Sad but true lesson from #CampusProtests: "#University presidents aren’t leaders anymore. They’re lackeys. They serve the corporations, billionaires, and government leaders on whom they depend. It’s no surprise that, when it comes to the encampments, most administrators have been dutiful subalterns. They don’t lead, they obey." https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/university-presidents-gaza-protests
"From their campuses, the students are calling out as loudly as they can that western institutions are complicit in arming a genocide, that the emperor is every bit as morally exposed as he appears. It is time to stop listening to those gaslighting us. Now is the time to believe our own eyes"
Jonathan Cook
Prominent Republicans have seized on campus protests to assail what they say is antisemitism on the left. But for years they have mainstreamed anti-Jewish rhetoric.
Unleash the litigation gates! These universities calling the police on their students will be in litigation for years. And those costs don't include the $ NYC is bleeding paying for these cops.:
Seen the rubble, the buildings,
the mothers and the children
And all the men that you murdered,
and then we see how you spin it... https://yewtu.be/watch?v=fgDQyFeBBIo
Rapper Macklemore has released a song supporting the campus protests, calling for a ceasefire in the Middle East, and saying he won't vote for Joe Biden in the fall. Salon has more details on "Hind's Hall," a name that pays tribute to the Columbia protestors and Hind Rajab, a six-year-old killed by the Israeli military.
The thousands of students protesting on university campuses across America need to eat. Eater tells the story of the people who are feeding them, including Abdul Elenani, co-owner of New York City's Palestinian restaurant Ayat, who has delivered shawarma sandwiches, kibbeh and maklouba to Columbia and NYU, and activists Taylor Yates and Navi Valentine, whose Welcome Home Kitchens organization is feeding folks in Chicago.
"In the tented camps and crowded streets of Rafah, the pro-Palestine campus protests in the US have been followed closely.
“We hear a lot of news about students’ demonstrations in American universities … When I saw that, I was very happy that there are still those who stand beside us and in support of us,” said Nevin Abu Shahma, 39, who fled to Rafah from northern Gaza early in the war"
"Asmaa al-Najili, 30, who had arrived in Rafah from Khan Younis, a nearby city which was the site of heavy fighting in March, said she had used news clips of protesting students to cheer up her seven-year-old daughter"
Haitham Abu Marsa said that before the recent unrest few in Gaza had heard of the US universities where the protests have been most intense. ..
“These protests… made us happy by finding people from the west who stood with our cause … [But] at the same time it made us sad because our brothers in the Arab countries did not do what these people did"
"#AntiwarProtests sweep across university campuses in the United States. The police response – the violence – has been shocking and so has some of the reporting from the US #MainstreamMedia."
With: Paula Chakravartty,
Noura Erakat, Adel Iskandar,
Elijah Kahlenberg
Chief of NYPD cops clearing campus protesters: "You're dealing with children, or teenagers slash young adults, that aren't at the mental capacity you are at as professional police officers."
If you're for speech that clearly makes some people feel unsafe/uncomfortable coming out of the #CampusProtests, like "from the river to the sea..." or "fuck zionists" etc, please don't say we should defederate from servers here cause they host people that also antagonize but in other directions. Intentional harassment should not be acceptable in either situation, but many here want to go beyond that to shield folks from stumbling on views they don't like or facts they dispute. #fediblockmeta
The Pulitzer Prize Board has issued a statement recognizing the "tireless efforts" of student journalists covering the campus protests across the U.S., highlighting the "great personal and academic risk" they faced. They mentioned specifically the journalists at Columbia University where the Pulitzer Prizes are housed. “In the spirit of press freedom, these students worked to document a major national news event under difficult and dangerous circumstances and at risk of arrest,” they said. Here's more from The Hill.
"The important dividing line isn’t between 1968 and 2024. Rather it’s between those who refuse to “take sides” and those who understand that in times of war, there is no defensible “middle ground.” At the end of the day, the “liberal” position which finds fault with both the Zionist and Palestinian positions is a function of privilege and fundamentally ends up supporting the status quo"
Bob Stein
Students at my institution - the University of Toronto - have joined others across the continent in establishing an encampment on campus. Having been rebuffed by the administration in early April, the students continue to call "on the post-secondary institution to divest from assets that 'sustain Israeli apartheid, occupation and illegal settlement of Palestine.'"
"These student protests against a war that has killed over 34,000 Palestinians, at least two-thirds of whom are women and children, are what professors and administrators love to call a “teachable moment.” Unfortunately, most universities and colleges are failing their academic principles, their students, and their faculty. I wish I could say I was surprised, but after three decades in academia, I am not."
Prof Viet Thanh Nguyen
So..It’s time for a change…
Raise your voice to the air
It’s time for a change
Revolution is here
This is our song,
our rights now expressed
There’s power in our voice
There’s strength in our words
When the whole world is silent,
Our voice must be heard.
This is our song #Revolution is set
For the festival of the #oppressed https://yt.artemislena.eu/watch?v=9F_coLFmerg