CONCERNS: Their concerns may not be the public's concerns!

THURSDAY, MAY 2, 2024

Joe Scarborough's major concern: For roughly 90 minutes today, the whole (cable news) world was watching.

The Fox News Channel had stayed live from L.A. all through the past two nights. 

For two straight nights, its overnight reruns were kicked to the curb. In their stead, Jonathan Hunt stayed live on the ground at the scene of the action, right there on the UCLA campus. 

This morning, at 6 o'clock, Morning Joe opened with its standard discussion about what will happen if Donald J. Trump is elected again. At some point around 6:20, they too went live at UCLA. 

They remained live there until 8 o'clock. For that hour and forty minutes, the whole cable news world was watching as the LAPD began to address a wide range of concerns.

"Your concerns are my concerns," the Hemingway character said. She made her statement in 1979. You can watch the full scene from the feature film Manhattan simply by clicking here.

She was 17 years old. As it turned out by the end of the film, she almost surely had better judgment and more wisdom than the much older man.

Back to this morning's maelstrom:

As the LAPD began removing the barricades and arresting protesters, Morning Joe joined Fox & Friends in looking on. 

This afternoon, we may show you more of what was said on the respective programs. At one point, it seemed to us that Brian Kilmeade formally cemented his place as cable's number one red-ass.

Also, it seemed to us that Steve Doocy made the day's most pathetic remark. But Joe Scarborough's major concern was also a top concern of ours.

He first gave voice to the concern around 6:40 a.m. He went there again at 7:05. Speaking of his mother and father, this is what he said they said, back in the street-fighting days of 1968:

"We used to be Democrats. We're not Democrats any more."

He said his parents had always been Democrats—until they saw the vast disorder which swept the nation that year.

Later today, or perhaps tomorrow, we'll be able to post a fuller account of what Scarborough said. But at 6:24, as the panel watched what was occurring at UCLA, these comments were offered by two panel members:

PANELIST ONE: This is great for Donald Trump.

PANELIST TWO: He loves this.

Not too much later, Candidate Trump offered his first tweet about the events in L.A. On Morning Joe, Al Sharpton agreed with the NYPD's John Chell:

The conduct by the protesters at UCLA was pure Grade A bullroar. It should have been nipped in the bud.

Meanwhile, back at the New York Times:

In this morning's print editions, the New York Times finally got around to publishing a long-delayed type of report. 

Like many other major news orgs, the Times had largely averted its gaze ever since October 7. Finally, almost seven months later, Jeremy Peters offered a report about the views of student protesters.

It seems to us that major news orgs have been ducking the touchy subject matter involved in this line of inquiry. This morning, Peters offers a first, extremely sketchy attempt to explore the views of pro-Palestinian demonstrators.

Online, the report appears beneath this dual headline

It’s Not Just Gaza: Student Protesters See Links to a Global Struggle
In many students’ eyes, the war in Gaza is linked to other issues, such as policing, mistreatment of Indigenous people, racism and the impact of climate change.

"Jeremy Peter wrote a good piece," Jennifer Palmieri said on Morning Joe. 

That struck us as a typical bit of professional courtesy extended within the guild. It seemed to us that Peters' report was very sketchy, and in arriving this very morning, it was arriving remarkably late.

"Say you want a revolution," a well-known singing group said. The song was released in July 1968. The mop-tops were perhaps a bit skeptical concerning the push for change. 

Their final verse went like this:

You say you'll change the Constitution
Well, you know
We'd all love to change your head.
You tell me it's the institution
Well, you know
You better free your mind instead.

If you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao
You ain't gonna make it with anyone anyhow

Don't you know it's gonna be all right?
Don't you know it's gonna be all right?
Don't you know it's gonna be all right?

But was it going to be all right? That was easy enough for them to say. For God's sake, they were the Beatles!

Starting in our senior year in high school, we did several very dumb things. We were only 17 at the start of this era, but it amazes us to think about how dumb those actions were. 

They were disrespectful to our mother, and also very dumb. We think about the way we constantly hear that the human brain isn't fully formed until you're 25.

Can Joe Biden win re-election? Well yes, of course he can.

Will he win re-election? Or is the footage from UCLA the latest boon for Candidate Donald J. Trump?

It seems to us that, wherever this leads, our team has earned its way out. We've found it very hard to understand how dumb our own cadres can be at times. As a group, we have little ability to understand the way we look to others.

"There's no such thing as woke," we've sometimes recently said. We've said that we've drawn that conclusion because no one can define the term! 

As humans, we're all inclined to reason poorly. That's true of us in Blue America, and it's true of them in Red.

In November 1968, we stayed up till the early morning hours, hoping that Humphrey could win California. By the end, only one roommate was sitting there with us in front of a small TV set.

Humphrey didn't make it that night. Decades later, the roommate ran, and he won the popular vote!

Joe's concern strikes us as a real concern. Having said that, we have no way of knowing how this year's race will turn out.

131 comments:

  1. Jean-Pierre Ferland, Joko Pinurbo, Olga Fikatova Connolly, and Duane Eddy have died.

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    Replies
    1. Who will carry on this tradition of naming the dead after you are gone?

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    2. Don't you have a minute to stop what you're doing and remember Duane Eddy?

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    3. If @10:36 had any respect for Eddy's relatives and friends, he wouldn't be using his name this way to troll a blog.

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    4. more significant than the death of those worthies, God himself or herself is dead - though that happened several years ago.

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    5. God isn't dead. He's eternal, omnipotent, and infinite. It's impossible for such a being to somehow die. He and his word are everlasting.

      Nah, just kiddin'. He's dead as a doornail.

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    6. Killed for being too woke?

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  2. A SDS radical once wrote, “The issue is never the issue. The issue is always the revolution.” In other words the cause - whether inner city blacks or women - is never the real cause, but only an occasion to advance the real cause which is the accumulation of power to make the revolution.”

    David Horowitz, Barack Obama's Rules for Revolution: The Alinsky Model

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    Replies
    1. Yes, we all know Obama was such a radical. What nonsense.

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    2. @8:47 I didn't mean to imply anything about President Obama. Obama's name is in the title of the book. But, the quote isn't from Obama. It's from some SDS radical.

      My point is, the quote is accurate. The leaders, organizers, funders, and provocateurs of these college demonstrations don't primarily care about the Palestinians. They primarily care about accumulating power to make a revolution.

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    3. Where is your evidence?

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    4. DIC that is an obvious misinterpretation of the quote, and furthermore, the point of "revolution" and the protestors is to diminish concentrations of power.

      Your claim is so ignorant, it sped past bizarre on it's way to otherworldly.

      Your morality is so warped that you have to turn concern over indiscriminate bombing that has killed over 30-40k innocent civilians, half of whom are children, into nonsense about performative virtue and a power grab, thusly revealing the pony trick right wingers love to trot out of accusing your challengers of the bad behavior you yourself are engaging in.

      The ignorance, immorality, and lack of integrity you proudly exhibit is really a cry for help, but this is not the forum for that, you need to seek out support from friends and family and mental health professionals. Good luck!

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    5. I didn't mean to imply anything about President Obama.

      What do you think David Horowitz meant to imply, David, you fucking magat lying whore?

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    6. @11:32 If the demonstrators really cared about the Palestinian people, they would be demonstrating against Hamas for using them as human shields. For provoking a war that was bound to be disastrous for the Palestinian people. For stealing money donated for humanitarian relief.

      They would be demonstrating against Egypt who fences out all Palestinians.

      They would credit Israel for the good things they’ve done, such as removing all Jews from Gaza, so the Palestinians could have their own state and their own government. And for providing medical care in Israeli hospitals.

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    7. David, you said they merely wanted a revolution. I asked for evidence of that.

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    8. Putin is driving the bus with Hamas, Netanyahu, college kids, the media, all in for the ride. He needs Trump to to win to expand his war on NATO. Wake up sheeple, the dirty commie has the pedal to the metal.

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    9. Putin controls Biden's teleprompter. Who else could write "four more years pause".

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    10. David,

      David Horowitz was not making a blanket statement about all protests or all activists. His critique is specifically aimed at certain elements within the radical movements of the 1960s and 1970s, like the SDS.

      You're using the quote to take attention away from/diminish the substance of what protesters are protesting.

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    11. David,

      The question is do the protesters have legitimate grievances? You say 'no, the protesters do not have legitimate grievances'. That doesn't really make sense to me but it's is your right to say and think it.

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    12. @2:39 wrote, "The question is do the protesters have legitimate grievances?"

      IMO the protests are so far removed from any possible grievances that it doesn't matter whether the grievances are legitimate. Columbia University has virtually nothing to do with the problems in Gaza. Setting up a tent city at Columbia does nothing to help the Palestinians.

      A lot of young people were trained to believe that demonstrations are a good way to solve problems. Occasionally that may be the case, but usually more direct action is what's needed. E.g., one can fight hunger by buying food and bringing it to the needy people. Chanting slogans doesn't feed anyone.

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    13. You make a good point. They may have more effective ways to protest their grievances. The effectiveness of this particular protests remains to be seen. You are dismissive of their grievances and think they should be venerating Israel for doing so much good in Gaza. So it really must be exasperating for you to see them protest in this way.

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    14. Fair question, @1:54. David Horowitz was one of the leaders of the Berkeley Free Speech Movement in the 1960's. He knows that those leading the action were really working for revolution, rather than free speech.

      As i pointed out above, the current crop ignore most what harms the Palestinians, showing that they don't really care about the Palestinians. These leaders are using tactics that Horowitz was trained in during his Marxist days -- tactics that worked well in the Free Speech Movement.

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    15. I was there too and no one was working toward revolution. We had specific goals. Horowitz id a liar.

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    16. (David Horowitz was not one of the leaders of the Berkeley Free Speech Movement in the 1960's.)

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    17. @4:55 I was there, too. The ostensible provocation involved some card tables set up in a certain sot to promote various causes. The Administration decided to move these tables and not tallow them to be set up in the usual place. I do not believe that the location of the card tables was the real reason hundreds of people were incentivized to get themselves arrested for trespassing in the Administration Building.

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    18. I play bridge and I sniff my fingers. You are ignorant.

      I am Corby.

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    19. Wikipedia says: “ Students insisted that the university administration lift the ban of on-campus political activities and acknowledge the students' right to free speech and academic freedom.”

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  3. “is the footage from UCLA the latest boon for Candidate Donald J. Trump?”

    Lower inflation: why this is good news for Donald Trump.

    Higher inflation: why this is good news for Donald Trump.

    Great jobs report: why this is good news for Donald Trump.

    Bad jobs report: why this is good news for Donald Trump.

    George Floyd protests: why this is good news for Donald Trump.

    Biden slurred a word: why this is good news for Donald Trump.

    Dobbs decision: why this is good news for Donald Trump.

    New York prosecution: why this is good news for Donald Trump.

    Etc

    Just as the protesters in 1968 were protesting against the war and against the Johnson administration, so these people are in part protesting against the Biden administration’s support of Israel. How that gets turned into “Democrats bad”, I have never been able to fathom. Could it partly be some form of propaganda that shapes “public concerns”?

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    1. Anonymouse 10:47pm, where have you been?

      “Is this going help Trump” has been the bogeyman for almost eight years. There is no higher concern. Trump trumps it all.

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    2. And Somerby joins right in.

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    3. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    4. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    5. Anonymices castigate Bob for undermining Biden, simply when he blogs that Trump may have been right on some point or another,

      NOW nothing matters to you but taking it to the streets?

      Sure.

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    6. It’s been a media narrative. Somerby could ask “will the media’s portrayal of these protests be a boon for Trump”. But he doesn’t.

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    7. Recall that Somerby didn’t ask “will this so called fund raising scandal of gore be a boon for Bush? I’m worried.” Or “will gore’s remark about the internet be a boon for bush?” No, he declared them bs and took apart the narrative.

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    8. Anonymouse 11:36am, so which side’s narrative should Bob dismantle?

      The administration’s or the protesters’?

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    9. Cecelia does not need to make sense, he never does, he just needs to get his daily emotional hit from "owning the libs".

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    10. 12:12 Cecelia provides a fascinating case study of someone becoming a blubbering ignoramus after getting triggered. Just fascinating!

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    11. I feel pretty, but sure sure, whatever you say Cece!

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    12. I've read today that at some point both pro Palestine liberation and pro Zionist occupation groups of protesters started chanting 'fuck Biden' together.

      Now, that must be a historic event.

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    13. Biden will probably win this year's presidential election, in an actual historic event.

      Apparently Jill is "onboard" with the "fuck Biden" agenda, as Biden is good in bed, as well as being one of our better presidents.

      Cope. Seethe.

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    14. Cecelia fighting the good fight for the raping insurrectionist.

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    15. Donald Trump is beating Joe Biden by 15 Points in Michigan according to some poll. Who needs Michigan? Biden took it in 2020 but it's since been discovered that are all racists.

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    16. Based on 538 polls, Simon Rosenberg says:

      "In 538’s national Presidential polling average Biden has gained 1.7 pts against Trump in recent weeks, and the general election head to head is essentially tied. We’ve also seen a 3.5 pt gain for Democrats in recent months in 538’s Congressional Generic (which party will you support for Congress), and Dems now have a slight lead though it too is essentially tied. A majority of the national polls this week have the Biden tied or ahead, with 3 - Marist, Ipsos and FAU showing small Biden leads. It’s a close, competitive election with Dems gaining some ground in recent weeks."

      When you say "according to some poll," it would be better to say which poll so that we can evaluate whether it is one of the reliable ones or one of the skewed right wing polls being used to push Trump for political purposes.

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    17. It's some rinky dink pollster.

      What Simon Rosenberg of 538 says is BAD BEWS. Being essentially tied in a head to head of the general election is not good news. The goal is to win the swing states - winning head to head in the general election is NOT the goal.

      Simon Rosenberg of 538 is saying we can win more votes but lose the actual contest, again. NOT GREAT!

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    18. No worries. Mail in ballots to the rescue!

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    19. Trump has been underperforming compared to his polls.

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    20. Some excellent points here. Why isn't Bob dismantling bogus media spin that cuts against Biden? He may not think he's carrying water for the other team, but that's the practical effect of much of what he's been writing -- as evidenced by the right-wing commenters on here.

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    21. Biden can kiss Michigan goodbye.

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    22. "Fuck Joe Biden" is one of the smartest economic ideas the Right has ever had.
      Of this, there can be no debate.

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    23. Oh. We simply need to to tell Black men their feelings are wrong. We will just tell them. "Gentlemen, Democrats have delivered on their promises and do follow through on their campaign rhetoric."

      We'll show them data that is on a blog. It will prove their feelings wrong.

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    24. It doesn't matter what we tell black people. The Republican Party is still going to suppress their votes. It's what they do.

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    25. We simply need to tell backs that their feelings are most important. Think about what kind of Nazi-loving bigot you'd have to be to tell people their feelings don't matter?

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  4. "This morning, at 6 o'clock, Morning Joe opened with its standard discussion about what will happen if Donald J. Trump is elected again."

    Did he mention the greatest economy and no wars? He's probably forgotten.

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    1. Not the greatest economy either.

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    2. The Trump Covid economy was a disaster adding to the deficit exploding tax cuts directed at folks who did not need them. Biden admin got those 3M jobs back and added another 12M.

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    3. Weirdo Mao lazily trots out one of his greatest hits for the umpteenth time. Even though it's been debunked repeatedly.

      Data Don’t Lie: Biden’s Economic Record is Much Better than Trump’s https://washingtonmonthly.com/2024/01/26/data-dont-lie-bidens-economic-record-is-much-better-than-trumps/

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    4. One of my favorite things about facts, is that they don't care about Mao's feelings.

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  5. The hand wringing of the sixties piece, what a blast from the past, I’ve been reading them
    since the 70s! It’s the Republican answer to
    classic rock. Hunter has sort of fallen apart,
    so Bob needs a new companion for Biden’s
    supposedly shocking performance on the
    Boarder. The scary brown people must
    not be getting it, let’s try hippies!!

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  6. Were the protesters in 1968 ultimately right about the wrongness of the war? No answers here at TDH. Mostly just disdain for the protests in the “street fighting” days.

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    1. Anonymymous 10:58pm, no. “Mostly” fear that the protesters are going to get Trump re-elected.

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    2. Part of that fear is surely due to media narratives about the protests. Somerby does have a blog where he could discuss that.

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    3. Anonymouse 11:17am, where have you been?

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    4. He doesn’t debunk the idea that “the protests help Trump” shouldn’t necessarily be true. He just expresses vague fear, according to you.

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    5. Anonymouse 11:38am, “vague fear”, I expressly said can’t offer up one critique of the blue media without you accusing him of working for Putin.

      The protesters have no trouble criticizing Biden and you champion their cause and honesty.

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    6. Ok, copy that.

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    7. Yes, and no comment from Bob about
      The Americans coming back from Vietnam in coffins.

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    8. You see, Cecelia, nowhere did I champion any cause. Somerby was the one championing the pro-Palestinian cause, but only until his fears overcome him.

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    9. These protests are widely peaceful until the police bust up the joint. The News and Muslims are generally getting along. But there are assholes on both sides...

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  7. “Trump spokesperson Jason Miller owes G/O Media, formerly Gizmodo Media Group, nearly $42,000 in legal expenses after he tried and failed to sue the company for accurately reporting on legal filings stipulating he’d secretly drugged his pregnant mistress with an abortion pill, the Daily Beast reported.”

    https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/05/trumpworlds-jason-miller-must-pay-gizmodo-thousands-for-accurately-reporting-insane-story-about-him

    Why this is good news for Donald Trump…

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  8. Joshua Dean has died.

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  9. “some of those students have very limited judgment. At the same time, they may be aware of certain things their elders may tend to ignore, or may perhaps never have known. “

    http://dailyhowler.blogspot.com/2023/12/incomprehensions-why-would-they-call-it.html?m=1

    Remember Somerby writing about the GDP in Gaza?

    Somerby is unwilling today to defend the student protesters. It all devolves into his “fear” that Trump will be re-elected, or so says Cecelia.

    Some friend these students have in Somerby.

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    1. Anonymouse 11:30am, anonymices are unable to hear one critique of Biden or the differences in the media without accusing Bob of working for Putin.

      NOW you want him to talk the Biden Admin and the complaints of the protesters?

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    2. Anonymouse 12:14pm, sure.

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    3. Not too sure.

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  10. We are too focused on the election. These college demonstrations and riots are important. They interrupt education for thousands of students. They cause millions of dollars damage. Some students will have their lives turned upside down, as they're suspended or expelled or imprisoned. Some demonstrators and some policemen may incur serious injuries.

    Yet, we care less about these real-world consequences to thousands of people than about how the riots might affect the election

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    1. What are they protesting?

      Does what they are protesting cause millions of dollars damage? Does it turn people's lives upside down? Does what they are protesting people cause people to incur serious injuries?

      What exactly are they protesting?

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    2. Do we care at all about the real-world consequences of what they are protesting?

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    3. Perhaps the dumbest take of the day, congrats!

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    4. Above is referencing David, not the responses.

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    5. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    6. Anonymouse 11:51am, the protesters are protesting Israel’s military campaign and want the U.S. to levy some threat of sanctions against Israel.in order to achieve the goal.of making them stop.

      The protesters are taking the Biden Admin to task, as well as Israel.

      Anonymouse want Somerby to take both sides so they can castigate him for whatever position he is taking from one day to the next.

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    7. If you say so.

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    8. You've repeated the same fucking nonsense now half a dozen different ways, Cecelia. It was stupid the first time you wrote this and just keeps getting dumber and dumber.

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    9. "You've repeated the same fucking nonsense now half a dozen different ways, ,,,,"

      Reminds me of someone else, too.

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    10. Hey David, how much money has Jan 6 cost the U.S.?

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    11. @1:05 -- AFAIK the Jan 6 riot did not do a great deal of property damage. The current college riots have done millions of dollars worth of property damage at Humboldt State University alone.

      A university in California issued a strongly worded statement Sunday after days of unrest on the campus resulted in anti-Israel agitators taking over two academic buildings, saying the cost of these illegal activities would be "in the millions."

      https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/california-university-reveals-true-cost-of-anti-israel-mob-that-took-over-academic-buildings/ar-AA1nSqSz

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    12. We have spent millions finding, prosecuting and imprisoning the participants. That cost has been borne by taxpayers.

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    13. Quaker in a BasementMay 2, 2024 at 3:29 PM

      DiC:
      "AFAIK the Jan 6 riot did not do a great deal of property damage."

      The approximate losses suffered as a result of the siege at the Capitol totaled $2,734,783. That amount reflects, among other things, damage to the Capitol building and grounds and certain costs borne by the U.S. Capitol Police.

      Source: https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/24-months-january-6-attack-capitol#:~:text=The%20approximate%20losses%20suffered%20as,by%20the%20U.S.%20Capitol%20Police.

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    14. 1:53 - money well spent imprisoning America hating insurrectionists. Too bad they are not being hung, the dirty fascist bastards.

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    15. 3:48 Try placing yourself in a position of not needing others to supply you with information that can easily be acquired on the internet. Consistently making yourself a target by self-imposed ignorance does not help you. It may transiently boost your hippocampal dopamine levels to own the libs with misinformation, but it serves no real purpose after they embarrass you with facts.

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  11. Of the 373 companies in the S&P 500 that have reported earnings this quarter, 77.2% have surpassed earnings estimates, compared with the historical average of 67%

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  12. From what I've been reading, it is Hamas holding up a ceasefire. Are these anti-Hamas protests?

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  13. Are these students the ones too full of passionate intensity, according to Yeats? If so, why isn't Somerby quoting him today, when it seems most apt?

    Somerby says he disrespected his mother. I picture him at the protests of 1968, marching with a sign that says "F*ck my Mother". Otherwise how would his mother have anything to do with Vietnam, unless she was urging Somerby to enlist instead of going to Harvard and save her some big bucks. I suspect he disrespected his mother even more when he wrote and performed his one man show about her, after she couldn't complain about what he said in it.

    Men who are messed up and dislike women always seem to blame their mothers. That seems like the ultimate disrespect. Somerby's father died young. Why do these excitable boys (like Tucker and Watters and Rittenhouse) never direct their anger toward their dead fathers and instead target the world around them?

    At the end of the Milos Forman version of Hair, one of the hippies mistakenly goes to Vietnam and dies in his friend's place. How many men like Somerby escaped service and left others to do their duty for them, claiming a desire to end war (at least for themselves) while doing absolutely nothing useful to that end, just as these students are doing nothing to help Palestinians with their protests. It isn't as if Biden isn't doing everything he can to end the Gaza war.

    And no one will welcome the Palestinian refugees, least of all Trump. So how then does engaging in anti-Biden protests advance the cause of Palestinians who will be in worse shape if Trump is elected? Students are behaving stupidly. The surrounding adults have a responsibility to behave like grownups. That means not engaging in stupidity like Somerby is continuing to do today, as he tries to support all sides of an issue that is a non-issue for those actually trying to solve the problem in Gaza.

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    1. Somerby became a teacher, which is much better than going to Vietnam and killing people.

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    2. Good for him. Many others did not have that choice, not being Harvard grads, and all.

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    3. Somerby has never explained why he stopped teaching.

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    4. "How many men like Somerby escaped service and left others to do their duty for them" you have got to be joking. It was the "duty" of young American males to go kill Vietnamese? And Somerby has hinted why he quit teaching. He said he was depressed. And it wasn't clear to him that he was having any real impact on those kids' hard lives.

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    5. 10:24: Draft dodging was illegal, unless you got exempted by…being an elite Harvard graduate, for example. Somerby’s roommate al gore served. No one faults Somerby for avoiding service. It’s his disdain for the protesters that is galling. He pastes part of a Kristof editorial i his second post from today where kristof expresses disdain for the tactics of (some of) the pro Palestinian protesters, and like the moral scold he is, claims that the Vietnam protesters may have prolonged the war. Somerby thought Kristof was being too nice! I don’t know what Somerby thinks people should have done back in 1968, but he’s one to talk when his life was not on the line.

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    6. I don’t recall him saying that’s why he quit. It sounds plausible but I think you made it up.

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    7. From the Baltimore sun (nowadays you need a subscription):

      “ Mr. Somerby had decided after a decade of teaching fifth grade in city public schools that, as much as he liked the kids and the idea of teaching, he didn't care for the realities of the profession.

      He had been a philosophy major at Harvard who turned to teaching after graduating in 1969 partly because he would get a draft deferment if he taught in an urban area, he says. But when he began casting around for something else to do, he turned to the unlikely profession of telling jokes for a living.”
      https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-1993-01-20-1993020073-story.html

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    8. Why would anyone expect dedication from a draft dodger?

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    9. "It isn't as if Biden isn't doing everything he can to end the Gaza war."

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  14. Journalists single-handedly carried out the 10/7 attack. Somerby is targeting the right bad guys when he calls for anti-journalist protests.

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  15. On some campuses, final exams are being held soon. Might that not be a motivation for continuing these protests? Who can study when the world is on fire! This is like pulling a massive fire alarm to delay an exam that students have not studied for. And it is just like the delaying tactics Trump has been using to put off his trials.

    Based on what happened in 1968, not a few students are using the earth-shaking importance of these protests to avoid dealing with school-related pressures that may be too much for them. Marches aren't always about what's painted on the signs.

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    1. Didn’t the protests start last fall?

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    2. Yes, but they were small then and not nationwide. That's why I think there is a different motive for joining them now. Exams are held in December and May at most universities.

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    3. They got college presidents hauled in front of congress, and fired, in some cases…

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    4. The right wing got them fired, not the students. The student protests were the pretext.

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    5. Yes, @2:11, some college Presidents who were OK with antisemitism were fired. The right wing deserves credit, not blame, for getting them fired. BTW this is why Jews should switch their allegiance from Dem to Rep.

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    6. David, did you hear that Matt Goetz and Marjorie Taylor Green voted against the antisemitism bill because they thought it would outlaw the New Testament? Because the Gospels say that the Jews turned Jesus over to the Romans for execution.

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    7. @7:18 yes those two voted against the antisemitism bill. But where in the world did you find them stating the reasons you attribute to them?

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    8. David, are you really admitting you don’t know how to do a Google search?

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    9. It's the question that has divided the USA since Reagan. Are Right-wingers really this stupid, or are they just playing stupid to own the libs?

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    10. David pulls this shit all the time. He knows how to use Google when he wants to. He is not here in good faith.

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  16. The House of Representatives passed a law against antisemitism. Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene voted no, because the Gospels say the Jews killed Jesus:

    https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4637602-gaetz-dubs-house-antisemitism-bill-a-ridiculous-hate-speech-bill/

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  17. Protests were against LBJ because he was perceived as responsible for prolonging the war (even though he was trying to end it). Protests in the depression were against oligarchs and fat cats, not FDR, who was perceived as trying to help those starving and out of work.

    "International Unemployment Day was the start of a decade of protests in the United States by the Communist Party and other groups during the Great Depression." Over 700 protests occurred over a 3-year period 1931-33. Radicals were joined by those suffering.

    University students are not suffering. If there are radicals among them, it will be hard for them to gain traction with the larger public, who do not share student views.

    To the extent that Biden has been working to resolve the crisis, most voters will not consider to be causing the war, the way LBJ was blamed. Right wing is attempting to portray the left as responsible for the protests, but Biden doesn't have that image with anyone, so it is hard to see how the right can pin this unrest on him.

    One of the lessons learned in 1960s protests was that there is no need to provoke violence by getting tough with protesters. As long as they are not engaging in violent protests, not damaging property or threatening people with harm, they can be left to do their thing. Riot control tactics are better now, for dealing with those who do get violent. The actual riots in the 60s were not anti-war but anti-poverty and race-related. The right's calls for clamping down are political, intended to portray Biden as soft on crime. Given that these are the sons and daughters of parents all across the country, not criminals, Biden is in a damned if you do and damned if you don't situation.

    I think the protests are stupid but adults should use restraint and let the fever break, not get tough. I cannot tell what Somerby is actually urging, but the right wing is not doing anyone any good by using these protests for political gain. You'd think they would at least care enough about the kids to want to keep them from harm.

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    Replies
    1. Johnson escalated the war, massiviely.

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    2. He did different things at different points in the war:

      https://millercenter.org/president/lbjohnson/foreign-affairs#:~:text=During%20the%20summer%20and%20fall,%2C%22%20Johnson%20warned%20his%20audiences.

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    3. Johnson was lied to by the Generals.

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  18. Why was it necessary for Somerby to quote the entire Beatles song lyrics when anyone would recognize it from a snippet?

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  19. My reserves of delicious word-salads are endless. What an asshole Somerby is. I sniff my fingers. They smell funny.

    I am Corby.

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    Replies
    1. Why do your fingers not smell like salad?

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    2. You ignorance is moronic, Boris.

      I am Corby.

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    3. Everyone is Corby.

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