Know that at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, a professor has been suspended and is under investigation because she mentioned Palestine in a class assignment. No, really, that's what it's about.
It's also not the first time the SAIC has brought down the hammer on that particular topic. They did some shutting down just back in April.
We're also at a point where war-wary combat veteran Graham Platner has become the presumptive nominee for US Senator in Maine, and both parties are ratfucking his campaign to death. Well, trying to, anyway.
I remember in the 2000s being told that real Americans were all for kicking ass in the Mideast, and only subversives and hipsters were concerned about Arab lives at all. Even then, that was a crass generalization. Still, more recent turns of events have been weird. The broad American populace is now markedly dovish on things like Israel and Iran. And the institutions? Don't care at all. They're backing the neocons all the way, often at the expense of things like free speech.
2 comments:
You've found yet another example of the absolute indifference to the violence and abuse being inflicted on the Palestinian people at the hands of Israel. Always described as antisemitism Israelis and Israeli supporters attempt to control public discourse and control historical narratives. The government and universities (not only the U of Chicago) support the ethnic cleansing in Palestine and if Palestine is mentioned by an instructor, multiple layers of these institutions will shut them down. All it takes is one complaint and there's always someone waiting for the opportunity to censure.
I don't believe that anything the general population feels about the current situation in the Middle East has anything to do with whether or not the government pays the least attention. The neocons and the super wealthy have taken over the historical policy - Israel is America's weapon in the Middle East. They are literally one and the same, Israel is a policy of the U.S. and the U.S. is the only one that keeps it functioning. Trump did make a mistake but it's one he'd been primed to make.
None of them seem to get that the Gaza massacre, the abuses in the West Bank, the invasion of Southern Lebanon, et bloody cetera, have exposed the underside of the Israeli project in a way it's never been exposed before. The old status quo, where many saw Israel as this great and benevolent democracy that plants trees everywhere and no one else cared enough to argue with them, isn't coming back. Hollowing out freedom of speech on behalf of a foreign country really doesn't help either.
The general population does not, in fact, get a vote on whether these forever wars keep getting started and getting caught. Although something interesting has happened with Iran. Due to the potentially catastrophic results of the Strait of Hormuz remaining shut, Trump actually seems to have realized his mistake and is attempting to reverse course. Time will tell how much success he has in that.
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