Comments on Profile Post by Merrick

There was a Columbia professor op-ed making the rounds from NYT where he was annoyed that he couldn’t play John Cage’s 4’33”, a piece about active listening because it’s just silence, due to the protests drowning out the birds. How this person missed Cage’s point about listening to whatever is around you during the piece while still being a professor teaching it is uh, something.

What I wouldn't give to be able to project a humongous Star of David hologram over every one of those protests. You know, just to stir things up even more.

Columbia is a private university. They can shut it down anytime they want and there's nothing the students can do about it since they can't claim it is free speech on private grounds.

Of course if some of the videos I watched is true, then some of these students keep saying "From the River to the Sea." They sound like Hamas and puppets from Iran to me.

@YMO I don't think it's nearly as clear cut, as the students have every right to be there and many of them live there in on campus housing. I'm not a lawyer but I do not think in this situation is as simple as Columbia is private so they can do whatever they want. In fact, Columbia had to suspend the students they wanted arrested before they could be arrested so they could argue the students were there unlawfully.

@YMO "From the river to the sea" is a call for a free Palestine. How does that make them puppets of Hamas and Iran? That's some baseless fear mongering and is logistically nearly impossible given how many protests have sprung up and how many people are attending them.

@internethandle I read that opinion piece, it was really bad. The crux of the argument was "If these protestors were actually protesting DEI and racial integration in schools, they'd be shut down". Yeah, if people were protesting good things then they'd get shut down, but they're protesting genocide. But it's the NYT and the opinions section, so basically the same as your average internet comment.

Interesting that these same brave snowflakes just cannot stand to hear anything contrarian on their campuses; what about the right of all students to attend lectures and classes by professors and guest speakers who don't abide by "progressive" group think? Nah, let's shout them off campus. We're too easily triggered and offended.

I don't condone the level of bloodshed unfortunately affecting innocent Palestinians, but at the same time, Israel has run out of options to realistically defend itself from the Iran/Hamas threat while surrounded by hostile nations. It's also too critical of a defense/intelligence and technology R&D ally to USA and its higher-education institutions for ties to be cut in the manner student protestors are demanding.

The divestment is part of an overall strategy to make Israel economically unsustainable, like activists did with South Africa during apartheid. And it won't happen without protests, because there's so much money in it, the universities will have to have their hand forced.

@rott Pretty sure the students are not having professors and guest speakers arrested for sharing right wing views. We can take about equivalencies when they do.

leaving aside campus speech/ protest issues, re: the military wisdom of bombing, creating rubble, then ground assaulting, see Monte Cassino, Stalingrad, etc.

@Merrick While I don't share solidarity with the student protestors, I cannot argue with your statements. Unfortunately I don't think senseless violence in the region will end while Israeli leadership retains settler-hardliners and Palestinian leadership continues to act as a proxy for regional powers hell-bent on Israel's destruction. Would this current cycle end if Hamas frees their Oct. 7th hostages?

Having trouble with the idea of someone catching a ban for a profile post. He didn’t de-rail a thread or even start trouble in Marv’s thread. Not much disrespectful in this back and forth, either. If you’re gonna tolerate the libertarian dude in Marv’s thread worried about a border “invasion,” maybe also tolerate the one vocally left wing dude here.

There are rules around politics in the forum. Marv's thread is the only place. Let's make this the last post on this. Merrick will be back soon.