McCarthyism Again
Updated 2024-07-26
2024-04-21 Edward Said Warned Against Anti-Palestinian McCarthyism Said’s legacy reads today as a scathing condemnation of the hypocrisy of U.S. liberal institutions, their moral corruption, and the hollowness of the very values that they profess to teach.
Students across the United States are rising up against Israel’s genocide in Gaza, bringing to memory the student movements of the 1960s. From Columbia to Brown, from Yale to Harvard, students are staging sit-ins, hunger strikes, class walkouts, and interfaith prayers, demanding an end to U.S. support for Israel and the complicity of their academic institutions in the ongoing genocide.
While some U.S. institutions are treading a delicate path, the Columbia University administration, led by President Minouche Shafik, has violently cracked down on its own students, summoning the NYPD to mass arrest over 100 students, and suspending others with a 15-minute notice. In an unprecedented brutal crackdown on free speech on campus, the police destroyed solidarity encampments and student belongings, while charging arrested students with “trespassing” on the campus that they are charged a whopping tuition of more than $60,000 a year to attend!
In its attempt to appease far-right extremists in Congress, and to save Columbia from “being cursed by God,” as a Republican Congressman warned Shafik, Columbia has sided with genocide, thus undermining its own legacy of safeguarding free speech and peaceful protest on campus https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/edward-said-anti-palestinian-mccarthyism
2021-12-24 Wadie Said on the New McCarthyism People in the U.S., the story goes, value few things more than individual freedom and money. So you’d think the way an individual uses their money would be sacrosanct. A sign of where we’re at are currently congressional efforts to put people in prison, and fine them millions of dollars, for choosing not to buy products from countries that are not declared “official enemies” by, well, presumably whoever’s in the White House at the moment. The anti-boycott measure the House Foreign Affairs Committee is pushing may never see daylight, of course, but it indicates a willingness by some in elected office to use state power to silence and sanction anyone using their voice in dissent of official actions — in this one case, of people critical of Israel’s ongoing mass murder and displacement of Palestinians.
The work to shut down opposition to the siege of Gaza, and U.S. facilitation of it, reminds Americans of what it means when powerful institutions, including in the media, combine a decidedly selective understanding of free expression with a vehement desire to enforce it.
We talk about that with Wadie Said, professor of law at the University of Colorado Law School, and author of the book Crimes of Terror: The Legal and Political Implications of Federal Terrorism Prosecutions. https://kpfa.org/episode/counterspin-december-24-2023/
2023-11-12 UNIVERSITY STUDENTS OUTRAGED AT BLATANT ADMINISTRATIVE OVERREACH Over the past four weeks, National Students for Justice in Palestine has witnessed the most blatant administrative and governmental assault on students’ political speech in recent history. We are deeply concerned with politically-motivated administrative retaliation against individual students and student organizations at universities across North America. This unconstitutional and immoral suppression of our students—students speaking out against the decades-old genocidal depravity of a US vassal state—has cast a dark shadow over our supposedly pluralistic institutions.
American universities pride themselves on providing a diversified, transformative education. Yet, world-renowned institutions, including Columbia University, Brandeis University, and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, have taken direct action against Palestinian, Jewish, and allied students who have dared to speak out against US participation in the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. This isn’t just an infringement on Palestinian rights; it’s a signifier of the erosion of US democracy itself. The administrative surveillance and targeting of individual students sets an extremely concerning precedent.
The agendas of political lobbyists and wealthy donors have no place on our university campuses; it’s crucial to hold these institutions and their administrative bodies accountable and protect the voices of students facing unjust McCarthyist targeting. National Students for Justice in Palestine calls on all journalists of conscience to cover these administrator-led recrimination campaigns and wide-scale violations of student and faculty rights. We commend student organizers for steadfastly upholding their political line despite these attempts to silence our righteous fight for justice.https://nationalsjp.org/university-students-outraged-at-blatant-administrative-overreach
2023-11-21 ‘THIS IS MCCARTHYISM ALL OVER AGAIN’: NY COURT BLOCKS UNION FROM VOTING ON PRO-PALESTINE RESOLUTION In a seemingly unprecedented move, the NY Supreme Court just granted a temporary restraining order preventing members of the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys – UAW Local 2325 from even voting on a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. Over the past month and a half, the world has borne witness to a genocidal military campaign to clear out Gaza once and for all. This is prompting people of conscience around the world, including unions and worker-led groups, to speak out and take action to try to stop the slaughter.
One of those unions is the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys – UAW Local 2325 (ALAA), whose members include legal aid workers at over 25 organizations, including the Bronx Defenders, Brooklyn Defender Services, Neighborhood Defender Service, and the Legal Aid Society of New York City. Last week, ALAA members were preparing to hold a vote on whether or not to approve the union publicly issuing a “Resolution Calling for a Ceasefire in Gaza, an End to the Israeli Occupation of Palestine, and Support for Workers’ Political Speech.”
In the lead-up to the vote, union members at different legal aid offices reported strong opposition from management. “These statements call for the elimination of the state of Israel and the annihilation of the Jewish people,” Twyla Carter, Chief Executive Officer of the Legal Aid Society, reportedly told staff, expressing concern that certain donors would pull funding from the Legal Aid Society if the union passed the resolution.
Then, on Thursday, Nov 16, as Akela Lacy reports at The Intercept, “attorneys at the Legal Aid Society of Nassau County sued in New York State Supreme Court to stop the vote, saying it posed an ethical dilemma for attorneys that would make it “impossible for them to properly do their job as Public Defenders.” Those four attorneys were ALAA bargaining unit members. “On Friday,” Lacy continues, “the court granted a temporary restraining order enjoining the vote. Voting had gotten underway at 9 a.m. and only 15 minutes were left on the clock when the injunction was issued. The tally never got underway.” https://therealnews.com/ny-court-blocks-union-from-voting-on-gaza-ceasefire-palestine-resolution-uaw-legal-aid
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Categorized Directory: News and Articles about Israel- Palestine Conflict
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