I had the same amount of sympathy for the Weathermen and Maoists that you did. In fact, we left a quite effective tenants union dedicated to making landlords actually FIX stuff when it got "taken over" by self-proclaimed Maoists who announced that the Central Committee was going to decide what flavor Kool Ade (yeah, that was still an unb…
I had the same amount of sympathy for the Weathermen and Maoists that you did. In fact, we left a quite effective tenants union dedicated to making landlords actually FIX stuff when it got "taken over" by self-proclaimed Maoists who announced that the Central Committee was going to decide what flavor Kool Ade (yeah, that was still an unbesmirched thing) could be served at meetings.
And still I remained anti-war. I went to protests that were, y'know, actually peaceful, usually involving teach-ins when "Establishment" speakers came to campus.
And I had friends arrested and held incommunicado for 24 hours for the "crime" of walking out of a movie theater into a protest. They WERE anti-war, themselves and as far as we could tell, simply held for saying that. They couldn't call their preteen kids to say what had happened to them. And after that, my participation in protests INCREASED because, well, the pigs. But it didn't decrease my disdain for the WeatherMaoists.
So I'm wondering if your take on all this current unrest involves some of the same things that the American Love It Or Leave It crowd did--focusing entirely on the idiots and condemning those who may have been, if not just walking out of a theatre, simply really distressed by the way the Israeli GOVERNMENT is acting without being pro Hamas or Pro terrorist or pro "Palestinians only in the region" or, for that matter, being antisemitic as opposed to anti-tyrant.
In other words, did every single student arrested--or in danger now of being expelled--actually chant, much less support, the performative radicalism of some of the leaders? Or is just being anti-Bibi enough of a sin to result in expulsion? In fact, there were Jews protesting and one group--named Jewish Voice for Peace--had earlier been denied the right to be a legitimate campus organization.
There comes a point at which one has to consider what some of those chants MEAN. Probably the term "genocide" is a bit premature, though if Israel invades Rafah it will be closer to the truth than before. But it has enough of the indicia to be a valid opinion--and the word alone isn't saying that all Israelis, much less all Jews, are supportive of genocide. Similarly for Zionism--a lot of people mean by it the exaggerated claims of the more reactionary of Bibi's supporters, who ARE advocating quite openly for "from the River to the Sea" as the boundaries of Israel. Netanyahu has actually used that very phrase to describe his administration's aims. If that is one's meaning of Zionist, then saying "down with Zionism" is to me a perfectly rational position to take.
I do draw the line at occupying buildings--I wasn't in favor of that in 68 either. I suspect that a lot of the later intransigence of the protestors of today is focused more on the "pigs" side of things--outrage at the administration's response to what had then been a pretty peaceful, if loud, encampment.**
On the question of "attacks" on Jewish student, the following article (which I may have cited before) is interesting. What I HAVE noticed is the refusal of so many to even listen to people with Muslim names. You see this in attacks on Al Jazeera, which is by and large a pretty reputable news agency. I ended up subscribing to Haaretz so I could counter people who claimed Al Jazeera reports must be lies, because Haaretz ALSO made the same reports. In other words, there is a fair amount of Islamophobia lurking behind some of the reactions to these protests. I was particularly interested in her discussion of how the university in the past has investigated allegations of antisemitism or ANY discrimination before taking complaints at face value. Those processes don't seem to be happening or at least the "Jewish Students In Fear" chant is being promulgated without mention of such investigations. Yes, discipline those who are actually threatening others (I hope they do it for threats against LGBTQ students or Muslim students, too).
The recent arrests at UCLA because of "violence" is problematic because the violence seems to have been instigated by counter-protestors. If the peaceful students on either side are let go, then the system will be working even if creakily. But if everyone is tarred with the same brush just for having a different opinion, I am heartily against it.
Not every anti-war protestor in 1968 was a Weatherman. Not every person concerned about what's happening to the Palestinians and wants to protest is an antisemite. In fact, this protest was actually, at least at first, about Columbia divesting itself of investments in certain companies they felt were promoting the Bibi agenda. Funny, there have been protests about various university investments in fossil fuel companies. Were the cops called in for those? Maybe, but certainly not with the BLARE of publicity found here.
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**One person I've back-and-forthed about this claims the students had no right to be loud. That makes me wonder if I can have the neighbor's garden service arrested for its leaf blowers, which quite literally make it impossible for Alexa to hear me. Or (when I lived closer to the University here) arrests those folks chanting in the football stadium. Not to mention the blocking of traffic by game-goers.
I hope to point out that the same kind of idiots are trying to run this stuff today, regardless of the thoughts/ideals of the majority of those participating - the same thing you just described here.
I thought your article was excellent. You acknowledged more than one fact about the protests. There are well meaning students who are genuinely opposed to the misery in Gaza. Some of these are behaving thoughtfully; some are being idiots. There are Hamas supporters whose main interest is destroying Israel and Jews, and only care about Gazan suffering to the extent that it helps their hatred achieve its goals. There are people whose only goal is getting attention for themselves. It does, indeed, remind me of the VietNam war protests. And none of it is doing anyone in Gaza or Israel any good.
yes. But we can see through them--long years of practice, I guess. My question is how much this is influencing the response to the protests, both at the universities and in the media.
I had the same amount of sympathy for the Weathermen and Maoists that you did. In fact, we left a quite effective tenants union dedicated to making landlords actually FIX stuff when it got "taken over" by self-proclaimed Maoists who announced that the Central Committee was going to decide what flavor Kool Ade (yeah, that was still an unbesmirched thing) could be served at meetings.
And still I remained anti-war. I went to protests that were, y'know, actually peaceful, usually involving teach-ins when "Establishment" speakers came to campus.
And I had friends arrested and held incommunicado for 24 hours for the "crime" of walking out of a movie theater into a protest. They WERE anti-war, themselves and as far as we could tell, simply held for saying that. They couldn't call their preteen kids to say what had happened to them. And after that, my participation in protests INCREASED because, well, the pigs. But it didn't decrease my disdain for the WeatherMaoists.
So I'm wondering if your take on all this current unrest involves some of the same things that the American Love It Or Leave It crowd did--focusing entirely on the idiots and condemning those who may have been, if not just walking out of a theatre, simply really distressed by the way the Israeli GOVERNMENT is acting without being pro Hamas or Pro terrorist or pro "Palestinians only in the region" or, for that matter, being antisemitic as opposed to anti-tyrant.
In other words, did every single student arrested--or in danger now of being expelled--actually chant, much less support, the performative radicalism of some of the leaders? Or is just being anti-Bibi enough of a sin to result in expulsion? In fact, there were Jews protesting and one group--named Jewish Voice for Peace--had earlier been denied the right to be a legitimate campus organization.
There comes a point at which one has to consider what some of those chants MEAN. Probably the term "genocide" is a bit premature, though if Israel invades Rafah it will be closer to the truth than before. But it has enough of the indicia to be a valid opinion--and the word alone isn't saying that all Israelis, much less all Jews, are supportive of genocide. Similarly for Zionism--a lot of people mean by it the exaggerated claims of the more reactionary of Bibi's supporters, who ARE advocating quite openly for "from the River to the Sea" as the boundaries of Israel. Netanyahu has actually used that very phrase to describe his administration's aims. If that is one's meaning of Zionist, then saying "down with Zionism" is to me a perfectly rational position to take.
I do draw the line at occupying buildings--I wasn't in favor of that in 68 either. I suspect that a lot of the later intransigence of the protestors of today is focused more on the "pigs" side of things--outrage at the administration's response to what had then been a pretty peaceful, if loud, encampment.**
On the question of "attacks" on Jewish student, the following article (which I may have cited before) is interesting. What I HAVE noticed is the refusal of so many to even listen to people with Muslim names. You see this in attacks on Al Jazeera, which is by and large a pretty reputable news agency. I ended up subscribing to Haaretz so I could counter people who claimed Al Jazeera reports must be lies, because Haaretz ALSO made the same reports. In other words, there is a fair amount of Islamophobia lurking behind some of the reactions to these protests. I was particularly interested in her discussion of how the university in the past has investigated allegations of antisemitism or ANY discrimination before taking complaints at face value. Those processes don't seem to be happening or at least the "Jewish Students In Fear" chant is being promulgated without mention of such investigations. Yes, discipline those who are actually threatening others (I hope they do it for threats against LGBTQ students or Muslim students, too).
https://www.nybooks.com/online/2024/04/27/storm-over-columbia-nadia-abu-el-haj/
The recent arrests at UCLA because of "violence" is problematic because the violence seems to have been instigated by counter-protestors. If the peaceful students on either side are let go, then the system will be working even if creakily. But if everyone is tarred with the same brush just for having a different opinion, I am heartily against it.
Not every anti-war protestor in 1968 was a Weatherman. Not every person concerned about what's happening to the Palestinians and wants to protest is an antisemite. In fact, this protest was actually, at least at first, about Columbia divesting itself of investments in certain companies they felt were promoting the Bibi agenda. Funny, there have been protests about various university investments in fossil fuel companies. Were the cops called in for those? Maybe, but certainly not with the BLARE of publicity found here.
-----------------------------------------------
**One person I've back-and-forthed about this claims the students had no right to be loud. That makes me wonder if I can have the neighbor's garden service arrested for its leaf blowers, which quite literally make it impossible for Alexa to hear me. Or (when I lived closer to the University here) arrests those folks chanting in the football stadium. Not to mention the blocking of traffic by game-goers.
I hope to point out that the same kind of idiots are trying to run this stuff today, regardless of the thoughts/ideals of the majority of those participating - the same thing you just described here.
I thought your article was excellent. You acknowledged more than one fact about the protests. There are well meaning students who are genuinely opposed to the misery in Gaza. Some of these are behaving thoughtfully; some are being idiots. There are Hamas supporters whose main interest is destroying Israel and Jews, and only care about Gazan suffering to the extent that it helps their hatred achieve its goals. There are people whose only goal is getting attention for themselves. It does, indeed, remind me of the VietNam war protests. And none of it is doing anyone in Gaza or Israel any good.
yes. But we can see through them--long years of practice, I guess. My question is how much this is influencing the response to the protests, both at the universities and in the media.