Welcome to this remixed throwback edition of the award winning Best of the Left

podcast where we remember the past and choose to repeat it. Today's episode

includes clips that were originally

published in July 2018, June 2020, March 2021 and June 2021 and June 2021 and

2021 and I'm reviving these old clips today as the protests against the actions of the Israeli government

continue on and off campuses around the country, resulting in a not so terribly surprising show of force from university administration officials and others who have an easier time paying lip service to the idea of free speech than actually allowing it to play out in real life when they don't like

what's being said. Sources today include On the Media, U.S. Newsbeat, The Trump cast, The Daily Show, This is Hell, the David Pacman show,

Counterspin, The Takeaway, and Carlos Maza. Ever since the 2016 election we've been pondering the obliteration of our norms,

but seen in the context of history, that's normal. The First World War,

the Depression, the Second World War, jazz, rock and roll, the Vietnam War,

alienation, and the internet. Keith Bybee, author of how civility works, says every

generation of Americans has found a reason to bemoan the end of courtesy and

respect.

But the fact is, civility can be a tool of oppression.

Jim Crow segregation was surrounded and sustained

by a racial etiquette.

Martin Luther King spoke about this quite eloquently in his letter from

Birmingham in jail.

You don't call the wife of an African American

Mrs. She always gets dressed by her first name.

An African-American male adult is never missed her.

He is boy or John.

...