This happens every so often and increasingly as the U.S. empire expands. it comes as a commingling of domestic and foreign policy: Vietnam, the War in Iraq, and now the Israel-Palestinian slaughter. What happens when the interests of the people clash with the interests of the privileged? Biden will be at Morehouse in two weeks. Between now and then, so much is poised to happen.
They’ve literally unleashed police on college students, faculty, observers, and anyone whom the police want to harm. There is no legal justification; this is pure repression. And mass commercial “news” outlets are pushing pure propaganda, no doubt at the behest of owners. Meanwhile, student journalists at Columbia and UPenn and independent outlets are pushing back. The International Court of Justice could issue arrest warrants for Netanyahu any time now. Israel has seen Columbia and Turkey move to break diplomatic and trade ties. In Haiti, the attempt to install another US-France-Canada-backed interim prime minister has been met with widespread derision.
The “elites” (the moneyed and privileged) have lost the power to control the narrative and have dropped all pretenses that they are doing anything other than attempting to suppress by any means necessary.
Still, being at the tail end of the school year isn’t going to help.
Brown and Northwestern had the good sense to put the issue of divestment to a vote, thereby reaching a truce with the students. But we’re headed toward the summer, the presidential contest, and the Dem convention in Chicago. Unlike 1968, where King and RFK assassinations fed a wave of discontent that led to Nixon’s election and the spiral that we have yet to emerge from, there is a real fascist waiting to assume control of the presidency and push us past the brink.
We might be living in the events of the moment that will break the experiment, a moment that portends “national suicide.”