Dear Friends,
(01:14) Reclaiming the public airwaves;
(18:59) Campus protests are hugely impactful;
(37:55) The media ignores most global conflicts;
(55:21) Is the midday meal “lunch” or “dinner”?, with Kathy Byrnes Fallon.
Jeffrey Weiss
Any dream-interpreters out there? I had a wild one last night.
I’m driving a VW bug. Mounted on the sun roof is a machine gun. I have no idea how it got there. Thankfully, the roads are mostly devoid of traffic.
I stop frequently to pick up coins. I find lots of them, and decide I better rent an apartment to count my haul.
The first “for rent” sign I see is a sprawling, tacky-green complex surrounded by stately oak trees. The “room” for rent is the size of a chicken coop, with “walls” made of screens. There’s no furniture, and the floor is dirt and leaves.
The guy who owns the place introduces me to his other tenants — three women whose apartment has walls, a floor, and even a kitchen and bathroom. They offer to share their kitchen.
I tell the guy I’ll get back to him. I continue driving, no longer caring how much coinage I’ve foraged, hoping the machine gun mounted on my VW bug doesn’t draw attention.
So, dream interpreters, have at it.
Just as bizarre, but real, is what’s transpiring on college campuses across the US. A month ago, few would have predicted a student mobilization akin to the anti-Vietnam protests of 1968.
Jeffrey Weiss — a college professor and prominent local lecturer on foreign affairs — joins me this week for this and other conversations.
In my view, the campus protests are historic and will profoundly impact both policy and politics. Already, officials at three universities — Brown, Northwestern, and Minnesota — have agreed to address students’ demands to divest funds from businesses enabling Israel’s annihilation of Gaza.
This enlightened response represents a stark contrast to what’s transpired at Columbia, UCLA, and many other universities — where heavy-handed intervention by law enforcement has resulted in over 2,000 arrests.
Politically, though Democrats want me and other honest commentators to shut-up, the protests are hurting President Biden’s reelection prospects. Badly. If the administration insists on staying its course of lip-service criticism while funding the war, Biden will lose in November.
Democrats need to learn from 1968, when in response to the Party’s support for the Vietnam War, Richard Nixon was elected president in a landslide and Republicans picked up seats in both the US House and Senate.
It’s not too late for Biden to do the right thing:
— Cut off funding to the Israeli war machine.
— Join the global demand for an immediate ceasefire.
— Broker a lasting, peaceful resolution to 75 years of Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
And yes, Hamas must be stopped, but that won’t happen through violence. In Northern Ireland in the 1960s and 70s, the British and Loyalist response to the IRA was repression and violence. It only encouraged more violence. When dialogue and diplomacy ultimately prevailed, the IRA mostly disappeared.
Thanks for reading, listening, and doing your part for a better world.
Ed Fallon
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