It\u2019s a morning of hyperbole on my \u201cmainstream media\u201d news program of choice, \u201cMorning Joe\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Joe Scarborough’s a former Congressman from Pensacola, Florida (his seat now held by Matt Gaetz). He hosts, and stands as one of two \u201cformer Republicans\u201d on\u00a0MSNBC<\/em>\u00a0(Nicolle Wallace is the other).\u00a0\u00a0Joe\u2019s surrounded by what I would consider \u201cmoderate\u201d Democrats.\u00a0\u00a0But it\u2019s definitely Joe\u2019s show, and it definitely has his biases.\u00a0\u00a0Sure he supports Democrats, but also supports what in my younger days I\u2019d call \u201cthe establishment\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n This week colleges struck back against the students protesting against Israel in Gaza by \u201cencamping\u201d on the college grounds.\u00a0\u00a0After weeks of negotiations, as protestors demanded that the universities divest from investments that support Israel: Columbia and UCLA sent in the cops.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Where does \u201cMorning Joe\u201d stand?\u00a0\u00a0When the NYPD went into Columbia, the next morning the Police Commissioner AND the Mayor (a former NYPD Captain) were on air. They talked about how reluctant they were to go onto the campus, and how they worked hard to avoid violence. And the day after, when the LA police moved on UCLA, it was the same story \u2013 New York\u2019s Police Commissioner back on, describing how \u201ccareful\u201d officers were in moving the protestors \u201cout\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Joe created \u201cnew\u201d distinctions: \u201ckids\u201d (or as Joe would say, the \u201cprivileged kids\u201d) protesting on the campus, and the dreaded \u201coutside agitators\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0Those are the \u201cshady professionals\u201d of the protest world, with credentials from the Green Movement and Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter.\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s as if someone who cared about \u201cleft wing\u201d ideas, \u201ccontaminated\u201d those \u201ctender young minds\u201d at Columbia and UCLA.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n The ” adults” called the students \u201cchildren\u201d, as if these young adults weren\u2019t really capable of independent thought.\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s all a repeat, the language used to devalue the ideas of those who protest.\u00a0\u00a0They can\u2019t be \u201csmart\u201d or \u201cmature\u201d enough to understand the real \u201cdepth\u201d of problems: as if kids at Ivy League Columbia don\u2019t get it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I don\u2019t mind that Joe is \u201cestablishment\u201d. I do disagree with the old trope, that \u201celite kids\u201d go to college, and \u201cworking class\u201d kids don\u2019t have the privilege of protesting. It\u2019s the same old line the \u201cestablishment\u201d used in the Vietnam War. But there were lots of \u201cworking class kids\u201d who didn\u2019t agree with that war, and protested just as much as Joe\u2019s \u201celites\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I do resent the condescension.\u00a0\u00a0A lot of Americans who support Joe Biden, Americans who usually support Israel (and were horrified on October 7th<\/sup>), Americans who might even be Jewish, are against what\u2019s happening in Gaza today.\u00a0\u00a0And they are represented by students at Columbia and UCLA (and Wisconsin, Ohio State and even at that conservative bastion, Denison University).\u00a0\u00a0They are expressing the same frustrations many Americans, and even the President of the United States himself, is feeling.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n October 7th<\/sup>\u00a0did NOT give Israel \u201ccarte blanche\u201d to do whatever they wanted to the Palestinians in Gaza.\u00a0\u00a0And Netanyahu\u2019s precarious political position doesn\u2019t either.\u00a0\u00a0President Biden knows it. And he\u2019s doing the best he can to \u201cstraddle the fence\u201d of supporting Israel without sanctioning potential genocide.\u00a0\u00a0So while I don\u2019t sanction either violence or vandalism on college campuses, I realize those students (and the \u201cprofessionals\u201d) are simply acting on what most of us already know.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0They, like my contemporaries of the 1960\u2019s, are \u201cprematurely right\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Being \u201ccorrect\u201d doesn\u2019t mean \u201ccarte blanche\u201d either.\u00a0\u00a0it\u2019s not okay to single out Jewish students as symbols of Zionism.\u00a0\u00a0Not all Jews are Zionists, and not all Zionists are in favor of subjugation of all Palestinians. And it’s not okay to sanction terrorists. \u00a0\u00a0The students at Columbia and UCLA, Ohio State and Denison, are all capable of making that distinction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Does the campus unrest signal a return to that dreaded year, 1968?\u00a0\u00a0Should we expect riots in Chicago at the Democratic Convention, the seminal event that got Richard Nixon elected President? I don\u2019t think so.\u00a0\u00a0I do think Biden needs to address both the campus unrest, and the larger question of what to do with Netanyahu.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s not Vietnam. \u201cMy\u201d Bobby Kennedy isn\u2019t running for President about to be assassinated. Martin Luther King wasn\u2019t shot down this month. The nation isn\u2018t rocked by that violence. And, hard to imagine, Donald Trump isn\u2019t a Richard Nixon. He\u2019s so much worse. So 2024 isn\u2019t 1968, it\u2019s different. And all of that doesn\u2019t make those students with the courage of their convictions wrong. They\u2019re just \u201cprematurely correct\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Distinctions<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Carte Blanche<\/h3>\n\n\n\n