Four years ago the culture appeared to be united in the belief that only two things mattered: demonstrating for justice, and having elastic bands pulling on your ears. When you hear the words "good trouble" you can be sure that protest kitsch is in the air, and that was the best and most sacred kind of kitsch.
Either something has changed or, more likely, something has been revealed. Students protesting on behalf of Gaza have been subjected to violent retribution both official and otherwise. On top of this has been an over-the-to smear campaign in the media.
There's something educational in this. You can see and learn when they bend the rules and when they don't, and for whom. The establishment isn't your friend, kids. It never was.
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As one Jewish Columbia student so aptly put it, "It makes no sense to have a place for Jewish people that requires other people to suffer and die.”
These crises, both in Ukraine and Palestine, didn't invent themselves. We remember the protests in the 60s, but times have changed and the corporate takeover of so much of the West hadn't yet happened. The genocide in Gaza has exposed the pure evil of the Western Empire and the complete hypocrisy of its rules based order.
Other than the 1968 trial of the Chicago Seven, dissent wasn't criminalized nearly to the extent it seems to be at present. 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.
I think we might have already mentioned we're very disappointed.
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Speaking of culture, here are the finalists in the 2024 Eurovision competition.
One good thing to have happened in the last few months is the emergence of Jewish people--many young, some not so young--who have a different vision. Of course it's obvious Israel's government isn't listening to them. Neither is ours.
Ukraine and Palestine aren't identical situations, but both are cases of entrenched power making entrenched decisions. It should be obvious that both wars are causing needless and pointless suffering, and that the final outcome stands to be disastrous. Still, the upper echelons show no doubt, no capability of learning.
I do wonder if COVID made our leaders more comfortable with simply forcing their will onto the people with no consideration of consent. Or maybe they were thinking along those lines already and that was just the first opportunity. In either case we're seeing much more authoritarianism.
There's a lot to be disappointed about.
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I had to edit "blogger.com" out of the URL but I did see the Eurovision contestants. It's hard to believe this isn't a Eurovision parody on some SNL-type show.
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