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PaperclipPerfector  11d ago (text post)   25186 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 22, 2024

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Students from various campuses have occupied the Columbia University campus in New York City in protest of Israel. There reports and videos circulating of protestors harassing Jewish students on or near campus grounds. The NYPD has deployed officers to surround the campus and has established filtration checkpoints to prevent outside agitators from entering campus. Various Columbia alumni have expressed concern with Columbia’s handling of the situation. All classes are now online at least for today. Similar protests are happening at Yale and various other campuses across the country.

Edit: Congressman Josh Hawley has called on President Joe Biden to deploy the National Guard to Columbia and other universities to protect Jewish students on campus.

Edit: NYU has ordered their encampment to disperse and the NYPD is moving in to clear the demonstrators.

Edit: I’m seeing footage of NYU professors being marched out of the campus in zip ties. Cal Poly Humbolt students have barricaded themselves inside a campus building with furniture.

Edit: University of Texas, Austin student protestors are being dispersed by police. And possibly vanned. Protests now seem to be nationwide.

Edit: Mass arrests beginning at USC protests.

Edit: Tasers and rubber bullets being deployed against protestors at Emory University in Georgia.

Edit: There appear to be police snipers monitoring protests at Ohio State University.

I mean, what do these people hope to accomplish? Like what are their demands?

Surely they know that Columbia university can’t actually affect any Israeli policies.

You can't really talk about protests like they're a unified group with a specific plan. It's like asking "what are those people on the Motte hoping to accomplish?" There's a lot of them, and they're all different.

I think a big part of protests is to improve the cohesion of the protestors. They start out as just a mob of dissatisfied individuals who hate the current status quo, but they'll talk to each other, march together, chant slogans together, and eventually figure something out. Over time they turn into a unified, coherent political activist group. They might alienate a lot of neutrals, but those random neutrals don't have much political power either. A small, committed activist group can wield disproportionate power. See for example: AIPAC on the other side.

In a general sense, I think university leftists have done a great job convincing college students that being anti-Israel, pro-Palestine is the default "leftist" "intellectual" position. That's going to have ripple effects down the line.

In a general sense, I think university leftists have done a great job convincing college students that being anti-Israel, pro-Palestine is the default "leftist" "intellectual" position.

I think this is the wrong level of generality to look at it. Someone has convinced the students that the default leftist intellectual alignment is anti-establishment, despite Columbia being an establishment institution that largely exists to train the pro-establishment left. The pro-establishment left has been mostly pro-Israel since the Holocaust and solidly pro-Israel since before I was born. The anti-establishment left has been mostly pro-Palestine since the Nabka and solidly pro-Palestine since kibbutzim stopped being a useful example of really existing socialism. The changing views of leftwing students on Israel-Palestine is downstream of their changing views on the centre-left establishment.

In a general sense, I think university leftists have done a great job convincing college students that being anti-Israel, pro-Palestine is the default "leftist" "intellectual" position. That's going to have ripple effects down the line.

I actually disagree here - that is and always has been the default "leftist" "intellectual" position (sic). You don't need to posit some conspiracy among campus left-wing activists to explain why modern left wing political thought takes a dim view of white-passing ethnostates that convert American tax dollars/weapons into dead brown people.

modern left wing political thought takes a dim view of white-passing ethnostates that convert American tax dollars/weapons into dead brown people

True, but I don't think they were so anti-Israel as they are today. Maybe some of the more radical leftists were, but most mainstream democrats (like Joe Biden) were still staunchly pro-Israel, and of course anti-semitism is one of the great bogeymen of leftists everywhere.

Mainstream leftists (including Joe Biden) still are staunchly pro-Israel. Congress just passed a bill to provide military aid to Israel with mostly-Democratic votes.

Those college campuses still had actual conservatives on them, don't forget that. The radical left and leftists in general, were a minority of a minority then. Conservatives and centrists still dominated the campus. Now the radicals are the minority of the leftist majority, bolstered by the foreign and immigrant Islamic student population.

Also, the radical minority from before is now running the asylum. They pushed for the creation of 'studies' programs that could only accept leftist professors and pushed out conservatives and moderates wherever they could. They use DEI initiatives to further marginalize anyone who would go against them even in STEM fields.

The march through the institutions is almost complete, now we just have to wait for perestroika and glastnov in 3 generations, if we're lucky, maybe I'll still be alive then.

For the most part I agree, but there are still quite a few old Jewish faculty and administrators in the institutions to put a check on this. And I'm sure Sergey Brin and Larry Page have a few connections at Google they can use to help clamp down on the protests there.

You can't really talk about protests like they're a unified group with a specific plan.

Of course they are. This is all planned.

By whom?

I'm sure you can find any number of groups who are proud to participate. I don't think any of them deserve much credit.

If the signs are like those at other student protests, A.N.S.W.E.R. has something to do with it.

Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace, along with a couple other umbrella groups, have jointly claimed credit for both the Columbia-specific protest and the follow-on encampments at a number of other schools. There's a fair criticism that there's at least a few rando Garbage People in the hradzka sense running around, or even agent provacateurs, but this isn't some Stand Alone Complex where the simulacrum had no real original version.

((The less charitable take on 'umbrella group' is that they're both just front groups for the actual coordinating organizations, but by definition I can only point to the subchapters and related organizations giving extremely similar messaging on short notice, or other more subtle signs that they've got intercampus communication going on that doesn't match the paper or training from the public faces.))

By whom?

I don't know, I'm not on their mailing lists (or Discords as the case may be)

Then how do you know it exists?

The bailey, I mean, where these discord servers somehow distinguish their members from "a mob of dissatisfied individuals." Anyone can give out an email address. That puts them roughly on par with a local HOA. Scary.

I see what appears to be co-ordinated protests, I know protests have been co-ordinated in the past, I infer the existence of a co-ordinator. It's not rocket science.

I would gently posit that your level of conscientious organization is slightly higher effort than these flash mobs. Occupy Wall Street and Chaz exhibit hallmarks of being coalescing of disparate bedfellows rather than a coordinated mobilization effort. Coordinated efforts if anything exhibit geographical dispersion to maximize visibility, like deliberate disruptions of uninvolved parties and events by the pro-pal protestors. Staying in a single region to protest dance is just a magnet attracting the crazies, and those tend to dissolve the moment a power struggle arises.

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The vast, top-secret sinister conspiracy of... college student protesters?

It is at least 80 years too late to sneer at that in the United States alone.

Hopefully, they can pull US military aid out of Israel. Israel will have to resort to using more dumb bombs, until local industry catches up with demand. With less leverage on Israel, the Arabs in Gaza will suffer more - and hopefully some will be forced out, though that’s more of a longshot.

Since the American defense lobby likes money, all this probably won’t happen.

Hold on.

Are you suggesting Arab suffering is a means to some end? Or is it the goal?

Neither. It’s a result of less US restrictions on Israeli actions, which generally prioritize safeguarding Arab lives much lower than accomplishing military objectives. E.g. going into Rafah now, is something the US is preventing Israel from doing for such humanitarian reasons.

They're going to pull US military aid out of Israel...by protesting at Columbia?

Even if their protest is successful, how is Columbia University going to pull that off?

What does the location of the protest have to do with it? If protesters are marching in the streets, it’s not because they’re making demands of the HOA. They’re speaking to a national audience, which is exactly why we know about it at all.

In theory, they could get Columbia to completely cave and put out a sufficiently groveling statement that it triggers a respectability cascade, causing all the other universities to cave and put out groveling statements. This would be followed by major media outlets, and finally the White House.

It's unlikely, but theoretically possible. It would be less crazy than the stuff that happened in 2020.

Except Columbia can't do that because they've got pressure from the pro-Israel left which would result in the ouster of Columbia's Muslim female president, the Baroness (yes really) Nemat Shafik, if they did so. She doesn't want to be treated like Claudine Gay.

It's unlikely, but theoretically possible. It would be less crazy than the stuff that happened in 2020.

...a university putting out a statement that causes a chain reaction that leads to the President of the United States and a majority of Congress to change their position on providing military aid to Israel?

What happened in 2020 that was crazier than that?

I don't see a world where the US decides to stop providing military aid to Israel within the next decade, let alone in time to have an effect on the current conflict. Even if literally all the universities put out statements saying that they should! In my experience a university statement on a hot button political issue has never come close to anything like that kind of impact.

What happened in 2020 that was crazier than that?

American sports was completely canceled for 48 hours because a domestic abuser in the process of kidnapping a child and holding a knife was shot by police.

Who was that?

here ya go. He just gave the cliffs notes for the shooting that started the Kenosha riot which Kyle Rittenhouse more or less ended.

See though, that strikes me as much more probable than the university statement thing. That fits within my understanding of how the world works. American sports has a recent history of doing stupid stuff, and people freak out about criminals being killed by police all the time. When was the last time a statement from a university affected anything?

divestment is a pretty clear goal. it's worked before

I think divestment is certainly a viable goal (afaik various bodies have already divested from the fossil fuels industry, the arms industry, the tobacco industry and so on for progressive political reasons) but it’s not really the reason they’re protesting. Columbia could divest from “corporations that profit from Israel’s war in Gaza” tomorrow and it wouldn’t stop the protests.

Note that the argument that the students are making for "Columbia is profiting from Israel's US backed war in Gaza" is not the sane version of that argument. They are going after Columbia for holding index funds which contain regular American companies which do business in Israel. Apparently Microsoft is "providing surveillance infrastructure to the IDF" and therefore QQQQ is a hate stock. The kind of divestment the students are asking for is not a serious demand that they want met.

I think they actually do have a chance to influence policy on this. Normally I think protesting is a waste of time, but Biden needs the progressive left to win this election. It is very close and maybe they can get some serious concessions out of him and his administration.

As far as Columbia goes, I think they want them to divest from Israel. From Al Jazeera: "The protesters are calling for Columbia to divest from corporations that profit from Israel’s war on Gaza".

but Biden needs the progressive left to win this election

Unironically, I don't think this was true two years ago. If he'd have played Bill Clinton's playbook from the 90s and governed as center-left, I think he could have a high enough approval rating that we wouldn't be taking a rematch of the 2020 election seriously. But it seems, to me at least, that the current administration doesn't want to moderate its positions to appeal to the median voter: I'm hard pressed to think of many cases where it's been willing to push back against progressive partisans.

My standing thesis is that the Congressional Progressive Caucus successfully convinced Bidens team that the momentum of BLM was permanent and that the CPC as the champion/stewart of BLM was on the ascendancy. A few specific events lent credence to this calculus in the early days of Bidens presidency such as Stacey Abrahms mobilizing Georgia for Biden and the Senate, and the Rittenhouse trial among other BLM items made the CPC advocacy seem relevant and thus their political power was enshrined. Opponents to the CPC like Abigail Spanberger and Obama and consultants such as Ruy Texiera and James Carville have repeatedly complained that the progressives still have too much influence, and tbat is squarely aimed at the CPC.

Minor setbacks like Jayapal being smacked for advocating Ukraine 'negotiate' seemed to dull some of the CPC influence, but the CPC has always been explicitly pro palestinian. With youth support for pro palestine being more visible than AIPACs feeble efforts to change public perception of voters, Biden is beholden to the CPC if only to maintain a pretense of strength to the wider electorate.

The Clinton center-left voters are gone; they follow NPR and NPR has moved along with the progressive left even further leftward.

The normie Clinton era voter is listening but not absorbing this leftward shift. Most of them are vaguely democratic insofar as the republican options remain as noxiously stupid as they currently are; Trump is bad enough but Majorie Taylor Greene is a trainwreck to anyone wishing to express even mild dissent from the Democrats.

I doubt the voters are gone. Even subreddits like /r/bayarea have taken a notable anti crime turn over the past few years, to the point where it's rare now to see highly upvoted comments in favor of criminal law reform, rent control, or other progressive hobbyhorses.

Bayarea is a notably young subreddit, as that whole website is. If anything this is a new crop of normies emerging, having seen the consequences of the soft touch and unwilling to continue blindly down this evidently rocky path to the progressive future. There is usually an interesting splitting of subreddits in regionals, with sanfrancisco and bayareahating each other just as seattle and seattlewa or publicfreakout and actualpublicfreakouts or unitedkingdom and ukpolitics all hate each other for being pussies and racists respectively. The split has been getting worse over time, likely because of the increasingly visible failures of progressives. Should be fun to see these spirals continue and see which side the banhammer falls on. Gendercritical got axed, but so did chapotraphouse

It can affect US policies?

Remember that everyone said this exact same thing about BLM protests in 2015. The movement was a joke, just some crazy college kids.

This is just another loop on the death spiral.

Which of BLM’s goals did it achieve? Stuff like the bail/justice reform movement long predates BLM and wasn’t the focus, so that doesn’t count.

Diverted uncounted billions of dollars to leftist activism to give sinecures to hordes of useless college graduates, putting fringe "critical theory" activists in charge of university hiring, science funding, and formerly apolitical NGOs with massive endowments and prestige.

I don't know what goals you think they had other than "all power to us, loot the system for our ingroup"

How can people still pretend the institutional takeovers of 2020 just didn't happen?

That’s just institutional leftism, it isn’t BLM in particular. That was a specific movement with goals like “defund the police”.

BLM was the previous vehicle for institutional leftism to take over everything. "Decolonization" is the new one.

Got some of those in the 'leadership' positions independently wealthy.

They got Starbucks locations to act as a public restroom for a few years. Not even that was able to stick.

Looser sentences was absolutely a key focus of BLM. The fact that those demands predated BLM does not negate the fact. As for achievements? That's another story. But I think the goal for BDS is more tangible since most people don't really care much about Israel one way or another. That's why the Zionist lobby has been successful. It's enough for a small but passionate minority and you can have outsized impact on foreign policy. Domestic policy is trickier.

I agree, Zionism is the default in the US because most people don’t care except (most) Jews and some Evangelicals and this leads to policy by default, unlike issues like abortion and gun control with strong views on both sides. As the Muslim population rises in the West, the constituency strongly ideologically opposed to Israel, who consider opposition to Israel a central religious and moral imperative, grows with it.

That said, the route to BDS’ actual goals (which, most pointedly, include sanctions as a central element) is much harder. Fifty something representatives out of 435 voted against the current Israel aid bill; 20 of those were Republicans protesting the related aid for Ukraine and that some of the money would go to Palestinians (and even the NatCon faction definitely wouldn’t vote to sanction Israel in support of Palestinians, they just wouldn’t vote to send it money). Of the few dozen Dems most just thought Israel went a bit too far in Gaza. The US Muslim population is much smaller than those in major Western European countries per capita, and is highly concentrated in a few house seats. Even countries that have been more skeptical of Israel’s war in Gaza, like China and Russia, don’t sanction Israel. Even many Muslim lands do not.

BLM turned out and had specific demands of people near enough to have to listen to them. Those demands were, at first, fairly reasonable(cops wear body cams) so they were met.

By contrast the pro-Palestine protestors are demanding Israel dissolve itself. Not only is this a much bigger ask than ‘put cameras on your police’ Israel really doesn’t care and doesn’t have to listen at all.

I don't recall anyone actually being against body cams, aside from some griping about the cost. IME most cops want to wear them because they're great at rebutting false accusations of misconduct and brutality.

I haven't noticed the sibling's comment that BLM is actually against them now, though maybe I haven't been paying enough attention. I suppose it wouldn't surprise me all that much though. I still recall the case where the cops shot a black teenage girl who was actively in the process of stabbing another girl, it was caught on bodycam quite clearly, and BLM still threw a fit, though a bit more muted.

fairly reasonable(cops wear body cams)

I am all for this. But then when it started to be implemented, BLM's rhetoric turned around, at least locally. The stated rationale was privacy. But cynically, I think it was because too many (but not all!) of their rallying cases wound up having video evidence that contradicted the simple narrative that spun out of the initial reports.

I remember articles from the activist groups demanding that body cam footage be sealed and only released at the request of the accused. Remind me to find them later.

Yeah, that sounds familiar. If you happen to come across those links, it'd be nice to have them here for reference, but no worries if not. :-)

As far as I know, BLM always opposed body cams.

BLM is just a three word slogan. To the extent that it became a real-world organization it was largely a grift.

People then, as now, were attracted to the movement for all sorts of reasons. Some people made reasonable demands. Most did not.

As usual, the communists showed up as they do whenever people are angry about something.

There was no "good BLM" that got corrupted. It was always just an organic blob that was fanned by street anger, irresponsible news media, and Marxist organizations. The white people who were at those protests in 2014 are the same as the white people at the anti-Jewish protests today. Eventually they'll get bored and move on to the next thing, looking for self-actualization that will never arrive.

BLM is just a three word slogan. To the extent that it became a real-world organization it was largely a grift.

I agree, but I would say that the lack of specific demands was also one of its strengths.

If you make a specific demand, it ties you down. It reveals your cards. The other side can respond in various clear ways. They can give you the demand, which immediately ends the negotiation. They can negotiate, aiming for somewhere in the middle. Or they can refuse, and offer various reasons why those demands are unreasonable. Either way, it gives them a logical path out.

Instead of making demands, it's pure "id." It keeps the other side guessing, pleading. "Just tell me what you want!!!" "No." The classic example is the wife who is angry at her husband, but won't tell him why she's angry or what she wants him to do. "If you really loved me, you'd know without me telling you." It keeps him guessing, keeps him on an endless treadmill of trying to do things for her in a futile attempt to satisfy her that will never end. Plus, for a political movement, it brings together all sorts of people who probably wouldn't agree on any one specific demand.

looking for self-actualization that will never arrive

Seems like it does arrive for them, in the sense that they get to be a part of a change in zeitgeist. I imagine it feels pretty fulfilling to get in early on the next big political thing.

Ego satiation doesn't put food on the table. Once there material wealth was present for the taking, the infighting crippled the movement. The BLM formal organization milked the feel-good donations dry before collapsing, immediately calling the general public racist for not continuing to support Buy Large Mansions. While the grifter and the do-gooder may be seperate bodies, neither side manages to get their preferred outcome.

The charitable answer (extremely charitable IMHO, but I'm sure accurate for at least a few of them) is that they do have some non-zero chance of influencing US policy, specifically the amount of aid we give to Israel, the conditions we put upon it, and the tenor of our relations with Israel. If they can change the tenor of relations even slightly from "We got your back" to "Reign it in a bit, our support isn't unconditional" they could see that as a win.

If they can change the tenor of relations even slightly from "We got your back" to "Reign it in a bit, our support isn't unconditional" they could see that as a win.

They have already done so. POTUS administration has used messaging to suggest support is conditional, begging restraint, etc. For example, the reporting after Iran strike on Israel, it was widely reported afterwards Biden had talked to Bibi and said the US won't participate in any retaliation. "Take the win." Coordinating an impromptu air defense network between several regional partners to down Iranian missiles and drones is not lukewarm support. It is exceptional support. I don't think the general public is aware or cares about these kinds of details. It was also support defensive in nature which I guess makes it less useful to activists to point at.

It is unclear exactly what Biden could do to satisfy this arm of his party without ceasing all financial and military support for Israel. A politically isolated or more desperate Israel is probably not a better Israel for Palestinians to live next to. Nor would it be better for America to have to deal with and it would likely increase domestic pressures on Biden. So signals for restraint and (probably) coordinated public messaging is about all POTUS is willing to do. It is an election year after all!

I mean, what do these people hope to accomplish? Like what are their demands?

Can't you ask that about most protests?

I never really "got" protesting. I have to assume that the main purpose of it is just to serve as a social activity for the protesters themselves. If it's something like workers going on strike, where the group in question actually has some leverage, that's a different story, but a bunch of random people just gathering in public to "support a cause"? It doesn't make a lot of sense.

Sometimes I've heard it justified as a way of building positive publicity. You're supposed to see the police or other authority figures mistreating the protesters, and that's supposed to make you support their cause more. But usually it just makes me end up supporting the cause less, because the protesters are obnoxious. Their own actions make me want them to lose more.

Protestors in general come off like cringe idiots to me. Willing to inconvenience you for their cause, that they believe is so obviously right that the only reason you won't join them is because you're either an irredeemable bad person or are incredibly ignorant and actually being educated by their protest.

I participated in some minor protests which were held and they were useful as they were used as "see, people actually care about this issue".

They helped to result in changes at local level.

Protests can be seen as kind of mini-referendum - and give sign to politicians they should at least pretend to care about given topic. Or maybe even care and do something.

In last local elections all politicians actually pretended to care about this topics, some seem to actually care about this topics.

Protest is better sign of actual strong interest than FB petition.

I never really "got" protesting. I have to assume that the main purpose of it is just to serve as a social activity for the protesters themselves.

I don't remember where I read it, but I recall someone arguing that a group of sign-waving protestors sends two messages — one written on the signs, the other the sticks to which those signs are attached. Picture any particular mob of protestors, shouting and chanting slogans, only now they're also wielding the proverbial pitchforks and torches.

There's all sorts of goals one could have. Often the goal is to make enough of a nuisance of yourselves so that you force the news to mention your cause, maybe sparking some conversations in the public. Sometimes, as you say, it's specifically to taunt the police so you can get some pictures of them hitting you in an attempt to take the moral high ground reserved for those oppressed by authority. Some protests are pure practice, every year here there a day of protest "against police brutality" and it's just a rallying cry for all the people who want to practice rioting (and for the police to practice their riot suppression) for when they'll have an actual cause they want to strategically riot for. If your protest is elite-supported, it can be to intimidate or to launder unpopular opinions for the elite by making them seem a lot more popular than they are.

Except that I’ve never ever seen this drive more people to support these causes. In fact, it’s almost always a negative publicity to the point that it would often do the cause better to not protest at all. Your protest blocked a road, now everyone is pissed because they were late to work, or missed a flight, or other activities they needed to get to. Are people talking about the cause as in “does this idea have merit” or in terms of “what a bunch of inconsiderate losers making people late for work and making people miss their flights. It’s negative at least around me. People outright cheered when the people blocking roads in Europe got pushed out of the way by SUVs or were manhandled to the side of the road by outraged drivers. Not one person seeing the souping of the Louvre paintings got curious about the cause, they were upset about the destruction of the art. So on net, it’s more likely to turn people away.

Except that I’ve never ever seen this drive more people to support these causes.

I am aware of such cases. In one case because people cared, were willing to take being late or risking beating or prison sentence or being thrown out of work and take minor risk of being assassinated by regime - but they were not aware that such opinion was widely shared.

So protests sparked strikes and so on.

Note that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1981_warning_strike_in_Poland basically failed - despite 12 million people participating in strike - in country that had 36 million people! Imagine 111 million people on strike in USA! Strike included regime television, all TV went out for 4 hours.

But https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1988_Polish_strikes were final trigger for regime change.

On other side: for minor issues even minor protest can cause results, especially for local government issues when noone really opposes them. Or opposing group will happily go away and try to take less defended victim rather than fight this specific battle. In sufficiently minor cases things as simple as single person mailing local government can work.

Other model: it is demonstration of power and one step away from armed mob/uprising/terrorism. This also sometimes works. Sometimes by progressing into outright revolution.

See Ukraine in 2014 (president run away, no full scale civil war*) or how Tzarist Russia ended (ended in a full scale civil war).

*or ended in a civil war if you treat what happened in East as civil war rather than Russian invasion.

How old are you, roughly speaking?

Because this was famously, visibly effective in a few historical situations. The Civil Rights movement is in living memory.

It's often negative in the short term, but there are a lot of small causes that the news just doesn't care about and wouldn't mention if it weren't that some people made themselves a nuisance. It's a long term play, to not let your cause be forgotten or ignored. It's better to make people angry about you than let them ignore you.

For those specific examples, climate protestors have full elite backing now, the strategy is different. It's intimidation, they're used by the elites to show what they are willing to destroy if people don't bow down.

Hasn’t climate protest worked because the earth has actually gotten warmer the last 20 years so it feels true?

PETA hasn’t taken off. The only real change in that space is picking up some rationalists.

And environmentalist have benefited from tech costs curves while nothing like that has kicked in for PETA (cheap lab meat).

Hasn’t climate protest worked because the earth has actually gotten warmer the last 20 years so it feels true?

Something being true doesn't explain the dynamic he's describing. On one hand there's plenty of things that are true and feel true, and are opposed by the elites, rather than having their full backing. On the other hand the climate protest movement offers no solutions, and as he said are only used as a way to consolidate power, and to show what the elites are willing to destroy.

The term often used is "demonstration" rather than "protest". This is because by existing, these "demonstrations" demonstrate the power of those running them, and thereby convince all involved they'd better get in line.

If they don't actually have that power, sure, they get pushed out of the way and they lose. But anyone messing with these "protestors" will certainly receive the full force of the law, while the "protestors" will be handled with kid gloves, so it is clear they do have the power.

I think this captures the tenor of many protests. It's about power and intimidation. We can burn your buildings, tear down your monuments, loot your stores, and YOU are powerless to stop us.

Demonstrations have worked this way forever, going all the way back to ancient Rome, but perhaps most saliently in the street battles between fascists and communists in Weimar Germany.

Winning hearts and mind is one way to gain power. But any good communist knows that silencing and intimidating your enemies works much better. Here in America, we're so used to the MLK/Gandhi model which is designed to appeal to the hearts of a kind and powerful master. But demonstrations which carry the threat of violence are far more typical. I mean, would you dare to carry a drawing of Muhammad around Columbia's campus right now?

That said, I don't think these protests will go very far. The establishment is NOT on the side of protestors as they were during BLM. Even in San Francisco and Seattle, protestors are being charged for blocking traffic. If any protestors attempt real violence, they will be prosecuted.

Jews are still sacred in America.

Jews are just a white ethnicity now. Sacredness is gone.

What they do have is power.

They also have a strong in-group bias which is a huge reason that power exists in the first place.

More comments

I think in this specific case the protestors are annoying enough that sending in the veterans of Ken state wouldn’t lead to realignment towards their cause.

Most protests do have some chance of efficacy by changing the hearts and minds of local officials, or at least softening opinions. This seems like it has no connection to anything.

Ken state

The Barbie movie has left a lasting impression on our cultural consciousness.

In all seriousness, I don’t think protests have to have direct efficacy. The important thing is when people in power think about aiding Palestine/Israel, they think “people care enough about this to push the envelope of speech.” It’s literally about sending the message.

Ken state

The Barbie movie has left a lasting impression on our cultural consciousness.

Horses involved; checks out.

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