Words to live by, right?
Also, gentlemen: The correct answer for us to the man or bear question is to live your life in such a way that women don’t want to choose the bear.
— Definitely Danny (@SemperWry) May 5, 2024
Even on our crankiest day on Balloon Juice, I don’t think there’s anyone who would argue with that in the comments. But in the real world? The men who need to see this, and think about it, won’t give it a single thought.
One good thing that came out of January 6 – we got to see / meet / know some phenomenal police officers who live up to “serve and protect” and not “control and push around”.
Open thread.
Ten Bears
Bears need love to
I noted not too long ago what Trump has done is expose the belly of the beast
We may end up thanking him
Starfish
The internet was completely eaten by this meme.
This article explains it to those of us who live in a cave and missed it.
NotMax
Seems to clumsily fit in.
Al Gore Weighs In on ManBearPig.
:)
NotMax
Repeated.
Bears just wanna have fun.
Steeplejack
The point of the original meme was that a woman meets an unknown man in the woods. She would have no way of knowing how he has “lived his life.” Hence the polling preference for bears.
Kelly
Mrs Kelly and and I have occasionally had bears on the perimeter of our campsites. I’m proud to say she prefers me to the bears ;-)
tam1MI
My takeaway from that whole controversy was to never go walking in the woods. 😉😉😉
wmd
Most of my encounters with police over my life have been routine and calm.
I’ve had two that compelled me to write to management – once to say procedures for taking someone to a fixed site for a breathalyzer (I was not impaired, blew 0.04%) should not involved high speed chases during transport. Back story – riding to a friends to crash for the night after a concert about 60 miles from home with my friend we went through a speed trap. Police chased, I pulled over, he didn’t because he was holding. While I was being transported (handcuffed and belted into front seat for the officer’s safety and to keep his dog separated) he saw another motorcycle and decided he had to give chase. That bike evaded capture, I was taken to the machine, passed and brought back to my motorcycle. So I wrote to document this, copied the city government and pointed out that this exposed them to liability.
Second time was much better. I’d been hanging out at my local tavern. A young woman (about 22 or so) in psychological distress came in and recognized that I was empathetic and safe… but she was acting out in ways that made it clear that she was in trouble – flashing large sums of money and being very careless. I got her parent’s phone number off of her somehow and called them. While waiting for them to arrive she started to misbehave in the state highway, and while we got her out of danger the sheriffs were called. I spoke with the incident commander and she realized that taking her in for disorderly conduct and public intoxication, or for a 5150 hold was a poorer option than keeping her stable while waiting for family. After the fact I felt compelled to send formal kudos for the officer – that she showed good judgment and compassion.
I talked with acquaintances in law enforcement after I did this and they said that the letter would go into her personnel jacket, and likely would make her a training officer.
I have no idea if the first letter accomplished anything, but I felt compelled to write it,
trollhattan
The California flag bear is a grizzly and those have been wiped out here for a century, so always choose the bear in California. He just wants your pick-a-nic basket.
In Montana or Alaska….
narya
The three J6 people that stand out to me–for different reasons–are Fanone, Harry Dunn, and the guard who led the rioters away from the Congresspeople. Dunn and the guard brought SO much awareness and intelligence to bear that day, and I can’t help but think that it was in part because they’d lived their lives as Black men, and therefore had to be aware in ways that, typically, white men do not. That awareness helped save others’ lives. Fanone, it seems, was just a regular (white) guy/cop; possibly even R-voting. That day radicalized him in a whole other direction, it seems. I really hope that Dunn gets elected.
Chief Oshkosh
Digby says that Noem is toast:
digbysblog.net/2024/05/05/kristi-no/
It may be that Noem really does have severe mental health issues. Of course, the real problem is that at least 27% of voters think that that is a reason to vote for her. And in SD, they did
ETA: Mental health issues here meaning sociopathy or psychopathy.
Chief Oshkosh
@narya: I believe Fanone has talked about having voted for Trump twice.
Kay
I would pick the man because I know men better than I know bears. I think that’s an advantage.
snoey
@trollhattan: I’ve had several solo hiker vs bear encounters in Yellowstone. By far the most threatening was a large black bear.
Freemark
Israel keeps digging the hole.
Israeli shuts down Al Jazeera’s operations, raids Jerusalem office
Kay
“Large” leads is a bit much – it’s probably all w/in MOE, but it’s better to be ahead than behind.
Look for slightly better media coverage as they realize, once again, that they made a poor pick both politically and substantively and scramble to re-position themselves. Donald Trump is a loser. It may take them 4 cycles where he loses to get that, but it is true.
Betsy
Okay, is there some kind of man-or-bear meme going around that I don’t know about? Anyone feel like explaining?
I think I was the last person to know about that whole “this dress is blue and pink! — no, this dress is yellow and red!” picture,
and my cluelessness doesn’t appear to have improved in the last ten years.
Martin
@Kay: Yeah, if you are in the MOE, you don’t have a lead. Ask Hillary.
Martin
@Betsy: Women are asked which they would rather encounter when walking alone in the woods – a man or a bear. Consensus seems to be the bear.
Omnes Omnibus
@Betsy: See comment 2 above.
Kay
I’ve been on quite a few hiking trips but the only time I’ve ever seen a bear is on the PA turnpike. She – I felt she was a she- was pawing thru a bunch of litter on a broad stretch of shoulder by the side of the highway. Very big girl.
Dangerman
No fair! The bear is just going to run away (been there, done that, still had to change clothes).
Tony Jay
One upshot of this meme’s popularity is that bad men are going to start dressing up as bears and roaming the woods looking for women to lure into situations.
Which will simply ruin the scene for everyone else. There go my Fridays.
West of the Rockies
Seriously, what mental dysfunction leads a (presumably straight) man to say, “I will be exactly who I want to be, even if it means a woman would prefer a carnivorous bear as a partner to me”?
Such people, male and female, evidently now proudly suggest that wearing a diaper is manly. (It’s not. Nor is it shameful if one has medical need for diapers. But manly? No.)
Republicans simply cannot admit they were wrong, duped. They’d rather be wrong than admit they were conned. OR they simply are all in on the heinous Trumpian shitfest.
zhena gogolia
@Tony Jay: You are so funny.
WereBear
@Chief Oshkosh:
I’m assuming this was copy-edited and fact-checked and passed through the gov PR staff… but perhaps I assumed too much.
Kay
@Martin:
I felt sure people would like Trump less once they started hearing from him ten times a day again. They needed a little memory refresh.
Timill
@Dangerman: Well, maybe…
JoeyJoeJoe
I was on a ghost tour through the town of Gatlinburg, and a black bear actually walked out of the woods and walked by the group on its way to some garbage cans in a garage under an apartment building . That was my first bear sighting outside of a zoo
Parfigliano
The J6 cops acted the way they did ONLY because the crowd was 99.99% white. With a black crowd there would have been a blood bath.
WereBear
Heads up next door: I have a guest post. Writing a book in TEN days.
Uncle Cosmo
It sure as hell doesn’t explain it to those of us who get slammed with a subscription page before we can read a sentence. Bastards can go fuck themselves, they ain’t getting tuppence of my cash.
Anoniminous
I find the answer “white man” to the question: if you’re a black woman alone in an office conference room which would you prefer to have a white man or white woman walk in the room, just as intriguing.
JoyceH
I think what’s really giving the man-bear thing resonance isn’t so much the women’s responses, it’s been the male reaction to the women’s responses. A heck of a lot of men, rather than taking the whole exercise as new insight into the lived experience of women, responded by getting angry and trying to argue with the women who prefer the bear – thereby proving the women’s point.
scav
Wildly “entertaining” watching all the he-males hexplaining why those women’s’ opinion is wrong. It’s so rare that data supporting the conclusion not only volunteers but also self-publishes.
WereBear
@JoyceH: Yes. It’s like a Rorschach test.
RevRick
@JoeyJoeJoe: My wife had a colleague who came home to find a black bear sitting in the Adirondack chair on her front porch.
Sure Lurkalot
Cue the Kristi whine fest:
These people are as predictable as the sunrise.
Kay
@Sure Lurkalot:
Her Gretchen Whitmer envy is palpable :)
Uncle Cosmo
@Kay: Camping trip with my presumptive** GF, Skyline Drive, summer 1971. I noted that the corrugated trashcans were set on a concrete base within a ring of corrugated iron. The ring was only an inch or two wider than the can and reached more than halfway up it. After nightfall the crashing of metal on metal began. I stuck my head outside the tent and saw, outlined by the light in the washroom windows across the road, a bear-shaped silhouette rumbling down the road.
A couple of days later we took a walk down a path in the woods that led past what looked like a small landfill. On the way back there was a mama bear and cub scrabbling in the trash. After giving as wide a berth as possible and moving vewwy vewwy quietly, we struck the tent, threw it in the car and got the flock out of there…
** A foolish presumption, as I found out in the course of things, but (as often noted in Airplane!) “that’s not important now.”
lowtechcyclist
@Kay:
ABC polled 2260 adults, and 71% of them said they were certain or likely voters. So that’s ~1600 likely voters they polled; the MOE on that should be about 2.5%. But ABC says Biden’s 49-45 edge among likely voters is within the MOE. I’m perplexed.
However, there are a couple of poll findings that I’m sure will piss off a lot of us and not just me: their poll shows that by 42-23%, more voters associate the quality of mental sharpness with Trump than with Biden. I wonder how the devil that happened, don’t you? One more time: fuck the fucking NYT and all the rest of the media that follow its lead.
Similarly, by 42-20, they associate the quality of physical health more with Trump than with Biden. Biden goes bicycling; Trump uses a golf cart to get around a golf course. And yet. Great reporting, MSM!
zhena gogolia
@lowtechcyclist: It has more to do with the makeup and hair dye. People are stupid.
Harrison Wesley
@JoyceH: Most men aren’t very good at bearsplaining.
Eyeroller
@lowtechcyclist: I can explain the 42%–that’s about the fraction of hardcore Republicans. The 20% is the worrisome one. That’s “Independents” i.e. morons, plus apparently a few Democrats.
Kay
@Uncle Cosmo:
I’d be respectful of them if I encountered one too. I saw Grizzly Man. They’ll crack your head like a walnut if you piss them off.
I was with a birding group in Yosemite and this (very nice) woman in our group was saying she had been to Yosemite 5 or 6 times and had not seen a bear. I felt she was jinxing us. Can’t she just accept that they’re out there, big ‘n scary, and we don’t need to run into one?
Soprano2
@lowtechcyclist: I think people associate being big and tall with being healthy, plus Biden has thinning white hair. It’s hard to overcome this bias, plus many people who have an older, ailing grandparent think Biden is in worse health. They think everyone who is older is like that.
lowtechcyclist
@Eyeroller:
I think you mean it’s the 38% who can’t decide which one is mentally sharper that would be independents plus (more than) a few Democrats.
But the only reason that would be so high, and the % that think Biden is sharper is so low, is that the MSM have been doing everything they can to turn Biden into a doddering old fool with one foot in the grave. Think of all the stories they did on the Hur report alone.
WereBear
@RevRick: Obviously just looking for a place to relax. A friend emailed me from camp on a pond, having taken a different path to avoid a bear.
They wake up hungry.
Scout211
Yep. And as I posted downstairs part of her CBS interview, she bravely and boldly declared,”I’m not retracting anything!”
Then when asked about the Kim Jong Un fabricated story, she meekly stated that the anecdote shouldn’t have been included in the book and will be “adjusted.”
So a fabricated story about her meeting with a world leader just floated into her memoir out of nowhere. And it will be “adjusted,” but certainly not retracted!
As I said downstairs. Bless her heart.
different-church-lady
I had to look up the man/bear thing and the conclusion I’ve drawn is that people are never going to stop getting obsessed with stupid shit.
Eyeroller
@lowtechcyclist: Or the 38% have no opinion, or think they’re about the same (which is actually to our advantage). No argument about the MSM beating that drum incessantly, which has certainly had an effect.
If more comes out about Trump falling asleep in court and rambling incoherently, we may see a shift in that 20% more to the “no opinion/all the same” 38%.
different-church-lady
@Sure Lurkalot:
“HO HO, HEY HEY, HOW MANY PUPS DID YOU SHOOT TODAY?”
different-church-lady
@Starfish: I’ve never found caves more attractive.
different-church-lady
@Steeplejack: Since I’ve now been drawn into this, odds are pretty good the bear will run away, depending on the species of bear.
lowtechcyclist
@Kay:
I’ve spent a month, altogether, in Glacier National Park over the course of three different visits. The only time I saw a bear there was on my last visit, when I was about 10 minutes from the trailhead at the end of my last hike (Grinnell Glacier, IIRC) before heading home to Maryland.
The bear was maybe 20-25 yards off to my right through the woods. I didn’t alter my pace, just walked straight ahead and kept looking straight ahead, while being on alert for any sound of the bear moving my way (which fortunately didn’t happen).
There’s no question that there are bears in Yosemite, and grizzlies in Glacier. Doesn’t mean you’ll see them – it’s easy not to – but they’re still there.
Eyeroller
@RevRick: One evening several years ago we were sitting on our deck and I looked toward the stairs about 15 feet away from me straight into the face of a (probably young) black bear standing on the edge of the deck. We were between him and his probable objective, the hummingbird feeder. I screamed, then jumped up and waved my arms around. He hesitated, then finally lumbered back down the stairs. He ran into the back yard and then stopped and looked up at the deck with those puppy-dog eyes “why can’t I get to the feeder?”
I pass the time some evenings by reading trashy “true crime” stories and a lot more girls and women have been killed while hiking or working in the backcountry by strange men than have been killed by bears while doing such. Therefore the response makes sense.
different-church-lady
@Chief Oshkosh:
She definitely understands the base. But the pivot to the middle is now just as dead as Cricket.
JoyceH
When I lived in Maine there wasn’t a lot to do. (They televised high school basketball!) One of the activities was to drive to the dump at sunset to watch the bears. You stayed in your car of course.
WaterGirl
@Kay: Gretchen Whitmer is a strong, smart, authentic woman, with a presence, because she has that certain something.
None of which are true of the whiner.
Scout211
We were camping at Lake Tahoe with a bunch of our extended family members quite a few years ago. My husband and I had some problems getting our tent trailer up and other family members, not having camped before, were struggling with getting their tents up. The campers next to us spent the whole time drinking beer and laughing and pointing at us.
The warnings were everywhere for bears, with strict guidelines and instructions for food storage but the group next to us was too drunk to read, I guess.
I was awakened in the middle of the night to a loud ruckus and shined my flashlight to see two apparently very hungry bears rummaging through our neighbors’ coolers. The neighbors took a long time to wake up in the morning and were obviously hung over by the time they left their tents. They had no words when they stood there and looked at the destruction.
I loved those bears and wished I could find them to thank them.
Ishiyama
To me it is self-evident that, if I meet a bear, my goal is to avoid it; once I accomplish that, I have no further concerns about the matter. If I meet a man, I’m stuck with his company, which means I have to stay on guard constantly, at least until I have more cues about his character. So I would pick “bear” on logic alone. (This assumes that I am in the woods of my own volition and not in need of assistance, in which case I would take my chances on the man.)
WaterGirl
@Scout211:
Just wanted to see that again.
artem1s
@Ten Bears:
no, no, no. just no. the abuser doesn’t get thanked by those he victimizes. no one owes him their thanks for his abuse. those who stick up for themselves, and act as good allies for others who can’t deserve thanks and praise.
Matt McIrvin
@lowtechcyclist: Remember, about 40% of the population are hacks who, on any question with a partisan component, will say they associate the positive quality with Trump. Take that as a starting point, assume the rest are divided any old way and you get these kinds of results.
japa21
@Kay: The important thing is that Trump is hovering right around the same numbers. People making up their minds are going for Biden. Trump has peaked and has nowhere to go but down. It would take a major even for that trend to change.
Not saying it can’t happen, just unlikely.
zhena gogolia
@japa21: I fervently pray that you are correct.
Brachiator
I have to confess that I don’t know what this is. I have seen references recently a couple of different places, but I am out of the loop. I don’t do Twitter anymore, so I can’t follow the thread.
different-church-lady
What if the bear brought flowers?
Melancholy Jaques
@Brachiator:
If my co-workers reported it correctly, the question posed to women was, if you were walking alone in the woods, which encounter would make you more afraid, a man or a bear? I believe the majority of women chose bear.
JoyceH
@Melancholy Jaques: No, it’s exactly the opposite. Women were asked if they would prefer to meet a man or a bear alone in the woods, and most women chose the bear. In other words, they found the idea of a bear encounter less frightening.
hrprogressive
RE The Bear Thing; My STBX shared this with me and indicated that with a bear encounter, a woman would know that she is either likely to 1) be able to scare the bear off 2) might get attacked if taken as prey or 3) might be mauled to death. With an unknown man, you might be running into the next serial killer, serial rapist, or otherwise just a generally terrible human being, so the bear is the preferential option.
As part of the demographic of man most likely to get butthurt and upset about this (boring straight white guy) I think a lot of guys my age (just shy of 40) never grew the fuck up, never stopped being adolescents or even worse, children in some cases, and cannot fathom that yes, their behavior, and/or the unchecked shitty behavior of their fellow dudes has left an indelible mark on women as a whole that they’d be wise to reflect upon and strive to work to improve instead of proving themselves to be the immature future violent incels that literally prove the point of the meme.
I’ve been on an extended social media sabbatical for personal reasons, so I haven’t seen “the discourse”, but I already know what it’s like now that I’ve been made aware of it.
RE: Polling; Again, it’s tough to trust modern polling in the last decade, just ask both Hillary and the Red Fizzle of 2022 how they feel about that. But it’s good to see some polling with Biden up, at least.
Still a political lifetime away, let’s be honest.
zhena gogolia
@JoyceH: Why is that the opposite of what he said? ETA: never mind, I see what you mean. I think MJ just got mixed up in his syntax.
Brachiator
@Melancholy Jaques:
Ok. Understandable.
Raven
Caught my limit (5) of bluefish. Not everyone’s favorite but Cinco De Mayo bluefish tacos it is!
zhena gogolia
@Raven: I love bluefish.
Kay
@lowtechcyclist:
I think the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen hiking was on a hike/kayak trip in Michigan. We were on this gorgeous river and we came upon a man and woman smoking meth. IN their kayak, sort of furtively but still – middle of the day, kids on the river, etc. I made eye contact with the man and he stared at me, like a challenge. I said nothing. Just glided past.
My husband and I put it in our “pandemic weirdness” category. People just went bonkers by the end there.
tam1MI
Looks like the recent building occupations and graduation disruptions are backfiring hard on the Gaza protestors.
YouGov Poll: Protests Have Jumped the Political Shark, 82% of Americans Don’t Support Them
Joe Biden was right to keep his distance from them.
Geminid
@Raven: Bluefish are great eating. How was the weather?
mrmoshpotato
@Ten Bears:
I will be emptying my bladder onto his grave some day.
zhena gogolia
@mrmoshpotato: Yeah, I am never, ever, ever going to end up thanking him.
mrmoshpotato
@tam1MI:
Graduation disruptions? What assholes.
Sister Golden Bear
@West of the Rockies: A disappointing — but unsurprising — number of man-explainers out there are determined to prove why women chose bears.
But the memes have been glorious.
Omnes Omnibus
@West of the Rockies:
Well, actually…. Bears are omnivores.
Sister Golden Bear
@hrprogressive: Also
4) if I were assaulted by a bear, people would believe me
5) The bear would be tracked down and dealt with
6) I wouldn’t be forced in 24 states to carry its cub to birth
Parfigliano
@tam1MI: Almost like this Biden guy knows a thing or two about politics.
Matt McIrvin
[deleted, I’m in a foul mood]
JWR
@mrmoshpotato:
Yeah, I saw one commencement ceremony where the protesters were parading down a center aisle, shouting their “our demands must be met” message through a hand-held bullhorn. I thought geez, talk about doing it wrong.
ETA and just to be very clear here, I’m on their side.
Sister Golden Bear
One reason the man vs bear meme blew up is the absolute amount of sheer misogynist rage coming from men.* A good deal of it genuinely disturbing, e.g. fantasizing about the ways women should be mauled and eaten by bears for the insult of saying they’d chose the bear because of the risk of men”s violence towards women.
*Insert emergency “not all men” here.
JoyceH
@mrmoshpotato:
Especially considering that the college graduates of 2024 were the high school graduates of 2020. Can’t this poor age cohort have ONE normal ceremony?
zhena gogolia
@Sister Golden Bear: So true.
West of the Rockies
@Omnes Omnibus:
Yeah, well, you’re an Omnesvore!
Melancholy Jaques
@JoyceH:
That’s what I meant. I screwed up writing. I shouldn’t comment while watching basketball.
True story. I once laid on the ground trying not to move while two bears spent about an hour going through our stuff and trying to smash open our hard plastic food canisters. I went from being kind of terrified to being kind of amused.
Eyeroller
@Sister Golden Bear: Obviously it’s very few men who pose that level of risk to a woman alone in the backcountry. The overwhelming majority of the strange men a single woman hiking, camping, or working in the woods would encounter would be perfectly fine. The problem is that tiny fraction who would rape/kill us is real and unpredictable. I mentioned above that I sometimes pass the time in the evenings reading trashy “true crime” writeups, and there are many known cases of women who have been killed by men while doing things (not always alone, see the case of the 1996 Shenandoah National Park murders) in the woods. The number of women killed in the backcountry (or occasionally in a house near a wilderness) by bears is quite small.
Cheryl from Maryland
@Sister Golden Bear: brilliant!!!
Ruckus
@West of the Rockies:
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that of course not all men are the same and yes, neither are all women the same. We are human, most of us anyways but we often see things from 2 different directions, primarily in that we, like the vast majority of living creatures, are 2 sides of the same coin.
I do believe that your concept that they are all in for the heinous political shitfest is the correct answer.
mrmoshpotato
@JoyceH:
That didn’t occur to me, but, yes, amen.
Convert
I have no idea what the man or bear thing is about ut I do know that anyone who uses Xitter in May 2024 is a big support of Elon Musk and all that he stands for, so all the more reason to not give a shit about man/bear/pig nonsense.
Omnes Omnibus
@Eyeroller: To me, it seems that one of the things about bears is that their behavior is predictable. With just a little knowledge, you know what will and will not provoke them to attack.
Sister Golden Bear
@Eyeroller: The analogy I use is this:
There’s a basket with a dozen apples in it. Only one is poisoned. Do you still eat a random apple from the basket?
Also too, the proof sexuality isn’t a choice is the fact that straight women men date their only natural predator.
Sister Golden Bear
@Omnes Omnibus:
That’s huge factor. Schroeder’s Rapist/Sexual assaulted/Sexual harasser is a very real reason women don’t feel safe alone in public. Yes, we know it’s a minority of men — but we don’t necessarily know which ones.
Ruckus
@hrprogressive:
As part of the demographic of man most likely to get butthurt and upset about this (boring straight white guy) I think a lot of guys my age (just shy of 40) never grew the fuck up, never stopped being adolescents or even worse, children in some cases, and cannot fathom that yes, their behavior, and/or the unchecked shitty behavior of their fellow dudes has left an indelible mark on women as a whole that they’d be wise to reflect upon and strive to work to improve instead of proving themselves to be the immature future violent incels that literally prove the point of the meme.
Having been a mental health counselor for a few years, a few decades ago, I would say I agree on the premise you’ve made here. With one caveat. I have met some women who have not become what I’d call actual adults as well. Not anywhere near as many for sure, because I think woman mostly have had to grow up, given their side of life.
Eyeroller
@Sister Golden Bear: Well, depends on what you mean by “natural predator” since women have been killed by bears and cougars (men too, but seems that especially for cougars women are more frequently taken, probably because we are smaller on average). But being killed by these “natural” predators is pretty rare. I’d call men an “unnatural predator” of women since it’s mostly maladaptive for a male to intentionally kill a female of its own species. Offspring, yes, that has an evolutionary explanation, but not killing a (fertile) female. Unclear why it’s relatively common in humans, compared to other mammals.
Raven
@Geminid: It’s OK, typical outer banks wind but nice at about 70. Funny, on the Gulf Coast they are not cared for at all.
Betsy
@Martin:
@Omnes Omnibus:
Thanks.
apparently, the only thing that my personal version of the Internet has been eaten up by is this German song and dance about Barbara’s rhubarb bar, and the barbers and barbarians who frequent it.
KrackenJack
@RevRick:
I doubt I’d appreciate the Country Bear Jamboree vibe in the moment…
Jess
@Eyeroller:
My theory is sexual shame and fear.
RevRick
My wife says I’m barely bearable.
lowtechcyclist
@RevRick:
Bear with me here: I bearly know you, but I think she may have a point. I think you may be able to bear up under these circumstances, though.
Timill
@RevRick: So stick with just the bear necessities
Citizen Alan
@tam1MI:
Nonsense! The true purpose of the building occupations and graduation disruptions was to make the performative Left feel like they’ve done something and get their pictures in the papers and on TV. Whether that has any positive effect on Americans’ opinions vis a vis Gaza is wholly irrelevant.
wjca
I think you need to distinguish between those who organize and lead that part of the protests, for whom you may be largely correct. Vs the majority of the kids involved, who I’m sure actually care about the cause, but have little if any experience to teach them which tactics might actually advance their goals.