The 63-Year-Old Career Activist Among the Protesters at Columbia , cops call her a "professional agitator"

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

paywall free link: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/01/nyregion/columbia-university-protest-consultant-lisa-fithian.html?unlocked_article_code=1.o00.NOxZ.atyThTsWmlh9&smid=url-share

The 63-Year-Old Career Activist Among the Protesters at Columbia
Videos show Lisa Fithian, whom the police called a “professional agitator,” working alongside protesters who stormed Hamilton Hall.

Among the throng of Columbia University student protesters gathered outside Hamilton Hall on campus early Tuesday morning was a gray-haired woman in her 60s.

In a video captured by The New York Times, the protesters can be seen trying to push their way toward the building as the woman — decades older than the crowd — pleads with two young counterprotesters trying to block them from barricading the occupied building.

“This is ridiculous,” the woman says, as the men stand with their backs against the doors, apparently trying to keep protesters away from the building. “We’re trying to end a genocide in Gaza.”

The woman at the center of this encounter on the night protesters stormed and then occupied the building was Lisa Fithian, a longtime activist and trainer for left-wing protesters whom the Police Department would later publicly describe as a “confirmed professional agitator.”

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“‘Oh, the terrorist, the professional agitator,’” Ms. Fithian said. “This has happened so many times in my life. They love to hate me.”

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She is the author of a 2019 book called “Shut it Down,” a guide to strategic civil disobedience and has worked as a political organizer for decades, supporting political demonstrations across the country, including Occupy Wall Street in 2011; the protests in Ferguson, Mo., that followed the fatal shooting of Michael Brown by the local police in 2014; and the antiracism movement after the death of George Floyd in 2020.

[bottomofthehill]

1. Is she a student.

If not, lock her ass up.

[Big Blue Marble]

2. Wait...

She supported Occupy, Ferguson, and the George Floyd protests and you want to lock her up? Which of these protests did you not support? Now she is protesting war crimes and starvation of children at the very least. And you say lock her up?

[bottomofthehill]

3. You missed a bit

The woman was not a Columbia University student or faculty member. She, in fact, has no known affiliation to the school at all.

She is a 63-year-old veteran activist named Lisa. Fithian, whom the New York Police Department described as a “professional agitator.”

[Big Blue Marble]

5. is she an American?

I think the constitution says she has a right to protest what she perceives is
wrong. As I recall, the constitution does not restrict protests to students.

I do not think it ever restricts "professional agitators" from protesting.

Amazing, isn't it?

[moonshinegnomie]

7. columbia is a private college

she has no right to protest on their property

[Big Blue Marble]

8. She was a guest of the protestors.

As an invitee, she had a right to be on the property.

"Ms. Fithian, 63, was not at Columbia when the police arrived on Tuesday night and made dozens of arrests. She had returned to the home where she was staying in New York, she said in an interview Tuesday night"

snip

"Ms. Fithian said videos and photos of her on campus were being misinterpreted by the police and “right-wing” critics.
“‘Oh, the terrorist, the professional agitator,’” Ms. Fithian said. “This has happened so many times in my life. They love to hate me.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/01/nyregion/columbia-university-protest-consultant-lisa-fithian.html

[moonshinegnomie]

10. it doesnt matter of shes a guest of the protestors or not

the school has the final say. she had no right to be there.

[Big Blue Marble]

25. What are you saying?

She was invited by students. She had every right to be there and if you read
the NYT articles, she did nothing wrong while visiting.

[moonshinegnomie]

33. she doesn have that right

it doent matter if teh students invited her or not . it not public property. the iniversity is well within their rights to bar anyone they wish from the campus. if columbia was a public university ot might be different but its not .

[Big Blue Marble]

40. Where does it say she was illegally on campus?

Please direct me to the link. Or show me where she was notified to leave.

[bottomofthehill]

12. Correct. She can protest on public property wherever she wants.

[moonshinegnomie]

14. columbia isnt public property

[bottomofthehill]

45. Yes, agree totally.

She can protest on public property but she was not on public property.

[scipan]

46. I don't think that applies before they made that rule

Don't know about the timing of when she was on campus.

[iemanja]

21. What is shocking to me

Last edited Thu May 2, 2024, 05:10 PM - Edit history (1)

Is the entrenched conservatism being expressed around here. All of the causes she has engaged in are good, including this one. So what if she isn't a Columbia student? The cops don't like her? Who the fuck with an ounce of decency judges human worth according to what the police think?

[Big Blue Marble]

22. I missed nothing. I posted the NYT's article that mentioned

all the "facts" that you mention. The term “professional agitator.” has
been used by authoritarians from China to Russia and in between.

[MotownPgh]

39. Yes what's the problem? Sounds like

that's exactly what she is. I'm not passing judgment, but that is what she does.

[NanaCat]

16. Occupy was beyond stupid

What did they think they were going to accomplish by hanging out in a park? Did you see the Freedom Riders or lunch counter protesters or Montgomery boycotters or people denied the vote in Selma sitting in a park, rather than facing their opponents directly?

It's bloody f'n stupid, and downright cowardly, to sit in a park and mewl a bunch of empty slogans, rather than taking direct action. They were so silly and feckless that they made everything worse, not better.

A pox on the lot of them.

[PuraVidaDreamin]

20. It was about WHERE they set up camp

The Heart of greed and psychopathic greed at that.

Occupy was not stupid- it was necessary

[Big Blue Marble]

27. So if protesters take action and challenge the establishment.

they are called violent and arrested. If they peacefully "sit in parks"
you call them stupid. Exactly how do you think people should
protest?

[Voltaire2]

30. Occupy changed the narrative.

It was massively successful at doing that. Sorry it didn’t meet your standards for approved assemblies.

[Prairie Gates]

4. The older woman "professional left wing agitator" is such an Upper West Side character type that

they appear in movies and novels and plays. It's like a goofy Manhattan cliche.

[A HERETIC I AM]

9. The words "agitator" or "professional agitator"..,

Is the language of the authoritarian.

It’s a quick way of influencing popular sentiment AGAINST someone who is merely voicing an opinion the establishment doesn’t like.

[moonshinegnomie]

11. except thats what she does

Unions and activist groups have paid her $300 a day to run demonstrations and teach their members tactics for taking over the streets

“We have to be willing to create a crisis. We have to be willing to engage in social disruption and create crisis for the people in power who are creating harm.” those are her words.

thats being a professional agitator

[bottomofthehill]

13. Kind of the definition

One who is paid is a professional.

[David__77]

15. That's what protesting is about, fundamentally. From SNCC to today.

[NanaCat]

17. SNCC wouldn't have been so stupid as to 'occupy'

A stupid bloody park or some irrelevant college building, rather than putting their arses into a voting office or a bus stop.

They were smarter than that.

[iemanja]

24. the same conservative impulse defending the status quo now

did so in the 1960s as well.

[obamanut2012]

32. And? Why is that a bad thing?

[iemanja]

23. Exactly.

[maxsolomon]

18. Of course she's there.

That's what she does. Move on.

[Cuthbert Allgood]

19. I am shocked at the amount of what

can only be described as boot licking on DU.

Lock her up? Jesus Christ. People can protest even if they do it a lot. She's on the right side of a lot of things.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

26. Scratch a liberal...

[obamanut2012]

35. Seriously

Mocking professors verbally defending their students who are violently attacked by cops, "professional agitators" including taking the NYPD's word on this, if you don't like America leave, arrest and expel teh spoiled brats,cheering UNC students getting almost $500,000 via GFM for "protecting the American flag," etc.

It is gobsmacking. This is literally what the MAGA sites and subreddits are saying. DU has been shocking lately.

[Ex Lurker]

38. I'm a Democrat

Being a Democrat doesn't require me to subscribe to every loony cause that comes from my end of the spectrum.

[obamanut2012]

47. I never said it did -- and I don't appreciate your accusing me of that

[Big Blue Marble]

41. Yes I feel completely disoriented here. N/T

[Ping Tung]

28. EEEEK!! A 63 year old non student, civil rights activist, is scary!!

How many of the armed cops on campus are students?

Land of the Free and home of the Brave. = False advertising.

[OutNow]

29. Lisa Fithian - outside agitator? Let's Learn from Phil Ochs

I'm older than Ms. Fithian. I remember when George Wallace and his generation of fascists labeled MLK and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference as professional outside agitators stirring up trouble among the black population in the south and all over America. The FBI spied on MLK and worked overtime to discredit and harass him and his followers.

So here we go again. And a sizable percentage of Democrats are quick to affix the outside agitator label to anyone who is older that the current student protesters.

But we can learn from history. It took a long time to convince most people that the war in Vietnam was immoral. Supporters of LBJ and HHH tried their best to stop the protests and proclaimed that outside agitators were communists, etc.

Please listen to Phil Ochs - a popular 1960s folk singer. His song - Love Me I'm a Liberal. And learn.

[Voltaire2]

31. Plus ca change....

[BlueTsunami2018]

34. "We're trying to end a genocide....."

Ridiculously naive. These sort of protests draw attention but have zero effect on events.

The Vietnam protests were huge and loud, did zero to stop the war.

The Iraq war protests were big, did nothing.

The woman’s march was great with the pussy hats and all. Roe was still overturned.

These particular protests aren’t all that big, feature some really heinous people, have nothing to do with us and will have zero effect.

[Cuthbert Allgood]

36. U of Minn is making some changes because of them.

It's about visibility for an issue.

[Big Blue Marble]

42. Based on your logic, we would still be part of the Commonwealth.

Protests do not always work and sometime take a long time.
For god's sake you are fighting the entrenched establishment,
Of course, it takes time: mistakes are made: and sometimes they fail.

But they are glorious when they do succeed.

I am glad I marched in the Iraq War protest. I was marching not because
I thought I would stop the war. I wanted to on the record that I thought it
was a terrible mistake. Sometimes, you stand up for what you believe is
right, period. I cannot think of anything to protest more than the starvation
and brutalization of children.

[BlueTsunami2018]

44. I'm down with all of that.

It’s just making your feelings known. But this person is acting like doing the shit they’re doing is actually going to stop the conflict when it isn’t.

That’s all.

[ZonkerHarris]

37. If authorities call you a "professional agitator" then you must be doing something right.

[obamanut2012]

43. Yup, they are words authoritarians use