The air of censoriousness comes so close to being amusing in the case of Greta Thunberg. The twentysomething eco-activist is an annoying scold, to be sure. But the post that got her in trouble was the most anodyne kind of protest, if Israel hawks could accept any kind of protest as inoffensive, that is. As to the supposedly well-known history of the octopus as an antisemitic symbol, well, first of all her octopus was a little plushie whose "tentacles" were the size of a pinkie knuckle. Also when I think of sinister octopi I associate it with the Spirit's nemesis. Does that mean Will Eisner was a raging antisemite? Huge if true.
Perhaps a more serious development is the University of Florida's shutdown of students for Justice in Palestine. According to Chancellor Ray Rodrigues the school system will use “all tools at our disposal to crack down on campus demonstrations that delve beyond protected First Amendment speech into harmful support for terrorist groups.” Is there more than a semantic difference between the former and the latter? Some of the group's materials regarding 10/7 are suspicious enough to possibly justify extra scrutiny, but the law is pretty clear on rights of speech and association.
On Sports Night the boss character, Isaac, had a good speech where he said, "If you're dumb hire smart people. And if you're smart, hire smart people who disagree with you." This ties into what may be Ron DeSantis's great failing as a leader. As he's launched his ambitions he seems to have shrunken his circle of advisors to true believers only. If you're DeSantis then someone like Chris Rufo isn't an internal critic, he's your id made manifest. This might be satisfying, but it's not always helpful.
2 comments:
It was very refreshing to see these images Jer showed me of Grand Central Station this morning when thousands of Jews and their allies held an emergency sit-in to demand a ceasefire in Gaza. Despite being ignored by the media and government a great number of people Not Wth the Program have seen through the pretexts for exterminating the Palestinian people by calling antisemitism to any protests .
Annoying scold is right. Nobody likes a miserable teenage girl who thinks she has a vision from God that entitles her to tell the rest of us what to do. She posted a tweet or something that had a stuffed blue octopus? Yikes, she might have lost a couple of acolytes. Blind belief in whatever she says is a religion, isn't it?
The other day I saw the photographs and names of a large number of people high up in the American administration. Assuming Jews are about 4% of the population and that this disparity of representation happens more frequently in every Western institution you'll see that the number of Jews is wildly out of balance with the general population. It's disappointing but comes as as no surprise the University of Florida has taken this action. It's quite obvious that far from all Jewish people, or Israelis for that matter, feel the same way about the Palestinians.
DeSantis was a good governor. He stood up for the normal moral people in Florida against Woke ideologues intending to brainwash Florida’s children that they are white racists and born into the wrong body, and he prevented mandated Covid jabs, lockdowns, and masks. If he had come out in support of Trump, he would have been the vice presidential nominee and a future president. Instead, just when you thought DeSantis poll numbers couldn’t get lower… never mind the political maneuvers of Chris 'critical race theory' Rufo.
You're right that the demonstration at Grand Central Station is refreshing, and a good sign that not everyone has fallen for the relentless propaganda. Sad to say, the group that organized it--Jewish Voice for Peace--is one of those that just got banned from Columbia University. Why are antiwar groups getting banned from campuses? It's basically at the whim of large donors who don't like their politics. Craven as can be.
I have a fair degree of sympathy for Greta Thunberg. Just like a lot of child stars have had their lives ruined by getting famous too soon, she became a recognized political leader when she was still cooking. And now of course she's gotten the attention of people who will attack her for things she didn't say or even imply.
The real issue with the administration--and with politics in general--is that it's drawn from the professional classes, and these are by and large professions where your success depends on agreeing with the others. It doesn't reward independent thought or a practical approach to problem solving. Israel has a lot more dissent on the issue than most people realize. And in fact some of the most honest reporting on Gaza and the West Bank comes from Israeli media. So why are the governments and mainstream press of the US and UK so biased? Good question, but it involves a lot of non-Jewish people with sleazy motives.
DeSantis may have expected that he could run as Trump's successor, with the man himself retiring from politics. It might have even happened that way were it not for the targeted prosecutions that meant he couldn't just resign and be a President emeritus. Now he's trying to pick up as much support as he can from the Republican establishment, and to put it bluntly the Republican establishment is terrible. CRT is madness, but not everyone opposing it is sane.
Post a Comment