Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

So do I. I'm not criticizing Israel's response. I'm arguing against the notion that any criticism of Israel or its response is antisemitic.

There is a lot of antisemitism bubbling up in these protests and many criticisms of Israel, but it can be separated from rational, thoughtful critiques of Israel's reaction to October 7. In fact, a lot of people in Israel are arguing against the way Israel is prosecuting the war. That's fair. People can differ in their views of that and it does not aid understanding and clear discourse to assert that all such good faith arguments are antisemitic. I think that is a crude expansion on par with the facile progressive definition of racism in recent years. Not everything that takes issue with Israeli policy is automatically antisemitic.

That said, anyone arguing Israel's response should have been anything other than scorched earth is simply not informed. The atrocities of Hamas on 10/7 are similar to those of ISIS, perhaps worse. You don't respond to a death cult that uses its own as human shields with weak measures.

Hamas understands one thing alone - strength. All Israel can do is blast them so far back to the stone age that it will take them decades to recover any semblance of prior strength.

And if one thinks this is a particularly cruel Israeli policy given the collateral losses to be suffered by the Palestinians, consider what the countries around Gaza think of its residents. Egypt and Jordan won't allow them in, and the Saudis pretend to care about them, but that's a front for their covert support for Israel. Hamas is aligned with Iran because the rest of the Arab world in the surrounding area couldn't care less about the Palestinians. And given that Gaza is run by Hamas/Iran, the surrounding Arab nations are more hostile to Gaza than is Israel. Israel would rather Gaza leave them alone and vice versa. The Saudis would prefer Gaza, an outpost of its nemesis, Iran, disappear, along with everyone in it.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I had rats in my garage. I set traps and killed them. But I also figured that if I had the kind of garage that was attractive to rats, others would find their way in, and then I'd have rats again.

Setting aside, just for the moment, the basic inhumanity involved in razing Gaza and killing innocent women and children to wipe Hamas the fuck out, it's pretty obvious that what Israel is doing is just asking for more rats.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Well, that's where we are. Nobody can agree to disagree. Nobody can see things issue by issue, or person by person. No, we have to create "groups" and align them against each other.

"Me conservative judge. Me hate what some people did at Columbia, so me punish all from Columbia!"

Brilliant. Fucking brilliant. That this comes from a Federal Court is really depressing.

This is what identity politics gets us. Everybody selects an identity and polarizes themselves. Nation addicted to canceling instead of disagreeing like adults with each other.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Then what's the alternative?

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

100%. It's pretty obvious that at the larger protests, most of the protestors are motivated by what they see happening in Gaza. It's no secret that many of them are Jewish. And then you get the weirdos and hangers-on and opportunists who show up, and some of them are pretty anti-semitic. There is a pretty clear tendency in the coverage of the protests to avoid discussing what the protests are about, and to focus on the opportunists and extremists.

Lots of people have been chanting "From the river to the sea...." I'd be surprised if many of them mean to be calling for the end of the state of Israel. I'm sure a few of them do.

It's pretty wild to see conservative goyim calling lefty Jews anti-semitic at the same time that conservatives have been mainstreaming anti-semitic tropes. Not good for the Jews.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I threw out camping supplies my son had left after he did the John Muir trial, I swept to make sure there was no spilled dog food, and I used wire mesh to block where I thought they were coming in.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Wow this is helpful. What did you do to prevent the rats throwing boulders against the roof?

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I'd be happy to say more, but you've made it clear that you don't want to engage and would rather engage in passive-aggressive sniping. Your call.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

No, and if we can't deal with reality nothing will ever change. A massive, horrific terrorist attack is not the state rounding up and exterminating a subset of its civilian population.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

This is also a problematic generalization. Israel is not exterminating anyone. Israel is responding to a terrorist attack coordinated and run by the governing body of Gaza.

The attack involved well financed zealots, many given by Hamas a form of speed available in the Middle East (look it up), who sexually molested, murdered, and mutilated the corpses of kibbutz dwellers who were doing nothing to anyone. In one instance, they removed a man's penis and shoved it in his mouth. They raped women in front their husbands. Gleefully. They sent texts to relatives in Gaza joyously recounting their adventures.

You might argue that this was all precipitated by Israel's treatment of the Gazans. Well, that treatment was allowing Gazans to work in Israel. Prior to 10/7, peaceful Gazans worked in Israel. Unlike Jordan and Egypt, which does not allow them over the border.

Had Gaza sent rockets into Israel, fine. That's just warfare of the typical kind. Adversaries being adversaries. But this was wildly disproportionate. Ghoulish, inhumane. And this whole time, the Iran backed billionaire leaders of the attack, from their luxury hotels in Doha, awaited the reprisal, which they knew would cost thousands of innocent Gazans their lives.

Hamas knowingly, intentionally, murdered thousands of its own and Israelis for the sole purpose of derailing a Middle East peace accord between the Saudis and Israel which would marginalize the Iranian regime's power.

That's not up for argument.

To suggest Israel is somehow at fault for provoking such barbarity is the craziest form of victim blaming imaginable. Could Israel conduct the response perhaps less aggressively? Maybe. We can argue about that. But to call it an extermination is nuts, and to lay that at Israel's feet is even crazier. The "exterminator" of Palestinians in Gaza, if there is one, is Hamas. This is what Hamas wanted. Because Hamas does not care about Israeli or Palestinian lives. They're cannon fodder. Hamas serves Tehran, and its managers, who've lived lavishly through all of this. None of this was done to avenge anything. It was done to save Iran's ass.

(As an aside, if there's one thing I hope to live to see, it will be the overthrow of the Islamic Republic of Iran. And the slow drop hangings of all those in charge in the streets.)

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I actually agree that most of those chanting FTRTTS don't know how it's taken. Most of the people chanting don't appear to know much about a lot of things. Which is where one is when one is 18-22.

Regarding Soros paranoia, it is amusing to see the right argue that a 93 year old Jew is bankrolling a worldwide antisemitism campaign. That's left me more than a little confused and giggling to myself.

But I do disagree that the antisemitism at hand is limited to a few fringe players. For too long, the academe has countenanced a weird view of the world that puts everyone into oppressor/oppressed buckets. I'm not going to cite Foucault, Derrida, or Marcuse, or any "post-modernists" as a source, largely because those people were nuts and deserve no more air than they've had, which is already far too much. But all of this "social justice" stuff and identity politics, all of which derives from the playpens of campuses (along with "Critical Theory" and "Gender Theory") has created a bizarre landscape in which grievance is paramount.

Somebody's rigging the system against you.
Somebody's in charge behind the scenes.
We must identify those oppressors!

Enter (dragged upon) Stage Left in this paranoid fiction, as always: The Jews.

It always happens. From Charlottesville, where the Right bleated about being replaced by Jews, to the campuses today, where Jews are "super colonizers" (and somehow, despite being the most oppressed minority, excluded from DEI efforts), when the rabble decides it needs a conspiracy to make sense of the world,* the Jews will be in the dock. So, no, I don't think it's but a small smattering of antisemites in the crowd at these protests. I think campuses are far too comfortable with the idea of Jews, or any generally successful and peaceful people that has done well, as oppressors. And this leads to an unfair and entirely unwarranted dislike or suspicion of them.

_____
* Gore Vidal said there are no conspiracies because the powerful all act in the same way, so they needn't connect. Don Draper said "there is no 'plan'... the universe is indifferent to you." The maniacs of the left on campus and the maniacs of the right at MAGA rallies would do well to understand that their lots in life are more a mix of randomness and their own decisions than any boogiemen running the world in a manner that cheats them.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Presumably, we all agree that 10/7 was horrific and demands some response, and yet we all agree that there are possible responses that would be wrong. To take one example, I assume none of us think that Israel should nuke Qatar for having provided so much funding to Hamas, because it would kill so many innocent civilians.

Harping on how Hamas has chosen to hide among civilians, or on the compromised moral judgments of Arab governments, or reminding everyone how horrific 10/7 was -- none of that justifies the wanton killing of Palestinian civilians, any more than whatever Israel has done or not done in the past justifies what happened on 10/7. So much of what you are writing about this is an extending evasion of reckoning with the actual choices Israel is making and the resulting death toll.

And that, fundamentally, is what is driving most of the campus protests.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I'm not going to say there is no anti-semitism in academia, but if you were going to make a list of the places in society where it is a problem, academia would not be near the top of the list, and if you think anti-semitism is a problem elsewhere in our country, you cannot believe it's because academics are an important influence. Like, look at what Elon Musk is doing with Twitter.

I mean, it's not crazy to see Israel as a colony. A great many Israelis came from Europe, displacing the people who were previously on the land. No one pretends that non-Jewish citizens of Israel have the same rights as the Jewish citizens. You don't have to read Foucault to connect those dots.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Actually, they only promised not to hire students who enroll at Columbia this fall or later, i.e. they chose to go to Columbia with knowledge aforesight.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

So then let me ask, you feel you’ve rat proofed your garage?

And, putting aside the ethnic slur, you believe Israel could simply do the same at its border to keep Palestinians out?

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I hope so.

No, that's not quite the way the metaphor works.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Yep keep hiding under those branches. A guy ten years younger than I, who could be the nicest and most well-respected of my peers had his ticker go out between days of a deposition.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Weird that you read a comment about the holocaust this way.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

It is bizarre to mean that anyone who has had contact with our legal system does not see the pretty obvious truth that money and power make a huge difference to legal and political outcomes.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Good piece on Zionism by Yuval Noah Hariri.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

This Covid thing has fucked with people in untold ways. Never had any issue with my health, despite historically having run the machine hard, until last year.

Out of the blue, got a massive, stroke level spike in BP (testing 200/120). All while heart rate was still in low 70s, indicating pretty athletic cardio capacity at that level of stress. Felt fine. Was actually on my way for a run when a chance decision to test it led to discovery.

Scans and scans and tests later, everything came back fine. No organ issues, no left ventricle expansion consistent with longer term exceedingly high BP.

Cause? Unknown. Told to avoid excessive salt. Told booze intake inadequate to cause that kind of spike. No kidney disease. No thyroid issues. Heart attack enzymes actually low. All potential causes eliminated but one: Having had Covid a few times, both before and after having been vaxxed and boosted.

Maybe it was transient (I opted for meds rather than fuck around, which have a delightful calming side effect). Or maybe I'd have had a fucking stroke. I'd never have known except for a chance decision to play with a family member's BP cuff.

You gotta get lucky in life. In so many ways. And maybe you also have to avoid Covid?

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

While I agree with much of that, which seems eminently pragmatic and reasonable, Zionism and Judaism are not the only ideologies and religions to be examined here.

The maniacs who executed 10/7 were infused with a disregard for both the value of their own lives and those of "infidels" by a religion the central tenet of which remains global conquest. Gaza is on the water. Its inhabitants could reside in a giant resort, which at times portions of it have been. But they don't. Instead they are ruled by snake oil salesmen who goad their young into war against Israel.

Why select such a terrible option?

Radical Islam. And I don't use "radical" in lazy substitution for "fundamentalist." It is mere radicals of that religion who create the ideological scaffolding - the belief in martyrdom, and that control by others of any lands Islam has once controlled is an apostacy - that spurs young men to go on murderous rampages.

The Koran is a lousy piece of fiction, arguably worse than the Old and New Testaments. Among its self-contradictory gibberish, however, it offers a directive that is far more effective than the other two - that it is the final truth, and that all must follow that truth. This being a rather tall order with which the rest of humanity has refused to comply, such a "global conquest" eludes its adherents. And this is a source of deep shame, because if you really believe in those faery tales, any world in which non-believers control land is one at odds with the Prophet's wishes.

There are a lot of political and economic reasons for Hamas' posture. No doubt at all. But you can't goad people to mass murder with mere economics or nationalism. No, for that you need them to believe that what they are doing is right, divine perhaps, noble at the highest level. You have to sell them the 72 virgins and the glory of martyrdom.

Israel has fucked up a lot over the years. But it is always trying to do the right thing. Its aims are never bloodthirsty except in reaction to violence upon it, which is understandable given the disgusting acts of 10/7. And it is impossible to separate that urge to do the right thing from Judaism generally, which is a religion that does not seek conquest and does not demand others join it. Counter that against the religion of those who committed those murders. Take the Koran's directives that all lands must be Muslim lands at its word. Because about 1/5 of its adherents, and a lot of them young, angry males, do exactly that.

All religions are mind viruses, but the one of those paragliders on 10/7 is uniquely pernicious when followed seriously and stridently, which is far too often the case. And if we must question Zionism, which will always include an argument about why a Jewish state should be as it is, then why not question why we should countenance those who follow a book that says there can be no peace until we have an entirely Muslim world?

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

That's scary. I hope it's transient.

I don't know what to make of the people who go on about post-COVID risks. On the one hand, some of them seem a bit, um, touched. On the other hand, why not?

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

(1) If you going to argue that there is something unique about radical Islam that causes depravity, then you have to ignore all of the depravity connected with other religions (Sri Lanka, Rwanda, and so, so much more) or with nonreligious Christian societies (the Holocaust). Without minimizing the awful things done in the name of radical Islam, you can't make a case that it is uniquely inhumane.

(2) We all agree that Hamas is bad. Beating this dead horse sounds like a form of evasion.

(3) I do not think Israel "is trying to do the right thing" in Rafah, nor it seems do most Israelis.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I don't pretend to be informed enough to have opinions about religions (especially as a heathen unbeliever), but I do think that certain adherents to Judaism do seek sovereignty over certain bits of land on the basis of their religion, which has been a direct obstacle to a two state solution.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I think I'm probably 10 years older than most of you (except Icky). Shit gets real.

So I go in for my physical last year. I'm 64 and run 4.5 miles each day. Everyone I used to run with has stopped. I am a Unicorn, and when I do run a road race (seldom) I'll be 12th in my age group, so I'm not saying NO ONE runs at my age, just I do not know them.

My old primary care doc retired. I seeing my new one last year. Results come in- PERFECT- highest "good" cholesterol she has seen, same with testosterone!

BUT my PSA is too high. In 2022 it was 2.7, and the "high normal" range was 4.0- 2.7 was great! In 2023 it was 2.7 but the associated hospital got bought by a very $$$$ driven chain. The fucks lower high normal to 2.5, so now I am high. The doc says I should see a urologist. I argue they just changed the range. But eventually I see one- Prostrate ultrasound (fun!) that shows it is big but otherwise fine.

But he also ran pee tests, which I fail badly. I've retained urine for at least a decade. I have to pee frequently, but I wasn't worried. I can live with it. But em wants to a surgery where he will shave my prostrate. I'm like how soon can I run again? 6 weeks. I tell him no way- my body has a lot of systems and I'm not risking the others by stopping running. He says after 6 weeks I can get back to it. I tell him, it is amazing I still run every day. I am not at all sure I can start up again after 6 weeks.

So the fuck convinces my to do self catheter, meaning you stick a piece of plastic up your pee hole to drain your bladder. He is hocking on me to do it 4 times a day. I can do it once, but if I do it a second time I bleed for a day.

It does feel good to be empty, but not at the price of my dick becoming a bloody wound.

Now he is on me to do this less intrusive operation that will fix it and with only 1 day recovery. Why not lead with that one? The whole thing has the feel of churning my bladder.

And it is all going on because the fucking chain fixed the numbers to drive men to urologists. I did not go see him for peeing, but now I am.

As medical chains go harder for the $$$$ I am sure we will have to tell docs "no thanks" more and more often, and know when to do so.

Have a nice day!

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They're not hiding it.

'We must settle Gaza now': Netanyahu ministers join Israelis marching to Gaza, demand Palestinians' transfer

Thousands of Israelis joined an Independence Day march on Tuesday in southern Israel, led by far-right Jewish activists advocating for resettling the Gaza Strip and facilitating the emigration of Palestinians from Gaza.

Communication Minister Shlomo Karhi, of Netanyahu's Likud party, said: "In order to preserve the security achievements that our soldiers lost their lives for, we must resettle Gaza with security forces and settlers that will embrace the land with love." He added that "this is the only true way, to make the Hamas Nazis pay a price and to defend our nation and country."

National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir also spoke at the march, and said that what the protesters are calling for is the "true solution."

"First," he said, "we must return to Gaza now! We are coming home! To the holy land! And second," he continued, "we must encourage emigration. Encourage the voluntary emigration of the residents of Gaza. It is moral!"

And "voluntary emigration," sure.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I so miss running. My wife convinced me to stop because the heel pain was just worse and worse. I was worried that I'd fuck myself up so I could walk like I want to.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

1. I don't think it's uniquely inhumane. Christianity still has a lot more blood on its hands. Islam, however, has the edict within it that all the world must be Muslim. Moderate Muslims of course ignore that, just as Christians and Jews ignore a lot of bizarre directives of their faiths. But within Islam, unlike Christianity and Judaism, where violent attacks on others are a perversion of the faith, within Islam there is a stated goal of world control, by violent conquest if necessary.

The Koran is pretty explicit about it. I think radical Islamists' reading of the Koran is akin to, say, radical Jews deciding to take Leviticus seriously. You get some really batshit behaviors. Most of them atrocious.

3. Israel tries at first to do the right thing in all instances. Now, it is arguable they may be going further than is necessary. I can't say for sure, but I can see the argument.

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The Settlers are degenerate maniacs. Psychotic fundamentalists. They're despicable and I can't wrap my head around how normal Israelis can tolerate these people sharing their air. Netanyahu's embrace of them is like the GOP embracing the alt right here, but even worse. The alt right here are all talk. The Settlers are all action, and they're racist as all fuck - prime examples of the bigots who think they're superior cited in Harari's piece.

The Settlers deserve every awful thing they get, and then some.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Well, I thank you very much for making me feel a hell of a lot better about my little situation.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I saw this Hallmark card too -- it was in the supermarket, in the "Middle East Conflict" cards, to the right of "Birthdays" and "Anniversaries."

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Not my intent. I wished I had told my PCP "I'm not going." At a minimum we cannot blindly trust a doc.

As Gang of Four predicted in 1979's Return the Gift:

It's on the market
You're on the price list
It's on the market
You're on the price list
It's on the market
You're on the price list

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

While I had issues precovid, when I had it in 3/2020, it led to a whole host of odd things happening to my body.

I could no longer eat certain things, every time I had a stressful situation covid symptoms reappeared for like an hour.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Time for a new medical group -- but oh wait, they've ALL retired.

62 here and also average 4 miles a day.

One thing I have noticed is that my peeing is better when I overhydrate. When I down a liter of water after a run, I pee less but more completely if that makes sense.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

The Youngest Slothrop has been drawn to Barnard, but reading this is a huge turn-off. It just sounds miserable for everyone.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I think like most everything else, this stuff impacts 25% of people on campus. The media loves conflict, so they report on these stories as if the entire campus is comprised of warring factions.

I've never been at a protest of any kind in my life. I wouldn't know if they occurred or didn't, and I think that's pretty healthy.

Protests for civil rights were serious fucking things. Protesting against Vietnam was deadly serious. These were both instances in which Americans involved in the protests were at direct risk. They were fighting for their lives in many regards.

Protests like those on the news are performative. They have a religious feel to them, that smell of people needing to belong to something and having an axe to grind. That stink of upper middle-class immaturity, of those coddled by feckless academia and helicopter parents.

I'd bet a bottle of the best scotch Hank ever had that life has gone on just fine for the uninvolved on these campuses. If it's privilege to think most modern protestors frivolous, I wave that flag wide and high.

Most of us have better things to do, and most of us understand the futility of protesting wildly complex things that don't directly involve us 5000 miles away. If one needs to feel part of a movement, or important, to feel like life has meaning, I feel bad for you. You're a seeker in exactly the wrong place.

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In response to Sebby, they cancelled graduation so 100% of students were impacted.


My son just graduated law school in Detroit. We have a huge Arabic population and the school’s student body reflects that. Was wondering if there would be any walkout, but no.

In response to Ty, not looking for an argument, but since they cancelled graduation what did she decline to speak at?

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

IDK, all I know is what's in that piece. Maybe she had that experience before they cancelled.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Missing class? I'd be pissed. But it's not a tragedy to miss a graduation. And the school should be mocked for having done so. That's an overreaction.

I'm not surprised there'd be lack of protest or walkout by those who understand the issues and whose families descend from one of the ethnic groups involved. The loudest voices in these protests appear to come from, unsurprisingly, upper middle class to affluent suburban kids, a lot of them white.

As a card carrying member of the upper middle class my entire life, I'm comfortable stating this: We Suck.

We'll tell you everything we know and how we could do it better. We'll venerate the "wisdom" of professional/managerial types and spout technocratic solutions for everything as if we've some knowledge the hoi polloi couldn't acquire if they'd had a few extra hours on Wikipedia. We know it all, because we've been to fancy schools, private high schools, and we've grad degrees, and even though we're thoroughly underwhelming in our attempts to be insightful or erudite, we think we know better than the rubes who don't enjoy the New Yorker as much as we do.

We're a population of Leonard Bernstein's dinner parties from Tom Wolfe's "These Radical Chic Evenings" deposited along the train lines outside the larger cities. Gotta silly theory about gender? We love it. Want to take a decent idea like DEI and warp it into something extreme and alienating? We're in! Give us your silliest avant garde musings and we'll treat them seriously!

And show us Israel and Hamas in a tangle and we'll run it through a prism in which the world is split rigidly between oppressors and the oppressed and we'll find a way to obliterate nuance and call you a genocide-supporter for not excusing Hamas.

We took our History and Poli-Sci professors seriously in college, along with the wingnuts who deconstructed every piece of literature as loaded with strange critiques about the patriarchy, or arguments for climate preservation.

We're in large part maleducated by an entrenched crowd of professors who've never had a reason to police the silliness they taught us, and now teach our children, because they're never subject to metrics. They're tenured. They don't make payrolls, they don't get fired when they're wrong, so why in the hell wouldn't they spout claptrap to their students? What could go wrong? Nothing. To them.

People love to say there's a crisis of lack of respect for institutions. And many of those people are academics and policy prescribers in government. They say it, of course, because they're mad that people have begun telling them they're full of shit. But it's neither anti-intellectual nor unpatriotic to piss on the institutions. They deserve it. They'll call themselves "elites" and the paranoid right will play along and use the term as well, but these know-it-alls are anything but that. The people in charge are in large part credentialed buffoons. And if there's a crisis of any kind, its lack of institutions worth respecting.

The professional/managerial class of this country, and its children, who support the warped ideologies and bizarre thinking behind most protests, are the effluent of a broken academic system, and a fucked up class system that creates some very sheltered and silly adults. Remove that class from the protests and those gatherings will shrink by 70% overnight, at the same time the clarity of message will increase 5X.