The courageous stance of students across the country in defiance of genocide is accompanied by a near total blackout of their voices. Their words are the ones we most need to hear.
My take from this goes back to the Vietnam War protests. The next step for the students may be a countrywide walk out. if they are willing to put their education on hold for a bit, a nationwide campus walkout would get the wealthy benefactors attention, since money is all they seem to pay attention to. Boycott the colleges and universities that are cracking down on student protestors and supporting Israel. There are enough students who would likely be on board with that, if it could be organized effectively. A good use for a social media app.
Will I be sanctioned now under the new terrorist bill making its way to the Senate for this post? Arrested for fomenting a rebellion? I'm Irish, this is what we do.
That the Biden regime and Columbia University treat even the children of the rich and connected this roughly shows how tied they are to the regime in Israel.
Columbia's always been fed by its big Zionist donors. I was a child of middle class immigrants, and we who opposed Vietnam and their slum-lordship in Harlem were all treated like shit in 1968. In that sense, I guess you could say they were more egalitarian -- in their suppression of their students' speech and political opposition to their warmongering society.
At the very least the Genocide in Gaza has fully exposed before the entire world the pure evil of the Western Empire and the complete hypocrisy of its rules based order. There is no going back from this.
I wish. That is what we hoped, prayed and worked for ... after Kent State, during Vietnam, the hope that was Chile, Nicaragua, Guatemala - before all were distorted and crushed by 'empire'. My current hope - is as the truth of what is happening in 'Gaza' - and all the other 'Gazas' happening in our worlds - combined with our ever deepening ecological crisis - can motivate us to counter the deep pocketed reactionism that started in spades in the 1990's.
It will take a major mental and spiritual evolution of humans to accomplish this. I too was an anti-war protester during the Vietnam war, and a major road in our town (Evanston, IL, Northwestern University) was blockaded for a week after the Kent State massacre. But after Kent State the rebellion faded. People leave school and have to get jobs, get married & have kids, get mortgages & other bills, and get more conservative & closed-minded as they get older. If you were to look at the anti-Vietnam war protesters now, I'd be willing to bet that the large majority of them are now pro-establishment, as in supporting the U.S. proxy war in Ukraine, for example.
It's good to see these student protests and I fully support them. I'd like to think that this generation of protesters will be better than ours, and will continue to fight the establishment. However, I've seen nothing to convince me that will happen.
The problem isn't that religions are ideologies, it's that they're a perversion of the spirituality upon which they were originally based. And that they're used to control people and to create horrible behaviors, like destroying the natural environment and committing genocide against native peoples.
To focus on Judaism and object to opposing western empire is antisemitic BS, I don't give a damn how you couch it. Christianity and Islam have done far more harm and damage than Judaism, give me a break. Just admit it: you're antisemitic.
One of the most egregious assaults on an encampment occurred at Penn, where an outside agitator sprayed an unknown chemical substance on the encampment grounds, tents, banners, food, library etc. He was filmed while doing it. I saw video of his assaults and arrest, where he was treated very gently by police. I was told he received a $60 fine with no criminal charges filed.
This chemical warfare - treating students like vermin - received little press. Links and photos here:
Very moving report. I am 1000% behind these pro Palestine protests and encampments. These students are the Harriet Tubman, MLK Jr., Gandhi and Nelson Mandela of their time. These universities are appalling and deserve no respect from anyone when they are facilitating a genocide in Gaza and calling the fascist cops and pro Zionists on them. It’s despicable.😢☮️🇵🇸
Thank you Chris. I am so very proud and impressed with these young people and hope with all my heart that they (and we) prevail. The world is in a dark place but I feel hope from the conversations you had and shared with these students. Great journalism, so appreciated.
"These administrators demand, like all who manage corporate systems of power, total obedience. Dissent. Freedom of expression. Critical thought. Moral outrage. These have no place in our corporate-indentured universities." Sums it up for me. I'm old enough to remember the protests of the 1960s, but it's different now in many ways; the corporate takeover of so much of American life hadn't happened yet. Dissent wasn't criminalized to the extent it seems to be now. Powerful interests have more tools now.
And, boys & young men were subject to the draft. We need to bring that back; doing so would get a lot more people to join the rebellion. As it stands now, the vast majority or apathetic because none of this affects them.
A good example of the corruption of Columbia University is its hiring of the war criminals Hillary Clinton and Victoria Nuland as professors in their international school. They will teach future diplomats how to violently overthrow governments and murder hundreds of thousands of innocent people! Fits in with their use of armed police dressed in riot gear to attack student demonstrators. Really disgusting!
Victoria Nuland is theoretically right down from the hallway of Jeffery Sachs, one of the most civilized and eloquent and well informed commentators of our suicidal decline in progress. To be human in a living moment is to bare witness to all the ironies and idiosyncrasies of human life. What a tough nut to Crack, what a somber realization that a bloke like Shakespeare was right that we repeat and live thru simultaneous tragedy and dark comedy minute by minute and are condemned to do so forever more. On a positive note, it means moral courage, never forgiving, is also ever present and as such is a counterweight to the darkness.
Yes, Jeffrey Sachs is a good man. I have heard him discuss our current situation many times, very well spoken, intelligent with good moral and ethic standards and a good analysis of what is happening in the US and the world, like Chris Hedges. I don't recall him mentioning either of his "colleagues" Victoria Nuland, or Hillary Clinton. He is probably too polite to comment! Michael good comment!
Why is it that in the US University's are not publicly owned. How did this happen?
Why is it that corporations and moneyed people have their say in how University's are run?
Obviously I am not living in the US but I want to emphasize that the US is a corrupt system owned by AIPAC.
How does one live in the US as a young person knowing their lives are worth nothing to the corporate greed.
To my mind after having read many books the US has always had a culture of greed and these young people live this life. Not much future for them really.
Jenny, yours is an excellent question, and deserves answers, to the extent there is a common understanding of the history of college education in the U.S. I am not at all qualified to address that subject. However, I can say that the reaction of public universities in the U.S. to the protests has not been much different at all. If at all. At Indiana University in Bloomington, IN, a state institution, protest rules that had been in existence for 55 years were abrogated by the administration in a meeting the day before the anti-genocide protest was scheduled to begin, and the state police were brought in to quash the protests. The quashing included stationing snipers on the roof of the Indiana Memorial Union. The state government of Indiana is as reliably a totalitarian Zionist blob as the one in New York City and Washington, DC. At Columbia, the concern is about Zionist billionaires like the scumbag owner of the New England Patriots NFL franchise threatening publicly to end his contributions to Columbia. In Indiana, we have Zionist politicians threatening to slash or end state funding for IU unless the protests are broken as savagely as possible. In the good ol’ USA, this is just another example, I guess, of private/public partnerships.
Yes. The largest universities are publicly funded. They charge a huge amount for tuition, room and board, as opposed to the absurd, thigh-slapping amounts the private ones charge. Columbia is part of an actual athletic conference called the Ivy League. The other members are Harvard, Princeton, Brown, Yale, Dartmouth, Cornell and the University of Pennsylvania. IIRC, the last is the only university whose name makes it sound state supported, but is not. Indiana University is a member of a conference still colloquially referred to as the Big Ten, but which is now (again, IIRC) about twice that size. All of its members are public (state supported) except Northwestern University, whereas all of the Ivy League is private.
Jenny, you’ll find the whole story in “After the Ivory Tower Falls: How College Broke the American Dream and Blew Up Our Politics—and How to Fix It” by Will Bunch.
You’re so right about this. Strange thing is, I’m 62, no spring chicken, and I’m finding it very difficult to live in the US knowing that my corrupt to the core leaders are facilitating a genocide that is being live-streamed for all to see. I’m upset every day about this and it’s sickening that my country is doing this.😢🇵🇸☮️
I'm almost 70. My gut reaction to learning that Adolf Hitler, er, I mean Ronald Reagan, won the presidency in 1980 was that I was leaving this evil country for good. (The trouncing of the decent George McGovern by the evil clown Richard Nixon was the beginning of that idea.) Unfortunately I never left except to sail to Tahiti once (only reason I came back was that I ran out of money), so now, like you, here I am. One of my friends moved to Germany when Trump got elected, but doing something like that is really hard even with our friends there, and I don't think I'm up for it.
All universities in the US are at least partly government funded. Prestigious private universities often get even more government funding than public universities, so that per capita, the education of students at these top-level private universities might be subsidized at a rate several times that of students at public universities.
Corporate greed is indeed a problem. It used to be said that "Silicon Valley eats its young." Now all corporations seem to have adopted a dehumanizing outlook, even to the extent of universities criminalizing their own students for standing up for international human rights conventions and laws against genocide.
However, I must challenge your glib assertion that the US is "owned by AIPAC." It reeks of anti-Semitism and willful ignorance.
We should not forget the funding by the MIC for many universities, see Joan Roelofs book The Trillion Dollar Silencer (no wonder there is no peace movement and no fact based reporting - only half stories, no stories or outright lies - who attacks the hand that feeds him?)
No it smells of the truth to me. Simple statistics back it up. At least 60% of amerikans surveyed believe that there should be a ceasefire in Occupied Palestine yet the politicians at state & federal level are practically unanimous in their support of the genocide continuing. One of the few congresstypes who called for a ceasefire was then censured for doing so.
AIpAC owns amerika and does whatever is needed to ensure the zionist entity continues with its killing and/or expulsion of the entire population of Palestine. To ignore that reality and call those who acknowledge it as 'anti-semitic' is both semantically and factually incorrect,. Next time try 'judeophobic', although calling all those who state that describing amerika as being run by aipac as reeking of judeophobia would also be an untruth, best you drop the whole subject eh.
I prefer to rely on facts and logic as opposed to stats that don't confirm the involvement of anyone except US state and federal politicians. Israel's existence provides Western interests with a foothold in the oil-rich Mid East, not to mention keeping the Suez Canal available for our use, so in my opinion, there's no need to look anywhere else for culprits. As Pogo says "We have met the enemy, and he is us."
Far too easy, I'm the first to admit that amerikan support for the zionist entity wouldn't have got anything like this bad/far if self interest wasn't a major player in the relationship; unfortunately amerikan zionists colluded with zionist entity's leaders and took control of the levers of amerikan government in fear of that which has occurred happening.
It is obvious to blind Freddie that amerikan politicians no longer care a damn what citizens think, the views of their donors are far more important. Aipac is the most blatant and perverted example of this. Saying so is not anti anything, it is pro all human beings are entitled to a life.
And Biden is at the top of the list of receiving AIPAC $$$. I saw an article with the members of Congress who have taken $$ from AIPAC.......a long list....
Well, I'm Jewish and I don't at all think that comment is anti-Semitic. It may by hyperbolic, but that's it. AIPAC has a huge influence on U.S. political decisions -- it even removed Cynthia McKinney from Congress for daring to stand up for the Palestinians -- and it should be banned from the U.S., at least as far as lobbying and inside influence.
I appreciate your comment, Jeff. I believe JennyStokes has no intention of saying anything anti-Semitic.
This said, I take issue with any statement that implies that AIPAC is control of the US because it aligns too closely with the racist "Jews are secretly running the world" fear promulgated by anti-semiticists, and also because the US is clamping down on free speech and other civil rights in areas that have nothing to do with Israel, such as equating environmental activism with terrorism.
No one person or entity is ever in control of anything, regardless of what anyone thinks. That's not the point here. AIPAC has far too much influence over U.S. government decisions, and in fact stokes the flames of antisemitism of the type that you mentioned. I've heard the "Jews run the world" BS too, but AIPAC is evil nevertheless and must be stopped. People in Congress are supposed to be making decisions for the good of Americans, not for the good of Israel, and doing the latter is no less than treason where it conflicts with the former.
Conflating getting an illegitimate foreign lobbying group like AIPAC, which has far too much influence, under control, on one hand, with censorship of Americans and cancel culture, on the other, is nonsense. Prohibiting censorship and stopping cancel culture is easily done while at the same time not allowing those who lobby for foreign governments to do so except with strict limitations and transparency. We're not talking about diplomatic relations here, which would be done by the executive branch, we're talking about illegitimately influencing members of Congress and Congress as a whole to make decisions that are contrary to the interests of Americans.
The French here in this Town have expelled a local Rabii for speaking his mind. I did not like what he said but I also do not like what our local Synagogue said. BOTH of them are speaking their mind.
BUT the Arab from the local Mosque was disenfranchised but the Jewish Rabii was not!
I used the word that I meant to use. I'm not splitting hairs, but it's one thing to question Zionism in the context of the destructive campaign that Israeli leadership is waging against Palestinians in Gaza today, whereas the assertion that AIPAC is "controlling" US leadership eminates from the "Jews are controlling the world" conspiracy theory, which is fundamentally racist and harkens back to Nazism.
I know this well. What you and others who are myopically focused on AIPAC do not seem to recognize is that there are other enormous concentrations of wealth and power in this world, many of which are at odds with AIPAC. As far as the USA, AIPAC is only one of the groups applying influence. If there is a dominant faction, the MIC seems the most likely to me.
JennyStokes, some are called "friends." My social circle is diverse, and includes Palestinian Americans and Israeli peace activists. My heart hurts for them all. I feel deep shame for the genocide in Gaza, which I see as an irreversible and appalling strategical blunder by the Netanyahu administration, as well as being utterly horrific on a humanitarian level. As an American, I'm even more ashamed that my Congress approved more US military aid in the face of a clear pattern of genocide backed by statements from top-ranking Israelis.
BTW, I never accused you of being an anti-Semite, but merely echoed back your own words. Assuming that you aren't anti-Semitic, I'm trying to help you refine your messaging so that you don't [edit: unknowingly or carelessly] cross that line. There are all kinds of people reading and commenting on Hedge's posts, and some of them are rabidly anti-Semitic. I don't like to see people imagining that AIPAC or any other entity is somehow entirely responsible for decisions being made in Washington DC, as to me that is passing the buck. I think this responsibility is something that US leadership owns themselves.
How and why has the US ALLOWED AIPAC to become your Govt?
You Americans sat back for years, not bothering to vote after Reagan. I imagine the 1/4 of the population has absolutely NO idea what is happening.
I lived in the US for 23yrs and eventually had to pull my daughter out of public school in the LA school district because she was learning nothing but American History over and over again. NO Geography/critical thinking.
Because this country was founded on the principle of, more than anything else, the freedom to become rich. That's the main thing that "freedom" meant to the founding genociders/slave-owners, and it's the reason that most people come here. When you have a country based on making a lot of money, you have an evil country.
Not just to become rich, but sometimes, just to survive. Some of my more recent immigrant ancestors came to the US because there wasn't enough food for everyone in the old country. Those who were here longer came as indentured servants. But they did come for opportunity.
We also have large numbers of Caribbean, Chinese, and Africans seeking to immigrate. Many are landing in South America and walking northward through the Darian Gap into Mexico.
This is the only comment of yours where there is any nuance beyond pure criticism of my country, so it's the only one to which I'll respond. BTW, Vive la France! Birthplace of Jean Jacques Rousseau.
Can you imagine a world where there is NO super power?
Where we buy and sell our latest technology without getting into wars?
I am so sickened by American fear of Russia and China. It has not done us any good.indeed it has left China to multiply its industrial base while the US fights wars and does not look after its own people.
Now Russia and China have made a pact together...why?
It's a principle of democracy to allow other nations to govern themselves. I hope that humanity can evolve beyond war before we destroy the world. Now would be a good time to return to our democratic roots.
Exactly! That's by far the best thing any of us can do to oppose all their evil deeds. Voting with your pocketbook is far more important than voting at the polls. The issue is whether people are willing to shed their materialist desires enough to stop buying all this crap.
An excellent, in depth report on the brave, noble, morally responsible students who are making great sacrifices to make the world a better place. This report is much more through and accurate than any report on the university demonstrations that I have read in corporate media!
I was born & raised in Chicago. The cops there are the most violent and racist in the country, and that's saying a lot. The protesters are lucky the cops didn't kill them.
Thank you for highlighting the voices of suppressed activists! It's worth noting that the movement to stop the Israeli genocide in Gaza already extends far beyond students, and also what would happen if the labor movement manages to rediscover the meaning of solidarity. I wrote recently about each of those themes.
Last month, I reported on a direct action targeting a Lockheed Martin facility in California, 21 years to the month that 5,000 of us shut down the facility for a day following Bush's illegal invasion of Iraq back in 2003. While students certainly participated in both sets of actions (and we spearheaded the action in 2003), there were many other participants and the action crucially targeted the military-industrial complex, beyond raising awareness in a campus community. https://shahidbuttar.substack.com/p/history-might-not-repeat-but-it-certainly
Meanwhile, labor could make a pivotal difference if unions rediscover the broader meaning of solidarity. Especially in the wake of the historic upsurge in union organizing that we are witnessing today, an emboldened labor movement could effectively pull the plug on Washington's support for the Israeli genocide. Three particularly visionary labor leaders could play especially important roles, having faced Wall Street and recently emerged victorious. https://shahidbuttar.substack.com/p/we-the-people-can-unplug-the-war
I'm nearly my 70th Birthday and would not vote for Biden under any circumstances. I sure as hell hope the young people don't vote for him. We'll get tRUMP thanks to many years of lying D's that don't see us.
My take from this goes back to the Vietnam War protests. The next step for the students may be a countrywide walk out. if they are willing to put their education on hold for a bit, a nationwide campus walkout would get the wealthy benefactors attention, since money is all they seem to pay attention to. Boycott the colleges and universities that are cracking down on student protestors and supporting Israel. There are enough students who would likely be on board with that, if it could be organized effectively. A good use for a social media app.
Will I be sanctioned now under the new terrorist bill making its way to the Senate for this post? Arrested for fomenting a rebellion? I'm Irish, this is what we do.
That the Biden regime and Columbia University treat even the children of the rich and connected this roughly shows how tied they are to the regime in Israel.
Columbia's always been fed by its big Zionist donors. I was a child of middle class immigrants, and we who opposed Vietnam and their slum-lordship in Harlem were all treated like shit in 1968. In that sense, I guess you could say they were more egalitarian -- in their suppression of their students' speech and political opposition to their warmongering society.
At the very least the Genocide in Gaza has fully exposed before the entire world the pure evil of the Western Empire and the complete hypocrisy of its rules based order. There is no going back from this.
I wish. That is what we hoped, prayed and worked for ... after Kent State, during Vietnam, the hope that was Chile, Nicaragua, Guatemala - before all were distorted and crushed by 'empire'. My current hope - is as the truth of what is happening in 'Gaza' - and all the other 'Gazas' happening in our worlds - combined with our ever deepening ecological crisis - can motivate us to counter the deep pocketed reactionism that started in spades in the 1990's.
It will take a major mental and spiritual evolution of humans to accomplish this. I too was an anti-war protester during the Vietnam war, and a major road in our town (Evanston, IL, Northwestern University) was blockaded for a week after the Kent State massacre. But after Kent State the rebellion faded. People leave school and have to get jobs, get married & have kids, get mortgages & other bills, and get more conservative & closed-minded as they get older. If you were to look at the anti-Vietnam war protesters now, I'd be willing to bet that the large majority of them are now pro-establishment, as in supporting the U.S. proxy war in Ukraine, for example.
It's good to see these student protests and I fully support them. I'd like to think that this generation of protesters will be better than ours, and will continue to fight the establishment. However, I've seen nothing to convince me that will happen.
This entire episode is most instructive.
horseshit: all religions are ideology
The problem isn't that religions are ideologies, it's that they're a perversion of the spirituality upon which they were originally based. And that they're used to control people and to create horrible behaviors, like destroying the natural environment and committing genocide against native peoples.
So is pragmatism, or whatever you believe.
Now THAT's anti-Semitic.
To focus on Judaism and object to opposing western empire is antisemitic BS, I don't give a damn how you couch it. Christianity and Islam have done far more harm and damage than Judaism, give me a break. Just admit it: you're antisemitic.
Go and suck an egg!
One of the most egregious assaults on an encampment occurred at Penn, where an outside agitator sprayed an unknown chemical substance on the encampment grounds, tents, banners, food, library etc. He was filmed while doing it. I saw video of his assaults and arrest, where he was treated very gently by police. I was told he received a $60 fine with no criminal charges filed.
This chemical warfare - treating students like vermin - received little press. Links and photos here:
https://bwolfe.substack.com/p/penn-pro-palestine-protest-expands
The people assaulted by the spray should be told what it was. A chemical test should be able to identify the substance.
I was told it was tested and was some kind of diluted sulphur compound (stink).
Sulphur stinks, but it's also highly reactive.
Saw it too....and very little in the press....
Powerful writing with compassion and an unflinching dedication to the truth. This is why I subscribed.
Very moving report. I am 1000% behind these pro Palestine protests and encampments. These students are the Harriet Tubman, MLK Jr., Gandhi and Nelson Mandela of their time. These universities are appalling and deserve no respect from anyone when they are facilitating a genocide in Gaza and calling the fascist cops and pro Zionists on them. It’s despicable.😢☮️🇵🇸
Thank you Chris. I am so very proud and impressed with these young people and hope with all my heart that they (and we) prevail. The world is in a dark place but I feel hope from the conversations you had and shared with these students. Great journalism, so appreciated.
"These administrators demand, like all who manage corporate systems of power, total obedience. Dissent. Freedom of expression. Critical thought. Moral outrage. These have no place in our corporate-indentured universities." Sums it up for me. I'm old enough to remember the protests of the 1960s, but it's different now in many ways; the corporate takeover of so much of American life hadn't happened yet. Dissent wasn't criminalized to the extent it seems to be now. Powerful interests have more tools now.
And, boys & young men were subject to the draft. We need to bring that back; doing so would get a lot more people to join the rebellion. As it stands now, the vast majority or apathetic because none of this affects them.
A good example of the corruption of Columbia University is its hiring of the war criminals Hillary Clinton and Victoria Nuland as professors in their international school. They will teach future diplomats how to violently overthrow governments and murder hundreds of thousands of innocent people! Fits in with their use of armed police dressed in riot gear to attack student demonstrators. Really disgusting!
Victoria Nuland is theoretically right down from the hallway of Jeffery Sachs, one of the most civilized and eloquent and well informed commentators of our suicidal decline in progress. To be human in a living moment is to bare witness to all the ironies and idiosyncrasies of human life. What a tough nut to Crack, what a somber realization that a bloke like Shakespeare was right that we repeat and live thru simultaneous tragedy and dark comedy minute by minute and are condemned to do so forever more. On a positive note, it means moral courage, never forgiving, is also ever present and as such is a counterweight to the darkness.
Yes, Jeffrey Sachs is a good man. I have heard him discuss our current situation many times, very well spoken, intelligent with good moral and ethic standards and a good analysis of what is happening in the US and the world, like Chris Hedges. I don't recall him mentioning either of his "colleagues" Victoria Nuland, or Hillary Clinton. He is probably too polite to comment! Michael good comment!
Shakespeare was a fraud but then Americans think he was wonderful!
It is really disgusting I agree. But where are the older people supporting the students.
Are they still sitting in their 'ergomanic' chairs made by China and watching TEEE Veee made by China!
Chris. Thank you.
Why is it that in the US University's are not publicly owned. How did this happen?
Why is it that corporations and moneyed people have their say in how University's are run?
Obviously I am not living in the US but I want to emphasize that the US is a corrupt system owned by AIPAC.
How does one live in the US as a young person knowing their lives are worth nothing to the corporate greed.
To my mind after having read many books the US has always had a culture of greed and these young people live this life. Not much future for them really.
Jenny, yours is an excellent question, and deserves answers, to the extent there is a common understanding of the history of college education in the U.S. I am not at all qualified to address that subject. However, I can say that the reaction of public universities in the U.S. to the protests has not been much different at all. If at all. At Indiana University in Bloomington, IN, a state institution, protest rules that had been in existence for 55 years were abrogated by the administration in a meeting the day before the anti-genocide protest was scheduled to begin, and the state police were brought in to quash the protests. The quashing included stationing snipers on the roof of the Indiana Memorial Union. The state government of Indiana is as reliably a totalitarian Zionist blob as the one in New York City and Washington, DC. At Columbia, the concern is about Zionist billionaires like the scumbag owner of the New England Patriots NFL franchise threatening publicly to end his contributions to Columbia. In Indiana, we have Zionist politicians threatening to slash or end state funding for IU unless the protests are broken as savagely as possible. In the good ol’ USA, this is just another example, I guess, of private/public partnerships.
Yes, there are many state owned universities in the U.S. New York City has its own small college system.
Thanks Andrew. So you are telling me that some University's in the US are not privately funded? They get funded by the Government?
Yes. The largest universities are publicly funded. They charge a huge amount for tuition, room and board, as opposed to the absurd, thigh-slapping amounts the private ones charge. Columbia is part of an actual athletic conference called the Ivy League. The other members are Harvard, Princeton, Brown, Yale, Dartmouth, Cornell and the University of Pennsylvania. IIRC, the last is the only university whose name makes it sound state supported, but is not. Indiana University is a member of a conference still colloquially referred to as the Big Ten, but which is now (again, IIRC) about twice that size. All of its members are public (state supported) except Northwestern University, whereas all of the Ivy League is private.
Thank you for this.
The USA is an empire in rapid decline. Sad to see how this fact is not clear to the vast underinformed masses
Can't happen fast enough, just like all other evil empires. Good riddance!!!
Jenny, you’ll find the whole story in “After the Ivory Tower Falls: How College Broke the American Dream and Blew Up Our Politics—and How to Fix It” by Will Bunch.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58842736-after-the-ivory-tower-falls?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=OJhqZ3DCz5&rank=1
Thank you.
You’re so right about this. Strange thing is, I’m 62, no spring chicken, and I’m finding it very difficult to live in the US knowing that my corrupt to the core leaders are facilitating a genocide that is being live-streamed for all to see. I’m upset every day about this and it’s sickening that my country is doing this.😢🇵🇸☮️
I'm almost 70. My gut reaction to learning that Adolf Hitler, er, I mean Ronald Reagan, won the presidency in 1980 was that I was leaving this evil country for good. (The trouncing of the decent George McGovern by the evil clown Richard Nixon was the beginning of that idea.) Unfortunately I never left except to sail to Tahiti once (only reason I came back was that I ran out of money), so now, like you, here I am. One of my friends moved to Germany when Trump got elected, but doing something like that is really hard even with our friends there, and I don't think I'm up for it.
Many Americans are moving to Europe BUT it's NOT easy.
Just like the USA the right wing here do not want immigrants.
I feel for you. However other countries while not as bad as the US are not doing great either.
All universities in the US are at least partly government funded. Prestigious private universities often get even more government funding than public universities, so that per capita, the education of students at these top-level private universities might be subsidized at a rate several times that of students at public universities.
Corporate greed is indeed a problem. It used to be said that "Silicon Valley eats its young." Now all corporations seem to have adopted a dehumanizing outlook, even to the extent of universities criminalizing their own students for standing up for international human rights conventions and laws against genocide.
However, I must challenge your glib assertion that the US is "owned by AIPAC." It reeks of anti-Semitism and willful ignorance.
We should not forget the funding by the MIC for many universities, see Joan Roelofs book The Trillion Dollar Silencer (no wonder there is no peace movement and no fact based reporting - only half stories, no stories or outright lies - who attacks the hand that feeds him?)
Excellent point, Elisabeth, thank you. Adding this book to my reading list.
So many numbers and details - I loved it!
No it smells of the truth to me. Simple statistics back it up. At least 60% of amerikans surveyed believe that there should be a ceasefire in Occupied Palestine yet the politicians at state & federal level are practically unanimous in their support of the genocide continuing. One of the few congresstypes who called for a ceasefire was then censured for doing so.
AIpAC owns amerika and does whatever is needed to ensure the zionist entity continues with its killing and/or expulsion of the entire population of Palestine. To ignore that reality and call those who acknowledge it as 'anti-semitic' is both semantically and factually incorrect,. Next time try 'judeophobic', although calling all those who state that describing amerika as being run by aipac as reeking of judeophobia would also be an untruth, best you drop the whole subject eh.
I prefer to rely on facts and logic as opposed to stats that don't confirm the involvement of anyone except US state and federal politicians. Israel's existence provides Western interests with a foothold in the oil-rich Mid East, not to mention keeping the Suez Canal available for our use, so in my opinion, there's no need to look anywhere else for culprits. As Pogo says "We have met the enemy, and he is us."
Far too easy, I'm the first to admit that amerikan support for the zionist entity wouldn't have got anything like this bad/far if self interest wasn't a major player in the relationship; unfortunately amerikan zionists colluded with zionist entity's leaders and took control of the levers of amerikan government in fear of that which has occurred happening.
It is obvious to blind Freddie that amerikan politicians no longer care a damn what citizens think, the views of their donors are far more important. Aipac is the most blatant and perverted example of this. Saying so is not anti anything, it is pro all human beings are entitled to a life.
And Biden is at the top of the list of receiving AIPAC $$$. I saw an article with the members of Congress who have taken $$ from AIPAC.......a long list....
Well, I'm Jewish and I don't at all think that comment is anti-Semitic. It may by hyperbolic, but that's it. AIPAC has a huge influence on U.S. political decisions -- it even removed Cynthia McKinney from Congress for daring to stand up for the Palestinians -- and it should be banned from the U.S., at least as far as lobbying and inside influence.
I appreciate your comment, Jeff. I believe JennyStokes has no intention of saying anything anti-Semitic.
This said, I take issue with any statement that implies that AIPAC is control of the US because it aligns too closely with the racist "Jews are secretly running the world" fear promulgated by anti-semiticists, and also because the US is clamping down on free speech and other civil rights in areas that have nothing to do with Israel, such as equating environmental activism with terrorism.
No one person or entity is ever in control of anything, regardless of what anyone thinks. That's not the point here. AIPAC has far too much influence over U.S. government decisions, and in fact stokes the flames of antisemitism of the type that you mentioned. I've heard the "Jews run the world" BS too, but AIPAC is evil nevertheless and must be stopped. People in Congress are supposed to be making decisions for the good of Americans, not for the good of Israel, and doing the latter is no less than treason where it conflicts with the former.
Conflating getting an illegitimate foreign lobbying group like AIPAC, which has far too much influence, under control, on one hand, with censorship of Americans and cancel culture, on the other, is nonsense. Prohibiting censorship and stopping cancel culture is easily done while at the same time not allowing those who lobby for foreign governments to do so except with strict limitations and transparency. We're not talking about diplomatic relations here, which would be done by the executive branch, we're talking about illegitimately influencing members of Congress and Congress as a whole to make decisions that are contrary to the interests of Americans.
I can almost like your far-ranging comment Jeff. It did give me much food for thought.
YOU mentioned my name.
I do not live in 'racist' USA
Yes the Zionists are running the USA which is why you can never have a 3rd Party. In essence you are done and over.
Tech-la.
I live in a small Town in France.
I would like it if you read what I say.
The French here in this Town have expelled a local Rabii for speaking his mind. I did not like what he said but I also do not like what our local Synagogue said. BOTH of them are speaking their mind.
BUT the Arab from the local Mosque was disenfranchised but the Jewish Rabii was not!
Personally I don't care if it 'reeks of antisemitism.' The word you should be using is Zionism I am not anti semitic in any way.
I used the word that I meant to use. I'm not splitting hairs, but it's one thing to question Zionism in the context of the destructive campaign that Israeli leadership is waging against Palestinians in Gaza today, whereas the assertion that AIPAC is "controlling" US leadership eminates from the "Jews are controlling the world" conspiracy theory, which is fundamentally racist and harkens back to Nazism.
[Edit: changed "but" to "whereas"]
Look up Rothchilds!
TECh-la
I suggest that you start looking on Wikipaedia/or other sites where you will find huge amount of Banks and corporations owned by AIPAC.
IF this does not satisfy you: Look at the people funding US Duopoly!
I am not going to do your work for you.
I know this well. What you and others who are myopically focused on AIPAC do not seem to recognize is that there are other enormous concentrations of wealth and power in this world, many of which are at odds with AIPAC. As far as the USA, AIPAC is only one of the groups applying influence. If there is a dominant faction, the MIC seems the most likely to me.
BOTH
Taking your response at face value, you've just admitted that you're not concerned if your comment is antisemitic.
You might not care about this or think about it, but others who read your comment and mine might care.
Go and do something useful!
I just did.
You can 'split hairs' all you want. I am NOT anti-Jewish but I am anti Zionist!
It appears evident to me that the US is a client state to Israel. How enraging that is!
I can be antisemite to you BUT what do YOU call Arabs?
JennyStokes, some are called "friends." My social circle is diverse, and includes Palestinian Americans and Israeli peace activists. My heart hurts for them all. I feel deep shame for the genocide in Gaza, which I see as an irreversible and appalling strategical blunder by the Netanyahu administration, as well as being utterly horrific on a humanitarian level. As an American, I'm even more ashamed that my Congress approved more US military aid in the face of a clear pattern of genocide backed by statements from top-ranking Israelis.
BTW, I never accused you of being an anti-Semite, but merely echoed back your own words. Assuming that you aren't anti-Semitic, I'm trying to help you refine your messaging so that you don't [edit: unknowingly or carelessly] cross that line. There are all kinds of people reading and commenting on Hedge's posts, and some of them are rabidly anti-Semitic. I don't like to see people imagining that AIPAC or any other entity is somehow entirely responsible for decisions being made in Washington DC, as to me that is passing the buck. I think this responsibility is something that US leadership owns themselves.
Correct.
How and why has the US ALLOWED AIPAC to become your Govt?
You Americans sat back for years, not bothering to vote after Reagan. I imagine the 1/4 of the population has absolutely NO idea what is happening.
I lived in the US for 23yrs and eventually had to pull my daughter out of public school in the LA school district because she was learning nothing but American History over and over again. NO Geography/critical thinking.
You deserve everything that is happening to you.
Because this country was founded on the principle of, more than anything else, the freedom to become rich. That's the main thing that "freedom" meant to the founding genociders/slave-owners, and it's the reason that most people come here. When you have a country based on making a lot of money, you have an evil country.
Not just to become rich, but sometimes, just to survive. Some of my more recent immigrant ancestors came to the US because there wasn't enough food for everyone in the old country. Those who were here longer came as indentured servants. But they did come for opportunity.
The wars the US indulged in in S. America is why you have so many immigrants.
Not different to France and Africa.
We also have large numbers of Caribbean, Chinese, and Africans seeking to immigrate. Many are landing in South America and walking northward through the Darian Gap into Mexico.
This is the only comment of yours where there is any nuance beyond pure criticism of my country, so it's the only one to which I'll respond. BTW, Vive la France! Birthplace of Jean Jacques Rousseau.
Can you imagine a world where there is NO super power?
Where we buy and sell our latest technology without getting into wars?
I am so sickened by American fear of Russia and China. It has not done us any good.indeed it has left China to multiply its industrial base while the US fights wars and does not look after its own people.
Now Russia and China have made a pact together...why?
It's a principle of democracy to allow other nations to govern themselves. I hope that humanity can evolve beyond war before we destroy the world. Now would be a good time to return to our democratic roots.
What the corporations hate the most is when people stop buying their products.
They hate that a lot, but they fear organized labor. When unionization drives are backed by boycotts, the PTB start shaking in their boots.
Exactly! That's by far the best thing any of us can do to oppose all their evil deeds. Voting with your pocketbook is far more important than voting at the polls. The issue is whether people are willing to shed their materialist desires enough to stop buying all this crap.
Organic and Local is best.
An excellent, in depth report on the brave, noble, morally responsible students who are making great sacrifices to make the world a better place. This report is much more through and accurate than any report on the university demonstrations that I have read in corporate media!
Take a look at this: https://twitter.com/missymarxist/status/1787927283237347597
I was born & raised in Chicago. The cops there are the most violent and racist in the country, and that's saying a lot. The protesters are lucky the cops didn't kill them.
Woah! What a guy that articulate and aware student is. Best interview ever. Inspiring. Thanks for posting.
Thank you for highlighting the voices of suppressed activists! It's worth noting that the movement to stop the Israeli genocide in Gaza already extends far beyond students, and also what would happen if the labor movement manages to rediscover the meaning of solidarity. I wrote recently about each of those themes.
Last month, I reported on a direct action targeting a Lockheed Martin facility in California, 21 years to the month that 5,000 of us shut down the facility for a day following Bush's illegal invasion of Iraq back in 2003. While students certainly participated in both sets of actions (and we spearheaded the action in 2003), there were many other participants and the action crucially targeted the military-industrial complex, beyond raising awareness in a campus community. https://shahidbuttar.substack.com/p/history-might-not-repeat-but-it-certainly
Meanwhile, labor could make a pivotal difference if unions rediscover the broader meaning of solidarity. Especially in the wake of the historic upsurge in union organizing that we are witnessing today, an emboldened labor movement could effectively pull the plug on Washington's support for the Israeli genocide. Three particularly visionary labor leaders could play especially important roles, having faced Wall Street and recently emerged victorious. https://shahidbuttar.substack.com/p/we-the-people-can-unplug-the-war
Lie’n Biden can kiss the youth vote goodbye.
https://twitter.com/macklemore/status/1787616471738368099
I'm nearly my 70th Birthday and would not vote for Biden under any circumstances. I sure as hell hope the young people don't vote for him. We'll get tRUMP thanks to many years of lying D's that don't see us.
Jill Stein.
thru others we can learn so much if we open our hearts and minds.
Thank you for this commentary and the many voices you document in this article.