cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/15790262
How campus protests flip-flopped America’s free speech debate [Colin Meyn | 05/25/24 | The Hill]
The battle lines over free speech on college campuses were largely entrenched before pro-Palestinian encampments rapidly spread across the country last month.
This left conservative voices on campus and in Congress positioning themselves as the defenders of free speech and, somewhat paradoxically, champions of liberal values around the need for open debate in America’s bastions of higher learning.
In recent months, however, House hearings about college campuses have focused instead on various ways to suppress speech deemed antisemitic or “pro-Hamas” — as protesters rail against U.S. support for Israel’s war in Gaza, as well as the Zionist movement they blame for the historical oppression of Palestinians.
“For a decade, conservatives have been crying foul on that,” Morey said of curbing free speech. “Until you get to post-October 7. And now people are saying ‘From the river to the sea’ or ‘Intifada’ or ‘Free Gaza’ — and a certain crop of conservatives don’t like that. And now suddenly, we have found their free speech limit. They don’t really mean ‘free speech,’ they mean ‘free speech until it’s speech I don’t like.’”
Lawler said slogans such as “From the river to the sea” were clearly antisemitic threats that should not be allowed. But Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.), who has also proposed legislation to crack down on anti-Jewish hate speech, said such slogans were protected in her view.
“We’ve seen Jewish students in the encampments who held Shabbat services and Passover Seders with their peers,” said Beth Miller, political director at Jewish Voice for Peace Action, which has helped organize cease-fire protests. “It is not antisemitic to criticize the Israeli government or to protest complicity in genocide.”
“There’s not an armed insurrection where one side is seeking to overthrow another and engages in any means necessary. This is a protest on a college campus in the United States of America. I think it’s entirely possible to proceed with one’s objectives without crossing the line into rhetoric that is either dangerous or antisemitic.”
It was never left or right, it's about power and money.
The Palestine protests threaten the wealthy but things like LGBTQ rights don't. The former could be a flashpoint for general anti-capitalist action, while the latter has essentially been subsumed into mainstream neoliberalism ans is, at best, a great way to distract and redirect from class issues to culture war bullshit.
The rich are happy to have us fighting culture wars instead of class wars. That's why they're pushing the "antisemitism" narrative because it keeps people's eyes off of the real issue.
How do the protests and the war in Gaza threaten the wealthy?
Any mass movement that has a point of view that runs contrary to the desires of the capital class is a threat to their control. I mean that seems self evident.
Obviously. But that's not an answer.
My question is: what are the concrete desires of the capital class that are being threatened?
Someone else said "oil" which is fair I guess, but very clearly a diminishing return when it's clear that energy independence is valuable for the capital class if they control the transition, a la Elon.
So again, what do the wealthy have to gain or lose from these protests, specifically?