I don't know how to interpret "shaking fists on podiums", but it reads as "we're not at the stage where we talk these things out". The only other option is violence, so if you're saying that then say it directly.
I think they’re saying this isn’t debate club. When companies are being threatened, when universities are being told their research grants will be illegally withheld unless they punish students or faculty for exercising constitutional rights, when civil servants are being vetted by political apparatchiks for their political views, it’s not a hypothetical question about the boundaries of civil discourse.
This is said about everything when the thing being talked about / protested is inconvenient. The funniest is when people say "music is not supposed to be political" when artists push back against something in particular.
Of course universities were political for a hundred years, and students were often very active.
Is the point you are trying to make that - because your college acted shitty during Vietnam - its cool if everyone acts shitty now? Not trying to be argumentative, really trying to understand the perspective of someone who survived the hell that apparently was Vietnam.
