They did get into some sticky subjects. Eg, whether faculty members are doing enough mentoring and activism, or failing the rising generations. They also talked in a pragmatic way about violence: whether to hope for it, prepare for it, make strategic use of it,
I gave a few examples, the persecution of "dissidents" in Russia (indirectly Navalny), I named Pussy Riot whose members and husbands also served long prison sentences they barely survived.I mentioned Tianenmen Square and recent Hong Kong protests of the past years.
Erica Chenoweth is the great expert on these questions, and I had high hopes of learning from them in this forum. However, they acted as the moderator. The agenda seemed to be to praise Browne-Marshall's new book, which I haven't read yet.
Marshall-Browne's book sounds interesting as memoir and social history of protest. However, what I wanted to see at this event was solid quantitative research on what succeeds, critiqued and explicated by other experts.
What will the US do, if ultimately the Trumpists become the army, like how in 1989 in China the solders were indoctrinated with propaganda and trigger happy. A lot of innocent people died. The 6th of January insurrection might have been a small taste of what might happen.
Comments
They did get into some sticky subjects. Eg, whether faculty members are doing enough mentoring and activism, or failing the rising generations. They also talked in a pragmatic way about violence: whether to hope for it, prepare for it, make strategic use of it,