Let's see...
- Nazism
- McCarthyism
- Vietnam War
- Racial Injustice
- South African Apartheid
- Occupy Wall Street
- Gaza Genocide
- etc.
I am curious. Has there ever been a wide-scale student protest movement that WASN'T unequivocally vindicated by history?
this post was submitted on 15 Mar 2025
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The Young Turk movement started with medical students.
There were quite a few pro-segregation protests when schools were desegregated.
There's also a lot of cases where students with real grievances and positive intentions are coopted; most of the students protesting in the early 90s in eastern europe didn't intend to do a color revolution and have their countries stripped for parts.
Thank you for bringing those up. However, unless I'm misunderstanding them, the only one of those where the protesters were in the wrong were the pro-segregation protests, correct? But weren't those protests by-and-large made up of parents? (Perhaps along with some of their children doing what they were told?) Not exactly the "rebellious youth sticking it to the man" we generally mean by the words student protest.
weren’t those protests by-and-large made up of parents?
Yes and no, a number of universities had pro-segregation actions by students including protests
History is always more complicated and nuanced than any narrative would lead you to believe.
University students lead the Hungarian Revolution, and history doesn't remember them fondly. They rebelled against the Soviet Union, which makes them Nazis. It's a good thing our dear leader Stalin sent the tanks in to kill those students.
I had to look it up (dont know much about it), but in the Wikipedia entry it notes:
Time named the Hungarian Freedom Fighter its Man of the Year
And
In 2006, Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány referred to this famous Time cover as "the faces of free Hungary" in a speech marking the 50th anniversary of the uprising.
Which makes me think they were later vindicated. But maybe I'm missing something.
I may be wrong and lack any historical knowledge on the subject, but I think author is sarcastically self-identifying as a tankie?
Oh its 100% possible, I have no idea.
The guy you're responding to is a liberal doing a piss-poor satire of a ML.
The students protests was quickly co-opted by nazi collaborators entirely unaffiliated with the students, it'd be like if Jan 6 happened during the 2020 protests.
The government vindicating those protestors also built monuments to nazi collaborators.
It's a complex issue, the students had genuine issues the government was failing to address, but if the soviets didn't step in, things would have been far, far worse. For comparison, here's what tended to happen in countries that failed to stop the counterrevolution around that time.
Given enough time, we were always going to have right wing authoritarians back in power.
But call me an idealist, I didn't think it would be actual Nazi sympathizers. Thought the brand was appropriately tarnished what with the Holocaust.
The US always had right wing authoritarians in power. They just prefered to slaughter people abroad.
Thought the brand was appropriately tarnished what with the Holocaust.
I wish I had the faith in humanity you have
Weren't they revoking degrees now for protestors? Anyone who considers Columbia a real school at this point is incurable.
The more things change…
Didn’t the USA join a war against some Nazis?
Not unprovoked and not for 5 more years. Germany declared war on the US. Until Pearl Harbor, the US was quite neutral.
Edit: correct 4 to 5
They were about as “neutral” as they were in the Ukraine conflict under Biden.
They were selling loads of weapons at discount prices and supporting the allies in many ways.
You’re right though that the US public was generally against joining the war, and the US as a whole, tended to be quite isolationist until Pearl Harbour.
They were about as “neutral” as they were in the Ukraine conflict under Biden.
Ah yes, and during Palestine conflict. They ultimately come out on top, it doesn't matter if they're funding a genocide. And people like you just spread around the "good", and hide the actual heinous history.
They were selling weapons to both sides. GM controlled Opel until the 1940s, they built a lot of the nazi war machine (using forced labor), the Ford-Werke factory in Germany produced V2 rocket turbines among other parts, and US strategic bombers were specifically told to avoid bombing it because it was owned by an american, Exxon and Dow licensed patents for synthetic rubber and other war materials Germany lacked, Chase provided loans necessary for the rearmament, IBM sold the nazis the computers they used to carry out the holocaust.
The capitalist class looked at fascism as the savior of capitalism; they'd been terrified of a revolution in Germany and Hitler had just shown them an alternative. There's a reason he was Time's man of the year in 1938.
Adolf Hilter was Time's Person of the Year in 1938. Joseph Stalin was 1939.
Source: https://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/completelist/0,29569,2019712,00.html
Good catch, I have edited it accordingly. Real "giving the nobel peace prize to Henry Kissinger and the guys he is currently dropping chemical weapons on" vibes.
Also: Holy shit, Chiang Kai-Shek is there for 1937.
Person of the year is not a honorific. It just means most important or influential.
Time Magazine Person of the Year is for the most influential person of the year. Not the best, or most admirable. Merely the greatest agent of change.
Wow
Do you mean the other way around? German companies had the patents for synthetic rubber, most notably Buna-N, and when the USA joined they simply stole it?
The USA made a hell of a lot of money off weapons sold to the allies. It created the USA industrial farming system.
Yes, yes, every piece slowly falls into place. *Cue maniacal villain laughter
It's like they actually studied history, to try and replicate the desired results as identically as possible. Or they didn't, at all, and this is just 2+2=4 scenario but with history.