University students across the country, facing mass arrests, suspensions, evictions and explusions are our last, best hope to halt the genocide in Gaza.
As a student at the University of Texas in the 1960s I marched and protested the war in Vietnam. Things have gotten steadily worse, and my heart goes out to these brave students who are representative of the best of their generation. I salute them all.
These protests reveal a basic fact. Universities have become such pure corporate structures that folks who work in their administration and don't get out quickly become typical mouthpiece corporate drones bent to the will of big money. That the big money comes from the Israel lobby in this case is unsurprising -- echoing Max Blumenthal today on Judge Nap: “the Israel lobby is the greatest existential threat to free speech in the US today.”
Is this a democracy or fascist state that silences our own university students and many others? They are being deprived of their Miranda rights and threatened with expulsion for daring to speak truth to cowardly power. This is disgusting!
It’s way past time to get the Biden Administration charged under 18 U.S. Code § 1091, which is the statute that incorporated the Genocide Convention in US criminal law. Members of this administration shouldn't go a single day without having this statute in their faces, up front and center at every protest at every meeting, press conference, briefing, and trips home and abroad.
They may feel they are immune now, but let's get them considering what is possible when they leave office, given they have set the precedent of charging former presidents. They should have visions of prison all the days of their lives. Let us find the way.
Got weepy at the end there. Celebrating Passover tonight. We are supposed to feel what it's like being the ones enslaved, being the underdog, the victim, and move to make this impossible for all others. And here we are. I'm with the students, and feel shame and chagrin that these supposed institutions of higher learning are behaving this way. Institutions behaving. What are we teaching these students? That might makes right. Yeah, that's what the US does.
If everything is about profit, not ethics or morals, then you end up where the US is now. Universities are business entities expected to make a profit NOT to educate students or provide them with a platform for free speech. To understand the utterly fascist US just follow the money and assume that the profit motive trumps EVERYTHING else.
It is only going to get worse in the days and weeks ahead. How far are the Americans willing to go on either side? Will this mass protest die out because of these draconian authoritarians? Like the Black Lives matter protests? I hope not but I do fear for the students who stand to lose everything but their lives, and maybe even that. Are they willing to die for their convictions? Is the U.S. going to have another Kent State episode? What will the democrats do then? Cornel West is starting to look better as a presidential candidate as an alternative to genocide Joe and King Donald.
Communities all over the country must support these students by opening their doors, providing guest rooms and meals. These bravo young people deserve that and so much more. Put out the call. When Hurricane Irene hit in 2011 I called a friend at the United Way and asked her to call the governor's office asking him to put the call out to second home owners in Vermont to open their door to Vermonters whose homes had been devastated. Governor Shumlin did and that morning 82 homes were opened up to families in need.
There must be an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. Pope Francis has said what is needed, now he must do what is needed by going to Gaza and standing for peace, justice and freedom.
Let us also support UNRWA. If our governments won’t act in accordance with humanity, then we will. https://www.unrwausa.org/donate Let us do it to honor Aaron Bushnell, or in memory of Hind Rajab.
Let us call for a No Fly-Zone over Gaza!
These are a few small things we can do. If we can do more, let us do more.
Quote: "Not one university president has denounced Israel’s destruction of every university in Gaza. Not one university president has called for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire. Not one university president has used the words “apartheid” or “genocide.” Not one university president has called for sanctions and divestment from Israel." End quote.
That is because of who controls the purse strings. It also is the result of believing and promoting the idea/premise that the life of a Jew has greater value than the life of a Palestinian (Arab). Or, the Palestinian having no life value at all. One might also add the Goy to that population of the perceived lesser.
Where in history has standing with the police worked well for Jewish people? Since when has denying free speech to one group preserved the right for others?
As for Hedges saying "not one university president has called for sanctions and divestment" and "heads of these institutions grovel supinely before wealthy donors, corporations..." I don't think they're acquiescing at all. I just finished reading //American Oligarchy (The Permanent Political Class)// by Ron Formisano (2017.) A class whom he characterizes as "satisfied to bask in billionaire approval and to mingle with the One Percent..." Similarly the heads of academia--except they're not merely basking. Formisano lists outrageous salaries and perks these people receive plus the large slush funds they distribute to allies, calls it "Wall Street level compensation at academic institutions" and notes "a report from the Institute of Policy Studies found that from 2005-2012, student debt and the number of low-paid faculty rose fastest at the 25 universities with the highest compensated presidents."
This egregious academic elite is quite cognisant whence the butter on its bread. To them, this sort of unrest is merely by ingrates, privileged students biting the hand that feeds them. And of course the declasse', the uneducated American majority, deserves nothing but crumbs.
Template for education of, by, and for perpetuation of oligarchy.
I don’t how long they “the students” can keep this up. Back during the Vietnam War students were encouraged by their instructors, have very vocal anti war songs and a no real journalism in mainstream media so none of that exist anymore, except in places that the youths see, like
Most of the support has eroded away and this is the future we have left our children. They got much of what they knew from TikTok, which is going to be ban.
American is not the home of the brave, it’s the “not my problem, I’m up for “tenure“. I have a Family, whatever.
Like Holocaust Memorial by Pastor Martin Niemöller, “Then they came for the Jews And I did not speak out. Because I was not a Jew Then they came for me. And there was no one left. To speak out for me.”
As a student at the University of Texas in the 1960s I marched and protested the war in Vietnam. Things have gotten steadily worse, and my heart goes out to these brave students who are representative of the best of their generation. I salute them all.
These protests reveal a basic fact. Universities have become such pure corporate structures that folks who work in their administration and don't get out quickly become typical mouthpiece corporate drones bent to the will of big money. That the big money comes from the Israel lobby in this case is unsurprising -- echoing Max Blumenthal today on Judge Nap: “the Israel lobby is the greatest existential threat to free speech in the US today.”
Is this a democracy or fascist state that silences our own university students and many others? They are being deprived of their Miranda rights and threatened with expulsion for daring to speak truth to cowardly power. This is disgusting!
It’s way past time to get the Biden Administration charged under 18 U.S. Code § 1091, which is the statute that incorporated the Genocide Convention in US criminal law. Members of this administration shouldn't go a single day without having this statute in their faces, up front and center at every protest at every meeting, press conference, briefing, and trips home and abroad.
They may feel they are immune now, but let's get them considering what is possible when they leave office, given they have set the precedent of charging former presidents. They should have visions of prison all the days of their lives. Let us find the way.
Got weepy at the end there. Celebrating Passover tonight. We are supposed to feel what it's like being the ones enslaved, being the underdog, the victim, and move to make this impossible for all others. And here we are. I'm with the students, and feel shame and chagrin that these supposed institutions of higher learning are behaving this way. Institutions behaving. What are we teaching these students? That might makes right. Yeah, that's what the US does.
If everything is about profit, not ethics or morals, then you end up where the US is now. Universities are business entities expected to make a profit NOT to educate students or provide them with a platform for free speech. To understand the utterly fascist US just follow the money and assume that the profit motive trumps EVERYTHING else.
It is only going to get worse in the days and weeks ahead. How far are the Americans willing to go on either side? Will this mass protest die out because of these draconian authoritarians? Like the Black Lives matter protests? I hope not but I do fear for the students who stand to lose everything but their lives, and maybe even that. Are they willing to die for their convictions? Is the U.S. going to have another Kent State episode? What will the democrats do then? Cornel West is starting to look better as a presidential candidate as an alternative to genocide Joe and King Donald.
Communities all over the country must support these students by opening their doors, providing guest rooms and meals. These bravo young people deserve that and so much more. Put out the call. When Hurricane Irene hit in 2011 I called a friend at the United Way and asked her to call the governor's office asking him to put the call out to second home owners in Vermont to open their door to Vermonters whose homes had been devastated. Governor Shumlin did and that morning 82 homes were opened up to families in need.
If there is any question in anyone's mind that the US has become a fascist police state, let this dispel those questions.
What a disgusting, shameful day for Princeton University, and for the feckless bootlickers who supposedly provide leadership there.
The outsized and pervasive influence of the Israel lobby is astonishing.
There must be an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. Pope Francis has said what is needed, now he must do what is needed by going to Gaza and standing for peace, justice and freedom.
Please sign the petition and share widely.
https://chng.it/CRQ7qw4Gzn
Code pink
https://www.codepink.org/cnngaza?utm_campaign=12_15_pali_update_alert_3&utm_medium=email&utm_source=codepink
Let us also support UNRWA. If our governments won’t act in accordance with humanity, then we will. https://www.unrwausa.org/donate Let us do it to honor Aaron Bushnell, or in memory of Hind Rajab.
Let us call for a No Fly-Zone over Gaza!
These are a few small things we can do. If we can do more, let us do more.
Quote: "Not one university president has denounced Israel’s destruction of every university in Gaza. Not one university president has called for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire. Not one university president has used the words “apartheid” or “genocide.” Not one university president has called for sanctions and divestment from Israel." End quote.
That is because of who controls the purse strings. It also is the result of believing and promoting the idea/premise that the life of a Jew has greater value than the life of a Palestinian (Arab). Or, the Palestinian having no life value at all. One might also add the Goy to that population of the perceived lesser.
Where in history has standing with the police worked well for Jewish people? Since when has denying free speech to one group preserved the right for others?
As for Hedges saying "not one university president has called for sanctions and divestment" and "heads of these institutions grovel supinely before wealthy donors, corporations..." I don't think they're acquiescing at all. I just finished reading //American Oligarchy (The Permanent Political Class)// by Ron Formisano (2017.) A class whom he characterizes as "satisfied to bask in billionaire approval and to mingle with the One Percent..." Similarly the heads of academia--except they're not merely basking. Formisano lists outrageous salaries and perks these people receive plus the large slush funds they distribute to allies, calls it "Wall Street level compensation at academic institutions" and notes "a report from the Institute of Policy Studies found that from 2005-2012, student debt and the number of low-paid faculty rose fastest at the 25 universities with the highest compensated presidents."
This egregious academic elite is quite cognisant whence the butter on its bread. To them, this sort of unrest is merely by ingrates, privileged students biting the hand that feeds them. And of course the declasse', the uneducated American majority, deserves nothing but crumbs.
Template for education of, by, and for perpetuation of oligarchy.
I don’t how long they “the students” can keep this up. Back during the Vietnam War students were encouraged by their instructors, have very vocal anti war songs and a no real journalism in mainstream media so none of that exist anymore, except in places that the youths see, like
Most of the support has eroded away and this is the future we have left our children. They got much of what they knew from TikTok, which is going to be ban.
American is not the home of the brave, it’s the “not my problem, I’m up for “tenure“. I have a Family, whatever.
Like Holocaust Memorial by Pastor Martin Niemöller, “Then they came for the Jews And I did not speak out. Because I was not a Jew Then they came for me. And there was no one left. To speak out for me.”
How bad does it have to get?
It’s all about the billionaires