Tim hit the nail on the head, by pointing out the self-serving nature of what’s going on here. The politics of empty gestures, self-reighteous anger and self-important posturing are highjacking political discourse on nearly every issue. It’s so much more fun to make yourself the thought/speech police than to actually do the tough, unglamorous work of real activism, and all the while guilting others for not doing enough.

In a way that’s a mark of progress: that instead of having to fight, daily, the real injustices of Poll Taxes and Jim Crowe, student activists are reduced to whining about funding levels and whether or not there are enough minorities in student productions of awful plays. However, articles like Schwofferman’s distract from real issues in favor of complaining that people he doesn’t like have rights too.

Rather than use his time and, previously, his column inches to address things like the sentencing disparity for crack cocaine, unequal treatment by police, and myriad injustices that are a direct result of the profligate and immoral war on drugs, Schwofferman chooses to bitch about inconsequential garbage. Why? Well, my working hypothesis is that he’s more interested in getting attention for himself than in solving any real problems.