💣 Déjà Vu All Over Again
Or Back to the Past with America Protester Head Bustin Bullshit!
This post contains contoversial political commentary. Don’t read it if you don’t like alternative viewpoints.
I still remember clearly the riots at the 1968 Democrat convention where Hubert H. Humphrey, as Vice President under President Lyndon B. Johnson was being nominated for President of the United States. Humphrey was a Vietnam proponent and the establishment favorite and ultimately won the nomination at the convention. Lyndon Johnson dropped out due to massive protests against his continuation of the Vietnam war.
In contrast Eugene McCarthy a U.S. Senator from Minnesota, ran as an anti-war candidate challenging Johnson's policies in Vietnam. McCarthy's strong showing in the early primaries, especially in New Hampshire, contributed to Johnson's decision not to seek re-election.
Robert F. Kennedy, a U.S. Senator from New York and brother of President John F. Kennedy, entered the race later and quickly gained momentum. He was seen as a unifying figure for anti-war and civil rights sentiments. Ironically, like his brother, Kennedy was assassinated in June 1968 (nothing suspicious there), altering the dynamics of the Democratic race.
The convention was marked by intense protests both inside and outside the convention hall, reflecting the deep divisions within the Democratic Party and American society at large.
Humphrey's nomination was seen by some as a continuation of the party's establishment policies, while others viewed it as a rejection of the anti-war movement and the desire for significant change. The events of the 1968 Democratic Convention underscored the political turmoil of the era and had a lasting impact on American politics.
Thousands of anti-Vietnam War demonstrators, civil rights activists, and counterculture advocates gathered in Chicago to protest the convention. Mayor Richard J. Daley, thug that he was, ordered a strong police presence to maintain order. The police response was no better than the Gestapo. It was harsh and brutal and led to violent clashes between officers and protesters.
The protests and police actions were extensively covered by the media. Television broadcasts showed chaotic scenes of police using tear gas, batons, and physical force against demonstrators and bystanders.
Most importantly it showed how effective anti-war protests led by students and the youngm who would have to fight that, war were.
And of course we can’t forget the four Kent State University students killed and the nine that were injured on May 4, 1970, when members of the Ohio National Guard opened fire on a crowd of students gathered to protest the Vietnam War.
So now, we are back to1968. Student protests all over the country at college campuses and city streets are protesting the Israeli wanton killing of over 34,000 Palestinians, half of whom were women and children and now starving out the rest. And they’ve set their sites on Rafah.
In case you’ve been living under a rock. On 7 October last year, around 70 Hamas militants attacked the Be'eri kibbutz in southern Israel and at least 1200 were killed in the attack, and 240 Israeli’s were taken hostage from the kibbutz.
Hamas, who somehow got past a heavily fortified fence & Israeli security surveillance, killed Israeli soldiers and kidnapped civilians. Bullets started flying and when all was said and done, bodies were strewn in the streets and under bombed buildings and cries of grief and floods of tears followed.
This supposedly was to wipe out a Muslim revolutionary group, Hamas, who were buried deep in Gaza tunnels and popped out later to blow up Israeli tanks and soldiers. After Israel’s reprisal in Gaza, an estimated 34,000 Gazans are wiped out, and the rest are being starved out. Half of them women and children. All those civilians are dead, but Hamas is still there..
Large portions of Gaza are now transformed into moonscapes, with some 100,000 buildings destroyed, including hospitals, churches, mosques, schools, universities, government offices, bakeries, and all the other infrastructure necessary for maintaining civilian life.
Student Protests Ain’t What They Used To Be
Up until now, most of these political protests, especially those on college campuses, were widely hailed by those holding the media megaphones as signifying one of the greatest virtues of American democracy. The many elite defenders of such social and cultural upheavals argued that these events demonstrated the great strength of our society, which freely allowed the fiercest public attacks against our most sacred national icons and heroes.
Americans accepted the self-criticism that wouldn’t have been permitted almost anywhere else in the world.
Today, according to reports, more than 2,000 protesters have been arrested after some university administrators – under growing pressure from the White House and their own wealthy donors – called in local police. Even college administrators have been fired for supporting the protest.
Here’s what’s happening at Columbia University in New York City.
The university buildings are largely vacant. The campus pathways deserted. Columbia is a Potemkin university, a playground for corporate administrators. The president of the university — a British-Egyptian baroness who built her career at institutions such as the Bank of England, World Bank and International Monetary Fund — called in police in riot gear, with guns drawn, to clear the school’s encampment, forcibly evict students who occupied a campus hall and beat and arrest over 100 of them. They were arrested for “criminal trespassing” on their own campus.
These administrators demand, like all who manage corporate systems of power, total obedience. Dissent. Freedom of expression. Critical thought. Moral outrage. These have no place in our corporate-indentured universities…
Columbia University, with an endowment of $13.64 billion, charges students nearly $90,000 a year to attend. But students are not allowed to object when their tax and tuition money funds genocide, or when their tuition payments are used to see them, along with faculty supporters, assaulted and sent to jail. They are, as Joe Biden put it, members of “hate groups.”
- Chris Hedges
Protests that have been at the heart of American democracy and have been quite effective. They always generate a lot of violence from establishment politicos who have a strong influence in keeping things the way they are.
There was always a penalty for demonstrating, like getting your head bashed in, and in the case of Kent State college, being shot dead for non-violent protest, but the actual right to protest was ultimately justified. The war was stopped.
Today, even with the First Amendment, we find out we Americans are only allowed limited protest, but certainly not to protest Israel’s obscene, blood curdling violence. Say something against their massacre, and you’re gone. Nobody can stand up to the wrath of AIPAC, the Jewish lobby from Washington’s, wrath.
It’s gotten to the point where laws have been passed so now we are not even allowed to criticize Zionists without being accused of Anti-Semitism. Zionism is a nationalist movement that advocates for a homeland for the Jewish people in the Biblical Land of Israel. It is the organization of ideas that actively sought and achieved the existence of the Israeli state in 1948.
It is a political movement; it’s not a religion. Not every Jew is a Zionist, but now our politicians on both sides of the aisle are trying to make it equivalent. If you criticize Zionists you are criticizing Jews, therefore, you are Anti-Semitic. And all protest has been labeled, if not terroristic, at the minimum Anti-Semitic.
A little history, please
Theodore Herzl is considered the father of modern Zionism as he was the first to set out its political aims clearly. But his views changed after witnessing antisemitic riots in Paris in 1895. He decided antisemitism was not something that could ever be defeated. Instead, he encouraged European Jews to abandon the continent and create their own national home.
In his diaries, Herzl mused about many places a Jewish state could take shape. This homeland would be outside Europe, potentially in Latin America. But by 1904, Herzl began to focus on the Promised Land (Eretz Yisrael) in the Middle East “from the brook of Egypt to the Euphrates (in Iraq)”. From The Conversation
After WWII with the help of the British, they took over inhabited Palestine via the Balfour Declaration. The Balfour Declaration laid the groundwork for increased Jewish immigration and eventual establishment of Israel, which declared its independence on May 14, 1948.
This declaration led to the first Arab-Israeli war. During this conflict, around 700,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled from their homes in what became Israel. This event, known as the Nakba (meaning "catastrophe" in Arabic), resulted in a massive displacement of Palestinians and the creation of a large refugee population and the hatred between Arabs and Jews.
The Anti Defamation League (ADL) argues that the establishment of a Jewish state in Israel is not a form of settler colonialism. Given that Jews are also originally native to this land, the land is theirs.
The standard Jewish encyclopaedia states that it’s likely 95% of modern Jews are Ashkenazis which means, by their own admission, the overwhelming majority of the people falsely claiming to be Jews are not even Semites. (Source: Jewish Encyclopedia Statistics).
As can clearly be seen from the graphic above, the Ashkenazis are descended from JAPHETH through his son Gomer, NOT from Shem/Sem, from whom all Semites originate. Israel was formed by mainly European, Ashkenazi Jews.
I’m sure you can see where this is going so I’m going to stop here with the history, because that can lead to nothing good.
Back to Bashing Heads
Now, with the backing of 98% of our Congress (wonder where they get their campaign money), it’s okay to invade college campuses with armed cops in military gear, guns drawn, to break up these protests and bash a few heads.
Like days of yore, students’ peaceful protests are suddenly interrupted by the aggressive police who show up to conduct mass arrests and use force to hurt and injure young people demanding peace, divestment and a better world. It’s back to 1968 only much worse. This is what freedom looks like in 2024.
A new poll from Data for Progress and Zeteo has found that a majority of Democrats believe Israel is committing genocide in Gaza and that the police crackdown against anti-genocide protesters is wrong, which kind of makes you wonder why they’re still identifying as Democrats. If Biden supporters believe Biden is guilty of genocide, what does that say about Biden supporters?
What we’re asked to believe about Biden is that a politician, who’s been an enthusiastic Zionist and virulent warmonger throughout his entire shady political career, privately has deep moral qualms about the genocide he’s been unconditionally supporting in Gaza and now Rafah.
Trump and his psychopathic cronies will be no different, so don’t get self-righteous, you MAGA people. Even Robert Kennedy Jr. is on the Zionist bandwagon.
Anyone who knows or follows me, knows I am a vehement antiwar-ist. Perpetrators can cry it’s for our freedom, and democracy, but all wars are of exploitation for profit. A lot bankers, militarists, war businesses, and Wall Street vultures are getting rich off this slaughter of Palestinians (as well as Ukrainians). As usual, many die so a few can get obscenely rich.
Not to mention, there’s lots of free gas off the Gaza Strip to be extracted and sold once the land is cleared, and soon you’ll be able to buy a luxury beachfront Gaza property. (never mind they’ll be built on the bones of all those dead children) Just ask for Bibi or Jarad.
There is an anonymous quote which makes total sense,
“If you want to know who controls you, look to the ones you can't criticize.”
I have a lot of Jewish friends, who I hope will not brand me anti-Semitic for stating the obvious, but I am compelled to speak out. I say no more.
l
