Ever since student demonstrations ended, my sense of urgency to take action against Israel's siege of Gaza has diminished. Campus unrest made headlines and exposed the complicity of our government in promoting violence. The images of young people exposing themselves to attacks and arrests to stand against cruelty and injustice was inspiring and fueled outrage against those perpetrating and perpetuating this terrible war. Student protests may have ended, but for two million Palestinian people, every new day brings ongoing deprivation, anguish and death.
There is great power in student demonstrations. SNCC, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee forwarded civil rights and nation-wide campus demonstrations helped turn public opinion against the war in Vietnam. Gaza protests keep us awake, outraged and angry at our President and Congress who decided the best response to events in Palestine was to throw more fuel on the fire- to send Israel billions more dollars worth of deadly weapons... some nearly weapons of mass destruction.
But when protests are suppressed, when dissenting voices are silenced, myriad other issues supplant Gaza in our consciousness. We go about our daily business, still outraged at the humanitarian crisis, but less motivated and energized to take any action, feeling powerless to stop it.
Corporate news outlets minimize coverage of genocide, preferring politics and financial markets. There's no room to talk about human suffering and fairness... to discuss cruelty, brutality, and institutional, systemic indifference to exploitation and misery. Thankfully, independent news sources exist to educate readers about national and global struggles for justice and liberation- heroes of the media world despite operating on shoestring budgets.
Knowledge is crucial to the struggle for justice, but knowledge alone doesn’t necessarily bring about change. To be informed but feel powerless can lead to despair, then apathy and complacency. Then tick tock… time goes by, nothing changes and the masters win yet again.
Nothing good comes from war. It's essence is terrible suffering, hatred, horror, destruction and death. There are tens of millions like me- readers of this newspaper- who are outraged at the hideous violence perpetrated on civilian populations, civilian targets... violence perpetrated using high tech state of the art weapons, proudly made in the USA.
But even for us, it’s easy to become distracted by the tasks and obligations of daily life- work, home, taxes, loans, and bills. Inadequate schools, bad health care, toxic media, endangered freedoms. Politics, elections, pandemics. Keeps us all so busy, busy, busy. Squeeze in family, friendship and a little fun when and where we can.
It's so easy to slip back into the matrix- like a frog in a pot over the fire. So easy to become immersed in their world which makes you forget, makes you numb, complacent, preoccupied, distracted. The American social/economic world is designed to keep us oblivious, brainwashed within their social construct- the story they tell us, from birth, about how society should look and our role within their structure… the reality show we all live.
Student protestors tell us we can't go about business as usual because, for Palestinians, every new day is another nightmare. Gather your lovers ones, carry what necessities you can, and run. On foot. Run across ruined landscapes with bombs exploding all around... thirsty, hungry, tired, dirty, wounded, afraid, and immensely sad. The life you built now lost in the wreckage.
This terrible one-sided war. There are no Palestinian jet fighters, drones, tanks and warships menacing Israel, bombing Tel Aviv and Haifa. Israelis, in their modern industrialized cities, probably go about their normal daily lives much as we do. Like us, Israeli workers get drawn into their matrix... wherein the virtual capitalist world demands their attention, and they forget the monstrous horrors happening so close they can probably smell the burning.
Israel and the American political establishment justifies eight months of devastating brutality on the attacks of October 7. Mass murder anywhere is shocking, sickening- horrifying acts of violence and brutality. It was horrific that 695 Israeli civilians and 71 foreign nationals were massacred by Palestinian guerrilla fighters... 260 young people attending a music festival. 373 security force personnel also killed. But Israel has killed thousands in the past decades and the U.S. killed hundreds of thousands of civilians in military offensives in Vietnam, Central America, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and more. Collateral damage. Acceptable losses.
Gunning down children at a rave in the desert and regular people going about their daily lives. That's war. Hundreds of people, whole villages rounded up and shot. Sometimes made to dig their own graves. Nightmares of human design and intent. War.
Palestinian people are well acquainted with the horrors of indiscriminate, sudden, random violence, destruction and death. They've been living real-time, high-tech war in their low-tech country for decades, across multiple generations. In a state of chronic war, with flare ups of murder and destruction. Every person, young and old. Never knowing when you're truly safe. If you're not being shot at or bombed, arrested or disappeared, even on your best day, you're poor, with limited resources and substandard public infrastructure in a hardscrabble part of the world... confined by fences, walls and border crossings that you do not control.
Our media industry rarely describes the remarkable bravery, fortitude and resilience of the Palestinian people, who persist in maintaining a vibrant society with a rich culture, spirituality, literature, art and music…displaying resourcefulness, ingenuity, hope and love despite decades of embargoes, assaults and imposed deprivation. Colonial power avoids humanizing those it wishes to exploit and oppress. It suits their purposes and forwards their agenda to focus on the October 7 attacks, depicting Hamas as savage barbarians scornful of international rules of law.
Oct7 is Israel’s 9/11. American rulers used those attacks as the grounds, the just cause... the opportunity to execute a military mission that may already have been part of the master business plan, on their wish list of strategic global exploits. They capitalized on that tragedy to invade sovereign nations, bomb their cities, disrupt their society, occupy their streets and open their economies and resources to private corporate ventures.
Taking from the same playbook, Israel used Oct7 as justification for a broad military offensive, apparently to seize Palestinian lands for strategic military and commercial objectives. Eight months later, more than 37,000 have been murdered, thousands more maimed, sick and starving, whole cities destroyed. That's way more than an eye for an eye.
Our government has fully supported Israel’s blitzkrieg, also citing the brutality of the Hamas attacks as justification. Our president and members of Congress have expressed utter outrage at the brutal attacks on Israeli civilians, yet they authorize and endorse the brutalization of American students participating in peaceful demonstrations against violence in Gaza, the Republic of Congo and elsewhere. Clearly, it’s not the assaults on people that motivates their actions, but some other strategic geopolitical objective.
Young people embody the conscience of humanity. They are barometers of injustice- altruistic, idealistic, enthusiastic, passionate. They are visionaries... motivated, energized, craving connection, collaboration, cooperation. They believe in our professed right to free speech and public assembly. They represent the best of humanity. We should listen to them, not silence, censor, punish and brutalize them.
Institutions of public learning, including most of the big state universities, unleashed police in full riot gear with clubs, tear gas, pepper spray, tasers, guns, bulldozers and trucks to brutalize students, teachers and community members- who were unarmed, demonstrating peacefully because they feel passionately in their hearts that this sadistic violence is unethical and immoral.
To deploy police to inflict violence on unarmed children protesting against violence makes no sense, and has no place in a “free” society, a democracy of the people, by the people, for the people.
It’s understandable to blame the police, the soldiers wearing the riot gear, but they don't create policy. They don’t decide the course of action. The police are tools of the central authority. They are instructed to be the face-less and nameless men, dead-eyed and mute, who carry out the actual violence. They’re obedient. They follow orders. It’s the men who control the police who are responsible for the brutality. They are the politicians, the elected officials who give the commands. These men may bemoan the violence... but it's insincere- lies meant to fool, to pacify us, to direct our anger at the police, the human billy clubs... rather than the authoritarian hand that wields them.
A message to young people.
Your elders have shown themselves to be bullies who inflict violence on you if you step out of line, challenge their authority, or fail to obey. Schools function to instill and enforce obedience, using a system of rules and punishments. Now they beat you, arrest you and tarnish your permanent record. They are the politicians who control society and create the rules- the kindly faces of Republicans and Corporate Democrats who care only about your subservience to authority. And your parents still vote for them. These leaders who ensnare you in debt, send you to war, exploit you in their commercial media, and in their bedrooms.
Wherever students were brutalized, there are several levels of elected officials responsible for ordering or allowing it to happen. They are complicit with the abuse- mayors, governors, congressmen, senators, even the president who could have prevented the violence and allowed students to continue their peaceful protests. It’s less likely that students would have been brutalized if the Representative to Congress endorsed their demonstration... if the US Senator visited and listened to what they had to say... validating and protecting their right to free speech and public assembly. And their right to dissent.
Difference of opinion, doubt, questioning and dissent are apparently no longer permitted by the central authority. Independent thought, different perspectives, and diverse voices are discouraged, silenced by those in control. An uninformed population, an uneducated slave, is more easily controlled. Separated, divided, isolated... burdened, worn out, burnt out... by the society we are compelled to be part of... in which we are the workers that run their capitalist machine- their empire that prides itself on its military prowess, the one that promotes endless wars.
Young people approach the world with open minds. They’re passionate about what they know to be right and true. They believe that a better world is possible. They’re at the age when the brain's developmental task is to achieve independence as an adult. A time of questioning, considering, mind expanding, scrutinizing, doubting, rejecting ideas they were taught to believe on faith. A time to think their own thoughts, to exchange ideas with peers. The thrill of meeting like-minds... of gathering together in public assemblies, rallies, marches, demonstrations... standing witness to injustice... supporting, inspiring, empowering one another... celebrating a shared passion for truth, dignity and integrity.
We the People, America’s workers, must listen to our young people. We must support them, defend them, rally behind them. We must replace those elected leaders who allowed our children to be brutalized. Although in transition to adulthood, they are still our children, our future, even as they leave the nest to find their tribe and themselves... to find their true selves, their talents and passions... to live a life that's true to who they really are... finding vocation, feeling valued... feeling loved by others and themselves.
There's four months until the November election. Four months for young people to rise up, to act up, to publicly display their dissent, and champion a better future. We the People must pledge never again to allow children to be brutalized by those in power. This world will soon be theirs and we will be gone. They have a right to be heard. Our nation needs their thoughts and their voices. Now more than ever. Our democracy is in danger. The Earth is in danger. Their Earth. Nothing about them without them. Peace on Earth and good will to all humans. VOTE.
