The Congressional hearing on anti-Semitism in colleges has all the functionality of a driving school at a funeral parlor. The speeches are self-serving and pointless. The coverage is polarized and polarizing.
Even by the bottomless criminal standards of US politics, this is pretty low. By academic standards, it’s far beyond appalling. This is some kind of educational environment for whom, do you claim? Wannabe mass murderers?
Calling for genocide is hate speech whether it’s anti-Semitic or anti-anyone else. It’s an offense in most countries, just not in prehistoric feudal America. Even threatening violence is usually considered a form of assault to the point of being a chargeable criminal offense.
Not in America the Handmaid’s Tale, though. It’s just yet another servile excuse to misrepresent the First Amendment. This is what the “Buy a degree” world gets you. Instead of educators, you get “educaterers”. Useless brats and geriatrics are hard at work discussing a human catastrophe and trying to make it worse.
“Some genocide to go with your smug little overpriced degree and non-existent brain there, poppet?” Talk about getting an education. You’re far too obviously not.
There are no clear objectives for this hearing. Nothing can be achieved but yet another attack of political wisdom, therefore it’s news and exciting.
Politics creates problems. It’s been doing that for thousands of years. It has never attempted to solve any of them.
The “left” and “right” are somehow on the same page, and both are achieving nothing as usual. The New York Times has a classic saga of total dysfunction to tell about this.
If this NYT story is a true picture of the intellects of American academia, I’d suggest opening an unhygienic hot dog stand instead.
…Because these are just the usual, stunningly unimpressive spectators of human misery with high opinions of themselves. You could sell a lot of hot dogs. The bleachers just happen to be in Gaza and Israel.
Thousands of dead and maimed people are a great reason for nonentities telling everyone How Great We Are.
The NYT story is weird enough:
Conservatives have spent years attacking colleges, presumably including their own ex-alma maters, for “liberal indoctrination” and things like wokeism and social justice. They’re actually the same thing, but who expects conservatives to know things like that? The last five words of the Pledge of Allegiance happen to be “… liberty and justice for all” and they appear to think that’s a conspiracy, too.
Despite being directly linked to white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and every other known form of racist, conservatives want to make political capital out of the carnage. They’re now blaming wokeism and social justice for genocide.
…And the Left, or as most writers call them, “Leftovers”, are apparently agreeing! They’re posting on X, that triumph of rational thought, that it’s all the “Left’s” fault.
You can actually hear the bleating. Endless double standards somehow equate to education.
One of the lines in the NYT story deserves framing and it’s a true reflection of the uselessness of this process:
“…whether “calling for the genocide of Jews” would violate school rules…”
Are you out of your alleged minds?
On that basis, a school shooter could be in real trouble for breaking school rules, too. Maybe even demerits. You’re talking about thousands of people getting killed like it was a Show and Tell exercise. You’d also flunk kindergarten.
Republicans, always literate to a fault, seem to think genocide and social justice have something in common. So, apparently do the equally literate and useless stooges on the “Left”. Left of what, may one ask?
The theory is that “supporting Palestine” involves institutionalizing hatred of the Jews. They’ve been doing that since 1947. They have got a lot of people killed and basically turned the Palestinians into permanent third-class citizens in one of the richest parts of the world.
These supporters of Palestine also have a few other notable characteristics apart from total failure on all levels:
They have never at any time provided any functional physical basis for Palestinian nationhood, real or imaginary.
They have never even mentioned a capital base. Presumably, nations just spring up out of thin air.
They have never mentioned any meaningful economics or social infrastructure to support the creation, let alone development, of a new nation.
They had no issues with a foreign-affiliated terrorist group taking over Gaza.
That group has now basically guaranteed that there can never be a Palestinian state in the even vaguely plausible future.
This is “supportive”?
Now, based on these totally irrational total failures over the last 80-plus years, a few dainty questions for your venal and adorably vicarious enrichment:
Who wants genocidal nutcases on their campuses, rich, stupid, or otherwise?
Do American campuses seriously think they have any right to advocate genocide?
What is being achieved by this hearing except ideological self-righteousness?
You’re effectively okaying massacres. What if it happens on your campus? It can happen, as you well know.
This “debate” is effectively destroying the credibility of American academia. Well done, guys.
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Disclaimer
The opinions expressed in this Op-Ed are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Digital Journal or its members.