Tom Cotton has a plan to deal with those rioting students at Columbia.
The nascent pogroms at Columbia have to stop TODAY, before our Jewish brethren sit for Passover Seder tonight. If Eric Adams won’t sen the NYPD and Kathy Hochul won’t send the National Guard, Joe Biden has a duty to take charge and break up these mobs.
The “mob” of “Jewish brethren” holding Seder.
Jewish students celebrating Passover with the protesters.
Has anyone else noticed what a colossal ass Tom Cotton is?
The only MAGA “goal” any longer is to hurt and kill other people and destroy others’ things: to create suffering and misery. Even the Reaganites wanted mainly to exploit others: causing injury and death was either an unfortunate side-effect or gravy.
Tom Cotton is a fine representative of just how ugly American cowardice can be. There’s nothing currently good about any of them, even compared to Nazis.
What “nascent pogroms” is Cotton talking about? Does he even know? Or care? Or is he just another doodyful mouthpiece doing his doody for AIPAC?
And they wonder why Christianity is in decline in the US. Maybe going against everything Jesus allegedly taught isn’t the way to do it.
The man does irritate me beyond what should be tolerable. Phony is the best I can say about him. Coward is a close second.
You could just call him a Republican.
I”m pretty sure a Southern evangelical Christian referring to Jews as “brethren” is laughable to most Jews as they celebrate Passover.
From Wikipedia:
Also, note that Cotton famously said, “As the Founding Fathers said, it [slavery] was the necessary evil upon which the union was built, but the union was built in a way, as Lincoln said, to put slavery on the course to its ultimate extinction.”
Speaking of “race-hustling charlatans” per Cotton, Rev. Cecil Williams, the long time leader of Grace Memorial Church in San Francisco, died yesterday. He was 94. If you don’t know he was a formidable force in SF from 1963 on. When he became the pastor at Glide he had all the crosses taken down because they are a symbol of death. Good start. He was also an important figure in the LGBTQ movement here taking guidance from Martin Luther King’s approach to civil rights and civil disobedience. We could use fewer preachers and more pastors like Cecil.
@Robro. I get it I suppose and perhaps that it is more Rev. Williams is what we need, But the question needs to be asked: Where did the money he collect go? Cos if any of it went to whatever overarching governing organization of his church (forgive me, I’m not an american and au fait with this stuff there) then he collected money to shelter and enable some of the most vile child abusers getting around. And even if not with the financial stuff, what are the chances he was either an abuser himself or looked the other way when abuse was happening? Without evidence pointing to him, say, dobbing other preachers in repeatedly? Unacceptably high for mine.
AP(reachers)AB. I can never forget that.
indianajones @ #6 — I don’t know of any child abuse allocations against Williams. Not saying there aren’t any, just can’t find any. Williams was nominally Methodist, not Catholic, if that makes a difference in your thinking…thought I assume there are abusing Methodist ministers in the world.
I believe that the vast majority of the funds received by the church and the Glide Memorial Foundation went to the community as intended. His salary was probably fairly high compared to most of the people the church served in the Tenderloin, but my partner, who has experience with Glide and with volunteer organizations in San Francisco, thought that his salary as executive director for the Foundation was fairly modest compared to some EDs…say in the $200k range. She knows one ED who apparently pulls in over $800k.
indianajones @ #6 — One other point to make is that Glide was in an area of San Francisco that was very poor with a large number of emigrants, homeless people, drug addicts, prostitutes, etc. It was also an early locus for the SF gay community before it moved to the Castro district. Williams and Glide led the way for helping these people with food, shelter, medical care, and education for children. Williams was also important in spurring the “Gay Rights” movement in San Francisco.
@5 robro:
Buddy Christ FTW!
Tying this post to the last one, I’ve noticed that T.V. news reports about the arrests at Columbia, NYU and elsewhere are always about “freedom of speech” and never about what folks are protesting against. They also never fail to mention accusations of anti-semitism and that some Jewish students are afraid; but they never mention islamophobia in any way at all. It’s not just commercial T.V. news but PBS Newshour as well.
In other words, what we have here is an ardent supporter of pogroms and other forms of racially-motivated organized violence saying “no, look over there, those are the real pogroms!”
Tom Cotton is the man who called for peaceful protesters to be thrown off of bridges a few days ago. In 2020, he called for the military to be unleashed against Black Lives Matter protesters. He is, above all else, committed to the cause of mass violence against religious and ethnic minority groups. There is no cause to suspect that Jewish people are an exception to that.
Don’t think for an instant that Cotton is unaware that there are Jewish people protesting the actions of Netanyahu and the IDF in Gaza. He’s just using his mischaracterization of these protests as an excuse to call for violence against members of groups he wants eliminated from the exclusive White Christian Nationalist state he wants to make of the United States.
billseymour: is anyone even specifying what “anti-Semitic” things are being said?
@Raging Bee
It’s like CRT, the posture and the fact that they feel negative about it is supposed to be enough.
Actually that covers lots of these moral panics.
Raging Bee: they criticize what Israel is doing. Also, they think Palestinians are people. That’s two very clear forms of antisemitism these days.
We had an MP in the ruling party very publicly denounce his government over its support of a resolution calling for a cease fire, return of hostages, and a return to peace talks to establish a 2-state solution. Basically, complete milquetoast, kind of resolution that used to get passed near-unanimously in the past. But this guy was on the edge of quitting his party over it.
Apart from the protestors, who the hell has Seder at a university?
@Robro. More than happy to be wrong. Net good for humanity if I am in this case for sure. Glad you found a highly unusual example.
@gijoel:
I did. Twice.
At least one person in that photo wearing a yarmulke and a keffiyeh. (Lots of keffiyeh.)
The kids are alright.
The people who support him did, and that’s why they do support him.
Cruelty is the point.
Cruelty allows them to feel powerful and better than whatever “other” they are pointed at.
Who translated Cotton’s remarks from the original German?
RagingBee @12: no; I’ve never heard anything specific. It’s always just general comments that antisemitism exists (surprise!). I don’t recall ever hearing any examples of hate speech at the protests.
This morning on NBC’s Today, there was a very matter-of-fact report mostly about negotiations between students and administrators, I forget which campus; but there was the obligatory cutaway of five or ten seconds in which a young man in a yarmulke made general statements about how he was worried for his safety.
This is a communal celebration, involving a ritual dinner.
Just guessing here, the students who can’t easily go home to their families, or don’t have families, or don’t want to see their families. The usual.
Columbia isn’t exactly a community college and most of the students are from all over.
A lot of students aren’t known to be all that rich either, which is why we have students owing billions of dollars in student loans.
So, someone from Los Angeles or Tel Aviv with a student loan who doesn’t want to take a few days off from school and fly home for dinner.
Fun fact: A lot of British Labour members purged for alleged anti-semitism happen to be Jews.
They also tend to be Corbyn supporters and Starmer critics. It is almost as if Sir Keir Starmer is using anti-semitism to purge the party of critics.
Needless to say, Tom Cotton’s plan is a tried and true way to turn peaceful protests into violent protests.
We’ve seen it over and over again for decades.
The first one I remember was the Police Riot of 1968 in Chicago. That was at the Democratic Party convention where Hubert Humphrey was nominated.
It was a peaceful protest until the police started firing tear gas and attacking the crowd.
The most notable one was probably the Tiannamen Square massacre in Beijing in which maybe a 1,000 people were killed. No one knows for sure how what the death toll was there but it was high.
The last one was probably the Black Lives Matters protests where the police used a lot of tear gas and rubber bullets on people.
The next Police Riot will be…who knows? All we know is that there will be one somewhere at sometime.
If it was up to Tom Cotton, it would be today at Columbia in NYC.
Some of you will remember this nominating convention.
The younger people probably have never heard of it.
I was too young to have been there.
Which was a good thing.
I remember being appalled, watching it on TV as the police attacked the crowd with tear gas and clubs and the crowd starting chanting, “The whole world is watching.”
“Has anyone else noticed what a colossal ass Tom Cotton is?”
Given this and his editorial in the NYT, I think you misspelled “fascist”
The world may have watched but did little to make any of the changes needed so that it would not happen again. I was there working at the Drake hotel as part of the Ioway delegation working for McCarthy when suddenly the elevator doors opened and the police started hitting on any one they could reach., We had set up a first aide station for those who had enjoyed Chicago hospitality across the way in Grants park. I went from a person working towards his Eagle scout with the light love tap of a rogue policeman to a long haired radical. I still hold true to those values today.
We get it, Tommy: you’re a fascist. 🙄
Has anyone else noticed what a colossal ass Tom Cotton is?
Well I would have said idiot. It was apparent years ago when he and couple of other idiot/senators sent a letter to the Iranian Foreign Minister warning him that the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action was not a treaty and could be negated by a new president. I think this probably broke US law.
Anyway they seemed to think this would be a shock to the FM. The FM had lived in the USA for several years and had an undergrad and masters degree in PoliSci there. I think he got his Ph.D in the UK.
I believe some commentators at the BBC were injured when they fell off their chairs
In London, a deceitful Zionist attempt to discredit pro-Palestinian demos (and the police!) revealed. But it was swallowed whole and regurgitated by almost all the media, and had already served the purpose of distracting attention from the latest IDF and settler atrocities.
Hmm – I don’t know why that link didn’t work. I want to embed a link to a YouTube video, without causing the video itself to appear in thread. Can anyone advise?
@ ^ Via Silentbob :
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2021/10/16/infinite-thread-xxi/comment-page-3/#comment-2117142
@16. gijoel : “Apart from the protestors, who the hell has Seder at a university?”
Anyone who wants to? (Plus can get enough friends together to do so)
To yoik the line from Marcus in Babylon5 which my google-fu has so far failed to find.
Thanks StevoR – I’ll try it. I thought that might embed the video itself. Cops versus “Antisemitism Activist” – what really happened?
@16. gijoel : “Apart from the protestors, who the hell has Seder at a university?”
Jewish students would organize, and invite everyone. I’ve never not seen Seder organized at universities that had any significant jewish student population. Similarly, Iranian students are the ones who normally organize Nowruz on campus at universities that have significant Iranian student populations. Muslim students organize Ramadan activities. Etc.
Still drives me crazy that the framing is Pro Israel vs Pro Palestine.
The Netenyahu regiem, Hamas and the supporters of both are the culprits. The rest of the people are the victims.
Its Pro murderous barbarians vs pro humanity.
The student protest all seem to be pro humanity.
Seder with the protesters at the 3 minutes mark here Benjamin Netanyahu Hits Out At US Campus Protests by Novara media total running time 12mins 56 secs.