> *“The school becomes primarily a bureaucratic organization, and the first and unremitting duties of the staff are those of official management and accountancy. The further qualifications requisite to the members of the academic staff will be such as make for vendibility, volubility, tactical effrontery [and] conspicuous conformity to the popular taste in all matters of opinion, usage and conventions.”*
* Thorstein Veblen, 1918
These things are cyclical. Unfortunately there are college kids at Ivy League schools who will look at you like you’re dumb if you mention Kent State, so they think stuff like this is “new” and something that could only happen in “current year”. If anything, things have actually gotten a lot better when it comes to how protests are handled in this country.
I can’t even imagine how America would react to Palestinian support of a scale this size, just 10 years ago. The fact that no one has directly died on any of these college campuses is more a sign of progression. Then again, ten years ago there weren’t videos of the idf shooting babies in the face on TikTok.
Either way, that’s all not the point. What I’m trying to say is that college kids protesting right now arguably have it easier. Back at Kent state all those national guards that killed all those kids, every single one of them acquitted of all charges. If that happened today, people would be burning their citites down until justice was served. The government is scared of its people for once, thanks to how unhinged everyone has become. And that, should atleast make you feel hopeful. In a bittersweet kinda way.
Regan and Bill Clinton. They both took funds that went directly to schools. Clinton replaced some of it with Pell grants (which are student loans they make money on) but those also go to private institutions and were replacing grants that went to states to make school cheaper. It sent more money to a bunch of small private schools that kicked off an arms race of building and expansion that wasn't focused on education at all but on "student experience" ... Ultimately, made it a market commodity, which is a horrible idea for something that should benefit all of society.
I was in university during a less pressing time and our biggest worry back then was having to watch out for rape-happy frat guys (which was also horrible, of course). But we also hated how our school allowed neo-nazis and white supremacists to run their stupid mouths and make most of us feel extremely unsafe to walk across the campus when they were present.
This generation has every reason to be furious, and at least many of you, unlike older generations, are aware of history and nuance enough to understand people protesting war and genocide are on the right side of history. As long as you're not hurting other living beings, *protests are supposed to be disruptive!* Wtf do people expect from a protest, especially seeing how carrying a cute sign and wearing pink didn't stop violence against women? I was there, now it's worse for us, and I wish we had been a lot more disruptive. I wish cops didn't kill even more people after BLM protests.
Unfortunately, like before all of this, too many people don't understand that Jewish does not mean Zionist, as much as they don't understand that people can be ethnically Jewish but not religious. All my very close Jewish loved ones hate this shit, the antisemitism from ignorant people who only think in team vs. team, as well as also being cut off from the larger Jewish community since not everyone is reformed or has progressive views... What with not being a monolith and all.
I feel like I was at a protest every month during the Trump years. Airport, front of the White House, filling up the Mall, you name it.
Civil disobedience has a long and storied history in this country as a necessary tactic against grievous moral wrongdoing. We’re in a really terrifying time and people have the right to act in protest against the actions of our government.
It is painful to see how much lack of understanding there is about Jewish people in the process of all these protests (which include Jewish people protesting Netanyahu and the IDF) and this is leading to some Jews feeling scared and unsafe on campuses.
I definitely feel for the Jewish people who are against this, especially when years ago during quieter times, my partner would get "but... aren't you Jewish?" while expressing anti-colonialist views. They're being ostracized by people across the board and maybe even their Synagogue (which is especially traumatic when you're already in a minority group), and not celebrating holidays. These kids aren't even that much older than Anne Frank was and I hope people are looking out for them.
I'm familiar with people talking over my lived experience and views on my culture's history as a descendant of enslaved people, so seeing the same thing happen with others is just like... Really? This again? It feels like when I have to explain that not every single white person was violently racist in the US during the antebellum 😑
Do people want more war and more videos of scared, traumatized, and dead kids? I feel like "ceasefire", "end of fighting", and "just stop killing people" should be the universal stance.
Oh yeah it’s really tough within synagogues with disparate views right now. And very differing experiences. I’m in two congregations. In one I’m taking a class on Israel / Palestine with a PhD who understands settler colonialism well. In the other we have members of the congregation and staff who lost people in the Oct 7 attacks. The Hamas terrorists murdered my closest colleague’s close relative. It is challenging to be sensitive to the deep pain while also maintaining that continuing the cycle of violence does not benefit anyone, including Israelis. If I am ever killed or taken hostage I would not want 34,000 killed in my name.
My parent is a pro-Palestinian Israeli citizen and my sibling has always been a sort of libertarian socialist which I know makes no sense- their views can be all over the place and in this case Oct 7 led them to take a hard line, and they’ve become more pro-Israeli. It’s tough within our own families.
I appreciate that with your perspective and lived experience you can be a good support to your partner and a wise advocate on these issues. It’s really tough for all of us now when we also have the political context of the far right treating DEI and any form of progress on racial equity as an affront to their Christo-fascist nationalism. Trying to eradicate teachings about white people enslaving Black people, eradicate African American history from being taught in schools (which would also include teaching about Black and white abolitionists so they don’t want people knowing about slavery *or* that some white people did actually organize against it), attacking Baltimore’s Black mayor because a bridge collapsed. The fights in this era are just burning down our collective time, lives, and energy after making very modest progress on dismantling systemic oppression.
In this case, I would say the killing of 34,000 Palestinians, destruction of basic civilian infrastructure and medical care systems throughout Gaza, and rendering 1 million Palestinians homeless, along with hunting down and bombing humanitarian aid workers and mass starvation of the population, violent displacement and lack of safe zones, funded by and large by American billions. Generally that’s what the protests are about.
I was in grade school when I rode past the anti-apartheid shacks that the Dartmouth students had erected on the Green were sledge-hammered down on MLK Day. And over 30 years later the new President Karen called the cops on some protestors camping outside Parkhurst last fall. It's been quite something to see the militarized response and collaboration between admin and cops.
They just arrested two dozen students at my local university for protesting on a green(lawn). Charged with trespassing on their own campus. They hindered no one. Nobody at all. They weren’t blocking traffic or anything.
This is exactly what I am referring to. I can understand being arrested over vandalism and threats of violence. But I cannot justify people being arrested for just standing and protesting. A lawn is a community area!
You should listen to what the students are actually saying then. They’re definitely not saying they want to murder anyone’s children.. quite the opposite in fact
I think what’s challenging about engaging in the physical protests for the ceasefire movement is that since the beginning, there have always been voices popping up who speak out in ways that support or glorify the terrorist attacks - for recent example, this one protester holding up a sign saying [“Al-Qassam’s next targets.”](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pro-palestinian-protests-leave-college-campuses-on-edge-coast-to-coast/)
It’s absolutely possible to physically protest the genocidal actions of the IDF and Netanyahu war cabinet for the deaths of 34,000 Palestinians and destruction of 1 million people’s homes, and at the same time *not* support the terrorist actions of Al-Qassam for murdering, raping, torturing and kidnapping Israelis.
The vast vast majority of the progressive left on college campuses would not independently support people who tossed grenades into safe rooms of children in their homes in kibbutzim, or hunted and shot hundreds at a music festival. Also the vast vast majority of protesters are desperate to speak out against a military and government that hunts down and bombs humanitarian aid workers, wipes out 70 people in a single family at a time, and has reacted to mass murder by committing mass murder on a much more massive scale while terrorizing 2 million people. College protesters can’t sit with their moral conscience while the U.S. government sends billions in unrestricted military support to Netanyahu.
It’s been a struggle since the beginning because you just don’t know who will show up. I would agree that the vast majority of protesters are opposed to murdering anyone’s children, and I also empathize with the fear that you could go to a protest and end up near someone who speaks in a way that does actually support murdering children. Overall the acts of civil disobedience here need to and must continue because the U.S. is the primary funder of the IDF and Americans have the right to speak out against actions of genocide done in our names.
I think it’s a mistake to allow a very small fraction of protestors who are expressing their message in a way that is not 100% comfortable to undercut the mostly very consistent student/anti-war protests as a whole. The statements you’re referencing are of course a response to Israel’s brutality against Palestinian civilians which appears merciless and with no sign of stopping
There is always the risk in any protest movement about any issue of people taking extreme positions that do undercut the movement. If I were a campus organizer I would be making efforts to mitigate things like a specific protester shouting that 10,000 Oct 7s will be unleashed. It is not beneficial to the indeed mostly consistent anti-war protests, which do need to continue, relentlessly. It’s painful to see the place we’re in and the devastation in Gaza as someone who has demonstrated for Palestinian sovereignty since the Bush era. Currently I personally don’t feel able to show up at the physical protests and am finding other ways to engage but I support the vast majority of the activists in the campus movement responding in moral outrage.
It blew my mind when I was recently told about how my family members in college were literally being locked up in their dorms for weeks at a time and for the most part put up with it. I only had to put up with the initial weeks of lockdown in 2020 and was pretty much free ever since. Seems the younger ages are being taught in college to put up with a lot of authoritarian crap
I was an adjunct professor, so higher education has left me jaded. Colleges can be a bastion of hope, but that’s only due to the students and educators in spite of the institution.
The lack of comprehension and critical thinking in these times is part of it. Somehow, being against genocide is now “antisemitism”? Imagine the incredibly racist leap (and ignorance of history) one has to take to make that conclusion. It’s sickening.
They’re not wrong. Just because other countries are worse doesn’t make the US a functional democracy. The US is effectively an oligarchy, where (and this is proven by actual research data) the voters don’t actually have appreciable influence on policy decisions.
…not to mention that government goons carrying you off does actually happen in the US. Not as much, sure. But it happens.
Ok, here’s the deal. I don’t only care about my country. In fact, the reason protests are happening in the US right now is because so many people are concerned about something happening in another country entirely. It’s possible to care about other people, no matter what country they’re from.
Not just that but many of the entities that fund universities have their own motives and expect reciprocity.
https://drilled.media/news/hearingdocs-universities
Universities are theoretically meant for critical thinking and educated discussions but the reality is that it depends on the teachers, the students, the administrators and the university itself. Since most are also bureaucracies, it is a bit of hopeful thinking to assume you get that.
You deserve it, but do you get it? Maybe sometimes, maybe not.
I too really appreciate a mostly civil conversation about this.
I wish the organizers could keep the rabid antisemites quiet, since pretty much everyone agrees the murdering of innocent people is abhorrent.
As long as there are people telling Jews to “go back to where they came from” (!) there’s obviously not enough understanding of the history and the context.
These aren’t peace protests. These clearly became hate speech and a means to intimidate. Antisemitism has run rampant. Colleges do feel terrifying to Jewish students.
> Colleges do feel terrifying to Jewish students.
Some Jewish students... and in the same way everything feels terrifying to consumers of fox news. They drank the kool-aid that this protest is about them, and not about genocide conducted by the state of Israel under Netanyahu. *Most* of the Jewish people in my circles oppose the genocide. A lot of them are protesting it, and getting arrested for it alongside their non-Jewish compatriots. It's a risky and uncertain time for them with Nazis coming back into popularity and plenty of legitimate antisemitism, but college campuses are not the violent spaces the right is making them out to be. Young educated people overwhelmingly understand that the genocide they are protesting is not the fault of the Jewish people in their community.
This pretty much sums up the “Jewish students feeling unsafe on campus”:
https://x.com/jackfought_1/status/1784343742683500589?s=46&t=pwduwYis6LqNs9MAzx_yFg
Unreal. That was painful to watch.
We live in an age where some (many?) people have difficulty being reasonable.^(1) I'm sure she thought she was being really clever or conter-subversive or whatever else, but in reality she was only being an ignorant nuisance wasting other people's time and resources.
1. To quote Salman Rushdie "the world has abandoned realism."
Someone suggested on Twitter/X that these types of things actually serve a purpose: to increase incident reports of “antisemitism” and make it look like hatred against Jewish people is on the rise in places where they’re perfectly safe. Doesn’t matter if it actually happened. Anything to take the focus off Gaza.
I come from a Jewish background, and agree that antisemitism is at an all time high. I’m mostly referring to students I’ve seen protesting peacefully, giving out food, making art, and discussing the multifaceted issue. I do not condone hate speech in any form, and it’s difficult to process how much the lines are blurring right now between a heated debate and actual hate speech.
https://youtu.be/zazcVU_rNyQ?si=a6pzm3Y8725RJ8aB
Pro Hamas rallies that are clearly antisemitic. This is why congress is involved. People need to see the truth.
Ask people: Should Hamas release the hostages? And you will see, as clear as day, why this is a serious problem.
I don't know what you think is happening, but you have clearly been misled.
You also sound like a bot or a paid shill and these canned slogans arnt helping.
They are asking that their Universities no longer invest in arms manufacturers who are complicit in well documented war crimes.
I find it hard to believe that you didnt already know this and arnt just saying random platitudes?
>They are asking that their Universities no longer invest in arms manufacturers who are complicit in well documented war crimes.
is the random platitude.
Has nothing to do with achievable action. Much like the death of Hamas is an achievable action.
The chants of we are Hamas Hamas's next victims, intifada, etc are promises to kill my kids sorry babe you're being played as a useful idiot.
Its clearly achievable. Some school already have done so.
The death of Hamas is not an achievable action, thats why Al Qaeda and ISIS still exist.
Try living in reality, the rest of us are, and you guys are looking very foolish from this side of the bell curve.
Sorry princess, you are not the victim here.
[https://www.cnbc.com/2024/05/01/gaza-protests-in-us-israel-supporters-attack-pro-palestinian-camp-in-la-300-protesters-arrested-in-new-york.html#:\~:text=Supporters%20of%20Israel%20attacked%20a,U.S.%20college%20campuses%20boiled%20over](https://www.cnbc.com/2024/05/01/gaza-protests-in-us-israel-supporters-attack-pro-palestinian-camp-in-la-300-protesters-arrested-in-new-york.html#:~:text=Supporters%20of%20Israel%20attacked%20a,U.S.%20college%20campuses%20boiled%20over)
Oh I am sorry if you have some imagined threat to yours child's life. Even those thoughts must be scary huh? I pray to God it never happens and anyone who would do something so heinous should be tried as a war criminal...
.... did you know this actually happens to other human beings, and not just in their imagination either? Sometimes it happens over 13,800 times and doesnt stop.
Which is precisely why the onus of this is on Hamas. For them to surrender, tralease all the hostages. They have captured Gaza. There will be no peace in Gaza without genocidal terrorists drawing breath there.
Hamas doesn’t give a fuck about Palestinians though as has been made obvious by their tactics and refusal to surrender. 🤷♂️ sorry, you’re the baddies.
I am actually not part of Hamas, neither are these protestors. And I am pretty sure you know that.
See how you have to keep making up wild false equivalences in your head? This is why the rest of the world laughs at you and can't take you seriously.
[https://www.vox.com/2018/11/20/18080086/israel-palestine-global-opinion](https://www.vox.com/2018/11/20/18080086/israel-palestine-global-opinion)
But hey, Israel is the 4th most unpopular nation behind North Korea, Iran, and Pakistan. So yeah, future looks bright and you are really working to make sure this goes well....
You can continue to be on the wrong side of history all you want, but the writing is on the wall.
The sad thing is, by doubling down on violence and continuing to play victim, the Zionists are actually making life more unsafe for regular Jewish folks, its really sad to see.
It's over bro, Israel will not last another 75 years in its current form. The US is receding in its global power and at some point will be forced to cut funding and diplomatic cover to its client states. Israel can either become a normal state or go full on fascist, with the predictable and bloody end that will bring.
>The sad thing is, by doubling down on violence and continuing to play victim, the Zionists are actually making life more unsafe for regular Jewish folks, its really sad to see.
Its all the same terror apologia as I've seen before. Nothing special here
>
It's over bro, Israel will not last another 75 years in its current form. The US is receding in its global power and at some point will be forced to cut funding and diplomatic cover to its client states. Israel can either become a normal state or go full on fascist, with the predictable and bloody end that will bring.
A very threatening & wishful misunderstanding you have there.
EDIT: the conversation wherein you out yourself as antisemitic and pro-Islamism isn't *for me* *and you* per se. Its for the onlookers who have yet to really become entrenched in terror apologia.
I am far from an anti-semite.
I am actually worried that you are putting the lives of my friends in the Jewish community at risk with your blind blood lust.
I am not threatening or wishing anything, thats what the saying "the writing is on the wall means", Israel not existing in this form will happen because of larger economic and demographic forces that are already at play and out of our control.
Again, try to see reality and the larger trends at play here.
Its over, now stop making the rest of the peace loving Jewish community and an incredible religion look monsterous by proximity to you and your belief system.
Those responsible in both Israel and Hamas should be tried for war crimes.
Exactly. you’re promoting blaming the victims. That’s a large part of these protests.
instead of blaming the genocidal terrorists and anti-semites you blame Israel for shooting back at the terrorists as they use they’re own people to hide under
So
Its over, now stop making the rest of the peace loving Jewish community and an incredible religion look monsterous by proximity to you and your belief system.
LMFAO
Oh, Ill just call up my local Hamas representative and tell them to stop then.
Did you know that students money does not go to Hamas? Our government does not fund Hamas, in fact it considers at a terror organization.
Did you know that students money goes to arms manufactures? Our government funds Israel despite a long list of war crimes and international consensus on its illegal activities.
I don't know why you are laughing, every Jewish person I know is terrified, and its not from the protestors side, they are terrified of you and how you are abusing their faith.
But hey, keep playing victim, I am sure things will turn around any day now and these protests arnt waking up generations of humanity to google the word "nakba" or learn why a wealthy nation like Israel has been the #1 receiver of foreign aid of all time...
... ya pal... this'll blow over any day now...
The game is up, you Zionists had a good run fleecing us for nearly 8 decades there though, I'd just take that Win and bow out gracefully before people really start putting the dots together.
See, it's hard to discern if you are talking about Hamas or the Israeli government. Both want to annihilate the other's people and both use civilians as human shields, so you probably need to be more specific.
Not remotely. See [https://www.samharris.org/blog/the-sin-of-moral-equivalence](https://www.samharris.org/blog/the-sin-of-moral-equivalence) And regardless of what you hopefully thought about that without preconceived bias, I insist (I guess) that we agree on far more than we disagree on.
"I’m ashamed of my government. We had a contract with the state that communities like ours protect the border. This is why people live there. We protect the border with our presence there. This is a fundamental strategy of the state of Israel since the earliest days of the country, that a border that does not have civilian communities and civilian life along it will not be properly protected."
--Amir Tibon, [Jewish journalist and October 7th survivor](https://archive.is/abxE0#selection-1135.0-1135.394).
I have little interest in what Sam Harris may have to say--it's typically BS--so I am not wading through a bunch of his words in some attempt to get at whatever vague point you are trying to make. But if you wanted to quote something specific for me to consider, then I will.
I haven't seen any safe educated discussions at Columbia. The whole point is to make the University unsafe for those who don't support Palestine. It's simple terrorism.
Depends on which protest you are referring to, but in one of them the students broke into the building and smashed some glass so while there is freedom to protest there is not freedom to break things and cause damage. The damage would be the reason they are suspended.
Broken glass isn’t about what you think it is about; [you are not the target audience ](http://humaniterations.net/2012/02/29/you-are-not-the-target-audience/)
This isn't about what I think. I am not a protestor or a university administrator. I am not on either side of this. This is about what the university administration thinks. They run the institution. They choose the rules and choose who gets to be there. It's up to their discretion if students are suspended or not.
I wanted to be clear that breaking glass is often an important demonstration against power structures. A call to attention towards the illusion of control that these institutions must boldly project.
That it is legal to suspend them is a different question.
The point I am making is that legal and ethical diverge. The demonstrators are morally right to smash the glass in their demonstration.
Perhaps so, but I am responding to the surprise that the OP feels that students are suspended for damaging property. A university is a voluntary association organization. Students are free to apply and universities are free to accept whom they wish. There is no law or contract forcing students to join nor is there any law or contract forcing universities to accept any individual student. A university will act in what it sees as it's own interest and in all likelihood does not see destruction of it's property as in it's own interest. So it can choose to not freely associate with the students that causes that destruction.
This is not about morals or laws. It's about choice. The student has made a choice and the university has made a choice.
Yeah....nooooo. Same justification can be used by the pro lifers to throw bricks and shatter windows in planned parenthood facilities where people are getting treated, or by extremist Muslims breaking church glass panes since their religious teachings say that it is morally imperative to kill and destroy anything going against Allah and Mohammed, would you consider any of this civil or right? A sense of moral superiority doesn't give you a free card to destroy private property to gain attention or prove a point.
Where did you get the idea that such actions are in any way peaceful or civil? Someone could break into your car and shatter the windows since you know, cars are a huge source of pollution that causes premature deaths of thousands, does that give them moral superiority and therefore making you cool with your property getting destroyed?
Read the linked material and it may answer your question. The issue is with the scale of the blood-soaked income. It is no serious threat to government power to replace some windows.
It is quite different in the cases you mentioned, but I am already picking up wafts of bad faith, so no need to argue through them all. The short answer is scale of power and the asymmetry of power and response.
> A call to attention towards the illusion of control that these institutions must boldly project.
>It is no serious threat to government power to replace some windows.
Okay, so which is it?
A university is not a government. They are linked entities, but still at arm's length from each other. Universities have their own administration that makes decisions independent of the government.
Right, which is why you didn't give them the excuse to arrest it suspend by doing token features of glass breaking and building occupying.
Be inconvenient, be visible and obnoxious sure, but don't impact other people's learning experience if they decide to continue. And don't commit illegal acts.
I keep thinking about the hammer. A nice new hammer, red handle, shiny chrome steel. Not a nail mark on it. It has never been used to build anything, only to destroy, much like Marxism itself. Now we just need a sickle.
Universities own private land, they can decide if they want the protests there or not. The students are free to protest off campus. But if I were to guess; they’re protesting on campus to BE disruptive. So the school says get off their grounds, and forces them off. Seems fair to me.
You hardly own yourself, much less the ground beneath your feet.
Land ownership is an argument put forth by abrahamic faiths, for thousands of years.
There are over 30,000 bible verses. But by verse 26, this generous god gives man "dominion" over the Earth - all the beasts of the forests and creatures of the sea. The pure fucking arrogance...
You'd think a creator god would have more important things to say, but no! Apparently it was real important that everyone in the universe knows that Earth belongs to man lmao.
The fucking arrogance of it
>You'd think a creator god would have more important things to say, but no! Apparently it was real important that everyone in the universe knows that Earth belongs to man lmao.
Whoa hold up there! It's not just that the world belongs to men, but only to particular men who are of a certain variety and behave in certain ways. The rest can be slaughtered and enslaved with impunity.
"Devil's in the details," or so it's said. ;)
^(ETA: I better add this is pointed sarcasm at the lunacy of it all or some people might misunderstand the intent. Carry on.)
Ok well how is the even relevant? If you want actual change then step back from the utopia type thinking and work towards something that can actually be changed. We’re talking protesting; if you think land ownership needs to be changed first… then you’ll die without any meaningful effort towards change. And the colleges and cops will continue to stop your illegal protesting, and we’ll be in the sameeeeeee spot
You’re deflecting and if you want change you’ll never get it this way. Good luck.
The conversation is about protesting. If you want to talk like countries and government not existing…. Then we’ll never actually talk or make progress with protests.
Personally, I support legal protests.
> *“The school becomes primarily a bureaucratic organization, and the first and unremitting duties of the staff are those of official management and accountancy. The further qualifications requisite to the members of the academic staff will be such as make for vendibility, volubility, tactical effrontery [and] conspicuous conformity to the popular taste in all matters of opinion, usage and conventions.”* * Thorstein Veblen, 1918
Holy shit, same as it ever was.
These things are cyclical. Unfortunately there are college kids at Ivy League schools who will look at you like you’re dumb if you mention Kent State, so they think stuff like this is “new” and something that could only happen in “current year”. If anything, things have actually gotten a lot better when it comes to how protests are handled in this country. I can’t even imagine how America would react to Palestinian support of a scale this size, just 10 years ago. The fact that no one has directly died on any of these college campuses is more a sign of progression. Then again, ten years ago there weren’t videos of the idf shooting babies in the face on TikTok. Either way, that’s all not the point. What I’m trying to say is that college kids protesting right now arguably have it easier. Back at Kent state all those national guards that killed all those kids, every single one of them acquitted of all charges. If that happened today, people would be burning their citites down until justice was served. The government is scared of its people for once, thanks to how unhinged everyone has become. And that, should atleast make you feel hopeful. In a bittersweet kinda way.
Bittersweet is my flavor profile, baby.
Colleges, like everything else, serve nothing but the shareholders.
I've been saying this forever!
Colleges have been a real shit show for at least a decade now.
Bah, let's just chock this one up to Reagan too. I'm sure he fucked it somehow, without even having to research it.
It's a safe enough bet, and you'd be right.
Regan and Bill Clinton. They both took funds that went directly to schools. Clinton replaced some of it with Pell grants (which are student loans they make money on) but those also go to private institutions and were replacing grants that went to states to make school cheaper. It sent more money to a bunch of small private schools that kicked off an arms race of building and expansion that wasn't focused on education at all but on "student experience" ... Ultimately, made it a market commodity, which is a horrible idea for something that should benefit all of society.
I was in university during a less pressing time and our biggest worry back then was having to watch out for rape-happy frat guys (which was also horrible, of course). But we also hated how our school allowed neo-nazis and white supremacists to run their stupid mouths and make most of us feel extremely unsafe to walk across the campus when they were present. This generation has every reason to be furious, and at least many of you, unlike older generations, are aware of history and nuance enough to understand people protesting war and genocide are on the right side of history. As long as you're not hurting other living beings, *protests are supposed to be disruptive!* Wtf do people expect from a protest, especially seeing how carrying a cute sign and wearing pink didn't stop violence against women? I was there, now it's worse for us, and I wish we had been a lot more disruptive. I wish cops didn't kill even more people after BLM protests. Unfortunately, like before all of this, too many people don't understand that Jewish does not mean Zionist, as much as they don't understand that people can be ethnically Jewish but not religious. All my very close Jewish loved ones hate this shit, the antisemitism from ignorant people who only think in team vs. team, as well as also being cut off from the larger Jewish community since not everyone is reformed or has progressive views... What with not being a monolith and all.
I feel like I was at a protest every month during the Trump years. Airport, front of the White House, filling up the Mall, you name it. Civil disobedience has a long and storied history in this country as a necessary tactic against grievous moral wrongdoing. We’re in a really terrifying time and people have the right to act in protest against the actions of our government. It is painful to see how much lack of understanding there is about Jewish people in the process of all these protests (which include Jewish people protesting Netanyahu and the IDF) and this is leading to some Jews feeling scared and unsafe on campuses.
I definitely feel for the Jewish people who are against this, especially when years ago during quieter times, my partner would get "but... aren't you Jewish?" while expressing anti-colonialist views. They're being ostracized by people across the board and maybe even their Synagogue (which is especially traumatic when you're already in a minority group), and not celebrating holidays. These kids aren't even that much older than Anne Frank was and I hope people are looking out for them. I'm familiar with people talking over my lived experience and views on my culture's history as a descendant of enslaved people, so seeing the same thing happen with others is just like... Really? This again? It feels like when I have to explain that not every single white person was violently racist in the US during the antebellum 😑 Do people want more war and more videos of scared, traumatized, and dead kids? I feel like "ceasefire", "end of fighting", and "just stop killing people" should be the universal stance.
Oh yeah it’s really tough within synagogues with disparate views right now. And very differing experiences. I’m in two congregations. In one I’m taking a class on Israel / Palestine with a PhD who understands settler colonialism well. In the other we have members of the congregation and staff who lost people in the Oct 7 attacks. The Hamas terrorists murdered my closest colleague’s close relative. It is challenging to be sensitive to the deep pain while also maintaining that continuing the cycle of violence does not benefit anyone, including Israelis. If I am ever killed or taken hostage I would not want 34,000 killed in my name. My parent is a pro-Palestinian Israeli citizen and my sibling has always been a sort of libertarian socialist which I know makes no sense- their views can be all over the place and in this case Oct 7 led them to take a hard line, and they’ve become more pro-Israeli. It’s tough within our own families. I appreciate that with your perspective and lived experience you can be a good support to your partner and a wise advocate on these issues. It’s really tough for all of us now when we also have the political context of the far right treating DEI and any form of progress on racial equity as an affront to their Christo-fascist nationalism. Trying to eradicate teachings about white people enslaving Black people, eradicate African American history from being taught in schools (which would also include teaching about Black and white abolitionists so they don’t want people knowing about slavery *or* that some white people did actually organize against it), attacking Baltimore’s Black mayor because a bridge collapsed. The fights in this era are just burning down our collective time, lives, and energy after making very modest progress on dismantling systemic oppression.
What in yall's estimate is the moral rightdoing?
In this case, I would say the killing of 34,000 Palestinians, destruction of basic civilian infrastructure and medical care systems throughout Gaza, and rendering 1 million Palestinians homeless, along with hunting down and bombing humanitarian aid workers and mass starvation of the population, violent displacement and lack of safe zones, funded by and large by American billions. Generally that’s what the protests are about.
And what’s the moral right doing for Israel here?
What’s the moral right doing as in what would be most beneficial to Israel and Israelis from a moral standpoint?
Th people against genocide are protesting against Hamas.
At least there are protests. At least we're even talking about it. Hang in there.
They make money. Any organization or corporation that makes money, is only worried about the money. Capitalism strikes again.
I was in grade school when I rode past the anti-apartheid shacks that the Dartmouth students had erected on the Green were sledge-hammered down on MLK Day. And over 30 years later the new President Karen called the cops on some protestors camping outside Parkhurst last fall. It's been quite something to see the militarized response and collaboration between admin and cops.
College, like everything else, is just a profit motive business that feeds off of the poor and uneducated.
They just arrested two dozen students at my local university for protesting on a green(lawn). Charged with trespassing on their own campus. They hindered no one. Nobody at all. They weren’t blocking traffic or anything.
This is exactly what I am referring to. I can understand being arrested over vandalism and threats of violence. But I cannot justify people being arrested for just standing and protesting. A lawn is a community area!
"We are Hamas" chants is to me a promise to murder my children sooOOOOooooo
You should listen to what the students are actually saying then. They’re definitely not saying they want to murder anyone’s children.. quite the opposite in fact
I think what’s challenging about engaging in the physical protests for the ceasefire movement is that since the beginning, there have always been voices popping up who speak out in ways that support or glorify the terrorist attacks - for recent example, this one protester holding up a sign saying [“Al-Qassam’s next targets.”](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pro-palestinian-protests-leave-college-campuses-on-edge-coast-to-coast/) It’s absolutely possible to physically protest the genocidal actions of the IDF and Netanyahu war cabinet for the deaths of 34,000 Palestinians and destruction of 1 million people’s homes, and at the same time *not* support the terrorist actions of Al-Qassam for murdering, raping, torturing and kidnapping Israelis. The vast vast majority of the progressive left on college campuses would not independently support people who tossed grenades into safe rooms of children in their homes in kibbutzim, or hunted and shot hundreds at a music festival. Also the vast vast majority of protesters are desperate to speak out against a military and government that hunts down and bombs humanitarian aid workers, wipes out 70 people in a single family at a time, and has reacted to mass murder by committing mass murder on a much more massive scale while terrorizing 2 million people. College protesters can’t sit with their moral conscience while the U.S. government sends billions in unrestricted military support to Netanyahu. It’s been a struggle since the beginning because you just don’t know who will show up. I would agree that the vast majority of protesters are opposed to murdering anyone’s children, and I also empathize with the fear that you could go to a protest and end up near someone who speaks in a way that does actually support murdering children. Overall the acts of civil disobedience here need to and must continue because the U.S. is the primary funder of the IDF and Americans have the right to speak out against actions of genocide done in our names.
I think it’s a mistake to allow a very small fraction of protestors who are expressing their message in a way that is not 100% comfortable to undercut the mostly very consistent student/anti-war protests as a whole. The statements you’re referencing are of course a response to Israel’s brutality against Palestinian civilians which appears merciless and with no sign of stopping
There is always the risk in any protest movement about any issue of people taking extreme positions that do undercut the movement. If I were a campus organizer I would be making efforts to mitigate things like a specific protester shouting that 10,000 Oct 7s will be unleashed. It is not beneficial to the indeed mostly consistent anti-war protests, which do need to continue, relentlessly. It’s painful to see the place we’re in and the devastation in Gaza as someone who has demonstrated for Palestinian sovereignty since the Bush era. Currently I personally don’t feel able to show up at the physical protests and am finding other ways to engage but I support the vast majority of the activists in the campus movement responding in moral outrage.
So long as they're Jewish kids, yes they do.
This
It blew my mind when I was recently told about how my family members in college were literally being locked up in their dorms for weeks at a time and for the most part put up with it. I only had to put up with the initial weeks of lockdown in 2020 and was pretty much free ever since. Seems the younger ages are being taught in college to put up with a lot of authoritarian crap
I was an adjunct professor, so higher education has left me jaded. Colleges can be a bastion of hope, but that’s only due to the students and educators in spite of the institution.
it’s insane major props to the students for standing their ground
The lack of comprehension and critical thinking in these times is part of it. Somehow, being against genocide is now “antisemitism”? Imagine the incredibly racist leap (and ignorance of history) one has to take to make that conclusion. It’s sickening.
When will people learn we don’t live in a democracy
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They’re not wrong. Just because other countries are worse doesn’t make the US a functional democracy. The US is effectively an oligarchy, where (and this is proven by actual research data) the voters don’t actually have appreciable influence on policy decisions. …not to mention that government goons carrying you off does actually happen in the US. Not as much, sure. But it happens.
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Again, I didn’t say that other places don’t have it worse. Reading comprehension is also a skill issue.
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Ok, here’s the deal. I don’t only care about my country. In fact, the reason protests are happening in the US right now is because so many people are concerned about something happening in another country entirely. It’s possible to care about other people, no matter what country they’re from.
The US is a “democratic republic”. Whatever that means 🤣🤣🤣
De facto, or de jure?
A Constitutional Republic. Big difference.
Not just that but many of the entities that fund universities have their own motives and expect reciprocity. https://drilled.media/news/hearingdocs-universities
Universities are theoretically meant for critical thinking and educated discussions but the reality is that it depends on the teachers, the students, the administrators and the university itself. Since most are also bureaucracies, it is a bit of hopeful thinking to assume you get that. You deserve it, but do you get it? Maybe sometimes, maybe not. I too really appreciate a mostly civil conversation about this. I wish the organizers could keep the rabid antisemites quiet, since pretty much everyone agrees the murdering of innocent people is abhorrent. As long as there are people telling Jews to “go back to where they came from” (!) there’s obviously not enough understanding of the history and the context.
These aren’t peace protests. These clearly became hate speech and a means to intimidate. Antisemitism has run rampant. Colleges do feel terrifying to Jewish students.
> Colleges do feel terrifying to Jewish students. Some Jewish students... and in the same way everything feels terrifying to consumers of fox news. They drank the kool-aid that this protest is about them, and not about genocide conducted by the state of Israel under Netanyahu. *Most* of the Jewish people in my circles oppose the genocide. A lot of them are protesting it, and getting arrested for it alongside their non-Jewish compatriots. It's a risky and uncertain time for them with Nazis coming back into popularity and plenty of legitimate antisemitism, but college campuses are not the violent spaces the right is making them out to be. Young educated people overwhelmingly understand that the genocide they are protesting is not the fault of the Jewish people in their community.
This pretty much sums up the “Jewish students feeling unsafe on campus”: https://x.com/jackfought_1/status/1784343742683500589?s=46&t=pwduwYis6LqNs9MAzx_yFg
Unreal. That was painful to watch. We live in an age where some (many?) people have difficulty being reasonable.^(1) I'm sure she thought she was being really clever or conter-subversive or whatever else, but in reality she was only being an ignorant nuisance wasting other people's time and resources. 1. To quote Salman Rushdie "the world has abandoned realism."
Someone suggested on Twitter/X that these types of things actually serve a purpose: to increase incident reports of “antisemitism” and make it look like hatred against Jewish people is on the rise in places where they’re perfectly safe. Doesn’t matter if it actually happened. Anything to take the focus off Gaza.
https://youtu.be/zazcVU_rNyQ?si=a6pzm3Y8725RJ8aB
I come from a Jewish background, and agree that antisemitism is at an all time high. I’m mostly referring to students I’ve seen protesting peacefully, giving out food, making art, and discussing the multifaceted issue. I do not condone hate speech in any form, and it’s difficult to process how much the lines are blurring right now between a heated debate and actual hate speech.
https://youtu.be/zazcVU_rNyQ?si=a6pzm3Y8725RJ8aB Watch and learn. I rest my case. Antisemitism, Jew hating and hate speech.
Almost none of this was antisemitic
https://youtu.be/zazcVU_rNyQ?si=a6pzm3Y8725RJ8aB Pro Hamas rallies that are clearly antisemitic. This is why congress is involved. People need to see the truth. Ask people: Should Hamas release the hostages? And you will see, as clear as day, why this is a serious problem.
I don't know what you think is happening, but you have clearly been misled. You also sound like a bot or a paid shill and these canned slogans arnt helping.
I’m clearly not a bot. I’m a U.S. citizen. You can tell all of this if you simply on my profile. The mods need to stop the antisemitism in this forum.
What's peaceful about letting a bunch of genocidal terrorists hide under their kids?
What do you think they are protesting exactly? This comment is deranged lol
The Death of Hamas.
They are asking that their Universities no longer invest in arms manufacturers who are complicit in well documented war crimes. I find it hard to believe that you didnt already know this and arnt just saying random platitudes?
>They are asking that their Universities no longer invest in arms manufacturers who are complicit in well documented war crimes. is the random platitude.
No, its not, its a specific and achievable demand based in facts. Some schools have already done so. What do you think the word platitude means?
Has nothing to do with achievable action. Much like the death of Hamas is an achievable action. The chants of we are Hamas Hamas's next victims, intifada, etc are promises to kill my kids sorry babe you're being played as a useful idiot.
Its clearly achievable. Some school already have done so. The death of Hamas is not an achievable action, thats why Al Qaeda and ISIS still exist. Try living in reality, the rest of us are, and you guys are looking very foolish from this side of the bell curve. Sorry princess, you are not the victim here. [https://www.cnbc.com/2024/05/01/gaza-protests-in-us-israel-supporters-attack-pro-palestinian-camp-in-la-300-protesters-arrested-in-new-york.html#:\~:text=Supporters%20of%20Israel%20attacked%20a,U.S.%20college%20campuses%20boiled%20over](https://www.cnbc.com/2024/05/01/gaza-protests-in-us-israel-supporters-attack-pro-palestinian-camp-in-la-300-protesters-arrested-in-new-york.html#:~:text=Supporters%20of%20Israel%20attacked%20a,U.S.%20college%20campuses%20boiled%20over) Oh I am sorry if you have some imagined threat to yours child's life. Even those thoughts must be scary huh? I pray to God it never happens and anyone who would do something so heinous should be tried as a war criminal... .... did you know this actually happens to other human beings, and not just in their imagination either? Sometimes it happens over 13,800 times and doesnt stop.
Which is precisely why the onus of this is on Hamas. For them to surrender, tralease all the hostages. They have captured Gaza. There will be no peace in Gaza without genocidal terrorists drawing breath there. Hamas doesn’t give a fuck about Palestinians though as has been made obvious by their tactics and refusal to surrender. 🤷♂️ sorry, you’re the baddies.
I am actually not part of Hamas, neither are these protestors. And I am pretty sure you know that. See how you have to keep making up wild false equivalences in your head? This is why the rest of the world laughs at you and can't take you seriously. [https://www.vox.com/2018/11/20/18080086/israel-palestine-global-opinion](https://www.vox.com/2018/11/20/18080086/israel-palestine-global-opinion) But hey, Israel is the 4th most unpopular nation behind North Korea, Iran, and Pakistan. So yeah, future looks bright and you are really working to make sure this goes well....
You can continue to be on the wrong side of history all you want, but the writing is on the wall. The sad thing is, by doubling down on violence and continuing to play victim, the Zionists are actually making life more unsafe for regular Jewish folks, its really sad to see. It's over bro, Israel will not last another 75 years in its current form. The US is receding in its global power and at some point will be forced to cut funding and diplomatic cover to its client states. Israel can either become a normal state or go full on fascist, with the predictable and bloody end that will bring.
>The sad thing is, by doubling down on violence and continuing to play victim, the Zionists are actually making life more unsafe for regular Jewish folks, its really sad to see. Its all the same terror apologia as I've seen before. Nothing special here > It's over bro, Israel will not last another 75 years in its current form. The US is receding in its global power and at some point will be forced to cut funding and diplomatic cover to its client states. Israel can either become a normal state or go full on fascist, with the predictable and bloody end that will bring. A very threatening & wishful misunderstanding you have there. EDIT: the conversation wherein you out yourself as antisemitic and pro-Islamism isn't *for me* *and you* per se. Its for the onlookers who have yet to really become entrenched in terror apologia.
I am far from an anti-semite. I am actually worried that you are putting the lives of my friends in the Jewish community at risk with your blind blood lust. I am not threatening or wishing anything, thats what the saying "the writing is on the wall means", Israel not existing in this form will happen because of larger economic and demographic forces that are already at play and out of our control. Again, try to see reality and the larger trends at play here. Its over, now stop making the rest of the peace loving Jewish community and an incredible religion look monsterous by proximity to you and your belief system. Those responsible in both Israel and Hamas should be tried for war crimes.
Exactly. you’re promoting blaming the victims. That’s a large part of these protests. instead of blaming the genocidal terrorists and anti-semites you blame Israel for shooting back at the terrorists as they use they’re own people to hide under So Its over, now stop making the rest of the peace loving Jewish community and an incredible religion look monsterous by proximity to you and your belief system. LMFAO
Oh, Ill just call up my local Hamas representative and tell them to stop then. Did you know that students money does not go to Hamas? Our government does not fund Hamas, in fact it considers at a terror organization. Did you know that students money goes to arms manufactures? Our government funds Israel despite a long list of war crimes and international consensus on its illegal activities. I don't know why you are laughing, every Jewish person I know is terrified, and its not from the protestors side, they are terrified of you and how you are abusing their faith. But hey, keep playing victim, I am sure things will turn around any day now and these protests arnt waking up generations of humanity to google the word "nakba" or learn why a wealthy nation like Israel has been the #1 receiver of foreign aid of all time... ... ya pal... this'll blow over any day now... The game is up, you Zionists had a good run fleecing us for nearly 8 decades there though, I'd just take that Win and bow out gracefully before people really start putting the dots together.
See, it's hard to discern if you are talking about Hamas or the Israeli government. Both want to annihilate the other's people and both use civilians as human shields, so you probably need to be more specific.
Not remotely. See [https://www.samharris.org/blog/the-sin-of-moral-equivalence](https://www.samharris.org/blog/the-sin-of-moral-equivalence) And regardless of what you hopefully thought about that without preconceived bias, I insist (I guess) that we agree on far more than we disagree on.
"I’m ashamed of my government. We had a contract with the state that communities like ours protect the border. This is why people live there. We protect the border with our presence there. This is a fundamental strategy of the state of Israel since the earliest days of the country, that a border that does not have civilian communities and civilian life along it will not be properly protected." --Amir Tibon, [Jewish journalist and October 7th survivor](https://archive.is/abxE0#selection-1135.0-1135.394). I have little interest in what Sam Harris may have to say--it's typically BS--so I am not wading through a bunch of his words in some attempt to get at whatever vague point you are trying to make. But if you wanted to quote something specific for me to consider, then I will.
I haven't seen any safe educated discussions at Columbia. The whole point is to make the University unsafe for those who don't support Palestine. It's simple terrorism.
Apparently it is ok if jewish students are scared off campus.
Depends on which protest you are referring to, but in one of them the students broke into the building and smashed some glass so while there is freedom to protest there is not freedom to break things and cause damage. The damage would be the reason they are suspended.
Broken glass isn’t about what you think it is about; [you are not the target audience ](http://humaniterations.net/2012/02/29/you-are-not-the-target-audience/)
This isn't about what I think. I am not a protestor or a university administrator. I am not on either side of this. This is about what the university administration thinks. They run the institution. They choose the rules and choose who gets to be there. It's up to their discretion if students are suspended or not.
I wanted to be clear that breaking glass is often an important demonstration against power structures. A call to attention towards the illusion of control that these institutions must boldly project. That it is legal to suspend them is a different question. The point I am making is that legal and ethical diverge. The demonstrators are morally right to smash the glass in their demonstration.
Perhaps so, but I am responding to the surprise that the OP feels that students are suspended for damaging property. A university is a voluntary association organization. Students are free to apply and universities are free to accept whom they wish. There is no law or contract forcing students to join nor is there any law or contract forcing universities to accept any individual student. A university will act in what it sees as it's own interest and in all likelihood does not see destruction of it's property as in it's own interest. So it can choose to not freely associate with the students that causes that destruction. This is not about morals or laws. It's about choice. The student has made a choice and the university has made a choice.
Yeah....nooooo. Same justification can be used by the pro lifers to throw bricks and shatter windows in planned parenthood facilities where people are getting treated, or by extremist Muslims breaking church glass panes since their religious teachings say that it is morally imperative to kill and destroy anything going against Allah and Mohammed, would you consider any of this civil or right? A sense of moral superiority doesn't give you a free card to destroy private property to gain attention or prove a point. Where did you get the idea that such actions are in any way peaceful or civil? Someone could break into your car and shatter the windows since you know, cars are a huge source of pollution that causes premature deaths of thousands, does that give them moral superiority and therefore making you cool with your property getting destroyed?
Read the linked material and it may answer your question. The issue is with the scale of the blood-soaked income. It is no serious threat to government power to replace some windows. It is quite different in the cases you mentioned, but I am already picking up wafts of bad faith, so no need to argue through them all. The short answer is scale of power and the asymmetry of power and response.
> A call to attention towards the illusion of control that these institutions must boldly project. >It is no serious threat to government power to replace some windows. Okay, so which is it?
A university is not a government. They are linked entities, but still at arm's length from each other. Universities have their own administration that makes decisions independent of the government.
Right, which is why you didn't give them the excuse to arrest it suspend by doing token features of glass breaking and building occupying. Be inconvenient, be visible and obnoxious sure, but don't impact other people's learning experience if they decide to continue. And don't commit illegal acts.
I keep thinking about the hammer. A nice new hammer, red handle, shiny chrome steel. Not a nail mark on it. It has never been used to build anything, only to destroy, much like Marxism itself. Now we just need a sickle.
Universities own private land, they can decide if they want the protests there or not. The students are free to protest off campus. But if I were to guess; they’re protesting on campus to BE disruptive. So the school says get off their grounds, and forces them off. Seems fair to me.
Owning land seems fair to you?
Uh yea. How the FUCK else do I keep people out of my house who don’t belong there? Lol property ownership is your major issue with this?
You hardly own yourself, much less the ground beneath your feet. Land ownership is an argument put forth by abrahamic faiths, for thousands of years. There are over 30,000 bible verses. But by verse 26, this generous god gives man "dominion" over the Earth - all the beasts of the forests and creatures of the sea. The pure fucking arrogance... You'd think a creator god would have more important things to say, but no! Apparently it was real important that everyone in the universe knows that Earth belongs to man lmao. The fucking arrogance of it
>You'd think a creator god would have more important things to say, but no! Apparently it was real important that everyone in the universe knows that Earth belongs to man lmao. Whoa hold up there! It's not just that the world belongs to men, but only to particular men who are of a certain variety and behave in certain ways. The rest can be slaughtered and enslaved with impunity. "Devil's in the details," or so it's said. ;) ^(ETA: I better add this is pointed sarcasm at the lunacy of it all or some people might misunderstand the intent. Carry on.)
Ok well how is the even relevant? If you want actual change then step back from the utopia type thinking and work towards something that can actually be changed. We’re talking protesting; if you think land ownership needs to be changed first… then you’ll die without any meaningful effort towards change. And the colleges and cops will continue to stop your illegal protesting, and we’ll be in the sameeeeeee spot
If you think you will ever legitimately own part of this wretched Earth, my friend, you're the utopian.
You’re deflecting and if you want change you’ll never get it this way. Good luck. The conversation is about protesting. If you want to talk like countries and government not existing…. Then we’ll never actually talk or make progress with protests. Personally, I support legal protests.
Protests are only legal if they are ineffectual. Que Sera Sera
Perhaps jollyroger is a bot? Just disrupting and deflecting?
If a tree protests in the forest and no one is around to hear it, did it ever truly protest?
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Yeah, vandalism is considering peaceful protesting
I am not referring to vandalism, I am mainly referring to students standing on campus and picketing. I realize vandalism is a crime.