we noted, UCLA is on a quarter system which ends in mid-June. Running the clock was not a likely option for UCLA.*

If you looked at social media (as opposed to anonymous BruinAlerts), you could see the escalating incidents. Outsiders representing who-knows-what began to appear, as the image here illustrates. 

Incidents were reported through tweets and other social media as well as conventional TV news. Those who complained about incidents to the UCLA police were explicitly told that higher ups had decided not to take any action.

In particular, it was reported that ultimately there was no enforcement of basic university rules and legal obligations of the university. That type of atmosphere invites bad actors.

Here (below) is a random tweet video related to the situation at UCLA recorded yesterday, i.e., well before last night's debacle:

So, anyone on social media could learn that what you had is a chaotic situation at UCLA in which individuals or groups could get away with anything with no consequences. What do you think that kind of atmosphere invites?

End of Rant.

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*https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2024/04/who-is-we.htmlhttps://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2024/04/waiting-it-out.html.

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