Thought Police Moves to Silence Student Protests in the U.S.

As University administrators collaborate with local police to silence dissent on campuses, Congressmen are racing to enact legislation to empower a thought police to monitor “anti-Semitism” and “extremism” which they claim leads to “violence and intimidation”. Leaders of both political parties in the U.S. are falsely denouncing protesters as anti-Semites and pro-Hamas, and have called for many to be arrested and/or expelled from university, or even deported if they are foreigners. Though the language used may vary, there is little difference between what Joe Biden and Donald Trump are demanding.

Yet, a survey of protests at more than 80 campuses shows that the sporadic violence occurring is mostly due to police attacks on protesters and to thugs from off-campus presenting themselves as pro-Israel. Moreover, corporate and business officials, whose firms are targeted for “divestiture” from universities, loudly insist that students be silenced and demonstrations crushed.

Why such a harsh reaction? This can partly be explained by the shock at seeing the younger generation “waking up” to protest the extent to which the U.S. has been involved in endless wars, leading to countless deaths and enormous damage to targeted nations, while providing no benefit to the taxpayers who are underwriting the war machine.

But there is another factor, one evident in the new acronym for the “Military-Industrial Complex” (MIC). Veteran CIA analyst Ray McGovern calls the war machine the MICIMATT, which stands for “Military-Industrial-Congressional-Intelligence-Media-Academia-Think Tank Complex. On the policy-shaping and money side, that complex is also involved in billions of dollars invested in university endowments, as well as in funding media and think tanks to defend the Unipolar Order of the corporate cartels. This in turn provides money for university endowments.

Some of the funding comes from traditional military contractors, such as Boeing, Lockheed, Raytheon and General Dynamics. But there are also new members in the tech sector, which have joined the old MIC in waging Permanent War. Tech firms are now an integral part of this, with companies such as Amazon, Alphabet/Google, and Microsoft. The students marching on campuses today are not only demanding justice for Palestinians and an end to the genocide, they are also exposing the financial involvement of their universities with the war machine. That includes companies involved in producing technologies for spying, targeting of sites, and disinformation campaigns, which are crucial components of today’s “hybrid warfare” capabilities.

University administrators at two schools which have been at the center of the student ferment, Columbia University and the University of California system, announced their adamant refusal to consider talking about divestment. Students who have been subjected to threats, slander campaigns, arrest and expulsion are saying they will not quit, and this movement is now spreading worldwide. Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to move into Rafah with full force will very likely add to the numbers demonstrating and exposing the corrupt politicians for complicity in genocide.