The Most Active Threads over the Weekend

The most active thread over the weekend was titled, "Protests on college campuses" which was posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. The student protests against the Israeli devastation of Gaza which has killed over 30,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children, and placed most of the remaining population at risk of famine, have provoked thread after thread. I've essentially been playing whack-a-mole trying to prevent the threads from taking over multiple forums. While Columbia University and the University of Southern California were the initial focus, protests soon spread to colleges across the nation. The original poster of this thread specifically mentioned a protest at DC's George Washington University and asked what effect the protests might have. The nature of the demonstrations has varied from campus to campus, as has the response of college administrations and local governments. Israel and its supporters clearly view the protests as a serious threat and their reaction has been extreme. Israeli Prime Mininister Benjamin Netanyahu described the protests as "antisemitic" and "horrific". US Speaker of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson called for the National Guard to be deployed. Anti-Defamation League (ADL) CEO Jonathan Greenblatt, a man whose job is supposed to be contesting defamation, went so far as to call the protesters "Iranian proxies" and compare them to Hezbollah. DCUM posters have been similarly hostile to the protests, often criticizing the students as uninformed and entitled. One tactic that has been used across the board by those who oppose the protests is to conflate incidents that don't involve students with the campus protests and to exaggerate, if not outright lie, about events. At Columbia University, protesters who are not associated with the school have gathered outside campus. The media has routinely portrayed aggressive behavior and anti-Semitic incidents involving that crowd as being part of the student demonstrations. The students, for their part, have condemned and disassociated themselves from those instances. At Emory University in Atlanta, video shows a college professor stopping to question police about why they were violently arresting a student. A police officer hurled the professor to the ground, knocking her head on concrete. Similarly, at the University of Texas in Austin, police were filmed violently throwing members of the media to the ground. In an outrageous event at Northeastern University, video shows a member of a pro-Israel counter protest crossing over to the anti-war group and, while in the midst of them, yelling "kill the Jews". University administrators had the anti-war demonstrators arrested on the basis of this statement. All of this is in reaction to students who largely are doing nothing but sitting in the grass with protest signs listening to speeches. But the clear overreaction by authorities has strong support among DCUM posters who, let's be frank, are getting old. They have no time or patience for today's youth. There is lots of advice concerning the "proper" way to protest which basically requires avoiding anything that anybody would notice. Protests are to be neither seen nor heard. But hats off to the kids. They are clearly getting under some skins and the overreaction aimed at suppressing the protests shows that those in power view them as a real threat. They may call you naive, but they clearly fear you.

Next was a thread posted in the "Money and Finances" forum titled "Daughter married a doctor, he’s pressuring her to pay off his student debt". The original poster says that her daughter has approached her about the daughter's husband's desire that the daughter help pay off his college debt. The original poster says that the debt was accumulated not only before her daughter had married the man, but before they even met. The original poster says that it is an "eye popping sum" and seems to indicate some disapproval of her son-in-law's college choices which resulted in the debt. This thread might have been better in the relationship forum since it has more to do with relationships than money. Many of the posters argue that after marriage, a couple becomes a single unit and that separating finances is not practical. If the husband is required to use money he earns to pay his debt, that is money that he cannot contribute to the household and, therefore, the original poster's daughter will be paying for debt indirectly by financing their lifestyle. Some posters question whether the original poster's daughter expects to benefit from her husband's income as a doctor and suggest that, if so, she should expect to also help with the loans. Several posters argue that a married couple is a team and needs to do what is best for the team. In that regard, several posters say that they helped pay off their spouses' school loans and don't regret doing so. As one poster explains, from a purely legal view, the pre-marriage debt is is separate from their combined assets while the husband's income would not be. But, from a practical viewpoint, paying off the debt sooner or later might be a better strategy from the family's point of view. The fear, of course, is that the original poster's daughter might contribute to paying off the debt, but then the couple would get divorced. To cover for this possibility, the poster suggested having a lawyer draft an agreement requiring that the daughter's contributions, plus interest, be repaid in the event of a divorce. Many posters argue that more information is needed to properly provide an answer. For instance, did the original posters's daughter's husband hide this debt from her? If not, it should have been something they discussed pre-marriage. There are several questions about whether the husband is expecting a lump sum payment of some sort or rather monthly contributions. The bottom line seems to be that the original poster thinks that her son-in-law made poor choices by choosing colleges that he could not afford. Her family, in contrast, made what she considers responsible choices so that her daughter graduated debt-free. She suggests that her daughter, not having experience with student debt, was somewhat naive in marrying a man who owed a considerable sum in student loans. Now it feels "almost coercive" to be asked to help pay the debt. As far as I can tell, the original poster never addressed the practicalities of how her daughter and son-in-law might separate their finances. Moreover, she appeared offended by suggestions that her daughter might eventually benefit from her husband's income.

Next was a thread titled, "Mom Cliques. I had no idea." which was posted in the "Elementary School-Aged Kids" forum. The original poster said that she ran into about 15 moms from her child's elementary school having drinks and appetizers at a local winery on Friday. She said the group seemed uncomfortable seeing her there and that she later texted one of the moms saying that she didn't realize that there were invite-only Friday gatherings. She concludes by saying that bus stop interactions should be interesting now and asks others to share their "mom clique story". The immediate reaction from those responding was not to share stories, but rather to attack the original poster. She was accused of unnecessarily making things awkward, stirring up drama, and generally being the one who was wrong in this situation. Several posters defended the right of the other moms to gather without inviting the original poster. The original poster jumped into remind everyone that she wasn't asking for opinions, but rather their stories about mom cliques. However this only served to increase the criticism of her. The thread basically consists of everyone's reactions to the original poster, who is described as "petty", "tacky", "unpleasant", and a host of other names. It is almost as if the entire DCUM had turned into a mom's clique and was determined to ostracize the original poster. The attacks on the original poster reached the point that they generated their own backlash. As one poster wrote, "But it should be obvious that many of these responses are actually emblematic of clique, ‘mean girl’ behavior that SOME women love to engage in. People ripping OP apart, saying she was excluded because she's horrible...it's just a typical mean girl response". But this had little effect and the criticism of the original poster continued. For her part, the original poster may have been a little deflated by the response, but she didn't back down. Nevertheless, she failed to convince most of the posters that the women had acted inappropriately or even consisted of a "clique" at all. From my vantage point, after reading most of the posts in this thread, it looks that what the original poster encountered was less a clique and more a collection of members of overlapping social groups. While a few of the women may have been the original poster's "mom friends", it appears that most were not. As a result, the original poster likely misinterpreted the situation and her reaction was probably overly strong. But the reaction of most of the posters, who appeared almost rabid in their eagerness to attack the original poster, was far more overdone. So, for the most part, the original objective of the original poster was not met. Even the one "mom clique" story that I noticed went largely unremarked upon other then for another poster to call that mom a "catty rich witch". It appears that like fight clubs, the first rule of mom cliques is to not talk about mom cliques.

The final thread that I will discuss today was posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. Titled, "Anti-war crime does not equal anti-Semitic", the original poster says that she is "pro Jewish" and that much of her family is Jewish. However, she opposes the recent actions of the Israeli government which she implies are genocidal and amount to war crimes. Therefore, she says that makes her "anti-Israel". She wishes that people could distinguish between being anti-Semitic and being anti-Israel and urges Jews to step up for human rights. I think that it is important right off the bat to acknowledge that a great many Jews have stepped up for human rights. Jews have been protesting the war from the very start of demonstrations. At the same time, it is important to recognize that there have been a concerning number of anti-Semitic incidents involving demonstrators. Moreover, I remove clearly anti-Semitic posts from DCUM every day. Still, this remains a complex topic. The tactic of describing criticism of Israel as "anti-Semitism" has clearly been employed by supporters of Israel to stifle and delegitimize criticism of the country. As protesters insisted that their issues were with the government of Israel and its actions, not the Jewish people, this tactic became somewhat less effective. One response was to expand what is considered to be anti-Semitism. One such effort was to declare that the expression "From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free" to be anti-Semitic. I have repeatedly written that I do not like this slogan and would not use it myself. My reasoning is that the expression is too easily interpreted as calling for the cleansing of Jews from Israel. Many of those who use the slogan say that it means no such thing. Rather, they argue, it represents the aspiration for all Palestinians within that area to have full civil and political rights. The slogan itself is silent on the fate of Jews in the region and I have often been met with a sort of dumbfounded silence when I have questioned those using the slogan about what will happen to Israeli Jews. In some cases, the response has been that Jews and Palestinians will have equal rights. At other times, responders have said that the Jews will be free to leave, suggesting that such movement will be encouraged. The second interpretation can easily be considered anti-Semitic while the first is not. But, rather than recognizing such nuances, pro-Israel groups have flatly declared the slogan to be anti-Semitic. Those same groups studiously ignore when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says that Israeli sovereignty will extend from the sea to river. Apparently changing the order of the bodies of water makes all the difference. Supporters of Israel often attempt to have it both ways in other instances. When Hamas attacks Israel, they are said to be "attempting to kill Jews", ignoring that Hamas doesn't really care who is hit by their rockets and Arabs are frequently the victims. But when Israeli forces destroy a civilian home, killing the women and children inside, blaming the attack on Jews is considered anti-Semitic even if it is technically true. Whether someone is described as Jewish or Israeli often seems to be determined by which description has more political advantage. There seems to be no concern among Israel's supporters that accusations of anti-Semitism will be so overused as to become meaningless. To the contrary, the term is being broadened even more. Recently I have seen a trend in which any support for Palestinians whatsoever is labeled as anti-Semitism. As such, merely suggesting that the people of Gaza should not be starved to death is considered anti-Semitic. While many of those labeling the protests as anti-Semitic clearly hope to delegitimize the demonstrations, this debate serves another purpose. While we argue about whether a slogan is or is not anti-Semitic, nobody is talking about the tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians who have been killed by Israel or the even greater numbers at risk of starvation thanks to Israel's blockade of food.