The courage activism once demanded has been replaced by the performance of it. Announcing you’re “anti-war” or want to “save the planet” doesn’t mean you have the faintest idea how to solve either.
The mass graves of 400,000 people have been found in Syria and Northern Iraq: Mass murder by Isis and Islamic State. Not a murmur of horror nor protest at this from The Left nor the ‘AntiWar’ and ‘Palestinian’- entity supporters. They are absolute scum.
not to mention the slaughter of Black Muslims and Christians (by Arab Muslims) happening right now in Sudan. And the slaughter in Pakistan of Hindus (by Muslims). Silence.
The last line was the most trenchant of this article to me "If there is any uncertainty, maybe pick up a book instead of a placard." First, it came out recently that there was a 400% increase in the demand for PAID protesters according to the CEO (?) of one of these providers and Second, what I've always, always noticed about these protests du jour is that the signs/placards are mostly professionally produced which tells me someone else is paying for these knuckleheads to carry these banners of their so-called "cause." Finally, these yutzes don't realize they are supporting the destroyers of their civilization. "Boredom", indeed.
Well said. How about 1 year of mandatory army training/service ere entering college? I think that'll instill some of them ol' Western values and traditions that were lost along the way.
good post. I have yet to see a concert for Sudan. A flotilla to Somalia. Greta parachutes into East Turkmenistan China. Or Tibet. to tell the Chinese"how dare you!" I haven't seen one mass march on behalf of the suffering women of Afghanistan. If ocasio Cortez's office is attacked with scrawled "you enable genocide" then you get how deranged the pro hamas mob is.
Some of the commenters mentioned paid activists. Neville Singham is an American billionaire who is a Marxist. He lives with his wife in China and is cozy with the CCP. He and his wife each have charities that are used to fund anti-Israel and anti-US protests. They have been behind many of the "pro-Palestinian" protests as well as the LA protests against ICE.
I read this wonderful article by Lucy Tabrizi yesterday and would highly recommend it to anyone! She is absolutely right about the state of activism in the West. Activism no longer requires any real courage or risk. Nor are there any actual stakes associated with activism. Activists don't even have to really care about the causes they claim they do. They just pretend they do. Modern social justice activism has many other issues as well. It has a decentralized leadership structure, uses bad and divisive tactics, is obsessed with identity politics and race essentialism, prioritizes righteous displays of anger over inclusive coalition building, activists refuse to speak to anyone who disagrees with them, don't allow dissension within their own ranks, concentrate on non-issues and trivial issues over real, substantive issues that affect every day people's lives, are plagued by antisemitism and antizionism, tend to be aggressive, divisive and militant, aren't informed, and sometimes just do activism cause all their friends are doing it, you can get social brownie points for it or want a fun day out. This is the Abolitionist, Civil Rights, Women's Suffrage and Women's Liberation, LGBT Rights, Disability Rights, Environmental, and Anti-War Movements succeeded with flying colors while Occupy Wall Street, BLM, the Women's March, Me Too, the March for Our Lives, the modern LGBT, Disability Rights and Enviornmental movements, and the pro-Palestinian movement have all failed miserably and accomplished diddly squat. Colin Kaepernick, Jesse Williams, Bree Newsome, Laverne Cox, and the three co-founders of BLM have nothing on real activists like Frederick Douglass, Susan B. Anthony, Betty Friedan, Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, Sigmund Livingston, Chief Standing Bear, Cesar Chavez, Larry Itliong, Fred Korematsu, Ed Roberts, and Harvey Milk!
On another note, activists these days love to tear things down but they're not so good at building nor do they have any solutions for anything. They are destructive not constructive. The Palestinian liberation movement is a perfect example of this. They are totally misguided; they see Israel as the problem when it is fact their own government and the Arab countries who historically have oppressed and in present day oppress, the Palestinian people. What activists and the Palestinian people need to come to understand is that boycotting, divestment, sanctions, armed resistance, and terrorism are NOT the key to liberating the Palestinian people, peace with Israel is. If pro-Palestinian activists really want to help the Palestinian people, they need to protest against Fatah and Hamas, boycott the Arab countries and fight like h*** for peace, coexistence and the two-state solution. If you truly care about the Palestinian people you need to be pushing for peaceful dialogue and cultural exchange between the two peoples, the toppling of Fatah and Hamas, the creation of a secular and democratic Palestinian state with equal rights for minorities, and for the new Palestinian state to join the Abraham Accords. I really don't understand why if you're a social justice activist you'd support Hamas. Hamas openly discriminate against women, Christians, Jews, black people, LGBTQ+ people, and disabled people. They practice open slavery as if its Antebellum Kentucky in the 1850s. Marital rape is completely legal in Gaza. Hamas have stolen billions in humanitarian aid from the people of Gaza. That's not even to mention all the horrific crimes those animals committed on October 7th which liberal and leftist activists either say didn't happen or was somehow justified.
I've got a little reading list for all the fake social justice warriors as they badly need an education in what real activism looks like:
* Bound for Canaan: The Epic Story of the Underground Railroad, America's First Civil Right Movement by Fergus M. Bordewich
* Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice by Raymond Arsenault
* Freedom Summer: The Savage Season of 1964 That Made Mississippi Burn and Made America a Democracy by Bruce Watson
* The Woman's Hour: The Great Fight to Win the Vote by Elaine Weiss
* The Movement: How Women's Liberation Transformed America, 1963-1973 by Clara Bingham
* Stonewall: The Definitive Story of the LGBTQ Rights Movement Uprising That Changed America by Martin Duberman
* The Disability Rights Movement: From Charity to Confrontation by Doris Fleischer and Frieda Zanes
* Silent Spring Revolution: John F. Kennedy, Rachel Carson, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, and the Great Environmental Awakening by Douglas Brinkley
* Telltale Hearts: The Origins and Impact of the Vietnam Anti-War Movement by Adam Garfinkle
* Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela by Nelson Mandela
In the last few decades, college campuses became somewhere for kids to "find themselves", instead of gaining productive skills. The alterntive used to be a job, not a "gap year" This makes them ripe targets for bad actors looking to manipulate them cognitively.
The shift to "you need a degree" with government subsidized interference looks to be an engineered plan, doesn't it? Universities get more money, education is pivoted to "global citizenship" from practical skills, outside actors are given free access to young minds
If you send your child to college , even worse pay for college, without the stipulation they they get a degree in a traditional, medical, or business science, you are prostituting them to ideologues.
James you are wrong. You are SACRIFICING your child. If you were PROSTITUTING them, you’d be making some $. (And if they are, as paid protestors, cut off their allowance and pull ‘em from school - they’re already gainfully employed.)
UJA of NY recently sent a contribution of Jewish communal assets to Gaza .That is the equivalent of feeding Nazis in WW2 .We should be protesting such a waste of Jewish communal funds
A very well articulated analysis of present day society.
"It’s clear we’ve traded shared purpose for tribes defined only by what they oppose."
We should not underestimate the implications of the tribes involved. Given the street calls "Free Palestine" through to "Resistance by any means," what we are witnessing are calls to genocide against a people who less than a century ago were subjected to that very policy executed with brutal efficiency.
To call a thing by its name, those pro-"Palestine" calls have their roots in the Qu'uran and the Hadiths where the faithful are explicitly called to kills Jews. Not to mention that they are also enshrined in the charters of the PLO, Hamas, Hezbollah, et. al.
From the pious Muslims' perspective, the very idea of the Untermensch winning against those who are supposed to dominate the world is so galling that nothing less than total annihilation can rescue their dignity and restore the natural order of things.
Because they’re disruptive and threatening and dangerous noise. They have the potential to convince lemmings to become useful idiots. Their irrelevance becomes relevant if not challenged.
Because even ineffectual activism can still be dangerous when it distorts public opinion and policy. Ignoring it doesn’t make its influence disappear. Hard to ignore when the “activists” are your friends and family and you can’t escape it.
Do you want to live under a regime where there is no public opinion and only one dictatorial opinion ?
Public opinion which is effectively free speech must not be threatening or inciting violence. What is taking place throughout the world is threatening and inciting violence.
We need to care in order to show its importance.
You cannot afford to dunk your head in the sand and ignore.
The mass graves of 400,000 people have been found in Syria and Northern Iraq: Mass murder by Isis and Islamic State. Not a murmur of horror nor protest at this from The Left nor the ‘AntiWar’ and ‘Palestinian’- entity supporters. They are absolute scum.
not to mention the slaughter of Black Muslims and Christians (by Arab Muslims) happening right now in Sudan. And the slaughter in Pakistan of Hindus (by Muslims). Silence.
Yes. Follow the money… who is funding Daish.. succour from the terrorist Muslim Brotherhood, and cash and arms too.
The last line was the most trenchant of this article to me "If there is any uncertainty, maybe pick up a book instead of a placard." First, it came out recently that there was a 400% increase in the demand for PAID protesters according to the CEO (?) of one of these providers and Second, what I've always, always noticed about these protests du jour is that the signs/placards are mostly professionally produced which tells me someone else is paying for these knuckleheads to carry these banners of their so-called "cause." Finally, these yutzes don't realize they are supporting the destroyers of their civilization. "Boredom", indeed.
Well said. How about 1 year of mandatory army training/service ere entering college? I think that'll instill some of them ol' Western values and traditions that were lost along the way.
good post. I have yet to see a concert for Sudan. A flotilla to Somalia. Greta parachutes into East Turkmenistan China. Or Tibet. to tell the Chinese"how dare you!" I haven't seen one mass march on behalf of the suffering women of Afghanistan. If ocasio Cortez's office is attacked with scrawled "you enable genocide" then you get how deranged the pro hamas mob is.
I'd like to see see Greta say it to Xi's face!
Good article
Some of the commenters mentioned paid activists. Neville Singham is an American billionaire who is a Marxist. He lives with his wife in China and is cozy with the CCP. He and his wife each have charities that are used to fund anti-Israel and anti-US protests. They have been behind many of the "pro-Palestinian" protests as well as the LA protests against ICE.
Insightful and very well said.
How right you are .
I read this wonderful article by Lucy Tabrizi yesterday and would highly recommend it to anyone! She is absolutely right about the state of activism in the West. Activism no longer requires any real courage or risk. Nor are there any actual stakes associated with activism. Activists don't even have to really care about the causes they claim they do. They just pretend they do. Modern social justice activism has many other issues as well. It has a decentralized leadership structure, uses bad and divisive tactics, is obsessed with identity politics and race essentialism, prioritizes righteous displays of anger over inclusive coalition building, activists refuse to speak to anyone who disagrees with them, don't allow dissension within their own ranks, concentrate on non-issues and trivial issues over real, substantive issues that affect every day people's lives, are plagued by antisemitism and antizionism, tend to be aggressive, divisive and militant, aren't informed, and sometimes just do activism cause all their friends are doing it, you can get social brownie points for it or want a fun day out. This is the Abolitionist, Civil Rights, Women's Suffrage and Women's Liberation, LGBT Rights, Disability Rights, Environmental, and Anti-War Movements succeeded with flying colors while Occupy Wall Street, BLM, the Women's March, Me Too, the March for Our Lives, the modern LGBT, Disability Rights and Enviornmental movements, and the pro-Palestinian movement have all failed miserably and accomplished diddly squat. Colin Kaepernick, Jesse Williams, Bree Newsome, Laverne Cox, and the three co-founders of BLM have nothing on real activists like Frederick Douglass, Susan B. Anthony, Betty Friedan, Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, Sigmund Livingston, Chief Standing Bear, Cesar Chavez, Larry Itliong, Fred Korematsu, Ed Roberts, and Harvey Milk!
On another note, activists these days love to tear things down but they're not so good at building nor do they have any solutions for anything. They are destructive not constructive. The Palestinian liberation movement is a perfect example of this. They are totally misguided; they see Israel as the problem when it is fact their own government and the Arab countries who historically have oppressed and in present day oppress, the Palestinian people. What activists and the Palestinian people need to come to understand is that boycotting, divestment, sanctions, armed resistance, and terrorism are NOT the key to liberating the Palestinian people, peace with Israel is. If pro-Palestinian activists really want to help the Palestinian people, they need to protest against Fatah and Hamas, boycott the Arab countries and fight like h*** for peace, coexistence and the two-state solution. If you truly care about the Palestinian people you need to be pushing for peaceful dialogue and cultural exchange between the two peoples, the toppling of Fatah and Hamas, the creation of a secular and democratic Palestinian state with equal rights for minorities, and for the new Palestinian state to join the Abraham Accords. I really don't understand why if you're a social justice activist you'd support Hamas. Hamas openly discriminate against women, Christians, Jews, black people, LGBTQ+ people, and disabled people. They practice open slavery as if its Antebellum Kentucky in the 1850s. Marital rape is completely legal in Gaza. Hamas have stolen billions in humanitarian aid from the people of Gaza. That's not even to mention all the horrific crimes those animals committed on October 7th which liberal and leftist activists either say didn't happen or was somehow justified.
I've got a little reading list for all the fake social justice warriors as they badly need an education in what real activism looks like:
* Bound for Canaan: The Epic Story of the Underground Railroad, America's First Civil Right Movement by Fergus M. Bordewich
* Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice by Raymond Arsenault
* Freedom Summer: The Savage Season of 1964 That Made Mississippi Burn and Made America a Democracy by Bruce Watson
* The Woman's Hour: The Great Fight to Win the Vote by Elaine Weiss
* The Movement: How Women's Liberation Transformed America, 1963-1973 by Clara Bingham
* Stonewall: The Definitive Story of the LGBTQ Rights Movement Uprising That Changed America by Martin Duberman
* The Disability Rights Movement: From Charity to Confrontation by Doris Fleischer and Frieda Zanes
* Silent Spring Revolution: John F. Kennedy, Rachel Carson, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, and the Great Environmental Awakening by Douglas Brinkley
* Telltale Hearts: The Origins and Impact of the Vietnam Anti-War Movement by Adam Garfinkle
* Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela by Nelson Mandela
Excellent article! So sad and frustrating that Jews are pilloried once again for simply resisting those who want them dead.
In the last few decades, college campuses became somewhere for kids to "find themselves", instead of gaining productive skills. The alterntive used to be a job, not a "gap year" This makes them ripe targets for bad actors looking to manipulate them cognitively.
The shift to "you need a degree" with government subsidized interference looks to be an engineered plan, doesn't it? Universities get more money, education is pivoted to "global citizenship" from practical skills, outside actors are given free access to young minds
If you send your child to college , even worse pay for college, without the stipulation they they get a degree in a traditional, medical, or business science, you are prostituting them to ideologues.
Tell me I'm wrong.
James you are wrong. You are SACRIFICING your child. If you were PROSTITUTING them, you’d be making some $. (And if they are, as paid protestors, cut off their allowance and pull ‘em from school - they’re already gainfully employed.)
UJA of NY recently sent a contribution of Jewish communal assets to Gaza .That is the equivalent of feeding Nazis in WW2 .We should be protesting such a waste of Jewish communal funds
Excellent article. On point.
A very well articulated analysis of present day society.
"It’s clear we’ve traded shared purpose for tribes defined only by what they oppose."
We should not underestimate the implications of the tribes involved. Given the street calls "Free Palestine" through to "Resistance by any means," what we are witnessing are calls to genocide against a people who less than a century ago were subjected to that very policy executed with brutal efficiency.
To call a thing by its name, those pro-"Palestine" calls have their roots in the Qu'uran and the Hadiths where the faithful are explicitly called to kills Jews. Not to mention that they are also enshrined in the charters of the PLO, Hamas, Hezbollah, et. al.
From the pious Muslims' perspective, the very idea of the Untermensch winning against those who are supposed to dominate the world is so galling that nothing less than total annihilation can rescue their dignity and restore the natural order of things.
the question is, why do you care?
Ignore these activists.
Or if not: if theyre as ineffectual as you claim: why do you continue to think about them?
Because they’re disruptive and threatening and dangerous noise. They have the potential to convince lemmings to become useful idiots. Their irrelevance becomes relevant if not challenged.
Who cares if idiots; lemmings are convinced of anything?
Because even ineffectual activism can still be dangerous when it distorts public opinion and policy. Ignoring it doesn’t make its influence disappear. Hard to ignore when the “activists” are your friends and family and you can’t escape it.
what difference does public opinion make?
the public believe alot of things. Some of which have more basis in fact than others.
Whats the point of trying to sway the masses?
Do you want to live under a regime where there is no public opinion and only one dictatorial opinion ?
Public opinion which is effectively free speech must not be threatening or inciting violence. What is taking place throughout the world is threatening and inciting violence.
We need to care in order to show its importance.
You cannot afford to dunk your head in the sand and ignore.
still i dont understand why i should care about popular trends.
???...
idgaf what the masses think.
as long as they leave me tf alone of course