Sure, OWS, but also anti Iraq invasion, anti-apartheid, anti-Vietnam, pro-Civil Rights. I think the "campus left" long predates OWS. Just because some of the protesters are distasteful (and I agree that the pro-Hamas ones are), doesn't make the causes bad ones. It's a difficult problem, because how DO opponents of the status quo break through without calling attention to themselves? And yes, for any of those groups, a few decades can really change the views of the participants, for better or for worse.
I'm probably speaking from a generational lens in my initial reply, having grown up as a middle class American Millennial. That's why I said the Woodstock crowd were *probably* the same but I can't speak to it from experience. I agree that the causes aren't bad, but the tactics are certainly back-firing. I think there's this urge for middle class white kids to show "solidarity" with the identity groups that are directly under attack (Palestinians in this case) to put themselves on the record as not standing for the status quo, but they can't see that putting wealthy American middle class faces at the forefront of the movement just takes away from the real face of the *actual* oppressed groups they're trying to stand alongside. It becomes less about the oppressed groups and their plight and more about the counter-culture rage of wealthy American college kids who are on the upward escalator to selling out anyway. Maybe they need to check their own privilege at the end of the day. It's not as if they ain't "fortunate sons"--as CCR would say--while attending ridiculously expensive tier one universities like NYU and Columbia. They're the direct beneficiaries of the kind of status quo they're getting ready to inherit in just a decade or so from now.
I'd push back on the claim it is back-firing. Had none of this happened the issue would have been ignored because that is the default state. Bucking that state has annoyed the supposedly gettable middle because they have to grapple with an issue they didn't want to deal with but that grappling is the best that could ever have been hoped for.
Most probably won't change their minds but you are now seeing talk of concern for how this affects Biden and the Dems. At least some will decide tossing the protesters a bone will be the most expedient way to make this disruption go away even if their view of the conflict is largely unaffected. Until the middle shows it can decisively resist that kind of manipulation from the right then I'm of the opinion that what is good for the goose is good for the gander.
"Had none of this happened the issue would have been ignored because that is the default state.....you are now seeing talk of concern for how this affects Biden and the Dems."
So when Biden loses to Trump due to low turnout from Zoomers in the swing states based around the issue of Gaza, how will the Palestinians fair under a 2nd Trump admin sending a blank check to the Israeli gov? That's what the snake eating its own tail looks like in the long run, and yes, it's counter-productive to the campus left's cause at heart vis-a-vis Gaza based off of Biden potentially losing because of lack of support from his base due to that the issue.
Speaking of ignored issues, Gaza is also a great example of the campus left's selective outrage, because they were nowhere to be found when the Rohingya Genocide in Myanmar--an *actual* genocide* I might add--killed over 25,000 Muslims, resulted in tens of thousands of rapes, and over 700,000 displaced peoples who were directly targeted as an ethnicity. And they weren't being incidentally killed while a host government hunted a terrorist organization they materially-supported, it happened to the Rohingya because of their ethnicity. But because "zionist occupiers" (read: Jews) are incidentally killing civilians--not a war crime btw--in Gaza the campus left decided to take that one up like it was the meaning for their existence in the world after ignoring the Rohingya and Yazidi genocides in recent post-social-media years. "No Jews, No News" as the saying goes.
Oooh, I've not heard that statement before, and it's a painful truth. Yes, the so-called oppressors in this case are Jews; in Myanmar they're Asians - not a lot of anti-Asianism to stand on here in the US.
Selective outrage. Right on, as we used to say in the 60s.
I don't disagree with what you are saying here but it is entirely beside the point I was making. Currently the middle only really cares about what disrupts the status quo. The right has weaponized that and gotten away with it for ages despite the fact that they are often risking shooting themselves in the foot. Think of the conservative leaning voters in swing states who demand consessions of Dems or they'll vote Trump. They are doing the exact same thing and they regularly get rewarded for it. Elements of the left are simply responding to those signals. If people don't like it then the long term solution is for the middle to stop rewarding that behavior across the board.
I don't know that I agree with the statement that "the middle only really cares about what disrupts the status quo." What I'd say instead is that the political left and the political right have--since around 2012--moved increasingly in an anti-establishment direction and the political middle has been dwindled down to almost nothing left of its original self. What was once a "silent majority" is now perhaps a "silent minority." At least that's my view on what's happening to the American electorate as a whole.
Are we not saying the same thing? Isn't the concept of a silent majority that it is a significant group in the middle that is by and large satisfied with how things are and therefore doesn't have to be vociferous about their needs because they are alreadly largely met? The only time a group like that would become passionate and focused is when the status quo they are happy with is challenged.
I suppose they could all see some failing in the status quo at once and be energized by that as well but that doesn't appear to be the case. The middle we have seems awfully fragmented and aimless to me. It doesn't even seem to have a coherent drive or strategy for saving democracy beyond occupy the presidency indefinitely and hope the threat goes away on its own or an ex machina saves them.
Do you think it could be said that the college protests are simply the college student version of street protests? A more controlled and thus more predictable setting?
This one happens to be centered on campus, but the same group(s) do street protests as well when it comes to things like climate change/environmentalism, BLM solidarity stuff, anti-war stuff, and anti-corporatism stuff among many other campus left sub-culture protesting. The venue just happens to be a campus this time around because they want the university boards to divest, so their target is closer to the dorm room.
Interesting. I'd probably remove them from campus, then, if I were in charge. It implies they aren't all students and there are background manipulators maybe.
Sure, OWS, but also anti Iraq invasion, anti-apartheid, anti-Vietnam, pro-Civil Rights. I think the "campus left" long predates OWS. Just because some of the protesters are distasteful (and I agree that the pro-Hamas ones are), doesn't make the causes bad ones. It's a difficult problem, because how DO opponents of the status quo break through without calling attention to themselves? And yes, for any of those groups, a few decades can really change the views of the participants, for better or for worse.
I'm probably speaking from a generational lens in my initial reply, having grown up as a middle class American Millennial. That's why I said the Woodstock crowd were *probably* the same but I can't speak to it from experience. I agree that the causes aren't bad, but the tactics are certainly back-firing. I think there's this urge for middle class white kids to show "solidarity" with the identity groups that are directly under attack (Palestinians in this case) to put themselves on the record as not standing for the status quo, but they can't see that putting wealthy American middle class faces at the forefront of the movement just takes away from the real face of the *actual* oppressed groups they're trying to stand alongside. It becomes less about the oppressed groups and their plight and more about the counter-culture rage of wealthy American college kids who are on the upward escalator to selling out anyway. Maybe they need to check their own privilege at the end of the day. It's not as if they ain't "fortunate sons"--as CCR would say--while attending ridiculously expensive tier one universities like NYU and Columbia. They're the direct beneficiaries of the kind of status quo they're getting ready to inherit in just a decade or so from now.
I'd push back on the claim it is back-firing. Had none of this happened the issue would have been ignored because that is the default state. Bucking that state has annoyed the supposedly gettable middle because they have to grapple with an issue they didn't want to deal with but that grappling is the best that could ever have been hoped for.
Most probably won't change their minds but you are now seeing talk of concern for how this affects Biden and the Dems. At least some will decide tossing the protesters a bone will be the most expedient way to make this disruption go away even if their view of the conflict is largely unaffected. Until the middle shows it can decisively resist that kind of manipulation from the right then I'm of the opinion that what is good for the goose is good for the gander.
"Had none of this happened the issue would have been ignored because that is the default state.....you are now seeing talk of concern for how this affects Biden and the Dems."
So when Biden loses to Trump due to low turnout from Zoomers in the swing states based around the issue of Gaza, how will the Palestinians fair under a 2nd Trump admin sending a blank check to the Israeli gov? That's what the snake eating its own tail looks like in the long run, and yes, it's counter-productive to the campus left's cause at heart vis-a-vis Gaza based off of Biden potentially losing because of lack of support from his base due to that the issue.
Speaking of ignored issues, Gaza is also a great example of the campus left's selective outrage, because they were nowhere to be found when the Rohingya Genocide in Myanmar--an *actual* genocide* I might add--killed over 25,000 Muslims, resulted in tens of thousands of rapes, and over 700,000 displaced peoples who were directly targeted as an ethnicity. And they weren't being incidentally killed while a host government hunted a terrorist organization they materially-supported, it happened to the Rohingya because of their ethnicity. But because "zionist occupiers" (read: Jews) are incidentally killing civilians--not a war crime btw--in Gaza the campus left decided to take that one up like it was the meaning for their existence in the world after ignoring the Rohingya and Yazidi genocides in recent post-social-media years. "No Jews, No News" as the saying goes.
Oooh, I've not heard that statement before, and it's a painful truth. Yes, the so-called oppressors in this case are Jews; in Myanmar they're Asians - not a lot of anti-Asianism to stand on here in the US.
Selective outrage. Right on, as we used to say in the 60s.
I don't disagree with what you are saying here but it is entirely beside the point I was making. Currently the middle only really cares about what disrupts the status quo. The right has weaponized that and gotten away with it for ages despite the fact that they are often risking shooting themselves in the foot. Think of the conservative leaning voters in swing states who demand consessions of Dems or they'll vote Trump. They are doing the exact same thing and they regularly get rewarded for it. Elements of the left are simply responding to those signals. If people don't like it then the long term solution is for the middle to stop rewarding that behavior across the board.
I don't know that I agree with the statement that "the middle only really cares about what disrupts the status quo." What I'd say instead is that the political left and the political right have--since around 2012--moved increasingly in an anti-establishment direction and the political middle has been dwindled down to almost nothing left of its original self. What was once a "silent majority" is now perhaps a "silent minority." At least that's my view on what's happening to the American electorate as a whole.
Are we not saying the same thing? Isn't the concept of a silent majority that it is a significant group in the middle that is by and large satisfied with how things are and therefore doesn't have to be vociferous about their needs because they are alreadly largely met? The only time a group like that would become passionate and focused is when the status quo they are happy with is challenged.
I suppose they could all see some failing in the status quo at once and be energized by that as well but that doesn't appear to be the case. The middle we have seems awfully fragmented and aimless to me. It doesn't even seem to have a coherent drive or strategy for saving democracy beyond occupy the presidency indefinitely and hope the threat goes away on its own or an ex machina saves them.
Do you think it could be said that the college protests are simply the college student version of street protests? A more controlled and thus more predictable setting?
This one happens to be centered on campus, but the same group(s) do street protests as well when it comes to things like climate change/environmentalism, BLM solidarity stuff, anti-war stuff, and anti-corporatism stuff among many other campus left sub-culture protesting. The venue just happens to be a campus this time around because they want the university boards to divest, so their target is closer to the dorm room.
Interesting. I'd probably remove them from campus, then, if I were in charge. It implies they aren't all students and there are background manipulators maybe.