Monday, May 6: Dissent & Disorder
Are any of these people really unsafe? Or are they just uncomfortable?
Last week, our reanimated corpse of a president hopped on TV to give his first official remarks regarding the growing protest movement taking place on college campuses against the American-supported Israeli genocide in Gaza. The useless old skeleton could’ve taken this opportunity to address any of the litany of legitimate concerns being expressed by protesters. Instead, Biden and his clueless lackeys figured a speech disavowing antisemitism was the appropriate response to the anger and frustration that only continue to climb with each passing day and each mounting Israeli war crime.
Biden claimed that while dissent is “essential to democracy”, the real problem with these unruly campus protests is that they’re not being polite enough. The dusty old human worm suggested that “dissent must never lead to disorder, or to denying the rights of others.” This is only slightly ironic, considering the ongoing denial of Palestinian rights by the occupying Israeli state, funded and supported wholeheartedly by our president. Biden has made clear once again that none of the barbaric actions of the apartheid state have been enough to sway his support for Israel. So in the end, his speech was nothing more than a glorified photo op and a chance to further criticize the obviously moral demands of young people across the country.
Amid all the hand-wringing about these protests on college campuses and how safe or unsafe zionist Jewish students feel, the absurdity of the situation begs the question: What exactly constitutes violence? Is it only physical in nature or does it extend into hurt feelings and even include things like property damage? So many western politicians seem intent on painting the anti-genocide protests as “violent”, but let’s examine that claim further:
For starters, let’s consider the case of Dr. Adnan Al-Bursh, the head of orthopedics at Gaza’s largest hospital, Al-Shifa. This Palestinian doctor was murdered recently in the apartheid state’s Ofer prison after more than four months of detention. Dr. Al-Bursh was almost definitely tortured in an attempt to extract a false confession to justify the Israeli massacres at Gazan hospitals. Of course there is no justification for such an atrocity, and Dr. Al-Bursh maintained his honesty until his premature passing. His heroism is beyond measure and the actions taken against him undoubtedly constitute violence. So we’ve established that imprisoning and torturing innocent people is definitely violent. Moving on…
As we mentioned last week, the protests on college campuses have grown, and we’ve seen a remarkable level of violent repression from both law enforcement as well as the uncooperative universities themselves. Students continue to protest against their institutions’ partnerships and investments in the apartheid state, and the police response to quell their protests have only grown more severe. In the past few weeks protesters have set up encampments (decidedly not violent), held rallies and teach-ins (not violent), and in some rare cases even occupied university buildings (still not violent). In response, these students have been confronted by police in full riot gear (seems kinda violent), detained and arrested by law enforcement (pretty violently), and in some cases hit with rubber bullets, tear gas, or worse (definitely not NOT violent).
Last week, UCLA’s protest encampment was attacked by a group of dozens of zionists, who threw fireworks at students and beat on any demonstrators they could isolate. These counter-protesters//genocide enthusiasts attacked peaceful protesters for hours while campus security and city police did what they do best; stand around and try to beat their high score on Candy Crush. These UCLA students are learning the hard way that it’ll never matter how peaceful you are, even if your cause is simply calling for an end to a genocide, as long as the only language the state speaks is violence. If the state is incapable of enacting the violence it desires, its agents are happy to stand by and delegate the task to a mob of cowards. When the topic of property damage is mentioned relating to these protests, it’s crucial that we see transparently through this distraction from the real violence taking place all around us.
According to a tally from the AP, at least 2,000 people have been arrested at pro-Palestinian protests on US campuses in the last two weeks. What these students are guilty of isn’t making anyone unsafe, it’s simply making a few people uncomfortable.
“Words are not murder. And if you feel unsafe because students are protesting colonialism and genocide, then stay home.”
Of course, not every academic institution is committed to the extent of violence that UCLA has allowed. Different institutions have responded in various ways to their students outspokenly calling for an end to their dealings with the apartheid state. For example, the University of California Riverside voted last week to provide full transparency to their investment portfolio and end any study abroad programs found to be discriminatory. The university chose to do this without arresting a single student and by simply engaging in dialogue with those protesting. Whether or not we agree with this pacified outcome, it’s a stark contrast to the approaches of university administration at Columbia or UCLA or so many other schools.
All of these campus developments are a distraction from the real issue, which is the unending assault on innocent Palestinians trapped in Gaza. Right now, as I write this, Israel’s military is ordering Palestinians to evacuate eastern Rafah in southern Gaza as they prepare for a full-blown military assault on a city sheltering more than one million refugees. This is what campus protesters are trying to address, not debating whether or not property damage constitutes violence (it doesn’t).
Side Items
Oops Boeing Did It Again: According to this article, Joshua Dean, another former quality inspector at one of Boeing’s suppliers and one of the very first whistleblowers to allege corporate leadership was ignoring manufacturing defects on the 737 MAX, died earlier this week after a struggle with a “sudden, fast-spreading infection”. I’m not a math guy, but the odds of two different Boeing whistleblowers, represented by the same law firm, dying mysteriously within a couple of months of each other seem pretttty slim to me. I happen to have it on good authority that Benjamin Netanyahu is also a Boeing whistleblower, so I’ll be waiting patiently for his inevitable and incredibly timely demise
Tyson’s Toxic Chicken Waste: According to a new health investigation, the famous Tyson Foods has spent the last five years dumping millions of pounds of toxic pollutants directly into American rivers and lakes. This poisonous run-off has been destroying delicate ecosystems and endangering the health of both wildlife and humans. What a feat!
Rap Game Civil War: The rap world has been captivated over the past few days/weeks by the unfolding “beef” between two of the music world’s premier artists; Kendrick “Kung Fu Kenny” Lamar vs. Aubrey “Drake” Graham. At this point these two presumably grown men have exchanged numerous diss tracks boiling down to accusations of domestic abuse and paternal neglect. It’s a bit shameful to see so many people distracted by two guys publicly airing one another’s dirty laundry, particularly with the events and horrors that are taking place on the other side of the world, but there is undoubtedly some humor to be found in the ongoing repartee. I’m not quite audacious enough to draw comparisons between two 30-something year old millionaires trading lyrical barbs and the war crimes taking place in Gaza, but Kendrick has turned into something of a Hamas of the hip hop world. The California rapper has become an unpredictable renegade actor delivering endless blows to the very embodiment of the vile music industry’s white colonization of rap music. Meanwhile, Drake is following in the footsteps of so many Israelis by being accused of pedophilia