Posted on 11/01/2023 5:33:16 AM PDT by karpov
Many Americans were surprised by the seemingly spontaneous protests on college campuses in support of “Palestine” after the Hamas assault on Israel. After all, how could anyone do anything other than condemn the Hamas pogrom, in which babies, children, and the elderly were massacred, raped, and burned alive? The answer lies in the toxic mix of politics, ignorance, and antisemitism emanating from the failure of American academia, especially the field of Middle East studies. The shocking anti-Israel vitriol on display at protests since October 7 would have been impossible in the 20th century.
For decades, large swaths of academia have been as devoted to indoctrination as to education. For most of the 20th century, academics have been largely left-leaning, but the Overton Window has moved dramatically leftward in the 21st century.
In his history of modern terrorism, David C. Rapoport describes the Vietnam War as “the major political event stimulating” leftist ideology in the 1960s and 1970s. The underdog Viet Cong fighting effectively against the massive American war machine became the personification of heroism to campus protestors. “When the Vietnam War ended in 1975,” Rapoport explains, “the PLO replaced the Viet Cong as the heroic model.”
It was only a matter of time until that generation became tenured professors and changed academia forever.
Perhaps no field of study was changed more than Middle East studies. In his masterful examination of the topic, Ivory Towers on Sand (2001), Martin Kramer shows that, by the 1980s, “Middle East studies came under a take-no-prisoners assault, which rejected the idea of objective standards, disguised the vice of politicization as the virtue of commitment, and replaced proficiency with ideology.” It also put Israel in the crosshairs.
The field is represented by the Middle East Studies Association (MESA)
(Excerpt) Read more at jamesgmartin.center ...
Some people simply want to protest, no matter what the issue. Al Capp had them pegged back in 1966. Students Wildly Indignant about Nearly Everything! (S.W.I.N.E.)
https://i0.wp.com/www.dailycartoonist.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/swine.jpeg?w=1280&ssl=1
Students reflect the standards of their universities.
So, the double standard appears to be standard.
Notice the reference to the “Overton Window”.
I have not seen this previously, but the concept itself — that there is a given spectrum of beliefs a society will even have on the table — seems more analytical than harmful.
This is speculation, but I’d wager that the Left consciously works to shift the Overton Window to normalize what would have been unthinkable ideas and activity. Gay marriage; sexualization of children; trannyism and changing genders; accepting terrorism; accepting anti-Semitism; accepting the destruction of freedom; government imposed vaccinations and lockdowns; homeless drug zombies taking over cities; defunding police; releasing criminals without bail or punishment; massive introduction of gross crudity in public discourse.
The last ten years has seen a massive shift in what “the public” sees as tolerable. Of course the shift is due to
a fringe element, but somehow the “window” afflicts everyone.
Jay Leno had the perfect item on his show when he asked college students questions and they proved how little they know about everything.
Jay walking
1. Love-Creation
2. Freedom-Choice
3. Fascination Eyes- “see” Alligator 🐊
5. Sleep
6. Violations, Minute x Fascinations
7. Violation
8. Separation
9. Suffering
10.Death
A national enema. Now if we can only get the right people elected.
“If It’s Not About the Jews...”
That passage convinces me that the underlying cause of the violence against Jews is a fundamental hatred of them.
What is the basis of the fundamental hatred?
Muslims and Hitler have killed them but others have shown a dislike of them. Why the dislike?
It’s hard for me to understand how the VC and now Hamas & other Islamic terrorists were ever looked at as “heroic”. Their tactics were anything but “heroic”. Apparently a lot of college students were horribly misled by people who had no business in the teaching profession. It is time now that these types are discouraged in such a way that they will never return to teaching.
luckily for them, the overwhelming majority of jobs created in the month of September was in the education/non-profit sector...
Envy.
“What is the basis of the fundamental hatred? ... Envy.”
Interesting answer. Plausible. It’s easy to envy Jews because let’s admit it, they can be bossy and conceited. But bossiness and conceit are far from a justification to murder.
Jewish people hardly have a monopoly on that.
“Jewish people hardly have a monopoly on that (bossy and conceited)”
Should have spent more time choosing words. Perhaps “assertive”, or “non-wimpy”. You know that many Americans, when Jews were wanting to leave Germany in the ‘30’s, didn’t want them to come to America. Why was that?
One of my favorite friends is Jewish.
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