Re “Pricey Boomers, the Scholar Protesters Are Not Idiots,” by Elizabeth Spiers (Opinion visitor essay, nytimes.com, Could 17):
Ms. Spiers’s characterization of the coed protests misses the mark. As a latest school graduate myself, I don’t disagree that school college students “are able to having nicely thought-out ideas,” however the ideas underlying these protests are troubling.
Ms. Spiers alludes to my technology possessing elevated ethical sensibilities as a result of our expertise with mass shootings. However the requires “From the river to the ocean” and “Globalize the intifada” — ubiquitous in campus protests throughout the nation — would require the killing of harmless Israelis in apply, as Bret Stephens identified in “What a Free Palestine Really Means” (column, Could 15).
If these chants are a part of nicely thought-out ideas and never naïveté, then it behooves us to scrutinize the ethical framework that informs these ideas.
Why is it that these protests mission outrage towards Israel’s conduct within the conflict however conveniently elide the horrific particulars of Oct. 7? If my technology’s deal with on advanced world occasions is as complete as Ms. Spiers suggests, then why do the protests flatten Israel’s whole historical past into an illegitimate colonial mission? It’s not the protesters’ ways which are uniquely troubling; it’s the worldview that conjures up their actions.
Brian Silverstein
Chicago
To the Editor:
As a child boomer I’m heartened by the truth that there are scholar protests that replicate that the youthful technology really cares and has perception about world occasions. I feel that the coed protests replicate the bravery and knowledgeable mind of younger protesters all through the establishments of upper training.
Child boomers would do nicely to replicate on their very own stodginess reasonably than criticize younger college students for whom our technology modeled lively protest as a car for change.
Sahli Cavallaro
Sacramento
To the Editor:
Hillary Clinton’s voice stays a lonely voice within the media. Her argument will not be one that’s generally heard on the problem of scholar protests. But it is a vital message that she expressed: The protesting college students are unaware of the historical past of relations between Israel and the Palestinians.
But these college students shout their misinformed arguments that acquire the eye of many within the media and the general public. Above all, the colleges, establishments of instructing and studying, have failed their very own college students.
As a substitute of calling within the police, as a substitute of capitulating to ill-informed calls for, why did the colleges not reply by providing to finish the suspensions and expulsions of protesting college students in return for his or her required attendance at “teach-ins” to amass information of the historical past of Israel and the Palestinians?
Let this be a lesson for universities and professors for the subsequent spherical of scholar demonstrations.
Vivian R. Gruder
New York
The author is emerita professor of historical past at Queens Faculty, CUNY.
To the Editor:
As a former protester from the Vietnam Warfare period, I actually agree with Elizabeth Spiers’s premise that school college students have the correct to peacefully protest and train their freedom of speech. What I discover so disturbing is that these college students are erroneously blaming the state of affairs in Gaza on President Biden and vowing to not vote for him.
Actually? They don’t perceive that by not voting for Mr. Biden, they’re voting for Donald Trump, who, by the way in which, has promised an expanded Muslim ban. This to me is idiotic.
Peggy Jo Abraham
Santa Monica, Calif.
To the Editor:
Elizabeth Spiers’s article seems to focus on a complete technology in a disparaging and demeaning tone. Absolutely Ms. Spiers is conscious that hundreds of thousands of boomers protested the Vietnam Warfare in varied methods — writing letters to their representatives in Washington and gathering in parks and memorials throughout the nation. On Oct. 21, 1967, about 100,000 folks, a lot of them boomers, gathered close to the Lincoln Memorial as protesters in opposition to that conflict.
Ms. Spiers, please don’t disparage a single technology at a time when all generations ought to come collectively.
Timothy Pasquarelli
Anthem, Ariz.
To the Editor:
I’m 74 years outdated and am in full help of scholars protesting, though I don’t agree with all their positions. I’ve only one query: The place have they been over the past eight years when our previous president barred folks from a number of Muslim-majority international locations from coming into america and large cutbacks had been made to environmental legal guidelines, to say simply a few points?
I solely hope that what we’re seeing is the beginning of better scholar political consciousness, which is able to unfold and develop stronger.
Neither Donald Trump nor the present MAGA-dominated Republican Social gathering goes to go away except residents take to the streets and make it clear that they gained’t stand for undemocratic, bigoted and misogynistic legal guidelines or tax cuts created simply to learn extraordinarily rich conservatives.
Jon R. Tower
Pacific Palisades, Calif.
To the Editor:
To cite the political activist Carl Oglesby: “It isn’t the rebels who trigger the troubles of the world. It’s the troubles that trigger the rebels.”
Boomers, hear with curiosity to the rebels on school campuses and you’ll hear that their trigger is for us to care about what is going on on the earth and for universities to cease investing in corporations that present weapons for conflict. Universities shouldn’t be getting cash off of killing folks!
Niobe Means
New York
The author is a professor of utilized psychology at New York College and the creator of “Rebels With a Trigger: Reimagining Boys, Ourselves and Our Tradition.”
Religion, Household and the Republican Social gathering
To the Editor:
Re “The Authoritarians Have the Momentum,” by David Brooks (column, Could 17):
Mr. Brooks’s column, advising that liberals have conceded the “religion and household” vote, may need enlightened his readers as to how the presumptive authoritarian Republican nominee’s life experiences honor both one.
Clearly, the phrases “religion” and “household” have been hijacked merely to enrage working People into supporting wealth for the few, intolerance, rejection of training, details and science, and, most vital of all, concern.
Mr. Brooks would possibly reasonably have identified that the occasion that rejects the essential Christian values of affection of neighbor, forgiveness and tolerance in addition to a rise to the federal minimal wage, reasonably priced medical insurance, middle-class tax reform, office security, safety from weapons, and Social Safety and Medicare stability serves neither religion nor household, and hasn’t for many years.
Eric R. Carey
Arlington, Va.
Deep Dish Pizza? Meh!
To the Editor:
Re “That Deep Dish Pizza? It’s Not That Deep” (Meals, Could 15):
I’m an Italian American who grew up in what was then Chicago’s Little Italy within the Nineteen Fifties, and thin-crust Neapolitan pizza was king.
Our native family-run pizzerias had been staffed by Italian immigrants, normally from Naples. Deep dish? Meh!
As I not reside in Chicago, every time I meet fellow Chicagoans outdoors town and state, nearly at all times there are two “tribal” questions requested:
1. Are you Sox or Cubs?
2. Skinny-crust Neapolitan or deep dish?
My preferences are skinny crust and Chicago Cubs!
Steven Giovangelo
Indianapolis
