A mass release of joy

My Sunday movie was Dumb Money. It is based on the true story of the Game Stop stock price runup back in 2020 and into 2021. The term “dumb money” refers to money from regular people, not those guided by investment advisors or investments made by investment companies – people supposedly investing without their emotions. The story is primarily about Keith Gill who uses the online name Roaring Kitty. His job has been shut down because of the pandemic, so he switches to stock analysis and trading from home, where he puts a video of his analysis on the web. He chooses to invest in Game Stop because he feels it is undervalued. A part of his reasoning is that some big investors have shorted the stock, which is a bet that the company is worth a lot less than the stock price indicates and the price will drop. That video arouses the feelings of other ordinary people and we follow a few of them through the movie. Some lost their jobs in the pandemic and are hoping for a source of income. Some have experience with corporate raiders, people who buy out a company, suck out its value, and file for bankruptcy on the remains, which leaves employees dry. The Game Stop price heads up. We also see the big guys, the ones who shorted the stock, whose net worth is in the billions. They ignore the situation for a while, but the higher the price climbs the worse their position. And they get worried. The situation shifts to become the little guys against the big guys. Can they push the stock high enough to cause financial damage to the rich? The little guys find the rich have other rich people to bail them out. With a high stock price the little guys face a dilemma of whether and when to cash out. Hold on too long and the price might fall, leaving them with nothing. And many of them had little cash to invest and negative net worth from student loans and credit cards. That causes family tensions. At the end of the movie we’re told that Wall Street doesn’t ignore dumb money like it used to. This is a good story and good movie. It explains the situation as well as a lay person might want. It reminded me of the movie The Big Short, which dramatized and explained the mortgage collapse of 2008. While in my bed not sleeping I was thinking about the protests at many universities around the country where students are demanding their schools divest from corporations that directly or indirectly support arms sales to Israel. Students want to stop what has the appearance of Israel, with the assistance of the US, committing genocide on the residents of Gaza. What I thought about was how I think the situation should be handled. They are at an institution of education, so educate! The administration should challenge the students to carefully justify their position – essentially write a term paper or thesis on why they are making their demands. This should be complete with sources and footnotes. Interested professors can assist and can make sure there are no attacks on people without sound justification (as in no derogatory comments about Jews). From the paper the students also create a presentation appropriate for an educational symposium. The school’s financial managers, the ones who do the investing, do the same. They explain what companies they invest in and why they believe those investments are important to the college. And then both make their presentation at the symposium, each responding to challenges from the other side and from the audience (presumably all the other students, the faculty, the administration, and the board). I’m not sure what to suggest should happen at the end of the symposium. A vote? Who votes? Do they discuss until there is consensus? That may not happen if one side or the other is obstinate. Does the school’s board decide? The school should also lay out guidelines. Students are welcome to their encampment or other means of protest as long as they want. But they must not damage school property nor interrupt school functions. They must not threaten other students. I feel this will at least accomplish an important goal of the students – they want to be heard. Right now they can easily conclude the administration does not want to hear them. When I got up this morning and turned on NPR I heard: At Columbia University on Monday night students had left their encampment and had occupied Hamilton Hall. And Tuesday night the New York police staged a massive show of force to retake the hall and arrest the occupying students. Students were frightened by the show of force. The administration justified the raid by saying the protesters frightened other students, especially Jewish students. I wonder how much both the students and administration were equating the actions of the Israeli government with the Jewish religion. Portland State University closed its campus after protesters took over a library. At UCLA police arrived on campus wearing riot gear in response to overnight clashes between rival protest groups. Last Friday Dartagnan of Daily Kos listed several Republican members of Congress who have been calling for the National Guard or the military to clear the protesters. These statements seem to take their cues from the nasty guy, who has previously called for violent responses to protesters he doesn’t like. Dartagnan lists several times that call was made. Also, Russell Vought is a primary author of Project 2025, the plan to enable the next Republican president to be a dictator. His far right conservative think tank Center for Renewing America has submitted plans for invoking the Insurrection Act on the first day to “quash protests.”

As Adam Serwer, writing for the Atlantic, observes, these reflexive calls by Republicans for a military response to protests seem to be less rooted in genuine concern that the protests pose a serious danger to the public or Jewish people than “because these powerful figures find the protesters and their demands offensive.” Serwer points out that school administrators have, when necessary, called in local police to address potential violence, harassment, and property damage, and thus far, the protests do not evince the kind of “mass violence and unrest” that would normally suggest the need for federal involvement. He also notes that such a deployment of federal troops would likely escalate the protests. ... In other words, thus far we have seen a markedly asymmetrical, political response by Republicans to campus protests this week. But we are also witnessing something else: an explicit acceptance of a militarized solution to protests where Republicans find it politically advantageous.

One thing I learned a dozen years ago is that a show of force – violence – is an enforcement of superiority, an upholding of the social hierarchy. The administration, in calling the police, is declaring they are superior to the students. That’s especially true if the administration is acting this way because of their rich donors or well connected politicians. Jen Sorensen of Kos Comics asks: Where’s the crisis? Famine in Gaza is a crisis. A peaceful encampment in response to Gaza is not a crisis. College administrators corrupted by right-wing donors and activists is an actual crisis. News orgs demonizing protesters is a never-ending crisis. I’ve written about Sarah Kendzior’s articles for Gaslit Nation. She also has a newsletter, which is more about some of the things she thinks about and connects to while going about her life. An example is visiting Death Valley with her children as part of an effort to visit every national park and encountering a lake made possible by climate change. Her latest story is a reflection on seeing a sniper on the roof of the student union where she got her master’s degree and seeing police beat students at the school where she got her PhD.

At each school, I studied authoritarian regimes and how they brainwash people into believing that state brutality is not only expected, but deserved.

She got her master’s at Indiana University. Her thesis was on the Uzbekistan government and their invention of a terrorist group to justify killing seven hundred protesters in 2005.

I spent my time at IU studying liars. Most of the liars worked for the authoritarian government of Uzbekistan, but some worked for American think tanks. ... It is young people who are leading the protests against Israeli war crimes and US complicity. Their demands are straightforward. The US government is funding Israel’s slaughter of Palestinian civilians. Student protesters want them to stop. They want their schools to reveal their finances and divest from companies producing weapons and providing aid for Israel’s war crimes and apartheid policies. These are reasonable requests. They are prompted by the horror and sympathy created when one watches videos of Palestinian children being murdered for seven months while IDF soldiers brag about killing them.

She earned her PhD at Washington University, St. Louis. Her dissertation was on dictatorships and dissent in the digital age (well, the digital age of 13 years ago). She has a deep understanding of the authoritarian regimes, here and around the world, that she talks about. Back in 2016 I followed the United Methodist General Conference through Twitter. I did the same during the short GC in 2019. But Twitter and its replacement X are not available to me this year. So I’ve had to rely on short updates emailed to me from progressive coalition partners and from stories in the media. Fortunately, the big stories show up in the media, such as this one by Jason DeRose of NPR. And it is wonderful news! The Conference has voted 692-51 to repeal the ban on LGBTQ people becoming clergy and to repeal the ban on clergy officiating at same-sex weddings. That’s 93% approval! Yay! The changes were so popular they included them in a bulk package with 22 other petitions and didn’t bother with a floor debate. And delegates broke into songs of joy when the tally was announced. This is quite different from the 2019 GC in which those restrictions were upheld by a majority. The difference between then and now is simple: The reaction to the traditional position in 2019 was many congregations – and bishops – refusing to enforce the bans. And that prompted many conservative congregations to leave the denomination. I went to the United Methodist News site for this story. In addition to lifting the bans mentioned above GC has also eliminated the ban on using funds to “promote acceptance of homosexuality.” in 2016 that ban meant not supporting suicide prevention efforts for LGBTQ youth. As for removing those bans:

Many hugged and more than a few cried, in a mass release of joy for those who had pushed, some for decades, to make The United Methodist Church fully inclusive.

Though I’m not at GC this year I have been a part of the group pushing for this change since at least 2007. I am delighted!