Over a dozen students at Princeton University have been on hunger strike for the past week as part of a Gaza solidarity encampment on campus protesting Israel’s war on Gaza and calling on the university to disclose and divest from companies with ties to Israel, among other demands.
Self-harm is, arguably, a sign of mental illness. So if this goes on, it probably won't be too hard to get a judge to sign off on a 72-hour hold and then do the needful.
"I'm not going to eat until you do what I want." From me, my response is "so don't eat."
So, Ghandi, Dick Gregory, and Caesar Chavez were apparently mentally ill.
ReplyDeleteAt least in my case I starved 36 hours for a medical test, not because I was off my rocker.
Ghandi, Dick Gregory, and Caesar Chavez were not supporting terrorism.
ReplyDeleteSome folks considered integration a form of terrorism.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/08/22/j-edgar-hoover-saw-dick-gregory-as-a-threat-so-he-schemed-to-have-the-mafia-neutralize-the-comic/
J. Edgar Hoover saw Dick Gregory as a threat. So he schemed to have the Mafia ‘neutralize’ the comic.
Caesar Chavez organized illegal border patrols
The most intense aspects of this informal effort, however, did not take place in the form of secret phone calls to the government; they took place right along the border. In an effort led by César’s cousin Manuel Chávez, reports began to emerge of Mexican immigrants being threatened, beaten and robbed as they tried to cross over into the United States.
At one point, the patrol operation was so large, it employed 300 people and cost the UFW $80,000 a week.
To Chávez, the civil rights era leader who swore nonviolence, any influx of foreign labor represented a threat to the farmworkers’ movement. The people who crossed the border illegally were in search of a better life. But they were also scabs, willing to do the jobs that American farmworkers were organizing to improve.
https://www.texasstandard.org/stories/cesar-chavez-complicated-legacy-united-farm-workers-immigration/
The revolutionary terrorists were a small, underground group, predominantly Hindu, said Ghosh. They planted bombs, conducted assassinations and terrorized British government officials and businessmen in addition to local Indian populations. They were inspired by reading about the Russian and French revolutions, and by the American and Irish struggles against Britain. They saw political violence as the way to force the British to leave their country immediately.
But they had more contact with the pacifist Gandhi and the Indian National Congress than is commonly acknowledged, Ghosh said. Although the Congress disavowed violence, it used the detention and martyrdom of revolutionary terrorists to mobilize resistance against the British.
“Gandhi even said that he disagreed with their methods but believed that they’re committed patriots and that they’re right to refuse to take on the creed of nonviolence,” Ghosh said. “It’s very interdependent; you can’t tell the story of Gandhi without telling the story of the revolutionary terrorists.”
https://history.cornell.edu/news/historian-examines-indias-gentlemen-terrorists
And, as anyone with some knowledge of history knows that the Revolutionary War group The Sons of Liberty were called by the British The Sons of Terror
Finally
CRUSHER: You should be drawing, not killing people.
FINN: I can do both.
CRUSHER: How can you have such a casual attitude toward killing?
FINN: I take my killing very seriously, Doctor. You are an idealist.
CRUSHER: I live in an ideal culture. There's no need for your kind of violence. We've proven that.
FINN: Your origins on Earth are from the American continent, are they not?
CRUSHER: North America.
FINN: Yes, I've read your history books. This is a war for independence, and I am no different than your own George Washington
CRUSHER: Washington was a military general, not a terrorist.
FINN: The difference between generals and terrorists, Doctor, is only the difference between winners and losers. You win, you're called a general. You lose
CRUSHER: You are killing innocent people! Can't you see the immorality of what you're doing or have you killed so much you've become blind to it?
FINN: How much innocent blood has been spilled for the cause of freedom in the history of your Federation, Doctor? How many good and noble societies have bombed civilians in war, have wiped out whole cities. And now that you enjoy the comfort that has come from their battles, their killing, you frown on my immorality? I am willing to die for my freedom, Doctor. And in the finest tradition of your own great civilisation, I'm willing to kill for it, too.
ST:TNG The High Ground
DA, is there a point there that relates to a bunch of semi-grown children latching onto their cause du jour?
ReplyDeleteFunny, didn’t see anything in this document that said semi-educated children or young adults don’t have the right to protest, or that protests cannot be the cause de jour.
ReplyDeleteCongress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the richt of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.[4]
I can think of several places on the planet where such protests are forbidden, unfortunately, I don’t think you’d be very happy living in any of them.
They have the right to protest. I have the right to not take them seriously or to level snark at them.
ReplyDeleteAnd I don't take them seriously. Russia's trying to conquer Ukraine and then go on to re-establish the land area of the Russian Empire (plus some more, likely). The Burmese military has been slaughtering civilians by the tens of thousands for many years. Darfur is a continuing human catastrophe. China is continuing trying to stamp out the Uyghurs, as they have continued to do in Tibet. Modi is turning India into a racist and religious dictatorship, trying to stamp out or expel the Muslim population. Iran has been imprisoning and killing thousands of its own people who have dared to ask for human dignity and respect.
And where is the care about any of that among those kids? Have they ever shown an iota of regard for any of those oppressed people?
The answer, of course, is no. And when China invades Taiwan and begins massacring the Taiwanese people, they won't care about that, either.
"I beseech you in the bowels of Christ: Think it possible you may be mistaken."
ReplyDeleteAnd so may you be.
ReplyDelete“I love to make a mistake, it is my only assurance that I cannot reasonably be expected to assume the burden of omniscience.”
ReplyDeleteRex Stout