34 Comments

That is chilling. We have to reverse this. There must be a way. I am so fed up with overprivileged people on the right and the left. They have always been comfortable. Few have ever had to deal with or even meet with people outside their orbits. Democracy is a tough slog and grabbing hold of slogans is fast and cheap. We have enough history, if we care to examine it, to understand that does not work. We have to work through our frustrations, if for no other reason than because we are sick and tired of being lied to and bellowed to by big mouths.

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I wish I could give you multiple likes for what you've said in both comments. On point and very well written.

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Amen, amen, amen!!1

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WHEW!! It would not be too far fetched to think that Russia is fomenting the social media frenzy involved here. That would make more sense than Iran.

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Trump is Putin's buddy and both are trying their damndest to stay out of jail. I think I'll go back to writing postcards to register voters now. It is one thing I can do.

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Odd, well, I guess ironic would be a better description - think about it, Putin, the dumpster AND Netanyahu - all THREE doing, as you said, their damndest to stay out of jail. I guess, in any other "dimension" that would be hard to believe - not HERE & now.

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No, we are not "there": it is not 1968 not even close. My understanding is the NY Police Department entered the second floor window at the Columbia Building quietly & made tens of arrests. No tear gas no billy club beatings, no fire hoses, no perp walks, no false "illegal assembly" declarations like the my last UCLA Regents meeting with 'Ronny' Reagan.

So let's get some real data: such as the names of each person arrested for appearance in NY Criminal Court. You know case NUMBERS. Once the Court has verified personal information, we will know whether any of those arrested are"Bolsheviks" or more like what the NY Police Department has been alleging --- that the students were infiltrated not by the post WW1 Russian Bolsheviks but, more like the 1904 Russian Anarchists specifically known to the NYPD. "Call out the [serial] Instigators ...".

These are factual issues not BS. Facts that can be determined in any NY criminal Court. Trust a NY Judge like Merchan is assigned to these cases.

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Thank you. Seeing 1968 -- specifically what went down at the Democratic Convention in Chicago -- in every current protest is very like seeing Commies under every bed, and it likewise leads to very sloppy politics. The revisionism about the student strike in 1970 is particularly galling, because I helped organize it at my school (Georgetown U., for the record) and can testify that virtually none of the organizers had anything to do with the Weather Underground or any other fringe group. I can also testify that the response of the police and the college administration couldn't have been better planned to make a tense situation worse.

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Very bad memories. I had just left Lake Forest after 2 years and a few ineffective protests when Chicago '68 blew up. An awful benchmark. One result was "peace with honor" to the tune of an additional 26,000 servicemen dead before the end. My older brother was in Special Forces in Vietnam, came back in '67 and became McCarthy's Advance man, making sure every place he visited was safe.

Law of unintended consequences cannot be allowed to distort the life and death struggle for democracy ahead.

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My most vivid memories of

the late 60s were the, at

times, violent protest

marches by the deferred

college students in the

tri-city area of upstate NY.

One in particular comes to

mind. The day of my

husband's military funeral.

Outside the church, as the

Honor Guard was getting

ready to load his flag drapped

coffin, a college friend of his

stepped forward from a

crowd of yelling people and

spit at the ground by his

coffin, looked at me and said,

"Baby killer." Rob had been at

our wedding. He and Stan fell

out when he learned Stan

had enlisted. Gave up his

Dean's list deferrment; he

was so very smart, but he

wanted to fly.

I also well remember how

those at Berkeley, back then,

jeered and belittled the

soldiers coming home from a

hell none of them could ever

imagine.

Maybe I have a bit of a

different perspective on

protests and exactly what

they're supposed to

accomplish, then and now.

Especially when you're paying

68 grand a year to tear up a

campus.

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You can bet the magas are throwing gasoline on this fire as quickly as they can and will scream and point at Biden for student loan forgiveness. All his good works will pale before this self-destructive conduct inherent in mankind. They'll be no end to the comparisons of yesterday to January 6th. And, again, undercover cops, please identify the bomb throwers. Perhaps some of the faculty who've joined the fray may actually be doing just that. It's what I'd do because advanced age has taught me that things are not always what they seem.

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The Republicans pounce once again, eh?

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Make up your mind. Dems or Repubs/Magas.

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So swamp or no swamp? Not a tough choice.

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Depends on where you want

to live and who you associate with. 😉

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On that you and I certainly agree. On the specifics, I’m guessing not.

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Why I can’t sympathize with any reason for the passion of the protests. Joe has little control, yet he is being pilloried. Chump is a twin to Netanyahu, a fact that protesters ignore. If Dems lose, the price will cost future generations like never before. And that’s an Everest to climb.

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Work like heck - get out the vote. Talk talk talk and listen listen listen. We cannot afford to lose in November.

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Idiot kids.

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Wonder how the parents of these mostly "privileged" college students feel about this - frankly if I were paying over $50,000 a year for my kid to go to college OR possibly if I were the parent who had to take out a student loan for that amount & the child (and thats what they are) I sent away to get a college education, was one of those screaming & taking over a building putting themselves in danger of possibly a misdemeanor or felony? Bottom line - NOT effecting any change in a government's foreign policy - to say the least.

Really - exactly how pissed off would I be? Well, speaking for myself, I would feel that child has NO need of a college education at this point and needed to come home & get a job - or JUST get a job & earn a living.

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I doubt that many who had to scrape up money for college are among those wasting their effort/energy on phony bravado.

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I agree - anyone who did have to scrape up the money for college cant afford - financially or otherwise - to put their education in danger.

check out Joan's post below. I disagree with this Israeli student's statement about Gaza & genocide - what more proof is needed than the thousands of women and children slaughtered there. But his comments on the students, lecturers & other University heads kind of make sense.

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I recommend the following substack by Daniel Gordis, where he posts an English translation of comments on the protests by an Israeli Ph.D student at Stanford. It's worth reading in full. Here is a key paragraph:

"""

If university presidents would stop trembling in their own shadows, they could tell their students that they have a right to express stupid views, but that shouting them out won’t make them any more correct. Lecturers cannot silence their students, but they can emphasize that anyone who expresses uninformed or unfounded positions with great confidence is an educational failure. An Israeli—as I discovered—cannot really convince his American counterpart that Israel is not committing genocide, even if there is not even a shred of evidence to support the argument that what is happening in Gaza is genocide. But if the president of the university were to look at his students and express sincere disappointment when they express such a preposterous position, something in a significant portion of those students might shift.

"""

https://substack.com/inbox/post/144195564

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"The images of disorder on campuses and in the streets helped break the New Deal coalition apart and drive conservative and centrist voters away from the Democratic Party;" True. The one thing that is very, very different now than in 1968....April 4 the racial cultists murdered Martin Luther King Jr, On June 8 an anti Jewish misfit murdered Bobby Kennedy the hope of we of Liberal Progressive persuasion leaving us with Humpty Dumpty. Hubert Humphrey was not a bad man, he might possibly have been a decent President - he was just colorless compared to Robert Kennedy. Funny that his son that cuckoobird RFK Jr should be running against the Democratic Party of which his father had been such a champion. Trump is even more of a loser than Nixon was. I voted for Humphrey of course, but I campaigned and worked for Bobby.

I'm hoping those differences will nullify the effects of 1968 - and we have the very best man for Presidency this time.

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You nailed that one. It's like a weird gangsta party. Let's end it.

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I live in WI, and Charlie Sykes has been a conservative stalwart for years and years. He helped usher in the first iteration of the Koch bros "illiberal democracy" here in 2010 with the election of Scott Walker. Before trump was trump, Scott Walker was the conservative flamethrower trying to dismantle the "administrative state". I knew vaguely of his history - abandoning liberalism in the wayback time (from my reference point). This is a lot of information that I didn't know, and at least to some extent, makes his abandonment more plausible. It is definitely a warning about what could go wrong, but hopefully history won't repeat itself.

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Bear in mind that when Trump came along, Charlie was smart enough to see him for what he is, and had the intellectual and moral courage to publicly say he had been wrong about what became the "conservative movement" and become a Never-Trumper - at cost of all the things he had been doing and people who claimed friendship. I may disagree with him on many things, but on the nature of Trump and what has happened to the GOP and on defending the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, he and I are on the same page.

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The Democrats made this bed. Enjoy sleeping in it.

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Call 'em what you want, "independents", "decline to state", "Suburban Moms", "Never Trumpers", "Descendants", folks that continue to lose Constitutional rights, it is those voters who control.

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In a reprise of '68, its the radical left that's is driving the agenda. The others are of minor import.

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What crap

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I agree. As Yogi Berra said “it’s like Deja vu all over again.

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You are the crap

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I’d ask why, but really don’t care. Enjoy Chicago. Again.

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