RevolutionZ
RevolutionZ
Ep 317 Student Activism Today and University Resistance
Episode 317 of RevolutionZ has as its guest Richard Solomon a grad student activist and organizer. We discuss the mindset, circumstances, and challenges faced by campus activism particularly about Palestine but more broadly as well including differences now as compared to years earlier. We consider the exemplary activist-generated "MIT Science for Genocide" report, the extensive carefully planned administrative repression against student dissent, insights on building coalitions for activism, insights on dealing dealing with widespread apathy, the importance of multi issue organizing, and the importance, of outreach and building face to face friendship and trust.
Hello, my name is Michael Albert and I am the host of the podcast that's titled Revolution Z. This is our 317th consecutive episode. Back at 314,. You may remember, I had an interview of me about my time at MIT and related matters. Well, my guest this time is the person who interviewed me that time, Richard Solomon. Richard is a PhD student in the MIT Department of Political Science, where he studies Middle East politics and the political economy of trade. He is also a member of the MIT Coalition for Palestine and the Boston Chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America. Before MIT, he worked as a consular diplomat with the US Department of State in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. So, Richard, welcome to Revolution Z.
Speaker 2:Thank you very much. I'm happy to be here.
Speaker 1:Okay, to start, I guess what has been going on in MIT these past weeks? It certainly hasn't been campus life as usual. So what has been going on, Right?
Speaker 2:So to kind of give you a brief overview. What happened is at the beginning of the semester we held a protest of a kind at the MIT Career Fair. There were students who lined up to ask the recruiters of Lockheed Martin, which is a global arms manufacturer, questions about why the hell they're selling hellfire missiles to Israel to incinerate innocent people in Gaza. And as a result of that, a number of us kind of entered the radar of MIT's administration. They've been kind of arresting students periodically for different demonstrations on campus. I think five students were arrested this semester. Prahlad, who is a core organizer at MIT and also an editor for Written Revolution, a campus publication, was banned from campus because he wrote an article on pacifism and the limits of pacifism in many historic national liberation movements. Mit considered that a threat against the safety of students. It was completely ridiculous charges and so we as a community tapped into our networks. We pushed back against this. There were petitions, this reached a few local and national media outlets and in response MIT backed off on that charge. But instead they tried to get Prahlad on this other charge, supposedly harassing those recruiters at the career fair, and on that basis they suspended Prahlad for about a year, until 2027. But you know, in order to come back he has to petition the same body that kicked him out and tell them that he's reformed and so on. He also lost the National Science Foundation funding, which is really important for doctoral students in programs like his, and so it's effectively an expulsion. There was a deadline to submit an appeal. That appeal has been sent. We gathered a lot of support. We petitioned City Hall, the city counselors in Cambridge who have been writing to MIT officials, cambridge who have been writing to MIT officials, and there is some chance that they might haul MIT in front of the Cambridge City Council for some questioning. But all this to say, you know this case has been on a lot of people's minds.
Speaker 2:There's also other cases. For privacy reasons I can't share the full details. But MIT has taken a very strict and punitive line against free speech, against standing up for human rights, for solidarity with oppressed people and particularly against the genocide happening in Gaza. The genocide happening in Gaza, that Palestine exception of free speech, as it's sometimes called, is very felt at MIT. So that's kind of on the repression side of the Institute.
Speaker 2:But we are also really happy to announce two weeks ago we released a 93-page report called MIT Science for Genocide. It lays out in precise terms the facts of the matter, that the state of Israel is not just engaged in a war or a series of war crimes. It's an organized campaign of genocide and effect and intent. And MIT is directly complicit in that effort through its research collaborations with the Israeli military, which sponsors research on campus. This isn't solve cancer research. This is like build autonomous drone swarms that can pursue human targets more effectively using artificial intelligence. Those are the kinds of projects that the Israeli Ministry of Defense is sponsoring on campus and we in this report go into more detail. The particular PIs, those are the heads of the laboratories that are taking the money, how much they've taken, who it serves, what laws and rules at MIT that it breaks. And then we also passed a resolution in the Graduate Student Council this month, which is a somewhat apolitical, centrist body centrist body, you have to imagine. They passed the resolution essentially in favor of cutting all research ties with Israeli military. So we were very proud of that and I think we'll continue that push.
Speaker 2:We've added, I think, two different, two more student groups to our already kind of large coalition, so now it's like 20 different student groups. These include, like the Black Student Union, the Black Grad Student Association, the Jews for Collective Liberation, the Asian American Initiative, the Latino Cultural Center, a bunch of more politically engaged groups, written Revolution, reading for Revolution and so on. So there's kind of a broad community and coalition at MIT and I think we represent maybe we're the most outspoken and the most obvious and the most oppositional, but I think we represent kind of a broad majority will and opinion on campus and we saw that through the grad student council resolution. We also saw that earlier this year with the referenda we had in the undergrad association, which you were a president of, and also you know the graduate student union are, because we have a union now. It represents the workers and the grad students who work in the labs and so on.
Speaker 2:So all those things are happening. We're continuing to put pressure on the administration. I think right now we're still in the phase of planning out an effective strategy. On one hand, we don't want to do things that are going to get everybody suspended or expelled and then we don't have a movement anymore, and we want to be smart about building coalition, drawing people in, not alienating them, but also staying true to our values and not compromising on fundamental values of freedom and democracy and justice for all people and for us that in this particular you know world historical circumstance, that's Palestine, but I'm sure in an earlier time or in a later time it would be, you know, a different geopolitical issue in the world. That's kind of a brief overview of what's happened so far.
Speaker 1:Well, it's a very good overview, I think, very helpful and instructive. But it does raise lots of questions, some of which might be impossible to say much about. I don't know, but I feel a need to ask them anyway. You know you're in the difficult spot that you're talking to somebody who has a personal interest in dissent at MIT. That goes beyond most people's, I guess, and so it makes some things interesting to me that might not be interesting to others.
Speaker 1:For example, the response of the administration to what you're doing is incredibly surprising to me. Now it has been 60 years, so it's sort of stupid to say it's surprising. How do you jump from 60 years ago to now and expect continuity? But in those days MIT was grotesque in its involvement in the war in Indochina and in its general politics and so on, but the repressiveness was nothing like what you're facing and it just didn't rise to that level. So that's one area that interests me, and another area that interests me greatly is you and your comrades, your cohorts, in these efforts, because it seems to me you're doing better in many respects than we did. So let's address the first one first. Do you guys have any kind of a feeling for what is propelling the scale of their repressiveness. I mean, is it just there for you which it is and you have to respond to it, or do you sort of have some kind of explanation of it?
Speaker 2:Well, I think there's a constellation of different political and social forces putting pressure on the administration. I think, on one hand, they've had 60 years, as you said, to perfect the ways that they can sort of repress just enough that it's effective but doesn't create too much blowback and also, you know, appears legitimate. So they've had time. We know that they've had conferences over the summer to just like not just MIT, all all the university administrations around this country have coordinated their strategies, shared best practices, israel and Zionist forces on the other side who see us as this unruly and bigoted mob of students who aren't doing their work and need to be taught a lesson. And that comes from people like Bill Ackman. And, you know, maybe in the past, before the Jeffrey Epstein scandal became a scandal, people like him I mean we just saw, I think a few days ago like Bill Ackman, like took our report and screenshotted it and shared it on Twitter and call us a bunch of anti-Semites and misusing the MIT name somehow because it has the name MIT in the report, ridiculous things like that. I think they're being pushed by donors, maybe quieter than Bill Ackman, but definitely donors like him, of his generation, of his wealth and status, and at the same time, they're also probably extremely scared of the Republicans in Congress, people like Elise Stefanik, who dragged the president of MIT for a hearing about anti-Semitism. They'll have endless hearings about this, endless inquisitions, and I don't think the administration wants to put itself in a position where it loses significant federal funding, especially under a Trump administration, because it's perceived as not having a strict enough line against its student radicals, and so it cracks down. So I think that's part of the reason.
Speaker 2:As you know, mit has this longstanding relationship with the Department of Defense, with the military industrial complex, and I am afraid to say I don't know how much we can do to fundamentally transform that. That's like a broader, fundamental transformation in the American political economy and the government. In order for us to be effective at changing more than just MIT's specific policies about war research, it would require, I think, a lot more in coordination with a national movement. So I think, in short, it's mostly from the government, it's from the donors. There's probably also some internalized sense of decorum that we are violating, because we don't think that killing children is an appropriate use of MIT talent and expertise and that offends some people who think what an outrageous thought.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I don't really know what to say about why. I'm sure there are other reasons I'm not fully aware of. I think there's also pressure from Zionist faculty and students and this might be something that's different from your days or even during the anti-apartheid demonstrations. Really, as many students like ardently defending you know the segregation and oppression of a racial majority by another with Israel, there are people who have a very strong emotional attachment to you, know what they see as Jewish sovereignty and so on, and so I think that's that's also part of the response is that there?
Speaker 1:That's actually my next question On the faculty, do you have not implicit, silent support, but actual support from any faculty? So that's one issue there. And then there is this question of the student body and where it's at but let's hold that for a minute, um, is there any? I mean, I'm sure there are many faculty who are looking at gaza and who are looking at israel's behavior and who are looking at american behavior and basically sponsoring and cheerleading the whole thing, um, and who are horrified, but does anybody say so?
Speaker 2:Yes, there are. I mean, there are a few professors I think they're somewhat rare who take up a public stance. Michelle DeGraff comes to mind, linguistics professor, following in the Seriously a linguistics professor, yeah, linguistics professor.
Speaker 2:Yeah, linguistics professor. Like loves quoting noam chmupsky. He might have even met him. He's. He's been at mit for 23 years, so he's been, you know, he's been around and, uh, he's tenured and, um, he's. He's very active on social media. He supports us a lot. We appreciate him a lot. He actually wanted to teach a class on linguistics and the way language is used and manipulated for dehumanizing ideologies, and he wanted to teach about Palestine and Israel and Haiti, where he's from, and his department, linguistics department, basically banned him from teaching his class in linguistics and so, and then he was kicked out of the linguistics department recently, in the past month, and there's lawyers involved now and we're trying to fight back. But he's's with us, um, there's.
Speaker 2:There's other faculty who are, I think, quieter, um, but they're definitely, you know, very loyal supporters. And then there's a whole sea of sort of people who they're like sunshine patriots like they. They're there when it's fun, when our process popular, they're. They come to the encampment, for instance, um, but you know, when push comes to shove and someone gets suspended, they're not willing to, you know, put pressure on upper administration, who they know um, where they don't, they don't always show up. And so we you know there's there's some politics around that. There's like a faculty and staff for Palestine group which is a little closer knit.
Speaker 2:Know there's there's some politics around that. There's like a faculty and staff for Palestine group which is a little closer knit, and then there's an alliance of concerned faculty. What they're concerned about, whether it's free speech, whether it's Palestine, it's not clear. I mean, people come from different backgrounds, but there is a core group. I think that we trust a lot and that have helped us a lot. They bail people out of jail, they're always at the Kemen, they record people, they stick up when the Zionist faculty you know our demands and the way that we speak about our demands can sound very militant, very uncompromising, and that's important. I think it's also important for those faculty to like be able to take that and translate it into something that the administration can do. Like they need a, they need an off-ramp um, and so I think the faculty sometimes play that role of trying to give them an off-ramp, of showing them like this is how you could actually change um the policy without blowing up everything in mit. So, um, those are kind of the like some points about the faculty.
Speaker 1:When you talk, well, do you? You have a group of students, a diverse group with a number of organizations apparently, who are on the side of this whole effort, who are involved in this whole effort. Do you try and enlarge that group? In other words, do you try to go into the dorms or go into the fraternities or go into the grad student dorms or any of the living groups and talk to people and address their concerns and try to win them over, or is there not? That much of that.
Speaker 2:Yes, I mean that does happen there. I think we could be doing a better job of going to them instead of simply, you know, having an event, having a speaker advertising the time and the place, putting up the flyers, you know, inviting people, you know, through texting and social media and so on. That gets us so far. But there are efforts to recruit from the labs, recruit from the different living spaces.
Speaker 2:As a grad student, I live off campus. I don't have no idea, I don't even understand what MIT student life is, because I wasn't enculturated the same way. But there are definitely people who are doing that in those living communities. Oftentimes, I think it crystallizes for a particular campaign. So during the undergraduate association referendum, there are undergrad students going through the dorms, knocking on doors, asking people to go vote for this thing and explaining why it's important. So there are things like that happening.
Speaker 2:As I said, we added two new student groups this semester the Latino Cultural Center, which is an established one, and then the trans students, trans MIT, I think one other as well disability something. But anyway, like we are growing, I think I am somewhat worried on a personal level that we've saturated the base of like sympathetic supporters in order to draw more people in, we'll need to do a lot more political education and just radicalizing people and convincing them, not just convincing people who are latently already on our side but don't know about us, and that's, I think, a long struggle for student movements like ours is to get people on board.
Speaker 1:I mean, I'm not sure it's hard to tell from everything that you're saying and we don't obviously have that much time, but I think you have more power than you think is what it sounds like, or maybe you're aware of it. But the trouble is that the power that you have rests in the number of students you align and the extent to which what you're doing starts to have an impact beyond the campus also. So I'm wondering is there any discussion with students at Harvard and with students at BU and so on, about them taking up the same causes?
Speaker 2:Yeah, there are definitely lines of communication. They're not as formalized We've had, you know, for people graduate and then there's a little bit of a lull. But we definitely have ties with the Harvard students, with BU, with Emerson in particular. I think BU, the Emerson people are extremely radical. I mean, they had like a very horrific and bloody like end to their encampment, like people, just like they were washing the blood off the walls of of emerson college, um, near boston square, uh in april.
Speaker 1:So that's another big change over 60 years.
Speaker 2:That wasn't the case 60 years ago, uh and then we've also shared, we've shared tactics, information with them.
Speaker 2:So that's what this career for action. For instance, like some students, uh, went up into the rafters of the gym and, like, put a massive banner um, lockheed Martin kills children in Gaza, something like that. And uh, it worked. I mean in in the sense that it drew a lot of attention, it publicly embarrassed and humiliated MIT, it threatened their sense of control and, for the most part, I think, the students who did it got away with it. We haven't heard any disciplined cases from that, and we also, you know, lined up, as I said, to question the recruiters, which is the right of any student to do. They can call it a protest, but the response is that, you know, we're asking questions like anyone else, we're waiting in line, we're wasting their time, we're making them uncomfortable and, you know, then Lockheed Martin recruiters left like four hours early, three hours early. That was a success for us, and so we shared that with other schools. I think Boston University replicated that. I think a school in Pennsylvania did the same, when our principal investigators, the professors who do this research on drones that's sponsored by the Israeli military, when they go to other schools for conferences, we've alerted them and they've been, you know, protested and heckled and so forth.
Speaker 2:So there's there are these like kind of communication ties, but I think it's not as deep as it could be. I mean you have to keep in mind most people, this is like it could be. I mean you have to keep in mind most people. This is like we're full-time students. People don't have the bandwidth for like a full-time activist job and so it's more kind of. It's a lot of more like last minute things happening, but we're definitely in communication and I think a lot of the schools look to us and to like the community that we've built and the ties we've built, for instance, with like there's some groups like BDS Boston, the Palestinian Youth Movement, non-university groups active in Boston, local organizers and who with whom we have like deep kinship bonds and who have helped us a lot and they come to our rallies and we go to theirs. Some of them have began targeting MIT independently of us, which is great for different reasons, different ties of complicity.
Speaker 2:I'll give you one example is Elbit Systems, which is Israel's largest arms manufacturer. They create all these killer drones. They were involved in the massacre the World Food Kitchen I think it was called Massacre in November last year. They have a special partnership with MIT through the Industrial Liaison Program it's called and they get special access to campus and to MIT expertise and recruiting and so on. And there's a group, bds Boston, who, to their credit, like, successfully kicked Elbit out of its Cambridge office. It had an office kind of in Central Square and now they're targeting this ILP program and so that's something that I think MISD students are involved in and helping out with, but that's also like a Boston-wide community effort.
Speaker 2:That's not something that we're doing, so we're trying, I think, like as students, one thing we can do is there's a lot of people in the community who support us and, and we knew we're trying our best, I think, to mobilize that energy and direct that scrutiny towards MIT, especially in the national media. This is something that I've been trying to do a bit more of. We're hopefully going to get the Intercept to publish an article tomorrow or this weekend about the MIT Science for Genocide report, about MIT's ties to the Israeli military. We published something in Mondeweiss, we'll have something out in Electronic Intifada. But other, you know, inside higher education, these other more centrist, higher education leaning sort of groups, we want to publish more in those, and so we have a whole team dedicated to writing op-eds, for example, and so that's going on as well.
Speaker 2:So there's, I think, a lot of efforts, a lot of people mobilized in different directions. There could be definitely more organization to it, but I think at the end of the day, we are all committed to the same principles of unity. You know, we support the liberation of Palestine, we support the right of all oppressed and occupied peoples to resist that oppression and we believe in the dignity of all human life and the right of every human being to live a life of dignity. So I think those are the kind of guiding principles for our work. So I apologize if I went on too long on that point.
Speaker 1:No, no, no, it's okay, I don't know how to put this question, but let me put it in terms of what we did and what you do. When we and I'm not even talking about just MIT, it was true at MIT, but it was true more broadly, when we did actions, so to speak, and you've mentioned some, for the most part and I think this has been true almost perpetually the criteria of judgment by us of our efforts usually revolve around did we do the thing that we were saying we were going to do, shut down the building, occupy such and such, hold a demonstration with so-and-so many people, et cetera, et cetera. And it took us a long time before we realized that that criteria alone was not sufficiently, it didn't orient us sensibly, because you could do all those things, those kinds of things, in a way which diminished your broader support rather than increasing your broader support. And we realized after a time that the effectivity of the opposition that we were raising depended on numbers, depended on the depth of support that people had, and whether people were becoming more committed or more pissed off at us, and whether people were becoming more committed or more pissed off at us. And so we had to, as you said at the outset, not compromise our values, of course right, but conduct ourselves in such a way as to communicate with people who didn't already agree with us and thus greatly expand our numbers.
Speaker 1:And I'm wondering whether I couldn't tell during the encampments, not just at MIT but all over the place, whether again the consciousness was can we hold this plot of land? Can we raise our voices? Can we get some coverage? Raise our voices, can we get some coverage? But not can we organize? Not mobilize those who agree with us, but organize among those who don't agree with us. And I'm wondering if that's starting to take take hold among people or if it hasn't yet well, I hope I was clear.
Speaker 2:I was clear. It's a whole can of worms because you know there's this old story and I think it happens in many contexts and for us it's like there's a division between, like these anarchist types who want to just go out and spontaneously we call them autonomous actions, spontaneously we call them autonomous actions and, you know, bang some pots and pans in the hallway and distribute flyers and confront you know a professor about their complicity and who see those kinds of actions as very important for, like, radicalizing us, propelling us forward, keeping us unapologetic, rending the veil of legitimacy on the administration, provoking a counter response that's so oppressive that it radicalizes more supporters. There's people who think that way and then there's others of us who are like hold on. You know, a bunch of people just got put in jail by the police. They have arrest records. The administration is sending emails about a disruption and making it sound like, you know, petty vandalism and harassment Is that. Is that winning us people?
Speaker 2:And I think for like a lot of the faculty, it doesn't. It's much harder for them to support those kinds of things, for instance, because they instinctively sympathize with that professor or or that lab and the administration can also has has room, because not a lot of people were there. It was, like you know, five, 10 students maybe were in that lab doing that thing. No one else was there. So they have the ability to craft the narrative in a way that if we had a hundred people sitting in a lobby, that's very different. And they can't because there's so many cameras everywhere. Everyone. It's the talk of town. We all know what it was about. They can't frame it and manipulate the, the, the image of what happened. And so I think you know I fall more on that latter side where I'm very worried that we're not doing enough to recruit from liberal people, from people who profess that they believe in, you know, constitutional rights and freedoms and so on, who hate Donald Trump. Maybe they didn't hate Biden as much as they should have, but they hate Donald Trump. These are people who we could win over, and sometimes I personally see us not always taking those actions.
Speaker 2:But at the same time it's hard to rein people in, because what happens is, if we're not doing things to propel the movement forward, then what happens is, if we're not doing, you know, things to propel the movement forward, then what happens is people get frustrated, they get impatient, they take matters into their own hands and that's resulted, I'm sorry to say, in, you know, people getting suspended, kicked out of MIT and arrested, getting this whole wave of discipline which drains a lot of resources into just fighting that and helping people write their statements and showing up at the court dates and so on.
Speaker 2:And all of that, I think, can sometimes be a distraction from what we're actually here to do, which is not just to piss off the administration or blow up a bathroom or whatever and then feel oppressed because they oppress us, which is inevitably the thing that they would do. It needs to be focused on Palestine, on bringing people in, and I think one way we can do that at MIT without inciting a lot of pushback is to have just more political education, like all the things we say in the rallies, we can say in a lecture, maybe in a different tone, maybe with fewer call and response chance, but we can get the information across and we've had some of those right, they're less high profile, you know, they're not reported in the news because it's just a lecture or it's a teach-in or whatever, but those are definitely happening. I think more of that needs to happen. There are some like dialogue and engagement they have. We have at MIT there's like a third spaces, for instance, which a number of Sorry, is it MIT?
Speaker 1:is a what A third.
Speaker 2:There's like there's some what I would call liberal Zionists who have like a forum and a lunch hour and a speaker series, and those are things that I don't think it's as much worth putting our time into, um, um, because these people really are committed. They, they're committed to a version of israel that doesn't exist. That's all that's in their heads. That's maybe, you know, labor, zionism, whatever, um, but you know, I I think there's more kind of unorganized parts of campus who we could recruit more of. And again, it's also just it's a problem of time and resources. Like this semester I've been pushed back on multiple exams. I've like been failing classes. I've been having like hours long meetings every week with with our steering committee. Like just keeping the coalition together of what we have is already a pretty big burden. There's all the discipline stuff. So there's like a lot of other activities that take up our time and, I think, also help explain why we haven't recruited more. But then the last thing I'll say is you know, we have to have some sort of demand or platform or thing, material thing people can do to get on board. It's not just like I go talk to someone, they agree with me and that's the end. It has to be some sort of ask. Maybe.
Speaker 2:Last year we had petitions. We had a pledge people signed Scientists Against Apartheid. Pledge Don't work for these companies Very easy. We got thousands of people to sign that. That was great. We could have another pledge, but it would be kind of the same people that we're asking over and over again. So now I think we're also in a stage halfway through this year, through the academic year, where we're trying to decide like what's the campaign to go on? And we decided this semester to frame our demands in the terms of an arms embargo.
Speaker 1:All right, let me try another question that will change topic a little bit, not too much. The life of the campus isn't only the struggles of the day, it's other stuff too, obviously, and I'm wondering it's been a long time for me, I'm wondering the extent to which there's a sort of a cultural aspect to what's going on. Is there a segment of the student body that is more receptive and less receptive, and is there any kind of cultural characteristics? There may not be. You know, I don't know. I mean, it's not as if what's her name? The woman singer Travis Kelsey's partner? Oh, I don't know you don't know.
Speaker 1:The incredibly popular female singer. She's not Bob Dylan, right? So in other words, does your time have any? Is there anything in the culture that seems to be relating to students who are becoming aroused and radical? Do you share anything? All of you in common? Do you know what I mean? Radical, do you share anything?
Speaker 2:all of you in common. You know what I mean. Well, I think, on one hand, the signs are perhaps less obvious than in your day because, based on what you said a few weeks ago, there were moments in the 60s and 70s where you could walk on a campus and see the people just based on their clothes and know that they support radical political values. There's a less of an obvious sartorial signature to that Right, but it's definitely true. I think that we have an overrepresented Jewish community in our Palestinian solidarity group. It makes sense to me why that's the case. These people actually were exposed and confronted with this and it's being done in their name and they're rightly just outraged. Um, there's, of course, I think, a strong like uh, queer, or like gay and lesbian and trans community that's involved, or at least it seems to me that you know it's probably a higher proportion of queerness in our circles than in the broader community. I'm sure there's reasons for that, and also just the gender the Palestinian students obviously. Obviously Might be something that's very different from the 60s. I don't know how many Vietnamese students were at any of these universities at the time, but there are students from Gaza at MIT today whose families are living in refugee camps dead very personal and they're very strong views and I think they definitely radicalize and mobilize people because it's not just something happening over there, it's a personal, it's a personal case. So there are those.
Speaker 2:Um, I think when it comes to international students, there's somewhat more of a tension because a lot of people are terrified of getting their visas revoked, of getting suspended, of getting caught up, of. Some of them aren't even scared of the American immigration system, but they're scared of the Israelis because they had to leave Israel in order to come here, even scared of the American immigration system. If they're scared of the Israelis because you know they had to leave Israel in order to come here. Israelis attach certain conditions on your ability to return. So even you know there are restrictions on some people and of course, there are language barriers too, because the majority of MIT students are not from you know of international students at MIT. They're from places like China and Japan, south Korea, and so there's perhaps, I think, a little less engagement with those communities than when we could. I think the Graduate Student Union is doing a much better job at that right now than we are on Palestine.
Speaker 2:But you can definitely know, I think you can predict, like when I'm tabling in that long hallway and we're sitting down we're asking people to come talk, it's easy for me to pick out who's going to be receptive and that's because they're from a minoritized, racialized background. I'm kind of an outlier. I just look very normal, very white bread to most people, which is in some ways an advantage because it lets me, you know, use that privilege in a way that I think is helping the world. So there is some of that. I think there is a culture, there's a life, there's a community, there are people who hang out at the same parties, invite each other over for, you know, potluck dinners and so on, and there's some fun that we have.
Speaker 2:But I think, for the most part, like I'm in political science, I would never meet any of the people who do actual science if not for these kinds of spaces, like I, I, I, I'm sorry to say like I would never like interact with a nuclear physicist or a phd student in in the physics department if it were not for these, these channels. So I think it does like sort of bring us together, but what brings us together is ultimately not that like we're super great friends and we'll stay that way forever, but that we, you know, support this cause and that's what it means a lot to us and I think in some ways, like building the friendships, comes more organically when there's like this more important goal you're reaching for, you're reaching for I noticed when I did your bio that you also not only are you studying political science, I hesitate to even ask what the political science department is like.
Speaker 1:It's probably not quite as bad as when Ithiel Poole and Lucian Pye I don't know whether you know who these people are, one of them had a villa in Saigon to interrogate prisoners, so we had some pretty bad stuff, but I can't imagine that it's too progressive. But it's probably not pro-Trump either. Am I wrong? It's not right.
Speaker 2:Parliament's more middle of the road. Yeah, people feel very strongly about very specific and esoteric things. It doesn't always map very easily onto the conventional American political spectrum, but I don't think there are any Trump supporters that I know of in the department.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's interesting, okay. Well, what I was going to ask you about was the other part of your studies, which had said you were into studying international economics, if I remember right. Yeah, and so that probably means that to one degree or another, you come across the role of tariffs and their implications and so on. And I haven't done that on the podcast, and so I was just thinking maybe we could just a little bit, because it's obviously become a big issue. I think it's maybe a bigger issue than it ought to be, because the big issue ought to be that the United States is on the edge of fascism. But we'll set that aside for a minute and ask you about tariffs. What do you think, first, that Trump is thinking? What are his advisors thinking? What is the logic in quotes that would say lots of stiff tariffs have advantages, and who are the advantages for?
Speaker 2:well, I think. I think I I'm not a psychic, I can't get into his mind, but I think, based on the four years he was president and based on the long history he's had of issuing statements about foreign policy, even back in the 90s and the 80s, like ads in the New York Times about how Japan, or whatever country it is, is ripping off the United States, japan or whatever country it is, is ripping off the United States. He, I think, subscribes to a mercantilist view of the world in which the trade deficit us importing more than we're exporting is a drain on the United States. Other countries are taking advantage of us. We need to expand. I mean, that's become like like I don't know if it's a phase or if we're actually going to invade panama again and greenland, but like there's this expansionist, mercantile, zero-sum mentality that's baked into the way I think he thinks about trade relations.
Speaker 2:Um, and it's very simplistic. I mean the trade war that he provoked unilaterally against china like cost a lot of people, a lot of money. You know capitalists, not people like me, like farmers, financiers, like like people in manufacturing, because these global value chains now are just so widespread that any sort of tariffs or putting metaphorical rocks in the harbors, disrupts American business to the same or even greater degree than it disrupts the Chinese, and so I think he has like an infantile and juvenile worldview about it. But it also, you know, I don't want to dismiss it because there's deep, I think, economic grievances in this country against deindustrialization, against the China trade shock, and from the political science research we know we've been able to measure very precisely the vote shares that the Republicans have won. That can be attributed to the uneven impact of, like the China trade shops on the United States. When it joined the GATT, for instance, started exporting more to the US, you know, undermining certain businesses, sectors, sectors, and so we know that and I think, like, uh, the democratic party has been unable, um to like reconcile itself to the fact that, like, free trade might be increasing the gains in net, but like those are because, like, the gains to the winners outweigh the losses to the losers, but there's more losers than winners, numerically, um, and a lot of people have suffered and they're very angry and the trade is, you know, adjustment assistance programs, um have been just penny, you know, drops in the bucket compared to what they could be giving to people who are displaced by those trade shocks they're also.
Speaker 2:They talk about retraining programs and rehiring and it's all kind of a fantasy because people in their 40s and 50s they can switch jobs but they tend to be making much less and oftentimes if they pass the arc of where it's where it's practical for them to like move to another part of the country or like learn a whole new skill and so on, and I think there's been like a denial of that and an embrace of this like neoliberal free trade ideology and like just not much consideration for the distributional impacts of the trade policy.
Speaker 2:But to trump, like I I think it's just kind of like a I chalk it up to like a mercantilist worldview in some way or another. Um, but you know I also I also don't like as a political scientist I try my best to adopt like a materialist understanding of the world in which, like donald trump's, you know, personal ideologies and preferences is not the thing that's determining things. There's like a broader structural questions to why his kind of politics and brand has an appeal the time it does, and I wish I had more profound things to say about why. But I'll just leave it at that.
Speaker 1:Let me just ask you one more question, a bit of a hypothetical. Suppose. January comes, trump begins to implement in a shock and awe fashion which is what he seems to be leaning toward, his agenda, and suppose it includes, for example, deportations on a significant scale, and so there are movements that are aroused pretty much around the country Sanctuaries, demonstrations and rallies and occupations and so on, so that we're in a different period in terms of campuses not being totally isolated but operating in context of the country and of people elsewhere moving also break out of day-to-day life and not go berserk but become driven by the need to combat and prevent, you know, the drift toward fascism. Would it begin to take over students' lives or would students try to preserve their sort of familiar day-to-day going to class, et cetera, et cetera, because that's the thing that's different for you now too, right?
Speaker 1:I mean, like in the 60s it was, you know, the huge counterculture, but there was also nationwide opposition to the war, including activism, and so students on campuses weren't operating alone, and when trying to fight repression, the threat of rising costs was much wider than just the students, you know. I'm wondering if you think it would lead to a big outpouring of student activism or perhaps a retrenchment, the opposite.
Speaker 2:I know it's a hypothetical and I know, you don't know for sure I'm wondering what you think I think it depends on the kinds of deportations that donald trump begins. I think he'll definitely try to do more than biden and biden, by the way, has, I think, recently it was calculated he's tried he's deported more people than than donald trump in his first term of office and obama, and so the trend is just up and up, where they're like fighting over who can do the most the more cruel thing to people who are just trying to get by in this country and who have lived here a long time and many of whom are American citizens, and any mass deportation will inevitably involve the accidental or not deportation of American citizens to countries that they never grew up in. So I think if Donald Trump goes after undocumented immigrants, particularly in like, like the labor markets, where Americans, nativists, see themselves as in competition with so not students, not not student activists or whatever if they go after those people, I'm like have low hopes that that you know that will sufficiently shock enough students out of apathy, because this, this genocide in Gaza, it's so horrific and it's so graphic and it's on our phones, it's like cannot miss it on Instagram. There's just slaughtered children everywhere, blood everywhere, and yet there's still so much more apathy, and so I don't know if that's going to change. But if they, for instance, start going after people's friends and families and there are students on campus who are getting deported because they're Chinese or because, you know, they stand with us and they stand with Palestine, that I think might be a different story, because those are personal connections and then people feel like their campuses are being attacked. That's not just happening to construction workers, it's happening to them, and I think at that point maybe there'll be a stronger kind of pushback.
Speaker 2:I sort of see that as, like one of the differences between our time and yours is because in your time there are literally people getting drafted to go fight in a horrific war and there are students and there's like sanctuaries being held on the campuses for like people fleeing the draft that, like the war in Gaza, hasn't involved any American conscription, and so I think if it's something more personal or direct to the student bodies, perhaps they would radicalize more. I think us you know our coalition, the progressives and radical students who are already there we're totally going to mobilize. I'm sure we won't abandon our focus on Palestine, but we'll definitely start agitating against deportations of students, and we see this in the union. So our union is thinking deeply about this issue right now and the leverage they can pull going on strike and so on if it comes to pass.
Speaker 1:Something like that. I know I said that was going to be the last question, but now I have one more that I want to ask you. Describe eloquently, I think, and without getting too angry, although I would have understood if you got angry that you're walking amidst lots and lots of students who are apathetic in the face of genocide I mean literally, and it isn't even just that they're apathetic in the face of genocide that they can hide from and that they can make believe isn't there, it's there and people know it's there. And I mean that's the way.
Speaker 1:Vietnam got after a while, but it took quite a while. But now it's just in everyone's face, partly because of Israeli approach to it, which is that they don't even bother trying to hide anything. They brag about it. So that's part of the reason. And what I'm wondering is the question I have, is it's delicate? Have you spoken with students for whom that's the case? In other words, have you spent time talking to maybe a friend or maybe somebody who's a classmate or whatever? Right, you're having lunch with someone, whatever it is where that comes up, and they have to say something.
Speaker 1:And I'm wondering what do they say?
Speaker 2:Yes, I have had those discussions and I'll give you an example was when I was trying to recruit students to vote for this resolution an arms embargo resolution, essentially a boycott, divestment, sanctions resolution in the graduate student council, there was like a member of the exec board, I think, his international student, maybe Chinese. I was talking with him, his name is Vince and he was like Richard, I'm going to be honest with you, I don't care about Israel and I don't care about Palestine, I don't care about politics, I only care about polymers. But I, you know I respect your passion and you know I like it when people do things they're passionate about. So I'll support you. And I was like word okay, I mean, that's not it's not what you were looking for wrong way, kind of.
Speaker 2:So I think, like I've definitely I I try to sometimes have some projective empathy and consider what I was like and not be arrogant and condescending and judgmental, because I think that's one of the vices of left-wing spaces sometimes is that people see us as judgmental and for him, I mean, it's just. I think it's a matter of walking with someone and trying to show them over time, building relationship, and not just like charging into their life and asking them to sign some petition and bombarding them with a bunch of graphic images and then just leaving. I think it has to be building more personal connections and unfortunately, like in this era of social media, like a lot of civic life I think is broken down and it's difficult to do that.
Speaker 1:But that, I think, is like People don't even know how anymore. I guess In some real level it's always bad at MIT, but it's probably worse than it was. I mean, we faced the same thing and it got to the point where we I mean it sounds instrumentalist and a little bit Machiavellian but we sat around and identified people who we thought would open the doors to other people and we went after those people and we befriended them and, you know, talked with them and tried to be empathetic and some people were better at it and some people were worse at it, but it was part of what worked. Because you're right, if all you do is throw things at people and I don't mean rocks, I mean, you know, throw, sign this, do this, do that but there's no empathy and there's no discussion and there's no sense of trust and there's no communication, it's not going to get far.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think there's a temptation to just belittle people who are not involved and I remember in a meeting a few weeks ago, we're talking about having a people's trial and you put MIT on trial and so on. And he suggests what if there's a part of the trial where we actually talk about the crimes happening in Palestine, not just MIT's complicity, but why it's a genocide and not just you know, a war? Why is Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch and why are they releasing these like massive reports about genocide? And someone was like well, if people don't know it's a genocide by now, they're a fucking idiot. Was like well, if people don't know it's a genocide by now, they're a fucking idiot.
Speaker 2:And my opinion is that like maybe, but we, that's, our role is to teach them and to tell them about what we care about, and if we're not doing that, um, then we're just like sitting around in a little radical club and talking about how much better we are and more enlightened, but we're not changing anything. And so one of my pet peeves and frustrations For what?
Speaker 1:it's worth. I think you're right. And not only do I think you're right, but I think those insights are a good deal more important than most of the stuff that people do focus on. You don't need the fourth decimal point of pain. The first decimal point and the second decimal point, at most, are more than enough. What you need is precisely the kind of insight that you're talking about. So, again, for what it's worth, you should keep it up. All right, do you have anything else that you'd like to say before we close it out?
Speaker 2:I would just say, michael, I appreciate you bringing me on. I think your witness and what you've done at MIT continues to be a great inspiration to people. I mean I'm still in group chat calls and meetings where people bring up the lecture you did with us and and the thoughts and memories you shared and how that's impacted their thinking and I think we're all very grateful for that. And you know, I think you said in a few weeks ago that your generation failed, um, and in some ways I think our generation is also going to fail. Like what did rosa luxembourg say?
Speaker 2:you keep failing until you lose, you lose, you lose, you win yeah, and so you know, but you provided a witness, uh, you know, a testimony, to like speaking truth to power, um, in your time, and I think that continues to strike a chord with us and with me, I guess. So I appreciate that and I appreciate your time.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you If there's anything else I can do as you proceed, you should really let me know. Don't hesitate, okay. Okay, all that said, this is Mike Albert signing off until next time for Revolution Z.