What, exactly, did this gathering accomplish?
From what I can tell, it made a bunch of people feel good about themselves. Great, you protested an ad that appeared in a college newspaper and had a panel discussion about ethics in journalism. Where does the "Mission Accomplished" banner go now?
While we're definitely not living in a post-anti-Semitic world, couldn't we protest an ongoing genocide instead? Where's the rally to push our government to help in Darfur? Couldn't we have a panel discussion about why Holocaust denial causes such uproar but real death happening in the here and now doesn't? I also can't help but think that, had an ad for a group denying the Armenian genocide or the Rwandan genocide been allowed in the Badger Herald, no one would have bothered to even think about organizing a protest.
The responses to the ad remind me of the People's Front of Judea in Monty Python's Life of Brian. Everybody talks and talks and skirts around the big issue.
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