Re: Anti-Semitism and Pro-Palestinian protestors, the gift to Donald Trump

On May 8, 2025 at 10:53:12 AM PDT, ""Adam H. Kerman"" <ahk@chinet.com> wrote:

Anti-Semitism is the gift that keeps on giving to Donald Trump!
 
They're baaaaaaack at Columbia University, this time occupying the
library 5/7/2025, and protesting on the street in front of various
campus buildings.
 
It's so odd that this doesn't happen in places outside the top 3 media
markets.
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpG2FTH0Ias
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAKoJ3WVI0I
 
As long as Trump can point to this, he'll continue to yank student visas
of people who are NOT causing trouble while patting himself on the back
claiming to crack down on anti-Semitism.
 
In the meantime, the protestors are effectively keeping Hamas in power
which means there's no solution for the starving people of Gaza.
 
Keeping Hamas in power IS NOT a solution for Palestinians. Getting rid
of them and freeing the hostages -- any that are still alive -- must be
a prerequisite for actual peace.
 
Both Trump and the protestors are in the wrong.

Last year, during the height of the college encampment nonsense, I got an
assignment from Joanne Kane to engrave a film cue whose entire middle section
was an excerpt from Saint-Saen's "Danse Macabre". The handwritten score
literally just broke off onto a blank page with the notation "Measures 76-124,
Danse Macrabre". So I needed the "Danse Macabre" score in order to produce the
finished cue, which Joanne Kane didn't have on hand. They suggested I go to
the music library at UCLA and make a copy of the relevant pages. So that's
what I did.

When I got there, I thankfully found the music library was outside the
perimeter of the pro-Hamas encampment, although it was close enough that I
could hear all the chanting and the smell the fragrance of tear gas on the
morning breeze. The university had canceled all classes, but it was close to
finals, so the libraries were still open and I got in, found the score, and
was in the middle of making my copies, when there arose a ruckus of shouting
and yelling from the first floor. I looked over the balcony down to the lower
stacks and there were a bunch of obese purple-haired women shouting
pro-Palestinians slogans and proclaiming the library was being liberated in
the name of the people.

I shrugged and went back to copying.

A few minutes later, a blue-hair with a nose ring, a face full of acne, and
wearing a kaffiyeh waddled up to me and told me I had to leave because the
library was under the people's control now. I told him not to worry because I
was one of the people and I'd be happy to guard it for him. He said no, only
their group was allowed in the building and he squared up to me, then grabbed
my arm. I twisted out of his grasp, took his wrist in a counter-grip, twisted
it 90 degrees, wrenched it and his arm behind his back, kicked his legs out
from under him, dropped him face-first to the floor, knelt on his back, and
told him he could play his little dress-up games and chant slogans all he
likes but if he ever tried to put his hands on me again, I'd break his arm off
and beat him bloody with it.

He started crying.

I let him go and told him to leave me the fuck alone.

He ran away.

I expected him to come back with a bunch of his goons and I honestly didn't
know what I was going to do, figured I might get a beating of my own, but no
one ever came back, so I finished my copying and left.

Hope they/them's arm ached for weeks after that.