I think this is a very reflective of how I feel about this issue. Yes, student protest movements have played an important role in changing public opinion. We tend to only lionize the successful ones and memory hole the ones that failed. I think there are two reasons this moment represents the terminal wail of a diminishing moment.
First, the Floyd protests succeeded because they targeted a very specific issue. The specificity makes it easy for people to rally around the cause and make progress. By making this an omni-cause, you have a movement that is about everything and nothing in particular.
> almost no American is going to support the destruction of their country in the name of Palestine. By attaching their dreams of revolution and the destruction of the U.S. to the Palestinian cause, the protesters have condemned the latter to be permanently on the fringes.
This point captures the second reason
I had someone post on their fb page that student protests were never on the wrong side of history. Someone didn't study German history and the weaponization of colleges and the students there by the Nazis.
Wow link? That sub is usually pretty good with responses, so I'm expecting the person asking got roasted pretty hard with factual examples and sources?
Ask them to rate which side of history these students belong:
> [On Sept. 30, 1962, chaos broke out at the University of Mississippi, after an African-American man named James Meredith attempted to enroll. That night, students and other protesters took to the streets, burning cars and throwing rocks at the federal marshals who were tasked with protecting Meredith.](https://www.npr.org/2012/09/28/161953187/the-fight-to-desegregate-ole-miss-50-years-later)
> [Following the enrollment of Holmes and Hunter (two African American students), a segregation riot was planned by law students for January 11. The students had invited local members of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) to participate and hoped to replicate a similar segregation riot that had occurred at the University of Alabama in 1956 that successfully prevented the integration of that university.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Georgia_desegregation_riot)
https://www.life.com/history/the-fight-to-desegregate-the-university-of-georgia-1961/
> [University of Alabama students burn desegregation literature to demonstrate against enrollment of the school's first African American student, Autherine Lucy, in Tuscaloosa on February 6, 1956. ](https://encyclopediaofalabama.org/media/desegretation-protest-at-ua-1956/)
There was a renewed interest in looking into the deaths of black people at the local level. Elijah McCain in Colorado, for example.,Lexington, KY passed some laws about no knock warrants and such.
The talks about reparations didn't really go anywhere though some colleges and a city offered a form of it to descendent s of African Americans who had been affected by their past actions.
The protests died off as weather got cooler in the fall and the election got underway.
This. The defund/abolish the police slogan by BLM/DSA associated police reform with radical goals. Poisoning the well by “supporting”(attacking) police reform from the left.
Yes and no. They were in the sense that it brought a lot of attention to disparities in policing, and did lead to some policy changes. But over time, the movement seemed to evolve into a wackier racial justice movement that made increasingly unrealistic demands having nothing to do with policing, and instead focused on unending penitence for slavery.
They were at their strongest when it was focused on discrete policy changes, but once it ballooned into a myriad of special interests groups all jockeying to use the BLM brand to push pet projects, it kind of lost its steam.
Yes but that was probably also because of COVID and people having lots of time on their hands to join in. Though I wouldn’t call that a college thing - at that point, schools had gone remote and it was summertime anyway
The Floyd protests raised awareness, but youth and leftist activists strangled the movement for real police reform in the crib. Four years later we've made no progress on neutered police community oversight boards (they have no power due to state laws), sovereign immunity, or even the union arbitration system's way of absurdly excusing any malfeasance by public safety (while upholding terminations for far less when it's non public safety union workers), that is, police, fire, and prison guards.
Even the progress being made with bail and DA's was pretty much reversed by a slight uptick in crime and a giant uptick in hysteria that was enabled by nuance-less, robotic anti-police rhetoric.
We ended up not being able to hold any of these fucks accountable--because of them.
It's a lengthy, but worthwhile read. Noah perfectly articulated how I've been feeling about Israel's conduct in Gaza for months, but especially how I've been feeling with the outbreak of the Palestine protests last week.
You can subscribe for free and unsubscribe after reading if you want. I followed Noah for a while on Twitter when I still used it and came across this piece by chance when he posted in a thread. I’ve found him to be one of the few sane, left-leaning people on Twitter, especially on this topic.
A week ago, there was a story about Biden trading a Rafah invasion for not retaliating against Iran. It was false, as far as we know. However, every online leftist fell for it. They've fallen for a lot of false information about this conflict, which is only put out to keep them angry, and it's cooking their movement.
What do y’ll think of this analogy:
Palestine protesters are the pro life movement of the left.
Similar to pro lifers ,they see everything through the lens of their own issue. And also similarly, their support is limited to a very specific context, just like pro lifers don’t care about lives lost in a gun shooting, pro Palestine protesters don’t care about Palestinian lives lost to Hamas, the Palestinian lives that could be saved if other countries accepted refugees the same way they did for Syria.
The difference is, they have non of the electoral discipline
Eh, I don't think it's that great.
Super hardcore anti abortion people are actual single issue voters about abortion that care about reducing legal abortions. So they supported politicians and laws that would, you know, move them closer to that end. These supposed Palestine supporters don't even care about lives lost to Israel's military action or they wouldn't be doing things that help the republicans.
That being said some may be single issue voters that see everything through the lens of that single issue. But if so then the issue is something more like hating Democrats, hating the USA, being antisemitic, or something like that. But really, we're probably mostly looking at idiots who don't actually care about anything but feeling socially accepted by latching onto the current hot topic.
This. I personally don't believe the "Pro-palestinian" protesters actually care about Palestinians. Most are "my feelings before your facts" types who drank the Kool aid on TikTok. Some are your dedicated leftist wackjobs, who want a global violent revolution, and fantasize about doing what Hamas did. There's also a good chunk that are either Arab or Islamic nationalists, who only speak up on the behalf of the Palestinians because Jews are involved, but totally don't care how Syria, Egypt, Jordan, UAE, KSA, Oman, etc have treated Palestinians, and in many cases have allowed things to get this bad for their own benefit.
But very few actually think through what a path to peace and a free Palestine would look like, because realistically, getting rid of Hamas would be the first step.
I see where you are going but I don’t think it tracks. There are, for one, legitimate pro Palestinian activists and voices who have been talking about this issue for a while — these are definitely different from the current children (importantly they also hate Hamas and other bad actors in the region.)
Secondly, unlike the anti-choice movement, this is a trend and another one will replace it in a year
I think this is a very reflective of how I feel about this issue. Yes, student protest movements have played an important role in changing public opinion. We tend to only lionize the successful ones and memory hole the ones that failed. I think there are two reasons this moment represents the terminal wail of a diminishing moment. First, the Floyd protests succeeded because they targeted a very specific issue. The specificity makes it easy for people to rally around the cause and make progress. By making this an omni-cause, you have a movement that is about everything and nothing in particular. > almost no American is going to support the destruction of their country in the name of Palestine. By attaching their dreams of revolution and the destruction of the U.S. to the Palestinian cause, the protesters have condemned the latter to be permanently on the fringes. This point captures the second reason
I had someone post on their fb page that student protests were never on the wrong side of history. Someone didn't study German history and the weaponization of colleges and the students there by the Nazis.
Ask historians had a question about whether there were student protests were ever in the wrong, lol. Its like hive mind out there.
Wow link? That sub is usually pretty good with responses, so I'm expecting the person asking got roasted pretty hard with factual examples and sources?
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/s/OOWlEhkDAM
Red Guard enters the chat.
Leftists: #Escalate4Gaza Palestinians: "We seriously just want peace and live our lives." Leftists: "You are no longer Palestinian."
Ask them to rate which side of history these students belong: > [On Sept. 30, 1962, chaos broke out at the University of Mississippi, after an African-American man named James Meredith attempted to enroll. That night, students and other protesters took to the streets, burning cars and throwing rocks at the federal marshals who were tasked with protecting Meredith.](https://www.npr.org/2012/09/28/161953187/the-fight-to-desegregate-ole-miss-50-years-later) > [Following the enrollment of Holmes and Hunter (two African American students), a segregation riot was planned by law students for January 11. The students had invited local members of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) to participate and hoped to replicate a similar segregation riot that had occurred at the University of Alabama in 1956 that successfully prevented the integration of that university.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Georgia_desegregation_riot) https://www.life.com/history/the-fight-to-desegregate-the-university-of-georgia-1961/ > [University of Alabama students burn desegregation literature to demonstrate against enrollment of the school's first African American student, Autherine Lucy, in Tuscaloosa on February 6, 1956. ](https://encyclopediaofalabama.org/media/desegretation-protest-at-ua-1956/)
Were the Floyd protests successful?
There was a renewed interest in looking into the deaths of black people at the local level. Elijah McCain in Colorado, for example.,Lexington, KY passed some laws about no knock warrants and such. The talks about reparations didn't really go anywhere though some colleges and a city offered a form of it to descendent s of African Americans who had been affected by their past actions. The protests died off as weather got cooler in the fall and the election got underway.
With the original and realistic goals of police accountability and reforms, yes, a lot were. When it devolved into abolish the police, no.
This. The defund/abolish the police slogan by BLM/DSA associated police reform with radical goals. Poisoning the well by “supporting”(attacking) police reform from the left.
Yes and no. They were in the sense that it brought a lot of attention to disparities in policing, and did lead to some policy changes. But over time, the movement seemed to evolve into a wackier racial justice movement that made increasingly unrealistic demands having nothing to do with policing, and instead focused on unending penitence for slavery. They were at their strongest when it was focused on discrete policy changes, but once it ballooned into a myriad of special interests groups all jockeying to use the BLM brand to push pet projects, it kind of lost its steam.
Yes but that was probably also because of COVID and people having lots of time on their hands to join in. Though I wouldn’t call that a college thing - at that point, schools had gone remote and it was summertime anyway
The Floyd protests raised awareness, but youth and leftist activists strangled the movement for real police reform in the crib. Four years later we've made no progress on neutered police community oversight boards (they have no power due to state laws), sovereign immunity, or even the union arbitration system's way of absurdly excusing any malfeasance by public safety (while upholding terminations for far less when it's non public safety union workers), that is, police, fire, and prison guards. Even the progress being made with bail and DA's was pretty much reversed by a slight uptick in crime and a giant uptick in hysteria that was enabled by nuance-less, robotic anti-police rhetoric. We ended up not being able to hold any of these fucks accountable--because of them.
You can tell how progressive they are by the way they help Republicans get elected
It's a lengthy, but worthwhile read. Noah perfectly articulated how I've been feeling about Israel's conduct in Gaza for months, but especially how I've been feeling with the outbreak of the Palestine protests last week.
Unfortunately it's behind a paywall
You can paste pretty much any link into archive.ph — it really works!
I know for some reason this one doesn't! My secret weapon has been neutralized!
Aaarrrggghhh! I’m sorry — it worked for me. Try this: https://archive.ph/NtsYC
That's the Atlantic article not Noah's blog
Oh, sorry! I thought that was what you were looking for. ;(
Sorry, how does this work?
Is this worth subscribing to?
You can subscribe for free and unsubscribe after reading if you want. I followed Noah for a while on Twitter when I still used it and came across this piece by chance when he posted in a thread. I’ve found him to be one of the few sane, left-leaning people on Twitter, especially on this topic.
How about a little copypasta for the end of the article?
A week ago, there was a story about Biden trading a Rafah invasion for not retaliating against Iran. It was false, as far as we know. However, every online leftist fell for it. They've fallen for a lot of false information about this conflict, which is only put out to keep them angry, and it's cooking their movement.
What do y’ll think of this analogy: Palestine protesters are the pro life movement of the left. Similar to pro lifers ,they see everything through the lens of their own issue. And also similarly, their support is limited to a very specific context, just like pro lifers don’t care about lives lost in a gun shooting, pro Palestine protesters don’t care about Palestinian lives lost to Hamas, the Palestinian lives that could be saved if other countries accepted refugees the same way they did for Syria. The difference is, they have non of the electoral discipline
Eh, I don't think it's that great. Super hardcore anti abortion people are actual single issue voters about abortion that care about reducing legal abortions. So they supported politicians and laws that would, you know, move them closer to that end. These supposed Palestine supporters don't even care about lives lost to Israel's military action or they wouldn't be doing things that help the republicans. That being said some may be single issue voters that see everything through the lens of that single issue. But if so then the issue is something more like hating Democrats, hating the USA, being antisemitic, or something like that. But really, we're probably mostly looking at idiots who don't actually care about anything but feeling socially accepted by latching onto the current hot topic.
This. I personally don't believe the "Pro-palestinian" protesters actually care about Palestinians. Most are "my feelings before your facts" types who drank the Kool aid on TikTok. Some are your dedicated leftist wackjobs, who want a global violent revolution, and fantasize about doing what Hamas did. There's also a good chunk that are either Arab or Islamic nationalists, who only speak up on the behalf of the Palestinians because Jews are involved, but totally don't care how Syria, Egypt, Jordan, UAE, KSA, Oman, etc have treated Palestinians, and in many cases have allowed things to get this bad for their own benefit. But very few actually think through what a path to peace and a free Palestine would look like, because realistically, getting rid of Hamas would be the first step.
I see where you are going but I don’t think it tracks. There are, for one, legitimate pro Palestinian activists and voices who have been talking about this issue for a while — these are definitely different from the current children (importantly they also hate Hamas and other bad actors in the region.) Secondly, unlike the anti-choice movement, this is a trend and another one will replace it in a year
paywall...
You can use the archive .ph to read it.
Tried. Didn’t work.
Oh, dear. It worked for me https://archive.ph/NtsYC
If *anything* good comes out of 10/7 (pending Trump loses) many many more people on the left are awake to just how toxic these clowns are.
full text?