Pro-Hamas Panty Raids: A Destructive Dynamic
The old joke has it that “if you can remember the 60s, you weren’t really there.” Maybe because I was never into drugs, I remember them all too well. And, despite the unquestionably cool music, I don’t remember them particularly fondly. Yes, a lot of good things happened in those years, but they were also a time of burning cities, of massive anti-Vietnam war protests, of one episode after another of passionate hate and discontent. Given the political and, even more, cultural upheaval of the time, one struggled mightily to find a positive path in life.
These are not the ideologues … but rather those for whom action and a sense of belonging represent a reward worth seeking.
Still, one of the abiding sins of my Boomer brethren has been taking ourselves too seriously, or, better, taking seriously the wrong things, the wrong way. The first half of the 60s, for many of us, was more an extension of the 50s, more “American Graffiti,” an Archie comic book existence rather than Fanon or Marcuse. During those years, as a high school student on a college campus for a summer workshop, I recall watching a panty raid, drunken frat guys clad in madras shirts and chinos, chanting “panties, panties” and cheering lustily as lacy white things fluttered down from the upper floors of a girls dorm. (READ MORE from James H. McGee: Biden is Deaf to His ‘Better Angels’)
I also remember, just a few years later, stoned hippie-types, clad in tie dye and bell bottoms, chanting “Ho, Ho, Ho chi Minh” as they staggered across campus in the wake of a small vanguard of hardcore radicals. I couldn’t help thinking it looked like nothing more than a politically pretentious panty raid. Not for nothing was Woodstock acclaimed as a heroic politico-social event, rather than what it most evidently was — a massive drug and alcohol fueled party, accompanied by a first rate soundtrack.
Activism in those years came surrounded by an awful lot of conformist fun-seeking, “conformist” because, for all the claims about “fighting the system,” there was a great deal of trying to be like everyone else. And “fun seeking” — getting high on the vibe from the crowd was a huge incentive for joining a protest march, particularly when it came with an outsized frisson of sexual excitement.
Famously, iconic folk singer Joan Baez and her two sisters posed for a widely-distributed poster with the caption “Girls say yes to boys who say no.” Lest anyone mistake the intent, the sub-caption noted that proceeds from the poster’s sales would go to “The Draft Resistance.” Some feminists professed outrage, but for young men in 1968, the message was revolutionary. Having largely been raised with 1950s sexual values, and particularly subjected to various macho imperatives — be a football star, be a soldier — the idea that girls might offer themselves to a draft resister was profoundly subversive.
Unsurprisingly, the 60s protests flagged as the Vietnam war began to wind down, and many of those who’d been simply along for the ride, for the thrills, moved on with their lives. But the most dedicated radicals refused to give up, moving from orchestrating mass protests to more violent terrorist action, notably a series of bombings aimed at the government and the military. The murderous bombing at the University of Wisconsin math center was one such, the 1971 bombing at the Pentagon yet another. Sadly, one legacy of the 60s protests was a willingness to see the United States itself as unworthy. While most former protesters were themselves opposed to violence, far too many quietly sympathized.
A parallel dynamic played itself out in western Europe, particularly in France and Germany. Massive protests in May 1968 came momentarily close to toppling the French government. Similar protests roiled West Germany. While in both countries national issues played a huge role, anti-Americanism and anti-Vietnam war sentiments figured prominently. Both left a huge negative legacy in the form of hostility to their respective countries — not just a current government, but the country itself. And the terrorism that emerged in the 70s, particularly in Germany, flourished not least because of a host of supporters willing to offer aid and comfort. Even as the Baader-Meinhof gang reached its peak of violence with a series of assassinations in 1977, its members could still count on help from these sympathisanten.
Looking at the widespread pro-Hamas demonstrations, I fear a similar dynamic at work. At the center stands a group of hard-core radicals. Some of these are immigrants, some legal, some otherwise, the products of the same witches brew of hatred that produced the October 7th massacres in Gaza. Others, while American born, have been steeped in the radicalism of some unassimilated Islamist communities. Still others, with no direct connection to Hamas, to Iran, or to radical Islam, come from the ranks of Antifa and the like; that is, the hate America crowd so much in evidence during 2020’s “mostly peaceful” riots.
It’s increasingly clear that this radical vanguard both stimulates and coordinates the “death to America” message across the U.S. Furthermore, there are multiple reports of financial support from wealthy progressives, both individuals and foundations, as well as indications that foreign actors, particularly some associated with Iran, have actively promoted these protests. If it feels as if we’re under attack, well, it’s because we are. It’s no accident that the international “hate America” crowd has taken an interest. The Baader-Meinhof gang, to illustrate the point, benefited from the support of the East German secret police, the Stasi, and the KGB, bad actors who knew well how to seize a moment.
But, for me, the scariest aspect of the current crisis lies in the increasingly widespread participation of the “panty raid” element. These are the students, both college and high school, who’ve looked around and decided that the pro-Hamas protests are, to use a 60s phrase, “what’s happening.” They’ve absorbed the “anti-colonialist, anti-imperialist” rhetoric of what passed for history instruction these days. They throw around terms like “apartheid state” without any understanding of what that might actually mean. Appallingly, and idiotically, they accuse Israel of “genocide.” (READ MORE: We Face a Long Hot Summer)
And their numbers appear to be growing, even as authorities finally, belatedly, too often feebly, appear to be cracking down on the most egregious of these protests. The famous longshoreman/philosopher, Eric Hoffer, put his finger on the dynamic currently at work in his 1951 masterpiece, The True Believer. Hoffer contended that fanaticism grew a mass base when large numbers of unhappy people, believing their own individual lives to be meaningless in the face of larger forces, seek escape by submerging themselves, passionately and angrily, in a mass movement. These are not the ideologues, nor are they the guiding spirits, but rather those for whom action and a sense of belonging represent a reward worth seeking. As Hoffer observes, their cause is less important to them than the escape from loneliness.
This is the logic of the “cool girls” table in an 8th grade lunchroom, the logic of “kill the refs,” the logic of the “panty raid,” but elevated by a veneer of political seriousness. At a time when large numbers of American youth seem overwhelmed by the anomie of modern life, a hopeless indifference easily manipulated by the hucksters of the left, the threat should be obvious. Hatred after all, is a powerful motivator, and easily stirred among the mindless and ignorant.
Despite the feckless response of university administrators, the campus occupations would fade quickly if met with contempt or even indifference. But when the crowds grow large, when radical faculty offer encouragement at every turn, when passions run high, above all, when the demonstrations are suffused with a sense of high purpose, the result quickly becomes ugly. These overgrown children, after all, are ripe for exploitation.
The hard core activists feed the passion of the mass of followers, and that mass, in turn, feeds the conviction of the hard core — we must be right, they can tell themselves, because everyone is on our side. They hear the chants, they “feel the vibe,” they want the moment to last and last, which it will, because, in many instances, no one is serious about stopping it, not university administrators, not Soros-funded DAs, certainly not the Biden administration, already agonizing over the implications for the 2024 elections,
In the summer of 2020, we saw chaos spread across our cities, fomented by some of the same actors whose fingerprints are all over the current protests. We know that a bitter election season is upon us, and we can see little end in sight to the wave of pro-Hamas, anti-American protests. There are too many elements, both foreign and domestic, who stand to benefit from continued turmoil in the U.S, and there is little hope for an effective response.
Vacuous frat boys have become aggressively political morons. “Throw down your panties” has become “kill the Jews” and “death to America.” The coming long hot summer just keeps looking longer and hotter.
James H. McGee retired in 2018 after nearly four decades as a national security and counter-terrorism professional, working primarily in the nuclear security field. Since retiring, he’s begun a second career as a thriller writer. His 2022 novel, Letter of Reprisal, tells the tale of a desperate mission to destroy a Chinese bioweapon facility hidden in the heart of the central African conflict region, and a forthcoming sequel sends the Reprisal team into action against subversive forces operating throughout the U.S. and Europe. You can find it on Amazon in both Kindle and paperback editions, and on Kindle Unlimited.
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