Protest
NYU Philosophy Graduate Students Call for Divestment
“Six months on from the brutal Hamas attacks of October 7th, more than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed… Some 1.9 million people… have been displaced. Over two hundred aid workers have been killed during the conflict. At least 103 reporters are dead… Gaza is facing a famine. As long as it continues to invest in war, NYU is implicated in this devastation. Divestment is an issue of dire moral urgency…”
That’s from a statement issued by some current and former graduate students in the philosophy program at New York University.
In the statement, they make several demands regarding police presence on campus, allowing peaceful protest, disclosure of the university’s financial investments, and the divestment “from weapons manufacturers, war profiteers, and other companies complicit in the Israeli military’s ongoing war in Gaza.”
The full statement is below.
Statement on Divestment and NYU’s Response to Protesters
We, the undersigned graduate students and recent alumni of the NYU Department of Philosophy, join the NYU chapter of the American Association of University Professors and members of the faculties of the Departments of Philosophy, History, Sociology, Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, the School of Law and many others in condemning the NYU administration’s decision to call NYPD officers to arrest peaceful protesters on the night of April 22nd and the morning of May 3rd. We also stand in solidarity with the graduate students of the Columbia University Department of Philosophy, who released a statement on April 29th decrying similar police involvement in peaceful protest on their campus.
On April 22nd, NYPD officers, many in riot gear, arrested over 100 peaceful protestors at NYU’s Gould Plaza, including students and faculty. Since then, the past two weeks have seen NYPD officers use stun grenades, tasers and pepper spray to injure student protesters at Columbia and CCNY; faculty members violently slammed to the ground by police at Emory; and violent, hours-long, explicitly racist assaults on peaceful protesters at UCLA. Despite nationwide condemnation of these events, including condemnation of violence committed specifically by the NYPD, NYU’s administration once again made the irresponsible decision on May 3rd to invite NYPD officers onto campus. These officers arrested a further 14 students who were protesting peacefully at the Greene Street encampment. The increasingly brutal responses of universities across the country to mostly peaceful student protesters have only worked to further erode trust and create a cross-campus atmosphere of antagonism and fear. Rather than follow this dark path, we urge NYU administrators to deescalate by removing NYPD presence from campus and engaging with protesters in good faith.
Beyond these issues of free speech, we call on the university to directly address the demands of the anti-war movement. Institutional neutrality on questions of academic interest is essential for free inquiry. But, for better or worse, the modern university is not merely a place of learning: universities are also employers, landlords and investors. It is reasonable and correct for students and employees to hold these institutions accountable for their actions as economic entities. Indeed, given the clear academic interest in the question of the legitimacy of the ongoing war in Gaza, we believe that the university can only maintain institutional neutrality by disaffiliating itself from the companies involved in prosecuting that war.
But divestment from war is not just an academic question. Six months on from the brutal Hamas attacks of October 7th, more than 34,000 Palestinians – most of them women and children – have been killed by the disproportionate Israeli military response. Some 1.9 million people, the vast majority of Gaza’s population, have been displaced. Over two hundred aid workers have been killed during the conflict. At least 103 reporters are dead; they make up over 75% of the total number of reporters killed worldwide in 2023. Gaza is facing a famine. As long as it continues to invest in war, NYU is implicated in this devastation. Divestment is an issue of dire moral urgency, and demands an immediate response.
Some have argued that NYU’s investments are simply too tied up in a complex network of managed funds and diversified assets to be efficiently divested; others, like NYU SVP for Public Affairs John Beckman, have claimed in public statements that divesting from implicated institutions would have financial consequences for NYU’s endowment. It is impossible to assess the force of these concerns unless NYU fully discloses its current investment portfolio. Even without disclosure, however, neither claim provides a meaningful defense against divestment. Investment portfolios of NYU’s scale have a range of options, and the administration has an obligation to explore these thoroughly and in good faith. NYU cannot claim to run an ethical institution unless it is capable of investing in a socially responsible manner that involves full oversight and knowledge of its investments.
To all of these ends, we demand that the NYU administration:
-
- Immediately remove all NYPD presence from campus,
- Pledge to never again call police to arrest NYU students, faculty, staff or community members for exercising their right to peaceful protest,
- Provide general amnesty for and reverse any outstanding disciplinary measures, such as there are, against any and all students, staff and faculty members involved in peaceful protest,
- Disclose all investments and financial assets,
- Engage in a good-faith process to divest from weapons manufacturers, war profiteers, and other companies complicit in the Israeli military’s ongoing war in Gaza.
Precedent is on the students’ side. Divestment is possible. In 1985, NYU divested from South African Apartheid. In the last few years, universities across the country, including NYU, have begun divesting from fossil fuels. As of this week, Brown University has announced that it will formally consider divestment from the Israeli military. Faculty at Pomona College have already voted in favor of divestment. We urge NYU to listen to its students and stand on the right side of history.
Signed:
Carl Christian Abrahamsen (graduate student)
Cristina Ballarini (graduate student)
Evan Behrle (graduate student)
Banafsheh Beizaei (alum)
Daniel Brinkerhoff Young (alum)
Caroline Bowman (alum, lecturer)
Preston Budd (graduate student)
Clifford Carr (graduate student)
Tez Clark (graduate student)
Sophie Côte (graduate student)
Nikhil Dominic (graduate student)
John Fan (graduate student)
Tom Forster (graduate student)
Iliana Gioulatou (graduate student)
Noga Gratvol (graduate student)
Eugene Ho (graduate student)
Jenny Judge (alum)
Bin Hui Kwon (graduate student)
Clara Lingle (graduate student)
Annette Martín (alum)
Ariel Melamedoff (graduate student)
Laura Mora (graduate student)
William Nava (graduate student)
Samuel Rogers (graduate student)
Rose Ryan Flinn (graduate student)
Alec Sault (graduate student)
Soren Schlassa (graduate student)
Daniel Sharp (alum)
Kimon Sourlas-Kotzamanis (graduate student)
Christopher Sun (graduate student)
Rioghnach Theakston (graduate student)
Justin Zacek (graduate student)
The post NYU Philosophy Graduate Students Call for Divestment first appeared on Daily Nous.
The Destruction Of Gaza SHOULD Be Radicalizing People
Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):
https://medium.com/media/0a8bfe21c338a93a4bbb83ed826d7638/href
What’s happening in Gaza should radicalize you. It absolutely should.
Right now, even as its own criminality hits fever pitch, the western political-media class is fretting with increasing shrillness about young people getting “radicalized” and turned against their government by the spread of information and ideas at campus demonstrations and on TikTok.
But young people should be radicalizing right now. Everyone should.
When you see Israel rejecting a Hamas ceasefire and beginning its long-threatened assault on Rafah (the last so-called “safe zone” in Gaza), that should radicalize you.
https://medium.com/media/e2ac53fa45d15c62748df79cceb6fdb7/href
When you see US senators assist this horrifying onslaught by publicly threatening the International Criminal Court if they dare to indict Israeli officials for war crimes, that should radicalize you.
When you see Israel shutting down Al Jazeera to quash news reporting about its criminality immediately before launching this mass atrocity, that should radicalize you.
When you see The New York Times receiving a Pulitzer Prize for its scandalously discredited, notoriously biased and widely-mocked Gaza coverage, that should radicalize you.
When you see the US president publicly supporting and encouraging violent police crackdowns against protesters opposing his genocidal actions in Gaza, that should radicalize you.
If the so-called “moderate” position of your nation’s political status quo is to accept, normalize, support and defend the sort of evil that is being inflicted upon the people of Gaza, then you should want to get as far away from that “moderate” position as possible, and you should seek the complete annihilation of that political status quo.
https://medium.com/media/366d54663c9a4430b420efbf1e8e70e1/href
This obvious point is being aggressively attacked with rapidly intensifying frenzy by the empire and its lackeys.
After police violently shut down anti-genocide campus demonstrations in New York City, Mayor Eric Adams said “There is a movement to radicalize young people, and I’m not going to wait until it’s done… I’m not going to allow that to happen as the mayor of the City of New York,” as though preventing the spread of radical political opinions is something a mayor is elected to do in the United States.
NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Operations Kaz Daughtry ominously told the press that there is “some organization” who is “radicalizing our students,” and that the New York police force intends to “find out who that is.” Again, the implication being that it is the job of the police to control the spread of unauthorized political opinions.
In an article with the incredibly propagandistic headline “Anti-Israel protests infiltrated by ‘outside agitators’ who radicalize students, sow violence,” The Washington Times presented these unevidenced assertions from New York City officials as though they are established fact instead of highly convenient fiction.
In a talk at the McCain Institute on Friday, Senator Mitt Romney told Secretary of State Antony Blinken that Congress supports banning TikTok because it shares information that turns people’s opinions against Israel, saying such information has a “very, very challenging effect on the narrative.”
Arnaud Bertrand on Twitter: "Incredible mask-off moment: Romney and Blinken say that the ban of TikTok was directly because "the emotion, the impact of images has a very challenging effect on the narrative", the narrative being "Israel's PR".pic.twitter.com/WkIGTAXG2X / Twitter"
Incredible mask-off moment: Romney and Blinken say that the ban of TikTok was directly because "the emotion, the impact of images has a very challenging effect on the narrative", the narrative being "Israel's PR".pic.twitter.com/WkIGTAXG2X
A new report from The Intercept reveals that congressmen Mike Lawler and Josh Gottheimer called on the FBI to investigate campus protesters at a “centrist” political group called No Labels, suggesting there these demonstrations have a nefarious support system which the federal police should look into.
The Wall Street Journal has been losing its mind over the campus protests, posting articles with headlines like “Activist Groups Trained Students for Months Before Campus Protests” and “Rules for Campus Radicals, 2024 — A website reveals the planning and strategy behind the current college mayhem” which suggest that there is something sinister and unacceptable about these demonstrations receiving support from “longtime activists and left-wing groups.”
MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough went full Alex Jones on his show last week, telling his audience that these university protests have been happening because Qatar has “poured hundreds of millions of dollars into American universities to have a radicalizing effect on Middle Eastern studies.”
Empire managers and propagandists have been pushing the narrative that foreign governments are behind this new protest movement to radicalize young people against Washington and Israel, though as we discussed recently they humorously can’t yet manage to agree on which foreign government that is.
The imperial spinmeisters have been churning out these talking points about radicalization and nefarious support because that’s the narrative bludgeon they plan on using to stomp out the burgeoning antiwar movement the empire has created with its genocidal atrocities in Gaza. If they can establish a narrative that it is the government’s job to shut down political dissent and stop the spread of unauthorized political opinions, then they can justify doing pretty much anything to stop this movement in its tracks.
All to shut down something that absolutely should be happening. Young people should be cultivating radical political positions in response to an active genocide that’s supported by their government. An antiwar movement should be forming against the imperial murder machine as its murderousness gets more and more insane. People should be aggressively rejecting the political status quo that has allowed this nightmare to be unleashed upon humanity.
Everyone should be turning against the US-centralized empire right now. Don’t let the imperial manipulators dupe our society into believing this turn is anything but a correct and appropriate response to what the empire is doing.
____________________
My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Go here to find video versions of my articles. Go here to buy paperback editions of my writings from month to month. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.
Bitcoin donations: 1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2
Featured image via Ted Eytan (CC BY-SA 4.0 DEED)
I Oppose Israel’s Atrocities In Gaza Because I’m Not A Psychopath
Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix
Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):
https://medium.com/media/71cbacc23a60b2c96e4c6a46b00197b6/href
❖
I don’t oppose the butchery in Gaza because I love Hamas or hate Jews or love Islam or hate America.
I don’t oppose the butchery in Gaza because I’m a lefty or a commie or an anarchist or an anti-imperialist.
I oppose the butchery in Gaza because I’m not a fucking psychopath.
Opposing Israel’s butchery in Gaza is so obvious, so common sense, such a bare-minimum, fundamental-level, Being Human 101 position that if it isn’t immediately self-evident to you after learning the basic facts, your problem is much, much deeper than whatever ideology or bias or prejudice you might happen to have. There’s something wrong with you as a person.
If you support Israel’s butchery in Gaza, you’ve got much bigger problems than merely not having the correct ist or ism belief system. You’re just all fucked up inside. Your conditioning has made you into a generally shitty human being. You have deep and immensely consequential flaws in your character, and you won’t mature as a person until you heal and transcend them.
Opposing Israel’s atrocities in Gaza doesn’t make you a good person, it just makes you a normal person — and supporting Israel’s atrocities in Gaza makes you a bad person. Nobody gets any points for opposing an active genocide; that’s just the basic, bare-minimum requirement for a normal human being with a functioning empathy center in their brain. If you can’t meet that basic, bare-minimum standard, you deserve to be viewed with suspicion and disdain, and anyone in your personal life who cares about truth, morality and humanity should seriously reassess their relationship with you.
❖
https://medium.com/media/27a727d0325a47268efea546fe90dcc6/href
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One reason the empire is losing young people is because the imperial status quo has given them no investment in it. They’ll never own property. They can’t support a family or retire. They’ve been given no reason not to want to rock the political boat. So they’re rocking it.
The only vested interest young people have left is an interest in breathable air and a livable planet, and the possibility of a future that isn’t intolerably dystopian. All of which are diametrically opposed to the interests and trajectory of the status quo politics of the western empire.
So they’re going for it. They’re beginning to see that there’s no reason for them not to plunge headlong into a push for real change, in direct opposition to the mainstream politics of our time. Like Bob Dylan said, when you got nothing you got nothing to lose.
❖
One of the many things that’s beautiful about this particular protest movement is that these young people aren’t protesting a war that they could get drafted in or could harm their personal interests in any way. They’re opposing something cruel and evil solely out of compassion.
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One Palestinian life is worth more than every college campus window in the world.
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If you’re wondering why you’re suddenly seeing the word “radicalizing” a lot in mainstream politics and media, it’s because that’s the big scary boogieman the empire plans on using to justify stomping out the burgeoning antiwar movement it created with its atrocities in Gaza.
https://medium.com/media/366d54663c9a4430b420efbf1e8e70e1/href
❖
Israeli police raided Al Jazeera’s office after the Israeli cabinet voted to shut down the broadcasts of the Qatari media outlet on Sunday. The west is protecting freedom and democracy by stomping out its own freedom and democracy to assist the genocidal atrocities of a nation that is also stomping out freedom and democracy.
❖
Trump supporters are such foam-brained bootlickers that they’re now united in shitting on protests against a genocidal mass atrocity that’s being pushed by neocons, the Biden administration, and every other warmongering establishment swamp monster they claim to oppose.
Trump supporters: fighting the Deep State by siding with every intelligence agency, weapons contractor, mainstream media outlet and professional war whore in America.
❖
Republicans pretend to fiercely oppose Biden, but when it comes to issues that really matter like the president encouraging violent police crackdowns against people protesting his actions they’re in furious agreement, even saying he didn’t go far enough. They’re on the same side.
_____________
My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Go here to find video versions of my articles. Go here to buy paperback editions of my writings from month to month. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.
Bitcoin donations: 1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2
Featured image via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0 DEED)
Columbia University’s “Crisis”
Questions of political economy are at the heart of the Columbia University protests....
Huge victory for Goldsmiths students for Gaza as uni accepts divestment demand and more
Six months of demos and five weeks of sit-ins see university climb down in face of students’ determination
Students at London’s Goldsmiths university have won a huge victory after months of solidarity with Palestinians, forcing their university to accept their demand to divest from involvement with the Israeli occupation and to set up scholarships for Palestinian students.
Organiser Fatima Zaid explained in a Twitter/X thread what the students have achieved, including the end of an investment contract with a firm closely connected to Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu – and a review of the university’s use of the unfit (and non-definitional) so-called ‘IHRA definition’ of antisemitism, that has been widely used to suppress criticism of Israel:
2. Statement on Genocide
Goldsmiths will release a collaborative statement between management, @Gold4Palestine and the student union.
Goldsmiths has also agreed to write to the UK government and the local MP to call for a ceasefire and support rebuilding education in Gaza.— Fatima (@fatimazsaid) May 3, 2024
4. Palestinian Scholarships
Goldsmiths will introduce undergraduate scholarships for Palestinian students + an additional fully funded postgraduate scholarship will be implemented from this year.
This will be the only undergraduate Palestinian scholarship offered in Britain!— Fatima (@fatimazsaid) May 3, 2024
6. Immortalise the Student Occupation
One of the lecture theatres that students occupied in the media department will be renamed after Shireen Abu-Akleh.
The @Gold4Palestine occupation will also be memorialised in an exhibition wall in the Professor Stuart Hall Building.— Fatima (@fatimazsaid) May 3, 2024
The news will strengthen even further the determination of students at a string of other UK universities who have set up encampments – and is already encouraging students in the US facing brutal state repression and foul smears.
Congratulations and solidarity with the people of Palestine and all those who are fighting for an end to genocide, occupation, apartheid and repression.
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Opposing Every War But The Current One, Supporting Civil Rights But Never Right Now
Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):
https://medium.com/media/0bb7ade2af09d7d12cfac9a0b73f3c0c/href
In remarks defending the brutal suppression of university demonstrations protesting his genocide in Gaza, President Biden argued that protesting is allowed in the United States so long as it’s polite and doesn’t disrupt anything or upset anybody.
“We are not an authoritarian nation where we silence people or squash dissent,” said Biden. “The American people are heard. In fact, peaceful protest is in the best tradition of how Americans respond to consequential issues.”
“But,” the president continued, “neither are we a lawless country. We are a civil society, and order must prevail.”
Biden went on to argue that “violent protest is not protected” as a form of free expression, sailing right past the fact that the only actual violence we’ve seen from these protests came from the police sent in to crack skulls and the bands of pro-Israel thugs who’ve been attacking campus demonstrators. Biden instead followed his false accusation of “violence” by listing offenses against inanimate objects: destroying property, vandalism, trespassing, breaking windows. He also listed the offenses of “shutting down campuses” and “forcing the cancellation of classes and graduations” — none of which were done by the demonstrators.
https://medium.com/media/f37f956164d1df1b03be0c75b1486a2c/href
“Threatening people, intimidating people, instilling fear in people is not peaceful protest,” said Biden, citing zero examples of this ridiculous allegation, adding that “dissent must never lead to disorder” and that “there’s the right to protest but not the right to cause chaos.”
The president then of course went on to babble about “antisemitism” for awhile, on no basis whatsoever.
Again, this person is defending an authoritarian police crackdown on peaceful demonstrators protesting against his own actions. The US president is saying don’t worry about the jackbooted tyranny and suppression you’re seeing against critics of the US president, because the tyranny and suppression is approved of by that same US president.
And that’s the Democratic Party for you, folks. That’s everything it is right there. It is violence wrapped in politeness. It is fascism cloaked in lip service to civil rights.
Andrew Solender on Twitter: "New: 21 House Democrats led by Reps. Gottheimer and Goldman sent a letter to Columbia's board of trustees telling them to "act decisively" to end the encampment or resign.It's a major escalation of Democrats' rhetoric.@Axios https://t.co/IbiWLN3u2J / Twitter"
New: 21 House Democrats led by Reps. Gottheimer and Goldman sent a letter to Columbia's board of trustees telling them to "act decisively" to end the encampment or resign.It's a major escalation of Democrats' rhetoric.@Axios https://t.co/IbiWLN3u2J
Shortly before Columbia University called in police to smash the anti-genocide demonstrations on campus the other day, 21 House Democrats signed a letter addressed to the university’s board of trustees demanding they shut down the “anti-Jewish activists on campus.”
“It is past time for the University to act decisively, disband the encampment, and ensure the safety and security of all of its students,” the lawmakers declared.
This is the same party that always cites its support for civil rights and social justice as a primary reason for people to vote for them, constantly referencing Martin Luther King Jr and other civil rights leaders — who were all intensely despised by the establishment of their own time — as heroes we should all strive to emulate.
Now they’re openly supporting the same tyrannical measures as Republicans to shut down criticism of their government’s genocidal and unjust policies, with no regard for the constitutional rights of those critics to speech and assembly. They try to make themselves look progressive and reasonable while doing it, saying it’s about fighting “antisemitism” and keeping the peace, but their actual behavior is no different from the tyrants who attacked anti-war protesters and civil rights activists in the sixties.
slicin' up eyeballs on Twitter: "A liberal is someone who opposes every war except the current war and supports all civil rights movements except the one that's going on right now. https://t.co/cLD9SjJDlc / Twitter"
A liberal is someone who opposes every war except the current war and supports all civil rights movements except the one that's going on right now. https://t.co/cLD9SjJDlc
As Democrats get worse and worse the longer Biden’s genocide in Gaza continues, I find myself recalling a tweet that went viral back in November by an account with the handle @eyeballslicer, “A liberal is someone who opposes every war except the current war and supports all civil rights movements except the one that’s going on right now.”
That tweet has gotten more and more relevant every day since. If you were to pick a banner to hang above western liberalism over the past seven months, that banner would need to contain those words. It’s been true of mainstream liberals for a very long time, but it encapsulates the response we’ve been seeing to Gaza with a special kind of perfection.
Have you ever noticed how the spinmeisters responsible for normalizing our dystopian status quo use time as a psychological weapon? It’s the damnedest thing. They push all support for revolutionary change into either the past or the future, while insisting that status quo norms must be maintained in the present.
Once you notice this tactic, you see it everywhere. When they’re not shaking their fists at the crimes of the past like Vietnam, Iraq or segregation and applauding past struggles for social justice like women’s suffrage or Black civil rights, they’re claiming that you can get all the drastic revolutionary change you want in the future if you just elect more Democrats into office.
President Biden on Twitter: "In moments of dissent, there are always those who rush in to score political points.But this isn't a moment for politics. This is a moment for clarity. So, let me be clear:Peaceful protest is protected in America.Violent protest is not protected. It's against the law. / Twitter"
In moments of dissent, there are always those who rush in to score political points.But this isn't a moment for politics. This is a moment for clarity. So, let me be clear:Peaceful protest is protected in America.Violent protest is not protected. It's against the law.
Over and over again in many different ways, people are fed the message: “Revolution and change are wonderful, just not right now. The revolutionary sentiments of the past did great things we should all celebrate, and one day in the future we will have revolutionary change once again, but right now we need to keep supporting the way things are and hold very still and try very hard not to annoy the powerful people who rule over us.”
It’s actually kind of impressive once you notice it, because this malignant manipulation requires an almost buddha-like understanding of time and the present moment. At some point the manipulators figured out that there’s only ever the here-and-now and that the past and the future have no existence except in our memory and imagination, so you can give the people all the revolution they want so long as you’re only giving it to them in the past or the future.
You saw an early prototype of this manipulation with the rise of Christianity, wherein people were encouraged to forget about the material comforts enjoyed by their rulers and focus instead on how great it’s going to be when they die and go to Heaven. All their hopes are deferred to this imaginary, invisible reward in the future, and in the meantime they’re told to glorify poverty, meekness, obedience, and above all never rise up against all the rich people and take back what they stole from you.
This world will never see the changes it so desperately needs as long as we keep letting them manipulate us like this. Change needs to happen, and it can only happen now. Now is the only place where revolution can possibly occur. Stop letting them bury it under the appearance of time, and birth it into reality.
_________________
My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Go here to find video versions of my articles. Go here to buy paperback editions of my writings from month to month. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.
Bitcoin donations: 1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2
Fresh audio product: criminalization of protest, hidden agenda behind anti-trans panic
Just added to my radio archive (click on date for link):
May 2, 2024 Adam Federman on the criminalization of protest (article here) • Kay Gabriel on how the right is using the anti-trans panic to make war on public schools and teachers’ unions (article here)
Parting Waters
The narrative of Jews as the eternally oppressed too often takes center stage.
Breaking video: LA police smash UCLA camp, violently arrest peaceful students
US state mobilises to break protest after taking hours to act against violent pro-Israel mob last night
Los Angeles police have stormed the pro-Gaza protest camp set up by peaceful student protesters at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA).
Riot-clad police are violently arresting students and faculty taking part in the protest against the university’s complicity in Israel’s genocide – which has killed well over 40,000 civilians, mostly women and children – and is smashing up tents and makeshift buildings, despite free speech and association rights being guaranteed by the US Constitution:
Video by Middle East Eye
Solidarity with the people of Gaza and with students everywhere demonstrating against genocide and for peace.
SKWAWKBOX needs your help. The site is provided free of charge but depends on the support of its readers to be viable. If you’d like to help it keep revealing the news as it is and not what the Establishment wants you to hear – and can afford to without hardship – please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal or here to set up a monthly donation via GoCardless (SKWAWKBOX will contact you to confirm the GoCardless amount). Thanks for your solidarity so SKWAWKBOX can keep doing its job.
If you wish to republish this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so – see here for more.