Trading Comfort For Conscience
The College Students Protesting Genocide Across America, And The World, Are Proving The Real Revolution Comes From Within Us
Photo by Clem Onojeghuo on Unsplash
“In nineteen hundred and seventy-five all the
People rose from the countryside to move against
You government man d'you understand locked
Together hand in hand all through this unsteady land--
Gonna roll roll roll the rock around roll roll roll the rock
Around lift the rock out of the ground”
Jefferson Airplane
The turbulent, chaotic, revolution of American Spring has begun, and only those who are in purposeful denial of the collapse of the empire can believe otherwise.
The empire managers, the people with the true power, as brilliantly illustrated by American comedian/philosopher George Carlin, who referred to them in a classic monolog as “The Big Club,” are frantically scrambling to demonize, oppress, and obfuscate as they attempt to restore order to a diseased empire.
Yet, it’s obvious to all but the most uninformed and unenlightened that it’s too late now, the cancer of empire has metastasized, and the diagnosis is terminal.
Watching the swirl of events from the perspective of a boomer, I’m astounded that I’m being thrown back to the times of my youth, a time when Gil Scott Heron predicted the revolution would not be televised (Heron couldn’t have predicted the advent of the Internet, of course) and music was the message, perpetually reigniting the spark into a flame.
This was a time when it was evident that the dirty work had to be done in the street, but that the real revolution was one of thought and begins as a spiritual motivation from conscience.
It truly is astounding that these young college students are delivering substantial “blows against the empire,” miraculously, without violence incited by the protestors, standing firm in the face of fear.
If you think that statement veers into hyperbole, I might ask how any individual would feel in the face of being surrounded by a violent, thuggish, militarized police presence, standing ready to break bones with batons, instilling fear by kneeling on the necks of students and academics?
Then, forcing them to lie on their stomach in prone positions, and in addition to the brutal restraint, using tasers on those already bound and helpless in what can only be described as brutality for brutality’s sake.
Imagine the shock to the world inhabited by the erudite college professor, violently transported within a week from the gentile world of academia, a place where ideas, intellect, civil debate, and decorum rule the environment, to a world where the thuggish goon squads of militarized police (Coincidentally, in some cases, trained by the IDF) see that academician as a deadly threat to be violently subdued by any means necessary, all for the crime of asking “What Are You Doing?”
The question asked by corporate media, who never miss an opportunity to exploit and divide the viewing public for ratings is: "How can we get the students to put aside their silly demands and get back to business, war, and genocide?" not "How can the power elite of the international community not take a global protest movement seriously?"
The power elite of “The Big Club” are desperate, because all the American empire managers have, at this point in the timeline, is to instill fear through violent oppression. This is being exhibited not only on American college campuses but also in the US-sponsored genocide of Palestinians.
The Governors of some states, where protests have expanded, wasted no time in clamping down on any free speech or protest. Even members of the media, including a cameraman documenting the protest were knocked to the ground and later arrested. Was this taking place in Iran or perhaps Iraq? Some “third world thuggish dictatorship”? No, it’s happening NOW, right here in America, the land of the free.
Part of that desperation may come from the fact that the billions of dollars thrown into expensive military “solutions” to resource acquisition “problems” is a colossal waste of taxpayer monies and produces nothing but short-term profit for a few and misery and destruction for the majority. Even the least aware member of the American taxpaying populace is aware of this on some level, as the dissent against the last military “aid package” to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan proves.
CNN and Fox News won’t tell you this, but America’s military machine is falling apart, literally:
“In so much as America ever had 'peaceful methods and goals', now their government just spreads chaos, using it as a ladder of bones. With Gaza or Ukraine, they don't care if the American people don't actually support these wars. They're still doing 'em. America's ruling elites are all about the money, everything else is just marketing. So the wars go on, one after another to cover up the fraud with more fraud. The insider traders in Congress get their cut, and some arms dealers in Bethesda get to remodel their kitchens.”
The major problem is that, in the cozy relationship between the Pentagon’s weapons acquisitions, and the American corporations motivated by inflating costs and bilking the American tax base to profit, those very expensive acquisitions, whether it’s aircraft carriers, battleships, bombers, or fighter jets, are neglected and not maintained, because the “value” derived from the object is turned upside down when maintenance costs are factored in. It’s cheaper to let equipment fall apart than to spend money on critical maintenance. This isn’t just an American military issue exclusively either:
“Before ever doing anything useful, the $3.7 billion HMS Queen Elizabeth died like the useless person it was named after, saying, “routine pre-sailing checks yesterday identified an issue with a coupling on@HMSQNLZ starboard propeller shaft. As such, the ship will not sail on Sunday.” Elizabeth was unable to join the NATO war fleet to play. Its sister ship, the HMS Prince of Wales also could not keep its propeller on, and had broken down 18 months earlier. The UK and Europe in general are increasingly useless vassals. They're eager but completely useless.
The US's fleet is big, but so were dinosaurs. Things change and suddenly you're not so well adapted anymore. In today's world, big aircraft carriers are just sitting ducks for drone swarms and cheap missiles. These things are hard to sink, but they're also hard to repair, making them a net liability. The US tried to develop smaller, littoral ships to counter threats like Iran, but Iran evolved during the delays, and these ships are now basically useless. America still has some formidable air power, but when it comes to naval power, they've completely lost it. They've lost the Red Sea, which is their 'Suez Crisis' moment.”
The obvious, and most horrific evidence of the US complicity in aiding and abetting war crimes, as pointed out by many of the student protestors, is the discovery of the mass graves in Gaza, containing hundreds of Palestinian men, women, and children, their hands bound, zip-tied behind their backs. Even the corporate media, usually apologists for Israeli genocide, who have worked in close cooperation with agencies like the “press” at the US State Department can no longer deny or hide the horror. Of course, Israel has denied any involvement:
“Palestinians in Khan Yunis have continued to unearth dead bodies in what is believed to be the largest mass grave in Gaza’s history, first discovered at Nasser Hospital last Saturday. The discovery comes two weeks after the Israeli military withdrew its troops from the southern city on April 7 after a three-month siege, leaving utter destruction in their wake.
The massacre site is teeming with rescuers in hazmat suits digging corpses out of the ground with primitive hand tools and digging trucks, while horrified survivors and family members stand there in fraught anticipation, waiting for a sign of their loved ones who have been missing for two or more months. A video taken by Motasem Mortaja, a Palestinian journalist in Khan Yunis, shows a grieving mother kneeling on the hospital grounds and embracing the body of her son, weeping. She is one of the fortunate ones, as most bodies remain unidentified. Of the nearly 400 bodies recovered so far, only 65 have been identified, the head of the Khan Yunis Civil Defense told Al Jazeera.”
There is no denying the momentum, the groundswell of consciousness within the student protests has now spread both domestically and globally.
The empire managers have brought out their best PR lackeys in empty suits, likely under duress, to keep the crumbling narrative alive. It’s backfiring spectacularly.
Perhaps the best example is the pious Christian nationalist, recently elected Speaker of The House Mike Johnson.
Mere weeks ago, Johnson was seen, ironically, as the last stand against the Biden administration to prevent the expansion of the proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, but days ago, it became evident that his true employers had thrown him under the bus by mandating that Johnson march into hostile territory, ground zero, at Columbia University, where the movement began.
Flanked by other bought and sold Republican members of Congress representing the Congressional districts of New York, Johnson stood his ground and began a rather hastily contrived, rambling, deceptive monolog, evoking everyone from Winston Churchill to the past thought leaders and politicians who had passed through the hallowed halls of Columbia.
Those thought leaders, Johnson intoned, believed in inalienable rights endowed by the Creator, democracy, liberty, morality, and virtue.
The speech soon took an ugly turn as Johnson began to define who the enemy was clearly: the protestors, who, in Johnson’s words “Gnash their teeth and demand to wipe the state Of Israel off the map and attack our innocent Jewish students”.
The truth of the matter is that there has yet to be one singular incidence of violence specifically directed against any Jewish students. The facts belie the divisive narrative constructed by Johnson, as multiple instances of Jewish students peacefully celebrating the Passover Holiday of Seder, a feast to celebrate breaking the chains of slavery and oppression to freedom, do so within the protest encampments. Johnson’s wildly distorted and purposely deceptive visions of mob rule only occurred once the police stepped in, not before:
“IUDC’s decision to host a Seder was partially inspired by other encampment groups around the country hosting their own Seders in protest of the Israel-Hamas war. At Columbia University, student organization Jewish Voice for Peace held a Seder for students who were protesting on Columbia’s South Lawn.”
The speech was a colossal failure and a political farce. Largely edited out of the corporate newscasts was the fact that Johnson was met with boos and derisive chants, but what did he expect?
Presumably, the empire managers decided the solution was to have Johnson “save face” by reclaiming the narrative, which amounted to Johnson proclaiming that the campus was infiltrated by students AND Professors who had succumbed to the pernicious influence of mob rule and “joined the mobs”.
Of course, the point of all this deranged, performative political theater was to justify the coming crackdown on students and teachers, something President Joe Biden implied was a part of his “plan” implying the response to protest activity had been anticipated all along. That response? Shut it down by any means necessary.
The student protestors are doing something unprecedented and incredible here.
The implications are stunning, as students at elite, private educational institutions, where admission and graduation require a nose to the grindstone effort, and “proper behavior” within accepted parameters, demonstrate selflessness and concern for others over competition and selfish concerns.
What has occurred in many cases, is that the students have, willingly, effectively traded away their future of comfort to prioritize conscience. They are saying that the suffering of their fellow human beings matters more than good grades and a career.
These are young people who, long before the protests occurred, were demonized for being lazy, lacking a work ethic, spoiled, self-absorbed, and unaware.
Nothing could be further from the truth, as I have seen countless examples through the soon-to-be-banned TikTok platform, YouTube, and X, of articulate, well-informed young people speaking truth to power.
Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
They are saying to the empire, and the world, that their individual and collective futures, financial security, good credit ratings, and material comfort and consumption all pale in comparison to the horrors being inflicted on thousands of Palestinians.
They are likely to have their “permanent records” marred for life.
A reasonable question to ask is, why would anyone in their position simply quiet down and return to academia when the academic institutions help finance and fuel mass murder and genocide? They will never see, and more importantly, trust, the corrupted systems within government, business, or academia again.
They are saying enough is enough, and if we have any inkling of a better nature within ourselves, we will join their sacrifice.