Regarding the student protests around the country, one thing has become clear this week, as reported independently at several different campuses: despite local campus administrations attempting to devise solutions that allow protestors to continue making their case, while not disrupting the rest of campus life (the vast majority of the Class of 2024, who were all members of the high school class of 2020 who didn’t get a graduation ceremony due to the pandemic, really do want to have a commencement for college graduation), the protestors have met these proposals with rejection and escalation of their rhetoric and demands.
I have said I do not find it hard to be pro-Israel, anti-Hamas, pro-two state solution, pro-peace, and anti-Netanyahu. I do not doubt that some protesters are sincere, and that some are idiots, and that some are simply rabble-rousers and bigots.
The key to me is that they (along with the Columbia University president) giving republicans, who are themselves not sincere but certainly idiots and anti-semites, the chance to sound like they give a flying etcetera about Israel.
this is a fabulous piece, Tom. as usual, anger has given you added eloquence.
I want to speak at some length about this stuff because, like many people here, I remember 1968 very, very well. and the whole PL or NCLC "battle" for the hearts and minds of...well, supposedly EVERYBODY was something I could observe from a distance, despite the fact that the following year, part of CCNY actually did go up in literal flames over the issue of Open Admissions. I stayed out of things because 1) I didn't want to embarrass my father, who was a highly placed administrator and 2) most of the "foot soldiers" I knew directly were either unserious or desperate to be hip or thought they'd get laid more easily or were just craving excitement after shooting heroin in the men's room of the South Campus cafeteria. at least half a dozen of them were dead within ten years of graduating, if they actually bothered to graduate.
but the thing is, I don't feel up to it. this was the worst day of my life in nine years because it was the day I knew the only thing to do was to help my Jubal over the Rainbow Bridge. my best friend Danny was here to help all day and I found myself relying a lot on my Aspie grand-nephew who's in Seattle and is one of my favorite people. I need to change my Daisy avatar to one of Jubie, possibly the most photogenic dog who ever lived.
but more tomorrow...I promise. or maybe threaten?
sorry, that was a shitty joke, but I'm gonna let it stand for now because this whole deal is getting me angrier and angrier and my tendency is often to dismiss that anger as being a symptom of some sort of old fogey-ness. did I spell that correctly? but the level of bullshit I've been hearing at some of these "protests" is reaching the level of sepsis. and I've actually HAD sepsis.
did you hear Ms. Omar's snide little answer at Columbia the other day? the one about the importance of dialogue between those who are pro or anti genocide? she lost me with that one, my immediate response being something I will not repeat here because it's gotten me in trouble on other Substacks. let's just say she earned it. big time. it's after two and if I'm going to sleep tonight, I'd better begin the process of winding down. that was me being optimistic...
it's also probably a very good time to say how grateful I am to be here, at TAFM. thanks Tom. thanks Everybody.
I'm so sorry to hear about Jubal, David. I'm looking at the same thing sometime this summer with my Cookie Cat, the best little lady I was every privileged to know. They come in our lives and bless us with their presence and then they're always gone too soon, no matter how long they were with us.
every time I see another school go a little nuts, I am more afraid that these stupid schmucks are going to usher in a Repug victory in November. what's Gaza (not to mention everything ELSE) gonna look like with TFF (who really does act and talk like he has tertiary syphilis) back in power?
The idiots who think that Biden is too cozy with Israel may not learn that lesson, but they will learn something in the internment camps in 2025 if republicans get back in.
me too. that Columbia president (typical of all too many Columbia administrators--and faculty-- throughout history...let's remember that the horrifying Dunnant "school" of so-called "Reconstruction history" was based there., even if Eric Foner's work at the same school ((and earlier, CCNY)) was the work that undid Dunnant's) was one of the best examples I've ever seen of someone sitting down to devour a very large plate of shit to keep her job. and let's face it...it's a damned good job. lots of dinners in exchange for fund raising and a large, unearned salary (also including some very expensive free housing).
I have some extremely unkind things to say about Ms. Stefanik, but I'm not about to share them too explicitly here. and let's face it...we all share them.
Stefanik is such a shameless striver, willing to publicly demonstrate she believes in nothing, but will pretend to be sincere if it advances her up the greasy pole.
Bravo, TC. I’m gonna need to read this a few more times, quite possibly with a spreadsheet to track all the moving parts.
One opinion I hold: it seems to me that so many of the people you so eloquently describe are rebels searching for a rebellion. I think that students become enamored with the “glory” of protests and don’t stop to think critically about what is actually going on.
My very pedestrian assessment:
On October 7th, Hamas did a bad thing. Israel was warned about the “bad thing” and ignored the warning. Oh, but Israel created Hamas and the environment for Hamas to justify doing a “bad thing”. Then, Israel responded with 10 times the devastation in retaliation for Hamas’s “bad thing”. The saga continues with both sides being sort of right and very wrong at the same time.
“Nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong.” (Buffalo Springfield)
Another commenter on Joyce's posts gave me some information on WHY Biden & Blinken cannot simply reach out & "stop" Netanhahu or military shipments - some of the information is here - not all. Anyone who seriously WANTS to know why this is so difficult - rather than just accuse Biden of sitting on his hands?
We have signed agreements since 1953 to give Israel military aid and Biden cannot abrogate those.” And the press knows very very very well about these agreements. It’s up to us to plaster them and wide and ask the question: “what exactly do you want Biden to do?” And then let them know how Bush Junior and Connie Rice allowed Hamas on the ballot in 2006 without vetting them. How can anyone be a secretary of state without doing that? The Republicans dropped the ball. That’s why we are here today. And I remember Hillary Clinton when we had flareups in the Middle East when she would speak about Hamas never should have been allowed on the ballot. If something isn’t right in front of our nose, we ‘other’ them. Nobody gets this situation more than Biden. He is the intelligence president because he reads the intelligence and he respects his intelligence departments. He knows exactly what is going on with Netanyahu, Putin and Trump.
Louder Maggie. Nobody wants to read "Ancient History". It's so much easier to yell and accuse. Tom said it better than I ever could, and I have addressed this issue many times.
I didnt look up all the info - but someone else DID - she felt she wasnt getting much response to it - I think she must have posted it a while ago.
Honestly - seems to me if there is a REASON Biden is unable to stop the military shipments - that itself should be reported by our "main stream media" journalists - doesnt it?
We need accurate information and we shouldn't have to beg for it. Biden and his Administration have been, and continue to do an incredible job under exceedingly difficult circumstances at home and abroad. The Yam People dance around with their mouths agape spouting biblical prophecies and political slogans while Biden and Co. do the hard work of governing.
Ally, to quote you, ' it seems to me that so many of the people you so eloquently describe are rebels searching for a rebellion. I think that students become enamored with the “glory” of protests and don’t stop to think critically about what is actually going on.'
Precisely. Rebels searching for rebellion, and perhaps a meaning for their lives? Also, and I feel it in m'bones, it's now become highly 'fashionable' to join these protests.
Hamas is in fact a single entity, as you imply. It is a terrorist organization and death cult dedicated to destroying Israel and killing as many people as possible in the process. Hamas is just fine when the dead are Gazans, as it helps them politically.
Israel, while one country, is a democracy with many component parts, which gets obscured when described as a single thing.
For example, it was Israelis who issued the warnings about Hamas' buildups. Israeli women soldiers, low level ones on the front lines and high level ones in military intelligence, warned the men in charge that it looked like an attack from Hamas was imminent. Israeli men who were the political and military leaders ignored the warnings of the Israeli military women. Sound familiar?
Israel did not create Hamas. Palestinians did that. Right wing Israeli leaders did, however, help Hamas to grow because they thought it was a good idea. (arrggggghhh!) Meanwhile, there were a significant number of Israelis working toward peace with Palestinian counterparts. Many of those Israelis lived in the settlements near the Gaza border, where they were killed on October 7. That attack was not just "a bad thing" - it was a brutal massacre. One example: a friend of friends of mine, a peace activist for decades named Vivian Silver, was burned to ashes in her home that day.
There are plenty of valid reasons to argue against the Israeli government's decision to counter-attack Hamas despite its use of civilians as shields. I won't list any of them here. But the attack was not retaliation, not a "you hurt me so I will hurt you" kind of thing. Hamas announced clearly its elation over the massacre and its intention to repeat it. The point of the Israeli invasion was to remove that threat.
In any case, the violence will end only when enough Israelis and Palestinians, as an Irish friend of mine never tires of pointing out, decide that nothing, nothing, is more important than finding a way for their grandchildren to stay alive.
I remember reading that one of the student leaders at Berkeley in the '60s went into a funk when the University met all his demands. It put him out of a job.
There are a lot of shallow people out there. Having grown up in Berkeley during a very turbulent time when so much was happening on the Left, it was indeed peculiar to see the Right steal the script.
That, and I made several long-term friends who I've been very happy to know these past 50 years. One of those classes--I got grounded in environmental science by John Holdren, who later became Pres O's Science Advisor. Very important stuff I learned, including about global warming, back in the winter or spring quarter of 1975.
I recently was looking over a long project paper I'd done in a class given by Arlie Hochschild, and I was very impressed with what I'd written. Another terrific and inspiring teacher--who I think is still teaching, although she's probably pushing 80. I saw her give a book talk five years ago, and talked to her after. I had some great teachers!
Sigh. I too remember the burn-it-all-down zealots of the 60s and early 70s -- and how they played so perfectly into the hands of who they thought were their polar opposites but who were merely the mirror image of their endlessly discussed philosophy: the pigs, the heat, the Man. I'm watching these protests unfold and quickly devolve, including on my alma mater campus of Cal Poly Humboldt, as well as the ham-handed response of some of the college presidents (what did Columbia's president THINK would happen when police in riot gear came to break up the first, modest encampment there??) — and shaking my head. Apparently we lose our collective memory right around 50 years, at which point we have to repeat our idiot mistakes. Only with better weapons and communications. I keep thinking of John Lennon's lyrics: "But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao, you ain't gonna make it with anyone anyhow." God help us.
I was grinding through the gears of two jobs while sprinting the academic gauntlet full-time back in the sixties. Meanwhile, irony danced on the campus lawns—rich kids, their pockets lined by the fortunes of ancestors or the neat stacks of trust fund checks, were the ones waving banners and shouting down the establishment. I knew folks who shipped off to Vietnam out of sheer volunteer spirit; three of them returned only to be draped in flags, silent as the grave.
These clowns, they don't grasp the chaos they're stirring, the relentless damage being carved into the backbone of this nation. Caught in the crossfire between Trump’s brigade and a wave of protesters, we're in the squeeze and there's no light, no exit sign in this twisted tunnel of national frenzy.
You are so right about the "chaos they're stirring," which is the cloak the right wing agents of chaos slip into when they want to fan the flames that only an authoritarian can douse with his big anti-democracy hose. I understand the NYC police commissioner is insistent that the majority of the protestors rounded up were NOT students at Columbia. So where'd they come from and why and under whose supervision? And all those matching tents? I hope the FBI has some of their best undercover folks checking out what's going on in the same way they did the West Coast Satanists back in the day. (One of them told me that at one point their were more undercover agents attending the satanic worship sessions than their were satanists.)
Lots of cray-cray out and about, but one good ending occurred here in Pittsburgh. The police discussed the situation with the leaders of the protestors who were camping out on public land adjacent to the University of Pittsburgh. The protesters agreed to not go on campus (graduating seniors thanked them), not engage in vandalism or hate speech, among other things, and to break camp on Sunday. They followed through, and left the site Sunday having made their point, whatever it was. I absolutely support the right to protest - if one can’t do it in academia, where can you? - but the level of ignorance of some of these folks is mind boggling.
Boy did this column resonate with me. I grew up in Berkeley, California, and know exactly what you're talking about. I remember when Reagan sent the National Guard down Shattuck Avenue in tanks in the middle of our Berkeley High lunch hour. I remember the kid who very seriously asked me "When the revolution comes, what side are you going to be on?" before launching into a lengthy diatribe about Marxist/Leninist ideology. So many so-called "leaders" who didn't do anything but pose for the camera even then. The spotlight grabbers always want to "burn it all down," but then it's the quiet ones who have to come in when it's over and rebuild.
I was living in an apartment a few blocks from the UC Berkeley campus in the summer of 1968. There were regular crowds that would gather on Telegraph Avenue to listen to antiwar speakers rile them up and rile up the waiting police. After this went on for a while, the police would storm out of their positions, bang heads, and arrest whoever they caught. Being a rather timid soul, I would leave when the tension increased and go home. I tell you all this because those rile-em-up speakers were friends of one of my room-mates. They reached my apartment at nearly the same time I did. Stirred up trouble and then quick hid from it.
I was 4 blocks from campus, one block toward the hills from Telegraph, near the beginning of Regent St in a modern (at the time) apartment building. I was extremely unimpressed with these men who setup others to get hurt and ran away themselves. Went to one SDS meeting, where the women made coffee and the men debated how to take over national SDS to increase their political power. So much for idealism.
An idiot who had the partial excuse of being a 16 year old boy (kid brother of an actual rent-paying roomie), invited some self-anointed "revolutionaries" to move into our living room. These two men wore all white, ate our food, contributed nothing but a pack of useless followers. They told respectful stories of a "revolutionary" in Central America whose virtue lay in hosting them on his hacienda. They smoked a lot of pot, never let anyone get any peace and quiet. They got a neighbor's kitten high, let it burn its paws on the electric stove without alerting anyone (neighbor took his cat to the vet when he got home), then self-righteously flounced off to parts unknown a few days later when I kicked them out. Did you happen to meet them?
there were a lot of weirdos around back then, they must have gotten lost in the crowd on Telegraph.
Do you remember a very hip women's clothing store down Telegraph from the Mediterraneum - about halfway down? It was created by a young woman named Jacqueline West. Today she's an older woman with three Oscars and several nominations for costume design on A-list movies. She works with the likes of Dennis Villenueve (Blade Runner 2049, Dune 1 and 2) and Scorsese - nominated this year for costume design for "Killers of the Flower Moon."
I'm glad I didn't get to Berkeley until '73. I missed most of the stupid stuff.
I missed all that women making coffee while the men debated BIG ISSUES. I learned early in life that women were equal to men, when my parents decided they needed to explain that to me. My maternal grandmother had a PhD and so did both of her daughters.
I could go on and on, Tom. You laid it down so perfectly, I can only add footnotes or a corolllary thought or two.
Back in the day there was the Spartacist League (cists, anyone?). The revolutionary anarchist group with nothing better to do than try to validate their own existence, while drawing police action that gets headlines.They, and others always showed up at demonstrations and rallys to disrupt and draw attention to themselves as they caused violence to justify their martyrdom. Today, there are those provoking confronatation who are emboldened by the swift crackdowns at the uviversities. The issue at hand is lost in the media coverage.
Who, exactly, they are and funded by today, is not known at this time. The live news last night on MSNBC stated that NYPD was aware of the identities of several who were not students and had been known to them for a while. Similar to what I was told by SFPD in 1991 when I was the liason with the police department as the San Francisco anti war march down Market Street was being organized. The Captain in charge of monitoring the march told me quite clearly that he and many of SFPD were were with us and thought the coming war was a political piece of crap. We worked very well together. Keeping track of the crazies was hard work, but that massive march was pulled off with no significant violence or arrests. Last night, the world was watching and NYPD was being very careful.
The nothing better to do Bourgeios crazies are here to stay, unfortunatly.
Every so many decades, the college generation feels an obligation to let the rest of us know how higher education in America is faring by showing us that at that tender age they still aren't anywhere nearly as smart as they think they are, no matter how much dough is spent on the enterprise.
But, gee. What if someone threw a protest and no one much came, much less acted like a bunch of spoiled, ill-informed, immature kids playing monkey see, monkey do and just looking for a physical confrontation with *the man* in order to prove their self-righteous bona fides and get more prominently into the news cycle?
When I was in college I participated in teach-ins designed to end the bombing of Cambodia. We students went out into the community and talked with people about the war. It was a lot of work and took a lot of time away from studying. But I learned a lot about differing views doing that, even though I received a D- in my political science class that quarter. What I also remember vividly is that the only scene that was broadcast on television about the protest was that of a student "leader" who stayed on campus and raised his fist. Some things don't change much and grandstanding by the extreme right and left is one of them.
I dream that millions will stand up in the footsteps of Ghandi, MLK, & John Lewis in non violent protest across the nation before it's too late to reach those who pay no attention to what is happening. I would welcome the opportunity to have more than just my 1 vote & the option to start writing postcards .
Yes, they all put on a great show but that was about it. They also broke so many windows on Telegraph Avenue that shops were boarded up for years. So many memories. My 50th high school reunion is coming up and I have no desire to go back.
Thank you for reminding me of the insanity of the cretins of my youth. The “conservative” nuts since have blurred my memory of just how insane the idiots were. That they mix with legitimate protesters is their key to legitimacy. I figured out by the end of October that the Palestinian cause had been hijacked by radicals for the sake of being radical. Antisemitism is never ok, no matter what ass wipe Netanyahu does. They are helping chump, which is insanity, and negates any so-called concern for the Palestinian people. I can’t watch one second of the bull Schitt. Mace their arses, then give them a little jail time.
I have said I do not find it hard to be pro-Israel, anti-Hamas, pro-two state solution, pro-peace, and anti-Netanyahu. I do not doubt that some protesters are sincere, and that some are idiots, and that some are simply rabble-rousers and bigots.
The key to me is that they (along with the Columbia University president) giving republicans, who are themselves not sincere but certainly idiots and anti-semites, the chance to sound like they give a flying etcetera about Israel.
Exactly.
exactly, exactly, exactly.
this is a fabulous piece, Tom. as usual, anger has given you added eloquence.
I want to speak at some length about this stuff because, like many people here, I remember 1968 very, very well. and the whole PL or NCLC "battle" for the hearts and minds of...well, supposedly EVERYBODY was something I could observe from a distance, despite the fact that the following year, part of CCNY actually did go up in literal flames over the issue of Open Admissions. I stayed out of things because 1) I didn't want to embarrass my father, who was a highly placed administrator and 2) most of the "foot soldiers" I knew directly were either unserious or desperate to be hip or thought they'd get laid more easily or were just craving excitement after shooting heroin in the men's room of the South Campus cafeteria. at least half a dozen of them were dead within ten years of graduating, if they actually bothered to graduate.
but the thing is, I don't feel up to it. this was the worst day of my life in nine years because it was the day I knew the only thing to do was to help my Jubal over the Rainbow Bridge. my best friend Danny was here to help all day and I found myself relying a lot on my Aspie grand-nephew who's in Seattle and is one of my favorite people. I need to change my Daisy avatar to one of Jubie, possibly the most photogenic dog who ever lived.
but more tomorrow...I promise. or maybe threaten?
sorry, that was a shitty joke, but I'm gonna let it stand for now because this whole deal is getting me angrier and angrier and my tendency is often to dismiss that anger as being a symptom of some sort of old fogey-ness. did I spell that correctly? but the level of bullshit I've been hearing at some of these "protests" is reaching the level of sepsis. and I've actually HAD sepsis.
did you hear Ms. Omar's snide little answer at Columbia the other day? the one about the importance of dialogue between those who are pro or anti genocide? she lost me with that one, my immediate response being something I will not repeat here because it's gotten me in trouble on other Substacks. let's just say she earned it. big time. it's after two and if I'm going to sleep tonight, I'd better begin the process of winding down. that was me being optimistic...
it's also probably a very good time to say how grateful I am to be here, at TAFM. thanks Tom. thanks Everybody.
I'm so sorry to hear about Jubal, David. I'm looking at the same thing sometime this summer with my Cookie Cat, the best little lady I was every privileged to know. They come in our lives and bless us with their presence and then they're always gone too soon, no matter how long they were with us.
all of that, Tom.
every time I see another school go a little nuts, I am more afraid that these stupid schmucks are going to usher in a Repug victory in November. what's Gaza (not to mention everything ELSE) gonna look like with TFF (who really does act and talk like he has tertiary syphilis) back in power?
The idiots who think that Biden is too cozy with Israel may not learn that lesson, but they will learn something in the internment camps in 2025 if republicans get back in.
Yup.
Spot on Michael
me too. that Columbia president (typical of all too many Columbia administrators--and faculty-- throughout history...let's remember that the horrifying Dunnant "school" of so-called "Reconstruction history" was based there., even if Eric Foner's work at the same school ((and earlier, CCNY)) was the work that undid Dunnant's) was one of the best examples I've ever seen of someone sitting down to devour a very large plate of shit to keep her job. and let's face it...it's a damned good job. lots of dinners in exchange for fund raising and a large, unearned salary (also including some very expensive free housing).
I have some extremely unkind things to say about Ms. Stefanik, but I'm not about to share them too explicitly here. and let's face it...we all share them.
Stefanik is such a shameless striver, willing to publicly demonstrate she believes in nothing, but will pretend to be sincere if it advances her up the greasy pole.
Bravo, TC. I’m gonna need to read this a few more times, quite possibly with a spreadsheet to track all the moving parts.
One opinion I hold: it seems to me that so many of the people you so eloquently describe are rebels searching for a rebellion. I think that students become enamored with the “glory” of protests and don’t stop to think critically about what is actually going on.
My very pedestrian assessment:
On October 7th, Hamas did a bad thing. Israel was warned about the “bad thing” and ignored the warning. Oh, but Israel created Hamas and the environment for Hamas to justify doing a “bad thing”. Then, Israel responded with 10 times the devastation in retaliation for Hamas’s “bad thing”. The saga continues with both sides being sort of right and very wrong at the same time.
“Nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong.” (Buffalo Springfield)
Yes indeed.
Another commenter on Joyce's posts gave me some information on WHY Biden & Blinken cannot simply reach out & "stop" Netanhahu or military shipments - some of the information is here - not all. Anyone who seriously WANTS to know why this is so difficult - rather than just accuse Biden of sitting on his hands?
We have signed agreements since 1953 to give Israel military aid and Biden cannot abrogate those.” And the press knows very very very well about these agreements. It’s up to us to plaster them and wide and ask the question: “what exactly do you want Biden to do?” And then let them know how Bush Junior and Connie Rice allowed Hamas on the ballot in 2006 without vetting them. How can anyone be a secretary of state without doing that? The Republicans dropped the ball. That’s why we are here today. And I remember Hillary Clinton when we had flareups in the Middle East when she would speak about Hamas never should have been allowed on the ballot. If something isn’t right in front of our nose, we ‘other’ them. Nobody gets this situation more than Biden. He is the intelligence president because he reads the intelligence and he respects his intelligence departments. He knows exactly what is going on with Netanyahu, Putin and Trump.
Go to the US State Dept - or google! Read WHY!!
Louder Maggie. Nobody wants to read "Ancient History". It's so much easier to yell and accuse. Tom said it better than I ever could, and I have addressed this issue many times.
I didnt look up all the info - but someone else DID - she felt she wasnt getting much response to it - I think she must have posted it a while ago.
Honestly - seems to me if there is a REASON Biden is unable to stop the military shipments - that itself should be reported by our "main stream media" journalists - doesnt it?
We need accurate information and we shouldn't have to beg for it. Biden and his Administration have been, and continue to do an incredible job under exceedingly difficult circumstances at home and abroad. The Yam People dance around with their mouths agape spouting biblical prophecies and political slogans while Biden and Co. do the hard work of governing.
Aint that the truth! Yam People huh? Very very descriptive.
They should be checking to see if it’s raining outside, instead of saying the repubs report a storm. They have access to our history, duh
Right. Good luck with that. Biden should at least address the issue so people don't think he is the one throwing arms to Israel.
You can trace EVERY problem we face today, to either Repub action or inaction at some point in our recent past. Every one.
Ally, to quote you, ' it seems to me that so many of the people you so eloquently describe are rebels searching for a rebellion. I think that students become enamored with the “glory” of protests and don’t stop to think critically about what is actually going on.'
Precisely. Rebels searching for rebellion, and perhaps a meaning for their lives? Also, and I feel it in m'bones, it's now become highly 'fashionable' to join these protests.
Hamas is in fact a single entity, as you imply. It is a terrorist organization and death cult dedicated to destroying Israel and killing as many people as possible in the process. Hamas is just fine when the dead are Gazans, as it helps them politically.
Israel, while one country, is a democracy with many component parts, which gets obscured when described as a single thing.
For example, it was Israelis who issued the warnings about Hamas' buildups. Israeli women soldiers, low level ones on the front lines and high level ones in military intelligence, warned the men in charge that it looked like an attack from Hamas was imminent. Israeli men who were the political and military leaders ignored the warnings of the Israeli military women. Sound familiar?
Israel did not create Hamas. Palestinians did that. Right wing Israeli leaders did, however, help Hamas to grow because they thought it was a good idea. (arrggggghhh!) Meanwhile, there were a significant number of Israelis working toward peace with Palestinian counterparts. Many of those Israelis lived in the settlements near the Gaza border, where they were killed on October 7. That attack was not just "a bad thing" - it was a brutal massacre. One example: a friend of friends of mine, a peace activist for decades named Vivian Silver, was burned to ashes in her home that day.
There are plenty of valid reasons to argue against the Israeli government's decision to counter-attack Hamas despite its use of civilians as shields. I won't list any of them here. But the attack was not retaliation, not a "you hurt me so I will hurt you" kind of thing. Hamas announced clearly its elation over the massacre and its intention to repeat it. The point of the Israeli invasion was to remove that threat.
In any case, the violence will end only when enough Israelis and Palestinians, as an Irish friend of mine never tires of pointing out, decide that nothing, nothing, is more important than finding a way for their grandchildren to stay alive.
Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo has a good article on this topic. Here is a gift link: https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/a-few-thoughts-on-the-situation-in-israel-palestine-and-on-the-campuses/sharetoken/eWITWCqjx5HF
As someone of Irish heritage, I can appreciate your reference to “The Troubles” and all the destruction that went on.
I remember reading that one of the student leaders at Berkeley in the '60s went into a funk when the University met all his demands. It put him out of a job.
Reason for his existence just swept away. A human tragedy that someone was so shallow
There are a lot of shallow people out there. Having grown up in Berkeley during a very turbulent time when so much was happening on the Left, it was indeed peculiar to see the Right steal the script.
And steal it they did
I'm laughing. Sheesh! I'm glad I got to Berkeley after the performative protests were over--nothing to distract me from my very interesting classes.
The very interesting classes are what made it worthwhile.
That, and I made several long-term friends who I've been very happy to know these past 50 years. One of those classes--I got grounded in environmental science by John Holdren, who later became Pres O's Science Advisor. Very important stuff I learned, including about global warming, back in the winter or spring quarter of 1975.
I recently was looking over a long project paper I'd done in a class given by Arlie Hochschild, and I was very impressed with what I'd written. Another terrific and inspiring teacher--who I think is still teaching, although she's probably pushing 80. I saw her give a book talk five years ago, and talked to her after. I had some great teachers!
My sediments entirely, Ally. I was there, Tom was thete, you were there. Something was off, very off.
No innocents in the power structure there
Sigh. I too remember the burn-it-all-down zealots of the 60s and early 70s -- and how they played so perfectly into the hands of who they thought were their polar opposites but who were merely the mirror image of their endlessly discussed philosophy: the pigs, the heat, the Man. I'm watching these protests unfold and quickly devolve, including on my alma mater campus of Cal Poly Humboldt, as well as the ham-handed response of some of the college presidents (what did Columbia's president THINK would happen when police in riot gear came to break up the first, modest encampment there??) — and shaking my head. Apparently we lose our collective memory right around 50 years, at which point we have to repeat our idiot mistakes. Only with better weapons and communications. I keep thinking of John Lennon's lyrics: "But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao, you ain't gonna make it with anyone anyhow." God help us.
Lennon was right.
I am haunted by Camus' end of The Plague, "The rats on gone now, but wait another fifty years and they'll be back.
You make one interesting comment after another!
50 years tops, it seems. Or maybe four for magats
I was grinding through the gears of two jobs while sprinting the academic gauntlet full-time back in the sixties. Meanwhile, irony danced on the campus lawns—rich kids, their pockets lined by the fortunes of ancestors or the neat stacks of trust fund checks, were the ones waving banners and shouting down the establishment. I knew folks who shipped off to Vietnam out of sheer volunteer spirit; three of them returned only to be draped in flags, silent as the grave.
These clowns, they don't grasp the chaos they're stirring, the relentless damage being carved into the backbone of this nation. Caught in the crossfire between Trump’s brigade and a wave of protesters, we're in the squeeze and there's no light, no exit sign in this twisted tunnel of national frenzy.
You are so right about the "chaos they're stirring," which is the cloak the right wing agents of chaos slip into when they want to fan the flames that only an authoritarian can douse with his big anti-democracy hose. I understand the NYC police commissioner is insistent that the majority of the protestors rounded up were NOT students at Columbia. So where'd they come from and why and under whose supervision? And all those matching tents? I hope the FBI has some of their best undercover folks checking out what's going on in the same way they did the West Coast Satanists back in the day. (One of them told me that at one point their were more undercover agents attending the satanic worship sessions than their were satanists.)
Crazy, glad I missed all that
Lots of cray-cray out and about, but one good ending occurred here in Pittsburgh. The police discussed the situation with the leaders of the protestors who were camping out on public land adjacent to the University of Pittsburgh. The protesters agreed to not go on campus (graduating seniors thanked them), not engage in vandalism or hate speech, among other things, and to break camp on Sunday. They followed through, and left the site Sunday having made their point, whatever it was. I absolutely support the right to protest - if one can’t do it in academia, where can you? - but the level of ignorance of some of these folks is mind boggling.
Woman reporter: "What are you rebelling against, Johnny?"
Johnny: "What have you got?"
From "The Wild One"
Perfect!
What a good story. Thank you for sharing that.
You can't find retribution for 1
Holocaust by embracing
another.
There is never going to be
any physical, moral or
spiritual balance that will
ever compensate for the
deaths of half the Jewish
population in the 3s & 40s.
The same applies to the
Palestinians in Gaza today.
All of these college students
and outsiders firing them up
live, for the present, in a free
country, where to a certain
degree, they are allowed and
tolerated to protest to the
extents they have.
I don't see any protests in
Gaza.
So, do these college kids and others really think all this here is beneficial to the
people in Gaza? Are they
even thinking?
Brains hijacked by zombies, a brain is a terrible thing to waste
NO
Boy did this column resonate with me. I grew up in Berkeley, California, and know exactly what you're talking about. I remember when Reagan sent the National Guard down Shattuck Avenue in tanks in the middle of our Berkeley High lunch hour. I remember the kid who very seriously asked me "When the revolution comes, what side are you going to be on?" before launching into a lengthy diatribe about Marxist/Leninist ideology. So many so-called "leaders" who didn't do anything but pose for the camera even then. The spotlight grabbers always want to "burn it all down," but then it's the quiet ones who have to come in when it's over and rebuild.
I was living in an apartment a few blocks from the UC Berkeley campus in the summer of 1968. There were regular crowds that would gather on Telegraph Avenue to listen to antiwar speakers rile them up and rile up the waiting police. After this went on for a while, the police would storm out of their positions, bang heads, and arrest whoever they caught. Being a rather timid soul, I would leave when the tension increased and go home. I tell you all this because those rile-em-up speakers were friends of one of my room-mates. They reached my apartment at nearly the same time I did. Stirred up trouble and then quick hid from it.
We must have been living a few blocks apart back then, Joan. I saw the same things you describe here.
I was 4 blocks from campus, one block toward the hills from Telegraph, near the beginning of Regent St in a modern (at the time) apartment building. I was extremely unimpressed with these men who setup others to get hurt and ran away themselves. Went to one SDS meeting, where the women made coffee and the men debated how to take over national SDS to increase their political power. So much for idealism.
You'd have had a lot of "fun" at the 1967 SDS National Convention (of which I tell a story above)
An idiot who had the partial excuse of being a 16 year old boy (kid brother of an actual rent-paying roomie), invited some self-anointed "revolutionaries" to move into our living room. These two men wore all white, ate our food, contributed nothing but a pack of useless followers. They told respectful stories of a "revolutionary" in Central America whose virtue lay in hosting them on his hacienda. They smoked a lot of pot, never let anyone get any peace and quiet. They got a neighbor's kitten high, let it burn its paws on the electric stove without alerting anyone (neighbor took his cat to the vet when he got home), then self-righteously flounced off to parts unknown a few days later when I kicked them out. Did you happen to meet them?
there were a lot of weirdos around back then, they must have gotten lost in the crowd on Telegraph.
Do you remember a very hip women's clothing store down Telegraph from the Mediterraneum - about halfway down? It was created by a young woman named Jacqueline West. Today she's an older woman with three Oscars and several nominations for costume design on A-list movies. She works with the likes of Dennis Villenueve (Blade Runner 2049, Dune 1 and 2) and Scorsese - nominated this year for costume design for "Killers of the Flower Moon."
Good lord, kitten abuse the worst
I'm glad I didn't get to Berkeley until '73. I missed most of the stupid stuff.
I missed all that women making coffee while the men debated BIG ISSUES. I learned early in life that women were equal to men, when my parents decided they needed to explain that to me. My maternal grandmother had a PhD and so did both of her daughters.
I could go on and on, Tom. You laid it down so perfectly, I can only add footnotes or a corolllary thought or two.
Back in the day there was the Spartacist League (cists, anyone?). The revolutionary anarchist group with nothing better to do than try to validate their own existence, while drawing police action that gets headlines.They, and others always showed up at demonstrations and rallys to disrupt and draw attention to themselves as they caused violence to justify their martyrdom. Today, there are those provoking confronatation who are emboldened by the swift crackdowns at the uviversities. The issue at hand is lost in the media coverage.
Who, exactly, they are and funded by today, is not known at this time. The live news last night on MSNBC stated that NYPD was aware of the identities of several who were not students and had been known to them for a while. Similar to what I was told by SFPD in 1991 when I was the liason with the police department as the San Francisco anti war march down Market Street was being organized. The Captain in charge of monitoring the march told me quite clearly that he and many of SFPD were were with us and thought the coming war was a political piece of crap. We worked very well together. Keeping track of the crazies was hard work, but that massive march was pulled off with no significant violence or arrests. Last night, the world was watching and NYPD was being very careful.
The nothing better to do Bourgeios crazies are here to stay, unfortunatly.
Every so many decades, the college generation feels an obligation to let the rest of us know how higher education in America is faring by showing us that at that tender age they still aren't anywhere nearly as smart as they think they are, no matter how much dough is spent on the enterprise.
But, gee. What if someone threw a protest and no one much came, much less acted like a bunch of spoiled, ill-informed, immature kids playing monkey see, monkey do and just looking for a physical confrontation with *the man* in order to prove their self-righteous bona fides and get more prominently into the news cycle?
Who the heck knew *victory* could be so simple?
https://www.michigannewssource.com/2024/04/msu-pro-palestine-encampment-closes-its-camp-on-saturday-vows-to-keep-protesting/
Infiltrated VVAW was interesting. And fun to know I wasn’t alone. Good report. Thank you.
When I was in college I participated in teach-ins designed to end the bombing of Cambodia. We students went out into the community and talked with people about the war. It was a lot of work and took a lot of time away from studying. But I learned a lot about differing views doing that, even though I received a D- in my political science class that quarter. What I also remember vividly is that the only scene that was broadcast on television about the protest was that of a student "leader" who stayed on campus and raised his fist. Some things don't change much and grandstanding by the extreme right and left is one of them.
Vie
Some things don’t change much. That idiot gene is always with us. Hopefully mine has lost power with age.
I dream that millions will stand up in the footsteps of Ghandi, MLK, & John Lewis in non violent protest across the nation before it's too late to reach those who pay no attention to what is happening. I would welcome the opportunity to have more than just my 1 vote & the option to start writing postcards .
Life is sad
Life is a bust
All you can do is do what you must
You do what you must do & do it well. Dylan
Great post TC _ meet me at Canters bakery ?
We could. DM me.
I was born in Berkeley. It made for great tales to share with my cousins in Ohio during family reunions.
Hi Joan,
Yes, they all put on a great show but that was about it. They also broke so many windows on Telegraph Avenue that shops were boarded up for years. So many memories. My 50th high school reunion is coming up and I have no desire to go back.
You don't like "The People's Democratic Republic of Berserkely"??? :-)
Big time.
Thank you for reminding me of the insanity of the cretins of my youth. The “conservative” nuts since have blurred my memory of just how insane the idiots were. That they mix with legitimate protesters is their key to legitimacy. I figured out by the end of October that the Palestinian cause had been hijacked by radicals for the sake of being radical. Antisemitism is never ok, no matter what ass wipe Netanyahu does. They are helping chump, which is insanity, and negates any so-called concern for the Palestinian people. I can’t watch one second of the bull Schitt. Mace their arses, then give them a little jail time.