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From Idealism to Irresponsibility: Comparing College Protests Then and Now
Am Greatness ^ | 4 May 2024 | Roger Kimball

Posted on 05/05/2024 6:37:48 AM PDT by Rummyfan

Like every major college protest since the 1960s, the pro-Palestinian—which is to say, the anti-Israel—protests sweeping college campuses today have early and often been compared with the protests of that annus horribilis, 1968. There are plenty of similarities but also plenty of differences. History repeats itself as student and faculty protestors align themselves with the totalitarians. Then it was the Viet Cong, Mao, and the Khmer Rouge. Today it is the Sunni Muslim terrorist group Hamas, the main puppet master of the “pro-Palestinian” agitators.

One apparently striking difference is the strong current of anti-Semitism. It is ubiquitous now; it was not a factor in the protests of the 1960s and 1970s.

But that difference distracts us from a deeper similarity between the two. Fueling the anti-Semitism is a profound anti-American and anti-Western animus. Although shot through with radical Islamic verbiage, the overarching ideology is essentially Marxist in aim and origin. The assaults on campus are not so much political as a snarling repudiation of the political in favor of something more atavistic. As Jean-François Revel noted in The Totalitarian Temptation (1977), such an upsurge is “not simply a new political orientation. It works through the depths of society. It writes the play in which political leaders will act much later.”

(Excerpt) Read more at amgreatness.com ...


TOPICS: Education; Miscellaneous; Politics; Society
KEYWORDS: antisemitism; domesticenemies; education

1 posted on 05/05/2024 6:37:48 AM PDT by Rummyfan
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To: Rummyfan

The dirty hippies of the 60’s and 70’s were no better than the pro-rapist Arsholes who do not condemn Hamas and their supporters. This is all based on hatred of the West. Always has been.


2 posted on 05/05/2024 7:03:19 AM PDT by bobbo666 (Baizuo, )
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To: bobbo666
The dirty hippies of the 60’s and 70’s were no better than the pro-rapist Arsholes who do not condemn Hamas and their supporters. This is all based on hatred of the West. Always has been.

Nailed it.

3 posted on 05/05/2024 7:26:43 AM PDT by ealgeone
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To: bobbo666
This is all based on hatred of the West. Always has been.

Exactly.

The headline seems to suggest the anti-west idealism of the 64-70's+ was on the plus side of the scale when it was greater in terms of lives lost than the irresponsibility occurring today.

It is even short-sighted to limit the view of what is happening today to the college campus. See for instance, the wokeness pervading our marketplaces and our military.

4 posted on 05/05/2024 7:33:08 AM PDT by frog in a pot (If election officials ignore voting laws, illegal aliens will be able to vote as told.)
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To: bobbo666
Yep! As the writer put it, "History repeats itself as student and faculty protestors align themselves with the totalitarians."
5 posted on 05/05/2024 7:33:19 AM PDT by libertylover (Our biggest problem, by far, is that almost all of big media is AGENDA-DRIVEN, not-truth driven.)
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To: Rummyfan

One common strain between protesters then and now besides the virtue smugness is their underlying hatred of the US


6 posted on 05/05/2024 11:08:48 AM PDT by chuckee
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To: Rummyfan

the sixties protests also had an undercurrent of the destruction of WASP establishement in the USA at the same time as the british empire collapsed.

now its all about the destruction of the white establishment in the usa as the europeans lose out to muslims in their homelands.


7 posted on 05/06/2024 12:23:04 PM PDT by ckilmer
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