Columbia University - Remote Learning As Campus ‘Rancor’ Puts Jewish Students On Edge

[rogue06]

You took a passage about fixed exchange rates and investors shorting foreign currencies and used it to propagate a hoary, antisemitic trope that broad social and political movements are secretly funded and directed by George Soros with the intent of destabilizing governments, you unprincipled J. Quincy Magoo.

-Sam

How do you manage to get that out of his very explicitly stating that there are investors who seek to destabilize currencies "do[ing] their best to trigger that crisis for fun and profit" and linking them to Soros (as in they are emulating him)?


Your emotional tantrum aside, Krugman, proving that a blind squirrel can still occasionally find an acorn, is right.

[Sam]

How do you manage to get that out of his very explicitly stating that there are investors who seek to destabilize currencies "do[ing] their best to trigger that crisis for fun and profit" and linking them to Soros (as in they are emulating him)?


Your emotional tantrum aside, Krugman, proving that a blind squirrel can still occasionally find an acorn, is right.

Simple: I read the sentences before the passage you quoted, where Krugman explained he was talking about speculating on foreign currencies, and the sentences after the passage you quoted, where Krugman discussed how to beat the "Soroi" by simply not caring about the exchange rate. If Krugman were talking about anything beyond market speculation in the passage you quoted, what he writes immediately after it wouldn't make sense.

We're back to a "can't even read" situation.

-Sam

[Sam]

Fake headline, fair hit.

ScreenShot00031.png

-Sam

[Juvenal]

I think that's fair and the strategic benefit of building occupations is where my ambivalence largely sits, understanding both the historical precedent for such occupations and the historical short-term costs relative to the longer-term benefit. The short-term costs here, as in some historical predecessors, is a lot of people the protestors are trying to support die. But did they die because popular opinion temporarily hardened against the protests and their cause or did they die from a reversion to the status quo as the initial support of protests hit "the wall"? I do not have a good handle on the intricacies of the question and I'm hesitant to opine too heavily on the merit of strategy.

From my vantage point, outdoor protests work to put pressure on a peace deal and building occupations work to move focus from the conflict in Gaza to the conflict of police raids. I think it's bad optics, bad strategy, and bad tactics.

Much less ambivalent about accessibility and safety, though. While favoring de-escalation, I think the universities do have a necessary obligation to the safety of its buildings and if students are barricading themselves in those buildings, the universities have an obligation to quickly end that.

-Sam

I'm not generally opposed to the occupation of buildings, and as you suggest, there's abundant precedent here.

Hamilton Hall Has a Long History of Student Takeovers
The Columbia University building, which opened in 1907, has been occupied several times by student activists.

tl/dr or unwilling to pay for a newspaper synopsis:

Vietnam war protests in 1968 and 1972, Apartheid protests in 1985, black history protests in 1992, and ethnic studies protests in 1996 all included occupation of Hamilton Hall, most of which resulted in action toward student demands in the longer term even though initial results were wanting.

The banner renaming Hamilton Hall to Hind's Hall was a magnificent touch for those of us familiar with the heartbreakingly unsuccessful effort to rescue her from death at the hands of the IDF.

But it's useless for those who have no idea who she was.

VISUAL FORENSICS
Palestinian paramedics said Israel gave them safe passage to save a 6-year-old girl in Gaza. They were all killed.
.

For 3½ long hours on Jan. 29, the cellphone in 6-year-old Hind Rajab’s hands was the closest thing she had to a lifeline. Alone in the back seat of a car outside a Gaza City gas station, she was drifting in and out of consciousness, surrounded by bodies, as she told emergency dispatchers that Israeli tanks were rumbling closer.

From the operations room of the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS), roughly 50 miles away in the city of Ramallah, the team on duty had done their best to save the child. Paramedics were on their way, the dispatchers kept telling her: Hold on.

The paramedics were driving to their deaths.

Twelve days later, when a Palestinian civil defense crew finally reached the area, they found Hind’s body in a car riddled with bullets, according to her uncle, Samir Hamada, who also arrived at the scene early that morning. The ambulance lay charredroughly 50 meters (about 164 feet) away from the car, its destruction consistent with the use of a round fired by Israeli tanks, according to six munitions experts.

In a statement, the Israel Defense Forces said it had conducted a preliminary investigation and that its forces were “not present near the vehicle or within the firing range” of the Hamada family car. Nor, the IDF said, had it been required to provide the ambulance permission to enter the area. The State Department said it has raised the case repeatedly with the Israelis. “The Israelis told us there had, in fact, been IDF units in the area, but the IDF had no knowledge of or involvement in the type of strike described,” spokesman Matthew Miller said.

A Washington Post investigation found that Israeli armored vehicles were present in the area that afternoon. The Post additionally found that the gunfire audible as Hind and her cousin Layan begged for help and the extensive damage caused to the ambulance were consistent with Israeli weapons. The analysis is based on satellite imagery, contemporaneous dispatcher recordings, photos and videos of the aftermath, interviews with 13 dispatchers, family members and rescue workers, and more than a dozen military, satellite, munitions and audio experts who reviewed the evidence, as well as the IDF’s own statements.

After this story published, Miller said: “The death of Hind Rajab is an unspeakable tragedy — something that never should have occurred and never should occur. … So what we are going to do is take the information that is contained in that Washington Post story, we’re going to go back to the government of Israel and ask them for further information. We would still welcome a full investigation into this matter, and how it occurred in the first place.”

I sympathize with the BDS movement, but withholding investment in Israel isn't what's needed right now.

What's needed is a permanent cease fire and a flood of humanitarian aid for the nearly two million displaced Gazans.

Occupied Palestinian territory
.

The scale and speed of death and destruction in Gaza are unparalleled. Some 1.7 million people displaced, communities obliterated, homes demolished, entire families and generations wiped out. And now starvation is bearing down on Palestinians in Gaza.

Around 155,000 pregnant women and new mothers are struggling to survive. They are suffering from hunger and the diseases that stalk it, amid life-threatening shortages of food, water and medical care. For the 5,500 women who will give birth in the coming month, accessing adequate health care is an unimaginable challenge. Only three maternity hospitals remain in the Gaza Strip, and they are overwhelmed with patients. Doctors and midwives – desperate for medicines and supplies – are struggling to provide adequate care to newborns.

If women do survive pregnancy and childbirth, they must return to overcrowded shelters and informal settlements that lack clean water and hygiene facilities.

In the West Bank, around 73,000 women are currently pregnant, with more than 8,120 expected to give birth in the next month as violence threatens to spill over and displacement reaches record highs.

Despite the dangers, UNFPA and partners have delivered life-saving medicines and equipment that have supported more than half of the births – 21,000 – in Gaza since the war began on 7 October. Essential hygiene supplies, including soap and sanitary pads, are being delivered to women and girls.

An immediate ceasefire and the immediate and unconditional release of hostages is needed. It is the only way to scale up the delivery of aid to those who need it most and to end the immense suffering.

Updated 2 April 2024

The general population can't feel the size of these numbers or the difference between a hundred hostages and a hundred thousand women with starving babies or soon-to-be-babies who are currently being bombed, let alone the hundreds of thousands currently in the most critical food deprivation category. So it's useful to bring things back to a scale that everyone can appreciate.

What's needed is an end to tank rounds drilling through ambulances sent to rescue starving 6-year-old girls.

Back to the scale that motivates me, this isn't some people dying, Sam. It's hundreds of thousands. And it can't wait, because famine isn't waiting. It's already here.

[Sam]

I'm not generally opposed to the occupation of buildings, and as you suggest, there's abundant precedent here.

Hamilton Hall Has a Long History of Student Takeovers
The Columbia University building, which opened in 1907, has been occupied several times by student activists.

tl/dr or unwilling to pay for a newspaper synopsis:

Vietnam war protests in 1968 and 1972, Apartheid protests in 1985, black history protests in 1992, and ethnic studies protests in 1996 all included occupation of Hamilton Hall, most of which resulted in action toward student demands in the longer term even though initial results were wanting.

The banner renaming Hamilton Hall to Hind's Hall was a magnificent touch for those of us familiar with the heartbreakingly unsuccessful effort to rescue her from death at the hands of the IDF.

But it's useless for those who have no idea who she was.

VISUAL FORENSICS
Palestinian paramedics said Israel gave them safe passage to save a 6-year-old girl in Gaza. They were all killed.
.

For 3½ long hours on Jan. 29, the cellphone in 6-year-old Hind Rajab’s hands was the closest thing she had to a lifeline. Alone in the back seat of a car outside a Gaza City gas station, she was drifting in and out of consciousness, surrounded by bodies, as she told emergency dispatchers that Israeli tanks were rumbling closer.

From the operations room of the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS), roughly 50 miles away in the city of Ramallah, the team on duty had done their best to save the child. Paramedics were on their way, the dispatchers kept telling her: Hold on.

The paramedics were driving to their deaths.

Twelve days later, when a Palestinian civil defense crew finally reached the area, they found Hind’s body in a car riddled with bullets, according to her uncle, Samir Hamada, who also arrived at the scene early that morning. The ambulance lay charredroughly 50 meters (about 164 feet) away from the car, its destruction consistent with the use of a round fired by Israeli tanks, according to six munitions experts.

In a statement, the Israel Defense Forces said it had conducted a preliminary investigation and that its forces were “not present near the vehicle or within the firing range” of the Hamada family car. Nor, the IDF said, had it been required to provide the ambulance permission to enter the area. The State Department said it has raised the case repeatedly with the Israelis. “The Israelis told us there had, in fact, been IDF units in the area, but the IDF had no knowledge of or involvement in the type of strike described,” spokesman Matthew Miller said.

A Washington Post investigation found that Israeli armored vehicles were present in the area that afternoon. The Post additionally found that the gunfire audible as Hind and her cousin Layan begged for help and the extensive damage caused to the ambulance were consistent with Israeli weapons. The analysis is based on satellite imagery, contemporaneous dispatcher recordings, photos and videos of the aftermath, interviews with 13 dispatchers, family members and rescue workers, and more than a dozen military, satellite, munitions and audio experts who reviewed the evidence, as well as the IDF’s own statements.

After this story published, Miller said: “The death of Hind Rajab is an unspeakable tragedy — something that never should have occurred and never should occur. … So what we are going to do is take the information that is contained in that Washington Post story, we’re going to go back to the government of Israel and ask them for further information. We would still welcome a full investigation into this matter, and how it occurred in the first place.”

I sympathize with the BDS movement, but withholding investment in Israel isn't what's needed right now.

What's needed is a permanent cease fire and a flood of humanitarian aid for the nearly two million displaced Gazans.

Occupied Palestinian territory
.

The scale and speed of death and destruction in Gaza are unparalleled. Some 1.7 million people displaced, communities obliterated, homes demolished, entire families and generations wiped out. And now starvation is bearing down on Palestinians in Gaza.

Around 155,000 pregnant women and new mothers are struggling to survive. They are suffering from hunger and the diseases that stalk it, amid life-threatening shortages of food, water and medical care. For the 5,500 women who will give birth in the coming month, accessing adequate health care is an unimaginable challenge. Only three maternity hospitals remain in the Gaza Strip, and they are overwhelmed with patients. Doctors and midwives – desperate for medicines and supplies – are struggling to provide adequate care to newborns.

If women do survive pregnancy and childbirth, they must return to overcrowded shelters and informal settlements that lack clean water and hygiene facilities.

In the West Bank, around 73,000 women are currently pregnant, with more than 8,120 expected to give birth in the next month as violence threatens to spill over and displacement reaches record highs.

Despite the dangers, UNFPA and partners have delivered life-saving medicines and equipment that have supported more than half of the births – 21,000 – in Gaza since the war began on 7 October. Essential hygiene supplies, including soap and sanitary pads, are being delivered to women and girls.

An immediate ceasefire and the immediate and unconditional release of hostages is needed. It is the only way to scale up the delivery of aid to those who need it most and to end the immense suffering.

Updated 2 April 2024

The general population can't feel the size of these numbers or the difference between a hundred hostages and a hundred thousand women with starving babies or soon-to-be-babies who are currently being bombed, let alone the hundreds of thousands currently in the most critical food deprivation category. So it's useful to bring things back to a scale that everyone can appreciate.

What's needed is an end to tank rounds drilling through ambulances sent to rescue starving 6-year-old girls.

Back to the scale that motivates me, this isn't some people dying, Sam. It's hundreds of thousands. And it can't wait, because famine isn't waiting. It's already here.

I don't imagine there's any disagreement between us on the scale of the catastrophe facing Gazans or the immediacy of the need. I don't think that we're in disagreement about the efficacy of these protests and the difference in persuasion between the encampments and occupying buildings. I think we're in agreement, though I may be misreading, that building occupations, in this specific moment, are counterproductive to the most important goal, that being a ceasefire and resuming aid. I am hedging that, simply because I'm not entirely sure that perspective is right, even as I find it to be likely true. But I'm not sure I can square it with the fact that we're seeing the same narrative shift with the outdoor encampments, as police shift to midnight raids and protestors barricade themselves with plywood and pallets. On one hand, I think some students are making a poor strategic and tactical decision with building occupations. On the other hand, I think we're seeing a direct (and directed) counterstrategy by university/local government to shift focus from the students' cause to the students themselves. So I do have ambivalence about whether, as a matter of strategy, the building occupations are good. I think American news media (and, more foundationally, Americans) are outright terrible at keeping a focus; to that end, the protests (at least in their current form) may be entering into a counterproductive stage altogether, as people hungry for a new story decide to make a new story with new protagonists and antagonists.

Like you say, famine isn't waiting. Netanyahu is promising to invade Rafah regardless of a ceasefire deal, still seemingly intent on thwarting any possible chance of a ceasefire so that he can retain his coalition and hold on power. The bombs keep dropping. I'm not sure what cards the Biden administration has left to play to change the direction but, whatever they are, it doesn't look like Biden is willing to make a clear and public break from Netanyahu. I understand the reasoning (I think) but until the latter is understood to be an illegitimate and self-interested partner ... I dunno.

"The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning", as ever.

-Sam

[Sam]

As a counterpoint to myself, if Gazans themselves continue to support these protests in their current forms, I'm going to try to slot my own layman's opinions about their value and efficacy into a correct place, wherever that is.

ScreenShot00034.png

-Sam

[Cow Poke]

I'm beyond ambivalent. I'd be first in line to destroy a door or window if it meant helping a dog escape a burning building, for example,

A noble action with a clear attainable goal with realistic expectation of success.

and here we're talking about stopping the bombing of starving children.

OR simply... well, you say it below....

That's a lot of moral leeway for aggressive, non-violent protests. But it's not enough leeway to justify occupying Hamilton Hall.

If the protests don't serve to change minds, they're useless. If they instead serve to harden minds against relieving the suffering in Gaza, they're not just useless, they're immoral.

This morning it's looking far more like the Occupy movements than "Free Palestine".

[CivilDiscourse]

I'm beyond ambivalent. I'd be first in line to destroy a door or window if it meant helping a dog escape a burning building, for example, and here we're talking about stopping the bombing of starving children. That's a lot of moral leeway for aggressive, non-violent protests. But it's not enough leeway to justify occupying Hamilton Hall.

If the protests don't serve to change minds, they're useless. If they instead serve to harden minds against relieving the suffering in Gaza, they're not just useless, they're immoral.

The difference is very large between your scenario and a protest.

There is a direct link between breaking a window that provides a direct means of egress for someone/something trapped in a dangerous situation. It's an immediate action for immediate danger.

These protests are not related to a war going on half-way across the world. Occupying the building does not directly result in saving anyone or anything. There's nothing "immediate" in this.

[Cow Poke]

The difference is very large between your scenario and a protest.

There is a direct link between breaking a window that provides a direct means of egress for someone/something trapped in a dangerous situation. It's an immediate action for immediate danger.

Yup - and a realistic expectation of a positive outcome.

These protests are not related to a war going on half-way across the world. Occupying the building does not directly result in saving anyone or anything. There's nothing "immediate" in this.

And the risk of it backfiring seems to be increasing exponentially.

[CivilDiscourse]

Yup - and a realistic expectation of a positive outcome.



And the risk of it backfiring seems to be increasing exponentially.

I doubt Sam, Juvenal, or Starlight would be coming up with all these excuses, or outrage, if these were say students protesting what they saw as overreach in prosecuting Trump.

Liberals here were cheering the crackdown on the peaceful protest in Canada (the convoy) after all.

Oh that's right. I believe that they judge whether someone has the right to protest based on the content of the message, and if they disagree then suddenly there's a very narrow set of rules a protest has to follow to be legitimate.

[Cow Poke]

For all these little darlings shouting "I am Hamas"....

Son of Hamas Co-Founder Denounces Group at UN

[Cow Poke]

Somewhat tongue-in-cheek....
Watching LAPD remove sheets of plywood the "students" had erected as a wall to keep the cops out.
Where do they get money for plywood? I can't afford plywood!!!!

plywood wall.jpgplywood wall removed.jpg

[Cow Poke]

I'm not generally opposed to the occupation of buildings, and as you suggest, there's abundant precedent here.

Hamilton Hall Has a Long History of Student Takeovers
The Columbia University building, which opened in 1907, has been occupied several times by student activists.

tl/dr or unwilling to pay for a newspaper synopsis:

Vietnam war protests in 1968 and 1972, Apartheid protests in 1985, black history protests in 1992, and ethnic studies protests in 1996 all included occupation of Hamilton Hall, most of which resulted in action toward student demands in the longer term even though initial results were wanting.....

This looks FAR more like BLM protests (and Occupy) than any of the protests you mention. Where is BLM today?

[seer]

For all these little darlings shouting "I am Hamas"....

These useful idiots remind me of the sixties protestors carrying Mao's little Red book. Sure that war was a mess, but why embrace a murderous dictator? Same here, you may not like what Israel is doing but why embrace a totalitarian regime that does not support human rights, or voting rights.

[CivilDiscourse]

It appears that the student protesters at UCLA were violently attacked during the night by a pro-Israel group who were wearing masks and appeared older than student age. The masked attackers seem to have wielded baseball bats, and launched exploding fireworks into the tent area.

BBC: 'Horrific' violence at UCLA after counter-protesters attack pro-Palestinian camp
CNBC: Israel backers attack pro-Palestinian camp at UCLA
Al Jazeera: Israel supporters attack anti-war protesters at UCLA university in US

The overwhelming majority of the counter-protests to the pro-terrorist group have been peaceful.