Politicians and University Administrators Unmask Outside Agitators!
Musings
Our vigilant mayors and university administrators have found a new reason to explain their endless missteps and failures of leadership with regard to the demonstrations on college and university campuses. They have discovered outside agitators amongst the crowd! I'm sure they looked long and hard to find the people from outside the student body to add to those whom they blame for everything, of course excepting themselves.
What a surprise to discover that faculty members are not only supporting the students but that people in the neighborhood are coming to support them and bringing them food and supplies and people that work in the neighborhood are bringing food and supplies and others that are curious or just agree with the demonstrators cause are coming to show their support. Now that is really unusual in the history of human behavior that these people might show up and offer such comfort or assistance and it's important for the powers that be to find these agitators because that gives them someone else to blame.
It appears that amongst our agitators is a 63 year old lady in New York City who supports the student assembly on campus and went to show that support. She was taken away by the police for her dastardly actions, as were various residential neighbors and people working in the neighborhood that linked arms to try and help shield the students on the campus. There seems to have been little evidence of disturbance or civil disobedience and indeed many of the students of Jewish ethnicity we're still present and intermixed with the pro Palestinian students, all of whom were trying to assert their rights to assembly and free speech and have their campus for themselves and not a police proving ground.
Contemplations
One of the interesting features of this endless coverage is that the news media is constantly reminding us of an uptick in anti-Semitism and that students of Jewish ethnicity complain they don't feel safe. Occasionally there is a comment that there are also counter demonstrations by the pro-Israeli students who also have signs and chants and intimidate pro-Palestinian students. Unfortunately there are also occasions such as on the UCLA campus where the two groups decided to have an altercation with each other. As with most things each of these issues goes both ways. It does appear that the politicians are much more worried about a Jewish vote than a Palestinian vote (I'm trying not to be too cynical about why the politicians are jumping in). This is even true from the White House where it has been announced that the president is making a speech about anti-Semitism this coming week. I'm surprised the speech is not about anti-Semitism and anti-Islamism. You would think the two go together at this point. I'm sure he'll throw a sentence or two to remind us, "oh yes be nice to Islamic people too" as he wants to gather all of the votes he can from every group available, even as he shows a distinct backing and favoritism from the White House for the Israeli position, none of which has been justified with regard to the destruction of Gaza, where over 35,000 Palestinians have been killed, of which over 20,000 are children. But, now that we have identified some outside agitators to justify these reactionary positions by the politicians and the university and college administrations, those in power can pound there chests are keep charging forward.
As we contemplate the need the politicians and university administrators felt to respond to the outside agitators let us consider some number of the outside agitators which have been prevalent in our nation's history to clarify why it is necessary to stop them before they cause too much agitation. There were the abolitionists campaigning to take other people's property (slaves) and free them, there were the suffragettes who wanted the right to vote, there were the labor unions that wanted decent working conditions, there were the African Americans who wanted to end Jim Crow and be equal citizens, there were the farm workers who wanted to get paid and have decent working conditions and amongst these remember that we have our most insistent outside agitators who were constantly arrested for being so evil, people such as Martin Luther king and Cesar Chavez.
That's an abbreviated list of some of the terrible outside agitators from our history. And to think that now we have more citizens that are involved in agitating and assembling for free speech and other rights they claim under the constitution.
To finish today's list of totally outrageous outside agitators we have uncovered ( it was slick detective work, it was in the newspaper) another one. Jerry Seinfeld is reported to have helped to bankroll a counter protest by pro-Israeli UCLA students at that campus. Here we have an outside agitator from New York who has come to Los Angeles and given money to support one of the groups of protesters on campus. I'm sure Mayor Adams back in New York City is appalled as the UCLA administration must be. But then doesn't Jerry have his right to free speech (agitation even) as all the rest of the protesters on both sides who want to assemble and emphasize their citizens rights ?
Thoughts
This endless episode of sound and fury continues because of a gross lack of leadership on the college and university campuses and their adjacent municipal governments. Of course, whenever there's an issue with public attention to be had the politicians show up for screen time and short meaningless diatribes and now we have various politicians jumping in the pot to try and get their time, particularly because it's an election year. It's sad to think that this lack of leadership could spread so far, to so many of our political and academic institutions. These politicians and school administrators need to stand in front of a mirror to contemplate what they have done, how their attempted leadership failed, the misplaced judgment that was exercised in their decisions and rethink what they should be doing instead of just exercising more John Wayne bravado.
Silence Dogood