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Hamas invaded Israel 2023

There is an awful lot of press devoted to a few dozen campers at a handful of universities, to a few hundred marchers here and there. With the exception of the London extravaganzas they actual level of activism is fairly low.

The issue is further obscured by the presence of the professional rebels that stop by to pick up their placards of the day.

Abortion, oil, greenery, tories, cars, dogs, capitalism, palestine, ireland, ukraine....

Most of the protesters enjoy the thrill of belonging to a group and glorying in the ability to break laws while patting themselves on the back.

I have 70 year old relatives that still turn out with their friends for the cause du jour.

...

Kind of like an Old Comrades Association ... or the Legion of the Left.
 
There is an awful lot of press devoted to a few dozen campers at a handful of universities, to a few hundred marchers here and there. With the exception of the London extravaganzas they actual level of activism is fairly low.

The issue is further obscured by the presence of the professional rebels that stop by to pick up their placards of the day.

Abortion, oil, greenery, tories, cars, dogs, capitalism, palestine, ireland, ukraine....

Most of the protesters enjoy the thrill of belonging to a group and glorying in the ability to break laws while patting themselves on the back.

I have 70 year old relatives that still turn out with their friends for the cause du jour.

...

Kind of like an Old Comrades Association ... or the Legion of the Left.

Apparently it's not 'protesting' as much as a 'search for meaning' by those who have things a little too good these days ;)


The Rise of a Worldwide Culture of Protest​


David Hopper, strategy director at H2 Partners, Ltd., U.K., provides an interesting perspective on what else may be at play as we pan out from war, crime, and poverty. He identifies six tension elements that can be summarised as the affluent West sensing a loss of meaning, direction, hope, and reward in a way that is different than the themes of past protests: disappointment with capitalism, failure and fragmentation of the political institutions, a thwarted sense of entitlement of the younger generation, the fading role of religion, identity politics, and climate change.

 
Apparently it's not 'protesting' as much as a 'search for meaning' by those who have things a little too good these days ;)


The Rise of a Worldwide Culture of Protest​


David Hopper, strategy director at H2 Partners, Ltd., U.K., provides an interesting perspective on what else may be at play as we pan out from war, crime, and poverty. He identifies six tension elements that can be summarised as the affluent West sensing a loss of meaning, direction, hope, and reward in a way that is different than the themes of past protests: disappointment with capitalism, failure and fragmentation of the political institutions, a thwarted sense of entitlement of the younger generation, the fading role of religion, identity politics, and climate change.


Once upon a time we went church, joined the Scouts, Guides or Boys Brigade. Some even joined cadets.
 
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The Rise of a Worldwide Culture of Protest
The demands of protestors at one of the universities that meals be delivered to them in the building they'd occupied (because they had paid for meal plans) illustrates a common characteristic of contemporary political protest.

Protestors want the rights, security, benefits, and luxuries enabled by the social ideas that made "the west" prosperous and orderly and generally peaceful, but want to step outside the rules whenever convenient and to attack the underlying values, preferably without consequences.

Eventually, the only possible response to such tiresomely repetitive idiocy is, "eat sh!t and die".
 
The demands of protestors at one of the universities that meals be delivered to them in the building they'd occupied (because they had paid for meal plans) illustrates a common characteristic of contemporary political protest.

Protestors want the rights, security, benefits, and luxuries enabled by the social ideas that made "the west" prosperous and orderly and generally peaceful, but want to step outside the rules whenever convenient and to attack the underlying values, preferably without consequences.

Eventually, the only possible response to such tiresomely repetitive idiocy is, "eat sh!t and die".
The summum of this retardation is the modern "hunger strike", more accurately described as "skipping lunch", by students the well-being of whom was not guaranteed by anyone anyway in the first place (such as it would be for inmates of a prison, as an example).
 
The more I think about it, the more I wonder why we are fixated on these campus protests. Few people go on to university. Fewer go to the more prestigious schools. Fewer still take part in these acts of mass oppositional defiance syndrome. Fewer are the ones saying and doing truly odious things. Is the only reason this is news is because these are the schools our leaders and journalists went to?
 
The more I think about it, the more I wonder why we are fixated on these campus protests. Few people go on to university. Fewer go to the more prestigious schools. Fewer still take part in these acts of mass oppositional defiance syndrome. Fewer are the ones saying and doing truly odious things. Is the only reason this is news is because these are the schools our leaders and journalists went to?
I’d say it’s more likely that such places still have prestige and make headlines, regardless of where our leaders/journalists went.

If someone says they went to Harvard, most people will take notice. It could be “basket weaving with minor in lint-picking”, but it’s still Harvard. Same with the other Ivy League schools and the more famous Canadian schools.
 
The more I think about it, the more I wonder why we are fixated on these campus protests. Few people go on to university. Fewer go to the more prestigious schools. Fewer still take part in these acts of mass oppositional defiance syndrome. Fewer are the ones saying and doing truly odious things. Is the only reason this is news is because these are the schools our leaders and journalists went to?
As Lumber said, Canada has one of the highest rates of tertiary education. I see this as an overall negative.

Those kids go on to become the advisors and consultants who elaborate the totalitarian programs of the dominant establishment ideology (think McKinsey, LPC staffers, CBC journalists, etc). You may not care about them, but they care about you, what you say, and how much of your money they can take.

They won't produce anything but they'll vampirize every single penny they can out of the productive classes.
 
As Lumber said, Canada has one of the highest rates of tertiary education. I see this as an overall negative.

Those kids go on to become the advisors and consultants who elaborate the totalitarian programs of the dominant establishment ideology (think McKinsey, LPC staffers, CBC journalists, etc). You may not care about them, but they care about you, what you say, and how much of your money they can take.

They won't produce anything but they'll vampirize every single penny they can out of the productive classes.
Are you saying that those who graduate university and do nothing except slide into something like party staffer, polling firms, political consultancy etc. are basically just political parasites on the larger system of economic productivity?
 
Are you saying that those who graduate university and do nothing except slide into something like party staffer, polling firms, political consultancy etc. are basically just political parasites on the larger system of economic productivity?

One can only hope ;)

Work Reaction GIF by H&Z Management Consulting
 
As Lumber said, Canada has one of the highest rates of tertiary education. I see this as an overall negative.

Those kids go on to become the advisors and consultants who elaborate the totalitarian programs of the dominant establishment ideology (think McKinsey, LPC staffers, CBC journalists, etc). You may not care about them, but they care about you, what you say, and how much of your money they can take.

They won't produce anything but they'll vampirize every single penny they can out of the productive classes.
Considering how much universities are subsidized here, they aren't waiting to graduate to sponge off the public.

Fewer universities; more community colleges!

;)
 
As Lumber said, Canada has one of the highest rates of tertiary education. I see this as an overall negative.

Those kids go on to become the advisors and consultants who elaborate the totalitarian programs of the dominant establishment ideology (think McKinsey, LPC staffers, CBC journalists, etc). You may not care about them, but they care about you, what you say, and how much of your money they can take.

They won't produce anything but they'll vampirize every single penny they can out of the productive classes.
I’m pretty sure the engineers, nurses, doctors, dentists, etc who also have to go through tertiary education appreciate being lumped in as “not producing anything”…
 
I’d say it’s more likely that such places still have prestige and make headlines, regardless of where our leaders/journalists went.

If someone says they went to Harvard, most people will take notice. It could be “basket weaving with minor in lint-picking”, but it’s still Harvard. Same with the other Ivy League schools and the more famous Canadian schools.
Whhhhat? Brandon University isn't prestigious? Perish the thought! Me and FJAG went there dontcha know!!!!
dance party GIF by Disney Pixar
 
In the late 60's and during the 70's it was exceedingly popular for gals from Tuxedo/River Heights (the wealthiest neighborhoods of Winnipeg) to take a Social Worker degree at U of M.
 
I’d say it’s more likely that such places still have prestige and make headlines, regardless of where our leaders/journalists went.

If someone says they went to Harvard, most people will take notice. It could be “basket weaving with minor in lint-picking”, but it’s still Harvard. Same with the other Ivy League schools and the more famous Canadian schools.

Also universities are one of the few places that are places.

People could gather in Algonquin Park but that probably wouldn't get as much attention as gathering at King's College.

The other thing is, given that the objective is to disrupt enough to draw cameras to the event then older universities in the middle of cities are better targets than modern campuses in the boonies.

And Columbia University, adjacent to the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), Radio City, Rockefeller Plaza, NBC, ABC and New York Times, is custom made for creating a frameable picture.

London offers Hyde Park's Speaker's Corner, multiple learning institutions and the BBC and a history of riotous assembly that predates Wat Tyler's Peasant Revolt of 1381.

The difference between London and Columbia is that in London the demonstrators have direct access to the power structure, the politicians of Westminster, the bureaucrats of Whitehall and the financiers of Threadneedle Street. In Columbia, in my opinion, it is purely performance art - for the cameras. Their efforts don't disrupt the politicians of DC. They don't even discomfit the financiers of Wall Street at the other end of Manhattan.
 
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