I’ve generally avoided writing about sports on this blog unless there I thought there was a useful political metaphor; in my approximately 16 months at this, I’ve probably written about five or six pieces that feature sports prominently. The temptation would be even greater than doing pieces that are blatantly pro-Jewish or pro-Israel, owing not only to the fact that in my more obviously Judeocentric pieces I’ve usually been quoting someone else directly [who would say what I wanted to better than I could] but also because I know how out-of-hand my lifelong obsession with the New York Jets [which would explain a lot] can get. I didn’t want to end up writing only about the Jews and the Jets.
This season, it turns out there may be even stronger parallels between the two. [Now, just in case any of you want to get REALLY self-righteous about this, no, there’s no comparison. Just call it a VERY loose illustration. And if you’re really offended, don’t read any further. Or read my Morally Offended and get a clue.]
Anyway…anyone familiar with Jewish and Jetish history will recognize the common thread of suffering that runs between the two, sometimes involving a certain degree of self-infliction. However, can anyone deny an element of Divine intervention after Sunday’s game in Indianapolis? [Here’s my foray into self-righteousness: I don’t believe in “football gods”. G-d can do this all by Himself.]
In either case, some [football] issues need to be addressed:
The only person who was cheated out of anything here was Peyton Manning. The guy deserved a shot at a perfect season, particularly since, as was proven Sunday, the only reason the Colts were anywhere near that precipice was because of him. As I’ve written before The Convention: Regular Season Begins I have a bias against the Miami Dolphins and Don Shula bordering on xenophobia [owing to the Mud Bowl/’83 AFC Championship] which was one reason I rooted for the Pats in SB XLII [aside from my almost equal bias against the Giants, for winning SB XXI when 1986 should have been the Jets’ year.] But while watching the Colts self-destruct in a Jet-like manner, I had this epiphany about the Fish' perfect 1972 season: while they might not have beaten any playoff teams—and only one team with a record over .500 [the Giants, who finished 8-6 that year]—I suddenly remembered that, of Miami’s 17 wins in ’72, the quarterback of record in 11 of them was a 38-year-old backup, Earl Morrall. I suddenly had a grudgingly newfound [short-lived, to be sure] respect for the job Don Shula did that season.
Now, as far as others who think that this is an earth-shattering event:
Colts fans DO have reason to boo. And they’ll be REALLY mad if this turns out to actually cost them playoff momentum and/or the Super Bowl, like it may have in ’05. However, recent NFL history is inconclusive: just look at the ’04 Colts, who rested everyone in the last game at Denver and got blown out 33-14, and then came back against the same Broncos the next week in the wildcard game in Indy and won 49-24. [Jet fans like me were really angry: that game almost cost the Jets a playoff spot, though they may have deserved to lose it after going 5-6 following a 5-0 start.] There’s also the classic case of the ’96 Broncos who started resting vets in week 14 after clinching the top seed and lost their playoff opener to the expansion Jaguars. [Having learned his lesson, Mike Shanahan won the two Super Bowls after that.] As far as the ’07 Pats playing for perfection, we’ll never know because they lost the Super Bowl, but that had more to do with the nature of the Giants’ blitz than any veteran fatigue.
So, Peyton was cheated out of a piece of history. No one else deserves it. And, as Rex Ryan put it, “this football team beat 14 teams, so they earned the right to play it the way they wanted to”.
I also refer back to the ’04 Colts-Broncos finale because apparently fans of five other teams are up in arms that both the Colts and Bengals are laying down for the Jets. Grow up. If the Jets hadn’t found ridiculously creative ways to lose in SIX of their seven losses—[pick sixes and dropped field-goal snaps come to mind]—no one would be having this conversation. The breaks finally evened out.
This especially goes for Dolphins fans. Yeah, you guys swept the Jets this year. Remember all those seasons the Jets swept the Fish and still finished behind them in the standings? 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1993, 1999, 2000, 2001…and in four of those seasons, the Fish made the playoffs and the Jets didn’t. So go jump into Biscayne Bay, Fishfaces. Payback’s a bitch, especially when she’s a New Yorker.
In conclusion: forty years ago, the Jets were going up against a Colts team that was being touted as the best ever. The Jets had no chance. [And the Colts starter was their backup—Earl Morrall.]
We know how that game turned out. And it was played in Miami.
See how this all works out?
Monday, December 28, 2009
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Almost All Apologies
It’s too easy to say that Jimmy Carter’s “apology” to the Jews is due to his not wanting to throw up any obstacles to his grandson Jason Carter’s budding political career. It is, however unquestionable that he is being disingenuous. All the evidence one needs to that effect is his rather tortuous explanation of the meaning behind the title of his tome Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid [“The former president said that he had attempted to conflate into a single title his belief that Palestine, not Israel, should control the West Bank, and that apartheid, not peace, would prevail were that not to happen. Apartheid was a predictor, he said, not a description; such an outlook was not inconsistent with Israeli leaders and pro-Israel groups.”] THAT should pretty much serve as an indicator of how gullible he considers Jews who are otherwise completely supportive of his political weltanschuung and how little he cares about those who don’t, Jewish or otherwise.
As far as I’m concerned, Carter is about as genuine about his regret as Henry Ford was about his in 1927, after he’d practically single-handedly made the Protocols of the Elders of Zion an international best-seller. One should also remember that long after said apology was issued—and the publication of The Dearborn Independent, the American version and forerunner to Der Sturmer, ceased publication under pressure—Ford was awarded accepted the highest medal that Nazi Germany could bestow on a foreigner, the Grand Cross of the German Eagle was In July 1938. Not for nothing did Adolf Hitler tell a reporter "I regard Henry Ford as my inspiration" two years before he became Chancellor. I would predict that similar public accolades for Carter from terrorists and their supporters will not cease because of this “apology”. Some of them actually read history too, before they revise and deny it.
In the meantime, as Rosner from the Jerusalem Post puts it: “1. Jewish organizations have to congratulate him and pretend to believe him. Jewish writers don't. 2. Jewish politicians and Israeli politicians have to act as if he means what he says. Jews with no political aspirations don't.” That—and the timing of the apology with the Jason Carter’s budding political career—should serve, for now at least, as a positive sign: that the idea that some “criticisms” of Israel are disingenuous and motivated by anti-semitism are still politically trenchant enough that they have to be reckoned with.
Which is why the appointment of Hannah Rosenthal as President Obama’s “Anti-Semitism Czar”—and her immediate jumping into the fray by publicly siding with the J Street version of Israel “support”—is, to be sure, at least mildly alarming, but certainly not surprising. As I’ve said before, Obama plan to govern from the center by dragging the center to the left and making that the new “center”, and this fits his plan perfectly. Like Carter, she has said some of the right things [see her Ha’aretz interview] but her belief [which is essentially the J Street outlook] that when sacrifices for “peace” have to be made, it’s the Jews that are going to have to be doing the sacrificing, because that is our destiny. This is why is this case Rosner is wrong when he writes that “Instead of being an asset to Obama, she's a burden”, because when he writes right before that “Rosenthal is now officially a member of the look-at-them-and-you'll-know-why-we-don't-trust-Obama team”—he’s absolutely correct. Rosenthal is the embodiment of the Obama House Jew. [He’s got lots of those.]
I don’t think Obama is an anti-Semite. While he may be a lot more sympathetic to Islam [and Islamists, and even terrorists] than is politically healthy to let on [for him], one could posit [albeit, in a somewhat strained manner] that: a] the Islam he grew up with in Indonesia is not necessarily the same as the Wahhabi/Taliban version and b] he’s as religious a Moslem as Reagan was a Chrisitian [e.g., openly supportive of their political agenda while not ever going to services himself]. However, even given that possible allowance—and like I said, it’s both generous and strained at the same time—Obama’s attempt to realign the US interest with international Islam and other elements of Edward Said-influenced political correctness and have that rebranded as centrism is certainly fraught with peril for all Americans [if not everyone else]. Rosenthal’s appointment fits into that program perfectly.
As far as I’m concerned, Carter is about as genuine about his regret as Henry Ford was about his in 1927, after he’d practically single-handedly made the Protocols of the Elders of Zion an international best-seller. One should also remember that long after said apology was issued—and the publication of The Dearborn Independent, the American version and forerunner to Der Sturmer, ceased publication under pressure—Ford was awarded accepted the highest medal that Nazi Germany could bestow on a foreigner, the Grand Cross of the German Eagle was In July 1938. Not for nothing did Adolf Hitler tell a reporter "I regard Henry Ford as my inspiration" two years before he became Chancellor. I would predict that similar public accolades for Carter from terrorists and their supporters will not cease because of this “apology”. Some of them actually read history too, before they revise and deny it.
In the meantime, as Rosner from the Jerusalem Post puts it: “1. Jewish organizations have to congratulate him and pretend to believe him. Jewish writers don't. 2. Jewish politicians and Israeli politicians have to act as if he means what he says. Jews with no political aspirations don't.” That—and the timing of the apology with the Jason Carter’s budding political career—should serve, for now at least, as a positive sign: that the idea that some “criticisms” of Israel are disingenuous and motivated by anti-semitism are still politically trenchant enough that they have to be reckoned with.
Which is why the appointment of Hannah Rosenthal as President Obama’s “Anti-Semitism Czar”—and her immediate jumping into the fray by publicly siding with the J Street version of Israel “support”—is, to be sure, at least mildly alarming, but certainly not surprising. As I’ve said before, Obama plan to govern from the center by dragging the center to the left and making that the new “center”, and this fits his plan perfectly. Like Carter, she has said some of the right things [see her Ha’aretz interview] but her belief [which is essentially the J Street outlook] that when sacrifices for “peace” have to be made, it’s the Jews that are going to have to be doing the sacrificing, because that is our destiny. This is why is this case Rosner is wrong when he writes that “Instead of being an asset to Obama, she's a burden”, because when he writes right before that “Rosenthal is now officially a member of the look-at-them-and-you'll-know-why-we-don't-trust-Obama team”—he’s absolutely correct. Rosenthal is the embodiment of the Obama House Jew. [He’s got lots of those.]
I don’t think Obama is an anti-Semite. While he may be a lot more sympathetic to Islam [and Islamists, and even terrorists] than is politically healthy to let on [for him], one could posit [albeit, in a somewhat strained manner] that: a] the Islam he grew up with in Indonesia is not necessarily the same as the Wahhabi/Taliban version and b] he’s as religious a Moslem as Reagan was a Chrisitian [e.g., openly supportive of their political agenda while not ever going to services himself]. However, even given that possible allowance—and like I said, it’s both generous and strained at the same time—Obama’s attempt to realign the US interest with international Islam and other elements of Edward Said-influenced political correctness and have that rebranded as centrism is certainly fraught with peril for all Americans [if not everyone else]. Rosenthal’s appointment fits into that program perfectly.
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
All Yours, Now
I have written ["W. Doesn’t Care. He Doesn’t Have To."] that Obama’s predecessor didn’t understand enough to care about his legacy. I was somewhat wrong, to a degree; a closer examination of a number of his policy moves after the 2006 midterms indicate that he came to a belated realization that history wasn’t on the RNC payroll. This administration seems to have learned from W.’s mistake and decided to starts chasing its historical legacy right at the outset; apparently the election wasn’t enough, or it’s undisputed historicity convinced anyone in the administration—especially the President—that his legacy was already assured enough that anything he did would be automatically as historic. This kind of self-delusion has finally come full circle, as his policy centerpieces all coalesced into a perfect storm.
It started with Obama’s Nobel acceptance speech and his insistence—in the face of a “constituency” that professes a strict, if disingenuous, pacifism—that there are such things as “good wars” and that someone has to decide when and where to fight them. Obvious to us, the sentiments expressed might have served to reverse the may have served as the final salvo in Obama’s battle with the further-out left wing of his party who were disgruntled by his stance on Afghanistan. In one fell swoop, he now attached his Administration to an unpopular war, almost in the way Vietnam’s crown of thorns passed to Nixon once he bombed Cambodia. So now he acknowledges owning the war.
Soon after, Obama was in Copenhagen in an attempt to give the US a leading role in regulating carbon footprints—this after the East Anglia emails began to reveal the “science” behind global warming to be a hoax on the level of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. It’s no accident that Obama’s “science czar”, John Holdren, made his reputation as an evangelist for extreme measures in world population control, as a follower of now-discredited theories in line with Paul Ehrlich’s “Population Bomb”. In truth, any conservative criticism of liberal politicization of science is, right now, disingenuous, as long as they continue to insist on science in the service of corporate ends [as in the think tanks promoting oil and coal as non-pollutants and smoking as non-addictive] or religious ones [as in any support for “intelligent design” theory in science curricula]. However, when the time arrives that the discrediting of so-called “science” of climate change becomes the consensus position in the scientific community, the liberal progressives will be saddled with this in perpetuity.
Finally, there’s health care legislation. This is certainly going to be historic, but like what will eventually happen with climatology, it might be for the wrong reasons. Now, despite all available evidence, I am still not convinced that there are better alternatives to Keynesian economics and the existence of a welfare state, to a reasonable degree. Additionally, if no one in Congress has gotten around to reading any of the 2,000-plus pages of the bill, none of them can really comment with any accuracy about the bill, so I’ll take the high road and demur. However, despite the appearance of party unity on both sides of the divide—as evidenced by the strict party-line votes in the Senate at every stage—the infighting among Democrats surrounding the elements of the bill, including the reluctant dropping of the public option by Socialist Bernie Sanders, is probably more telling: that is, if the Republicans have become the party of “No”, the Democrats are living up to their reputation as the party of ”Anything”.
It might be that someone in the administration realized that, despite the failure of Great Society legislation and the fiasco of Vitenam [from either political vantage point], the legacy of LBJ and his administration was assured forever with the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act [which also, to be sure, split the Democratic party]. In their rush to secure the historical legacy that had almost been handed to them just by virtue of the election, they have invested way too much political capital insuring that this health care legislation will simply pass and be counted as an equivalent, maybe even for doing nothing and worse. Instead, its passage—as an exclusively Democratic bill—will secure the moment that the automatic legacy unraveled, and when [hopefully] the partisan criticisms leveled at the administration finally began to gain credibility.
It started with Obama’s Nobel acceptance speech and his insistence—in the face of a “constituency” that professes a strict, if disingenuous, pacifism—that there are such things as “good wars” and that someone has to decide when and where to fight them. Obvious to us, the sentiments expressed might have served to reverse the may have served as the final salvo in Obama’s battle with the further-out left wing of his party who were disgruntled by his stance on Afghanistan. In one fell swoop, he now attached his Administration to an unpopular war, almost in the way Vietnam’s crown of thorns passed to Nixon once he bombed Cambodia. So now he acknowledges owning the war.
Soon after, Obama was in Copenhagen in an attempt to give the US a leading role in regulating carbon footprints—this after the East Anglia emails began to reveal the “science” behind global warming to be a hoax on the level of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. It’s no accident that Obama’s “science czar”, John Holdren, made his reputation as an evangelist for extreme measures in world population control, as a follower of now-discredited theories in line with Paul Ehrlich’s “Population Bomb”. In truth, any conservative criticism of liberal politicization of science is, right now, disingenuous, as long as they continue to insist on science in the service of corporate ends [as in the think tanks promoting oil and coal as non-pollutants and smoking as non-addictive] or religious ones [as in any support for “intelligent design” theory in science curricula]. However, when the time arrives that the discrediting of so-called “science” of climate change becomes the consensus position in the scientific community, the liberal progressives will be saddled with this in perpetuity.
Finally, there’s health care legislation. This is certainly going to be historic, but like what will eventually happen with climatology, it might be for the wrong reasons. Now, despite all available evidence, I am still not convinced that there are better alternatives to Keynesian economics and the existence of a welfare state, to a reasonable degree. Additionally, if no one in Congress has gotten around to reading any of the 2,000-plus pages of the bill, none of them can really comment with any accuracy about the bill, so I’ll take the high road and demur. However, despite the appearance of party unity on both sides of the divide—as evidenced by the strict party-line votes in the Senate at every stage—the infighting among Democrats surrounding the elements of the bill, including the reluctant dropping of the public option by Socialist Bernie Sanders, is probably more telling: that is, if the Republicans have become the party of “No”, the Democrats are living up to their reputation as the party of ”Anything”.
It might be that someone in the administration realized that, despite the failure of Great Society legislation and the fiasco of Vitenam [from either political vantage point], the legacy of LBJ and his administration was assured forever with the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act [which also, to be sure, split the Democratic party]. In their rush to secure the historical legacy that had almost been handed to them just by virtue of the election, they have invested way too much political capital insuring that this health care legislation will simply pass and be counted as an equivalent, maybe even for doing nothing and worse. Instead, its passage—as an exclusively Democratic bill—will secure the moment that the automatic legacy unraveled, and when [hopefully] the partisan criticisms leveled at the administration finally began to gain credibility.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Sarah Palin and the Other Christian Scientists
Yes, Palin is Evangelical and not a Christian Scientist, and [as certainly has been proven, at the very least, by Mary Baker Eddy’s tenets] Christian Science is a contradiction in terms. It’s also easy to be intellectually consistent when you don’t have much of an intellect to start with. Yet, it’s Palin’s W.-like intellectual incuriosity which may ultimately prove itself to be ultimately less malign than true intellectual dishonesty rampant in more rarefied quarters.
In case you have actually followed my blog history and noticed the absolute 180 I did on Palin—it was because of the Couric interviews, when I realized what Peggy Noonan had intuited: that Palin’s vacuity and absolute enthrallment with her newfound celebrity presented the worst possible public image for conservatives and conservatism, at the worst possible time. Especially for me: I was so depressed by what I saw that I couldn’t write anything for a month and a half, much less bring myself to vote for McCain; I sat out the vote]. So I have no love lost for her—because she made ME look bad just as I was starting out and I blame her for MY loss of credibility.
However, a hybrid of Dan Quayle and Jessica Simpson is an easy sell in today’s US; and, despite the general consensus [with which I agree] that even the perception of Palin as the Republican front-runner is ultimately not good for conservatism [1], the events surrounding a certain series of emails emerging from the University of East Anglia [2] actually indicate how much more dangerous intellectual dishonesty is when individuals that actually possess a certain degree of intellectual acuity misuse it for partisan ends.
In a certain sense it might be hard to fathom why the scientific community has thrown its considerable weight behind the notion that the West—particularly the US—owes reparations to everyone else, and has chosen the vehicle of reducing our reliance on technology and industry so that anyone who hasn’t been as fortunate can benefit. It also isn’t the first time that “hard” science has prostituted itself for blatantly dubious political ends, most notoriously in the first half of this century when the scientific community essentially spearheaded eugenics and was almost directly responsible for widespread racial murder. [Many a Nazi commented that they were simply picking up where Cold Spring Harbor left off.]
One wonders whether this is their convoluted way of making up for it. In the process, however, they’re in danger of becoming just a fundamentalist as Palin, turning science into Christianity. And they don’t have her excuse.
1. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124716984620819351.html
2. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/globalwarming/6636563/University-of-East-Anglia-emails-the-most-contentious-quotes.html
In case you have actually followed my blog history and noticed the absolute 180 I did on Palin—it was because of the Couric interviews, when I realized what Peggy Noonan had intuited: that Palin’s vacuity and absolute enthrallment with her newfound celebrity presented the worst possible public image for conservatives and conservatism, at the worst possible time. Especially for me: I was so depressed by what I saw that I couldn’t write anything for a month and a half, much less bring myself to vote for McCain; I sat out the vote]. So I have no love lost for her—because she made ME look bad just as I was starting out and I blame her for MY loss of credibility.
However, a hybrid of Dan Quayle and Jessica Simpson is an easy sell in today’s US; and, despite the general consensus [with which I agree] that even the perception of Palin as the Republican front-runner is ultimately not good for conservatism [1], the events surrounding a certain series of emails emerging from the University of East Anglia [2] actually indicate how much more dangerous intellectual dishonesty is when individuals that actually possess a certain degree of intellectual acuity misuse it for partisan ends.
In a certain sense it might be hard to fathom why the scientific community has thrown its considerable weight behind the notion that the West—particularly the US—owes reparations to everyone else, and has chosen the vehicle of reducing our reliance on technology and industry so that anyone who hasn’t been as fortunate can benefit. It also isn’t the first time that “hard” science has prostituted itself for blatantly dubious political ends, most notoriously in the first half of this century when the scientific community essentially spearheaded eugenics and was almost directly responsible for widespread racial murder. [Many a Nazi commented that they were simply picking up where Cold Spring Harbor left off.]
One wonders whether this is their convoluted way of making up for it. In the process, however, they’re in danger of becoming just a fundamentalist as Palin, turning science into Christianity. And they don’t have her excuse.
1. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124716984620819351.html
2. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/globalwarming/6636563/University-of-East-Anglia-emails-the-most-contentious-quotes.html
Monday, November 16, 2009
The Death Penalty: A Rebirth?
"There won’t be a lot of guilt-innocence maneuverability there."--THOMAS H. DUNN, a former defense lawyer for the Army, on possible defense strategies for Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, who is accused in the Nov. 5 shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Tex.
Mr. Dunn’s quote was almost somewhat reminiscent of Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ head coach John McKay’s comment about his team’s execution: “I’m all for it.”
Take that comment, the recent execution of John Muhammad in Virginia, and the upcoming decision to try some of the highest-value terror detainees in open court, and we may have to reset the playing field vis-à-vis the death penalty debate in this country.
Just in case, a review: From the “Right”, you hear the usual admonitions to be “tough on crime” and that the death penalty serves as the ultimate deterrent. [Contrary to conventional wisdom, there is no true “religious” consensus, at least in the US, regarding the death penalty; usually, the more Evangelical and Fundamentalist strains are in favor, the “mainline” churches less so, the Catholics inalterably opposed, and most Jewish denominations—even, as will be evidenced below, some very salient Orthodox streams—also opposed.]
From the “Left”, the usual arguments you hear have to do with the inequitable application of the penalty and the impossibility of correcting mistakes; and that’s before you arrive at the pacifist argument that taking a life at anytime for any reason by anyone is immoral.
[The “duty-to-retreat” law--which was the legal default position before the “Castle Doctrine” for all intents and purposes codified the right of self-defense through use of deadly force--while not truly “pacifist”, nevertheless indicates the difficulty of legally formulating a concept of “justifiable homicide” outside of warfare, which was a way of…”life”.]
On the eve of his inauguration as Governor of New York in 1995, George Pataki was the recipient of a unique message from the Jewish sage Rabbi Aaron Soloveichik regarding the death penalty, which Pataki had promised in his campaign to place back on the books in New York State:
“…you have the written law mandating the death penalty and the oral law, saying, in effect, that you can never apply it…Now, the death penalty should be there for use in extraordinary situations, in extraordinary threats to the public order…but if [Pataki] acts on the death penalty, he will be the leader of a bloody government.” [New York Magazine, “The 100 Smartest New Yorkers”, Jan. 30, 1995, p. 52].
Fort Hood, TX and Greenville, VA brought the penalty renewed credibility, and that was before the decision to move the terror trials to New York. While the Obama Administration’s intent is mainly to demonstrate [forcibly?] that there is no “conflict between our security and our ideals”--[to paraphrase the President’s inaugural address]--these trials, along with the Muhammad execution and upcoming Fort Hood case, may result in finally viewing how our legal system might actually work in cases where a true threat to public order is at stake, one on the level with Rabbi Soloveichik’s admonition.
In other words, these should be the exceptions that prove the rule: on the books for use in extraordinary threats to the public order. If we learn to restrict the use of the penalty to these situations and these situations alone, the country will be better off.
Mr. Dunn’s quote was almost somewhat reminiscent of Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ head coach John McKay’s comment about his team’s execution: “I’m all for it.”
Take that comment, the recent execution of John Muhammad in Virginia, and the upcoming decision to try some of the highest-value terror detainees in open court, and we may have to reset the playing field vis-à-vis the death penalty debate in this country.
Just in case, a review: From the “Right”, you hear the usual admonitions to be “tough on crime” and that the death penalty serves as the ultimate deterrent. [Contrary to conventional wisdom, there is no true “religious” consensus, at least in the US, regarding the death penalty; usually, the more Evangelical and Fundamentalist strains are in favor, the “mainline” churches less so, the Catholics inalterably opposed, and most Jewish denominations—even, as will be evidenced below, some very salient Orthodox streams—also opposed.]
From the “Left”, the usual arguments you hear have to do with the inequitable application of the penalty and the impossibility of correcting mistakes; and that’s before you arrive at the pacifist argument that taking a life at anytime for any reason by anyone is immoral.
[The “duty-to-retreat” law--which was the legal default position before the “Castle Doctrine” for all intents and purposes codified the right of self-defense through use of deadly force--while not truly “pacifist”, nevertheless indicates the difficulty of legally formulating a concept of “justifiable homicide” outside of warfare, which was a way of…”life”.]
On the eve of his inauguration as Governor of New York in 1995, George Pataki was the recipient of a unique message from the Jewish sage Rabbi Aaron Soloveichik regarding the death penalty, which Pataki had promised in his campaign to place back on the books in New York State:
“…you have the written law mandating the death penalty and the oral law, saying, in effect, that you can never apply it…Now, the death penalty should be there for use in extraordinary situations, in extraordinary threats to the public order…but if [Pataki] acts on the death penalty, he will be the leader of a bloody government.” [New York Magazine, “The 100 Smartest New Yorkers”, Jan. 30, 1995, p. 52].
Fort Hood, TX and Greenville, VA brought the penalty renewed credibility, and that was before the decision to move the terror trials to New York. While the Obama Administration’s intent is mainly to demonstrate [forcibly?] that there is no “conflict between our security and our ideals”--[to paraphrase the President’s inaugural address]--these trials, along with the Muhammad execution and upcoming Fort Hood case, may result in finally viewing how our legal system might actually work in cases where a true threat to public order is at stake, one on the level with Rabbi Soloveichik’s admonition.
In other words, these should be the exceptions that prove the rule: on the books for use in extraordinary threats to the public order. If we learn to restrict the use of the penalty to these situations and these situations alone, the country will be better off.
Friday, November 6, 2009
Turning Points?: The Elections and Fort Hood
As a conservative [no matter how reluctant I am to admit it], I was definitely happy with the GOP taking the New Jersey and Virginia statehouses this past Tuesday. I was even more gratified by the fact that such a die-hard conservative as Virginia Governor-Elect Bob McDonnell being smart enough to downplay any ties with his ostensible comrades [sic]-in-arms Ralph Reed and Sarah Palin, realizing that gaining credibility may even be more important than electoral gains.
In contrast, the response to the loss of the the 23rd Congressional district in New York—and the assertion that “we won even thought we lost”—indicates that the Republicans seem to have forgotten even how to deal with any success.
It is to be expected that conservatives may be reluctant to handle any kind of success in the current econo-political climate: already being held responsible for the mess as it is, they’re extremely reluctant to assume any more responsibility than they have to. In a sense, what this indicates is a continuing ideological purge occurring among conservatives and the GOP, which may be more analogous to a Stalinist rather than McCarthyist ideology.
Of course, one might trace this fear of success and the concomitant loss of credibility all the way back to--“Mission Accomplished”. Never mind that the wrong country may have been invaded for either manufactured or misread reasons. The simple notion that the work was done once the Iraqi army was routed may itself have been the root of the former administration’s attitude of entitlement and invincibility, and the surprise and consequent lack of preparation for everything that followed.
Add that to the “Vietnam syndrome” once again rearing its ugly head as the Penatgon dithered as the conflict went on, and the McCarthyism hurt the important cause of anticommunism a lot more than it had helped it, and the conservative attitude problem may be more trenchant than anyone thinks. I can only hope that Virginia and New Jersey would serve as the start of the tides turning. Unfortunately, the GOP is acting as if the tides have been in their favor all along.
Today’s atrocity at Fort Hood, and the media’s—and even possibly the Army’s—response to it may partially be reflected by the aforementioned paralysis and fear of responsibility, which is not restricted to conservatives, but has become an inexorable part of how important parts of the country functions. The first was demonstrated by the conflicting reports coming out of the Army regarding what happened to the shooter and the heroic woman who actually may have stopped the massacre from going too far along; the second was the Army’s reluctance to make any reference to the possible motivation of the shooter, which, when you take the historical forces attributed to Vietnamism, McCarthyism, and the political correctness paralysis that resulted, has kept the Army from even hinting at his possible ethnically and/or religiously driven “grievances”. [That was left to the “fair and balanced” Fox news.]
I’d go a step further: the major reason that Americans can no longer identify their most mortal enemy [remember that even after 9/11 President Bush was referring to the faith of the hijackers as a “religion of peace”] is that we blew our credibility so many times in the past that “bleeding hearts” with any historical consciousness can remind us of our past “sins” often enough that we who know better are either paralyzed by it or motivated to work against our own interests.
One can only hope that Fort Hood might change this particular reluctance and saddle knee-jerk Saidist/Chomskyist progressivism with the same degree of lack of credibility that the GOP currently suffers from. Unfortunately, the forces militating against that go back further than we realize. 9/11 didn’t change it; this probably won’t either.
In contrast, the response to the loss of the the 23rd Congressional district in New York—and the assertion that “we won even thought we lost”—indicates that the Republicans seem to have forgotten even how to deal with any success.
It is to be expected that conservatives may be reluctant to handle any kind of success in the current econo-political climate: already being held responsible for the mess as it is, they’re extremely reluctant to assume any more responsibility than they have to. In a sense, what this indicates is a continuing ideological purge occurring among conservatives and the GOP, which may be more analogous to a Stalinist rather than McCarthyist ideology.
Of course, one might trace this fear of success and the concomitant loss of credibility all the way back to--“Mission Accomplished”. Never mind that the wrong country may have been invaded for either manufactured or misread reasons. The simple notion that the work was done once the Iraqi army was routed may itself have been the root of the former administration’s attitude of entitlement and invincibility, and the surprise and consequent lack of preparation for everything that followed.
Add that to the “Vietnam syndrome” once again rearing its ugly head as the Penatgon dithered as the conflict went on, and the McCarthyism hurt the important cause of anticommunism a lot more than it had helped it, and the conservative attitude problem may be more trenchant than anyone thinks. I can only hope that Virginia and New Jersey would serve as the start of the tides turning. Unfortunately, the GOP is acting as if the tides have been in their favor all along.
Today’s atrocity at Fort Hood, and the media’s—and even possibly the Army’s—response to it may partially be reflected by the aforementioned paralysis and fear of responsibility, which is not restricted to conservatives, but has become an inexorable part of how important parts of the country functions. The first was demonstrated by the conflicting reports coming out of the Army regarding what happened to the shooter and the heroic woman who actually may have stopped the massacre from going too far along; the second was the Army’s reluctance to make any reference to the possible motivation of the shooter, which, when you take the historical forces attributed to Vietnamism, McCarthyism, and the political correctness paralysis that resulted, has kept the Army from even hinting at his possible ethnically and/or religiously driven “grievances”. [That was left to the “fair and balanced” Fox news.]
I’d go a step further: the major reason that Americans can no longer identify their most mortal enemy [remember that even after 9/11 President Bush was referring to the faith of the hijackers as a “religion of peace”] is that we blew our credibility so many times in the past that “bleeding hearts” with any historical consciousness can remind us of our past “sins” often enough that we who know better are either paralyzed by it or motivated to work against our own interests.
One can only hope that Fort Hood might change this particular reluctance and saddle knee-jerk Saidist/Chomskyist progressivism with the same degree of lack of credibility that the GOP currently suffers from. Unfortunately, the forces militating against that go back further than we realize. 9/11 didn’t change it; this probably won’t either.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
"Fuzzy" [!]: Bring Back Jayson Blair
In my “Gaza, Again” post [December 27, 2008], as Israel "Cast Lead", I wrote:
[Operation Cast Lead is] Rice’—and this [the Bush] Administration’s—fault, because they insisted upon the imposition of "democratic" elections before a fully functioning society was running in the Strip. This terror-ridden failed-state Hamas-driven entity was chosen by its people, and they bear the responsibility for the actions of their leaders, which they undoubtedly approve of wholeheartedly. The war IS with the Gazan population, and the Israelis have nothing to lose by saying so.
Writing about Gaza in today’s New York Times, Ethan Bronner records this startling exchange with a Gaza local:
Many of the professionals here reject Hamas’s ideology, although some voted for the party in 2006 out of rage over the corruption in Fatah…“Hamas won by a slim margin, and it was because of people like me,” said Mohamed, who comes from a Fatah family and works for a charity. “I regret voting for them. I wanted to punish Fatah.” Like nearly all in Gaza who spoke about politics, he asked that his identity be hidden for fear of what the government might do. The rules of political dissent remain fuzzy. “Israel is saying, ‘Because you elected Hamas, you should have no life,’ ” he said. “Yet people elected Hamas because of Fatah corruption. I believe in peace with Israel, but I wanted desperately to get away from the corruption. I didn’t expect Hamas to win. Next time, I won’t vote at all.”
[http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/27/world/middleeast/27gaza.html?th&emc=th]
If the Gaza locals are willing to even to BEGIN to THINK about taking responsibility for their own mess—why are their Western “allies” so insistent upon convincing them otherwise? Something to do with a “soft bigotry of lowered expectations”, perhaps? Somewhere there is a profound disconnect between the beliefs that comprise the doctrines of political correctness and the actual belief that all human beings are truly “equal”. [But we knew that already….]
Plus—does anyone buy that Bronner really believes that in Gaza “the rules of political dissent remain fuzzy”? FUZZY? Even Walter Duranty, in all his extensive "coverage" of Stalin's Moscow for the Times, was never so disingenuous. Where's Jayson Blair when you need him? He would have been the perfect Times Middle East correspondent.
And he and Howell Raines might still both have their jobs.
[Operation Cast Lead is] Rice’—and this [the Bush] Administration’s—fault, because they insisted upon the imposition of "democratic" elections before a fully functioning society was running in the Strip. This terror-ridden failed-state Hamas-driven entity was chosen by its people, and they bear the responsibility for the actions of their leaders, which they undoubtedly approve of wholeheartedly. The war IS with the Gazan population, and the Israelis have nothing to lose by saying so.
Writing about Gaza in today’s New York Times, Ethan Bronner records this startling exchange with a Gaza local:
Many of the professionals here reject Hamas’s ideology, although some voted for the party in 2006 out of rage over the corruption in Fatah…“Hamas won by a slim margin, and it was because of people like me,” said Mohamed, who comes from a Fatah family and works for a charity. “I regret voting for them. I wanted to punish Fatah.” Like nearly all in Gaza who spoke about politics, he asked that his identity be hidden for fear of what the government might do. The rules of political dissent remain fuzzy. “Israel is saying, ‘Because you elected Hamas, you should have no life,’ ” he said. “Yet people elected Hamas because of Fatah corruption. I believe in peace with Israel, but I wanted desperately to get away from the corruption. I didn’t expect Hamas to win. Next time, I won’t vote at all.”
[http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/27/world/middleeast/27gaza.html?th&emc=th]
If the Gaza locals are willing to even to BEGIN to THINK about taking responsibility for their own mess—why are their Western “allies” so insistent upon convincing them otherwise? Something to do with a “soft bigotry of lowered expectations”, perhaps? Somewhere there is a profound disconnect between the beliefs that comprise the doctrines of political correctness and the actual belief that all human beings are truly “equal”. [But we knew that already….]
Plus—does anyone buy that Bronner really believes that in Gaza “the rules of political dissent remain fuzzy”? FUZZY? Even Walter Duranty, in all his extensive "coverage" of Stalin's Moscow for the Times, was never so disingenuous. Where's Jayson Blair when you need him? He would have been the perfect Times Middle East correspondent.
And he and Howell Raines might still both have their jobs.
Monday, October 26, 2009
The Goldstone Chronicles
It was once said of Henry Kissinger that he wasn't anti-Semitic, anti-Zionist, or even really a self-hating Jew; his real religion was "self-promotion". Seems that "Justice" Richard Goldstone's career parallels Kissinger's closely in this regard.
http://www.rferl.org/content/Who_Is_Richard_Goldstone/1856255.html
Who is Richard Goldstone?
By R. W. Johnson
Radio Free Europe
The UN Human Rights Council has endorsed Judge Richard Goldstone's controversial report accusing both Israel and Hamas of war crimes during the 2008-09 conflict in the Gaza Strip. The council has asked the UN Security Council to refer the report's conclusions to the International Criminal Court if the two sides fail to conduct their own investigations.
Goldstone's report has been dismissed as hopelessly one-sided not only by the Israelis but by many neutral observers, with both the European Union and United States dissenting both on its substance and its suggestion that alleged Israeli war crimes should be judged not by Israeli courts but by the International Criminal Court.
Even many Jews outside Israel are asking how Goldstone, himself a Jew, could lend himself to such an obviously biased mission mandated by a Human Rights Council that is itself full of human rights violators as well as habitual Israel-haters. Both Martti Ahtisaari and Mary Robinson turned down the mission for that reason, after all.
Goldstone's behavior will not surprise those who have followed his career. As a young advocate in South Africa he drew criticism for the way he privately entertained the attorneys who might bring him cases: this was seen as touting for custom. Similarly, his decision to accept nomination as a judge from the apartheid regime drew criticism from many liberal lawyers who refused to accept such nomination because it meant enforcing apartheid laws.
ANC's Favorite Judge
Then, as the political situation changed, so did Goldstone. Entrusted by President F. W. de Klerk with a commission to investigate the causes of violence, Goldstone publicized much damning evidence against the apartheid regime but refused to investigate any form of violence organized by the African National Congress (ANC). This naturally made him the ANC's favorite judge.
Moreover, Goldstone, issued a dramatic press statement suggesting that the military were involved in illegal partisan behavior. De Klerk had to dismiss 23 senior military figures, though the evidence for their guilt promised by Goldstone was never actually forthcoming. The officers sued De Klerk, who had to back down and apologize.
De Klerk was furious at Goldstone's sensational use of untested evidence and, knowing that Goldstone was ambitious to succeed Boutros-Boutros Ghali as UN secretary-general, referred to him as "Richard-Richard Goldstone."
The effect of these high profile actions was to give Goldstone international fame as an icon of political correctness. Hence his appointment as prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).
Cutting Corners In The Hague
At the ICTY, Goldstone was a man in a hurry. "They told me at the UN in New York: if we did not have an indictment out by November 1994 we wouldn't get money that year for 1995," Goldstone admitted. "There was only one person against whom we had evidence.... He wasn't an appropriate first person to indict.... But if we didn't do it we would not have got the budget."
Indeed, it was so inappropriate that the judges in The Hague passed a motion severely censuring Goldstone. After only a year in office, Goldstone offered his job to the Canadian jurist, Louise Arbour.
Throughout his career Goldstone has been criticized for cutting corners out of excessive ambition, but in the eyes of many Jews his Gaza commission has set a new low. That a Jewish judge, barred from entering Israel for accepting a commission deliberately biased against the state, should write a report based largely on interviews with Hamas activists in order to pander to anti-Zionist opinion has meant, for many, that he has simply stepped outside the pale.
R.W. Johnson is a South African journalist and historian and the author, most recently, of "South Africa's Brave New World: The Beloved Country Since The End Of Apartheid."
http://www.rferl.org/content/Who_Is_Richard_Goldstone/1856255.html
Who is Richard Goldstone?
By R. W. Johnson
Radio Free Europe
The UN Human Rights Council has endorsed Judge Richard Goldstone's controversial report accusing both Israel and Hamas of war crimes during the 2008-09 conflict in the Gaza Strip. The council has asked the UN Security Council to refer the report's conclusions to the International Criminal Court if the two sides fail to conduct their own investigations.
Goldstone's report has been dismissed as hopelessly one-sided not only by the Israelis but by many neutral observers, with both the European Union and United States dissenting both on its substance and its suggestion that alleged Israeli war crimes should be judged not by Israeli courts but by the International Criminal Court.
Even many Jews outside Israel are asking how Goldstone, himself a Jew, could lend himself to such an obviously biased mission mandated by a Human Rights Council that is itself full of human rights violators as well as habitual Israel-haters. Both Martti Ahtisaari and Mary Robinson turned down the mission for that reason, after all.
Goldstone's behavior will not surprise those who have followed his career. As a young advocate in South Africa he drew criticism for the way he privately entertained the attorneys who might bring him cases: this was seen as touting for custom. Similarly, his decision to accept nomination as a judge from the apartheid regime drew criticism from many liberal lawyers who refused to accept such nomination because it meant enforcing apartheid laws.
ANC's Favorite Judge
Then, as the political situation changed, so did Goldstone. Entrusted by President F. W. de Klerk with a commission to investigate the causes of violence, Goldstone publicized much damning evidence against the apartheid regime but refused to investigate any form of violence organized by the African National Congress (ANC). This naturally made him the ANC's favorite judge.
Moreover, Goldstone, issued a dramatic press statement suggesting that the military were involved in illegal partisan behavior. De Klerk had to dismiss 23 senior military figures, though the evidence for their guilt promised by Goldstone was never actually forthcoming. The officers sued De Klerk, who had to back down and apologize.
De Klerk was furious at Goldstone's sensational use of untested evidence and, knowing that Goldstone was ambitious to succeed Boutros-Boutros Ghali as UN secretary-general, referred to him as "Richard-Richard Goldstone."
The effect of these high profile actions was to give Goldstone international fame as an icon of political correctness. Hence his appointment as prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).
Cutting Corners In The Hague
At the ICTY, Goldstone was a man in a hurry. "They told me at the UN in New York: if we did not have an indictment out by November 1994 we wouldn't get money that year for 1995," Goldstone admitted. "There was only one person against whom we had evidence.... He wasn't an appropriate first person to indict.... But if we didn't do it we would not have got the budget."
Indeed, it was so inappropriate that the judges in The Hague passed a motion severely censuring Goldstone. After only a year in office, Goldstone offered his job to the Canadian jurist, Louise Arbour.
Throughout his career Goldstone has been criticized for cutting corners out of excessive ambition, but in the eyes of many Jews his Gaza commission has set a new low. That a Jewish judge, barred from entering Israel for accepting a commission deliberately biased against the state, should write a report based largely on interviews with Hamas activists in order to pander to anti-Zionist opinion has meant, for many, that he has simply stepped outside the pale.
R.W. Johnson is a South African journalist and historian and the author, most recently, of "South Africa's Brave New World: The Beloved Country Since The End Of Apartheid."
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Three Strikes: Euro, White, Jew
It seems that some corners of the mainstream media have actually begun to take notice of the double standard they consistently apply to Israel and its enemies in the Arabs’ war against the Jews.
[Actually, it might be more accurate to call said double standard a single one: the Arabs are always right, the Jews are always wrong. But I am about to elaborate on that very point.]
This week, the New York Times published an Op-Ed by Human Rights Watch’s chairman emeritus, Robert Bernstein [1] , in which he asserts that the organization he founded has “lost critical perspective on a conflict in which Israel has been repeatedly attacked by Hamas and Hezbollah, organizations that go after Israeli citizens and use their own people as human shields.” He also asserted that the lobby had wasted its political capital by refusing to criticize the closed societies that were responsible for the majority of human right violations in their zeal to focus on Israel.
In the Guardian, usually a realiably Judeophobic publication, a piece by Harold Evans [2] asserted that, amidst the “the sickening spectacle of Britain failing to stand by Israel, the only democracy with an independent judiciary in the entire region”, that “poor Judge Goldstone now regrets how his good name has been used to single out Israel. The Swiss paper Le Temps reports him complaining that "This draft [UN human rights council] resolution saddens me … there is not a single phrase condemning Hamas as we have done in the report. I hope the council can modify the text."
Of course, the Guardian had to reclaim its progressive bonafides the next daym publishin a piece by Antony Lerman [3] praising the efforts of J Street to take back the debate from AIPac despite J Street being characterized as “urging Israel to make ‘further unilateral concessions to neighbours pledged to its annihilation’, as ‘self-hating Jews’ as they ‘stand at the vanguard of global efforts to demonise and delegitimise the Jewish state’; and its “appalling core premise: that Israel is to blame for Arab terror – the age-old calumny of blaming the Jews for their own destruction”; and “the Goldstone blood libel" which is "part of the UNHRC's strategy of delegitimising Israel to soften up the world for its eventual destruction".
Lerman, unfortunately, may be right when he claims: “We can dismiss this ranting”; he may be closer to the pulse of the debate because I will assume right off that he [and J Street, and Judge Goldstone] are being completely disingenuous—and that Evans and Bernstein are missing that point.
Re Evans claims regarding Goldstone’s “complaints”, they are intended to provide a façade of “neutrality” [which ostensibly fit with the predictable Israeli refusal join the proceedings], but his policies are informed by a cross between Gandhi-ism and Orientalism: that the Israelis are settlers, the Palestinians are natives, and, no matter how fascist or genocidal the Palestinians are, the “original sin” remains the “imposition” of Jews in the area. [That claim has been proven to be in and of itself historically fallacious, on two counts: one, that the “Palestinians” were actually “native” to the area; and two, that the assumption that all geographical areas have a salient exclusive ethnicity “native” to a particular area [which was the inherent flaw in Wilsonian “self-determination”]]. As Goldstone is a South African progressive Jew, these have to be unshakable core beliefs on Goldstone’s part, which he will always reflexively act upon, and will be unwilling or unable [or both] to entertain the notion that there are actually legitimate criticisms of his philosophy.
Bernstein likewise doesn’t realize that he [unwittingly, for certain] created a monster. HE may have wanted his organization to go after “closed” societies; BUT, if said societies are non-white, or third-world, or former colonies, they are ispo-facto absolved from any criticism of their political [and other] conduct. THAT is THE operative “human rights” truism. “Democracies”, because they can never be perfect, and are overwhelmingly run by individuals of European descent, are therefore fair game [if not the only game in town.]
The irony is that for centuries—at least in Europe and America—Jews tried to hard to be accepted as “white people”.
Now we are.
1. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/20/opinion/20bernstein.html
2. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/oct/20/israel-goldstone-palestine-gaza-un
3. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/oct/22/j-street-jewish-lobby
[Actually, it might be more accurate to call said double standard a single one: the Arabs are always right, the Jews are always wrong. But I am about to elaborate on that very point.]
This week, the New York Times published an Op-Ed by Human Rights Watch’s chairman emeritus, Robert Bernstein [1] , in which he asserts that the organization he founded has “lost critical perspective on a conflict in which Israel has been repeatedly attacked by Hamas and Hezbollah, organizations that go after Israeli citizens and use their own people as human shields.” He also asserted that the lobby had wasted its political capital by refusing to criticize the closed societies that were responsible for the majority of human right violations in their zeal to focus on Israel.
In the Guardian, usually a realiably Judeophobic publication, a piece by Harold Evans [2] asserted that, amidst the “the sickening spectacle of Britain failing to stand by Israel, the only democracy with an independent judiciary in the entire region”, that “poor Judge Goldstone now regrets how his good name has been used to single out Israel. The Swiss paper Le Temps reports him complaining that "This draft [UN human rights council] resolution saddens me … there is not a single phrase condemning Hamas as we have done in the report. I hope the council can modify the text."
Of course, the Guardian had to reclaim its progressive bonafides the next daym publishin a piece by Antony Lerman [3] praising the efforts of J Street to take back the debate from AIPac despite J Street being characterized as “urging Israel to make ‘further unilateral concessions to neighbours pledged to its annihilation’, as ‘self-hating Jews’ as they ‘stand at the vanguard of global efforts to demonise and delegitimise the Jewish state’; and its “appalling core premise: that Israel is to blame for Arab terror – the age-old calumny of blaming the Jews for their own destruction”; and “the Goldstone blood libel" which is "part of the UNHRC's strategy of delegitimising Israel to soften up the world for its eventual destruction".
Lerman, unfortunately, may be right when he claims: “We can dismiss this ranting”; he may be closer to the pulse of the debate because I will assume right off that he [and J Street, and Judge Goldstone] are being completely disingenuous—and that Evans and Bernstein are missing that point.
Re Evans claims regarding Goldstone’s “complaints”, they are intended to provide a façade of “neutrality” [which ostensibly fit with the predictable Israeli refusal join the proceedings], but his policies are informed by a cross between Gandhi-ism and Orientalism: that the Israelis are settlers, the Palestinians are natives, and, no matter how fascist or genocidal the Palestinians are, the “original sin” remains the “imposition” of Jews in the area. [That claim has been proven to be in and of itself historically fallacious, on two counts: one, that the “Palestinians” were actually “native” to the area; and two, that the assumption that all geographical areas have a salient exclusive ethnicity “native” to a particular area [which was the inherent flaw in Wilsonian “self-determination”]]. As Goldstone is a South African progressive Jew, these have to be unshakable core beliefs on Goldstone’s part, which he will always reflexively act upon, and will be unwilling or unable [or both] to entertain the notion that there are actually legitimate criticisms of his philosophy.
Bernstein likewise doesn’t realize that he [unwittingly, for certain] created a monster. HE may have wanted his organization to go after “closed” societies; BUT, if said societies are non-white, or third-world, or former colonies, they are ispo-facto absolved from any criticism of their political [and other] conduct. THAT is THE operative “human rights” truism. “Democracies”, because they can never be perfect, and are overwhelmingly run by individuals of European descent, are therefore fair game [if not the only game in town.]
The irony is that for centuries—at least in Europe and America—Jews tried to hard to be accepted as “white people”.
Now we are.
1. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/20/opinion/20bernstein.html
2. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/oct/20/israel-goldstone-palestine-gaza-un
3. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/oct/22/j-street-jewish-lobby
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Pass Rush?
Rush Limbaugh's ill-advised comments about Donovan McNabb and subsequent forced resignation from ESPN’s NFL GameDay in 2003 prompted acclaimed sportswriter Allan Barra to write a piece defending Limbaugh's comments on sports grounds. [Barra later ruefully noted that many of his friends wouldn’t speak to him for weeks.] In any case, Barra and Limbaugh were both wrong regarding McNabb, even sportswise.
Consider that when Limbaugh made his comments, McNabb’s Philadelphia Eagles were 2-3 at that point in the 2003 season. From that point until the Eagles loss in Super Bowl XXXIX, McNabb’s record as a starter was 21-5 [including playoffs, not including games he missed in 2004 with a broken ankle.] Even prior to Limbaugh’s comment, McNabb was 40-20 in games he’d started since 2000, his first full season as the Eagles starter. Plus, he’d taken the Eagles to the previous two NFC Championship games--and would go to the next two. The last quarterback to take his team to that many consecutive conference championship games was Kenny Stabler [five, with the Raiders, from 1973-77. The fact that he lost four of the five didn’t lead anyone to believe he was overrated.] Consider also that McNabb hadn’t been anointed as the coming of the black Johnny Unitas, John Elway, or even Brett Favre—those accolades were reserved for Michael Vick. [If only Rush had picked on him; an "I told you so" might have been slightly more credible.]
Whether Limbaugh’s comments about McNabb truly qualified as race-baiting—and he’s said worse, when discussing issues more salient than sports—was actually irrelevant; he made the mistake of thinking that he could turn a theoretically politically-neutral setting into a forum in which he could project his politics, and he thought either a] he would get away with it or b] become a martyr of free speech. [He also forgot from his previous foray into television that his act didn’t translate as well onscreen]. Instead, he was—to the extent he actually could possibly be—humbled. [The news regarding his Oxycontin addiction that followed not long after McNabbgate didn’t help his image any.]
However, Rush’s politics certainly should not serve as an automatic barrier to his entry to the NFL as an owner. If that were the case, I’d have some serious questions about Dallas' Jerry Jones’ associations with the likes of Saudi Arabia’s Prince Bandar, who touts himself as the #1 Cowboy fan, paints his private jet metallic blue and silver in tribute, and can be seen on the Dallas sidelines in telecasts of Super Bowl XXVII. Does that make Jerry Jones a terror-supporter? Doubtful. [Maybe Rush could use that soundbite in making his case.]
It is equally legitimate, however, for uber-demagogues Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson to pressure the NFL not to allow him into their ranks, even if their characterizations of him as another Marge Schott are—well—wide right. In America—where pro football is now the quintenssential American sport [if not “pastime”] and the adversarial system governs everything, Limbaugh should be at least grudgingly supportive of a free market of ideas, no matter how intellectually dishonest and vapid [accusations which at time can be lodged at him with some degree of accuracy], and no matter how they affect his pocketbook or business.
He can also do what he does best: take his case to the media and see if they are equally as “desirous that he succeed”.
Failing that, he can try suing the NFL. Good luck with that.
Consider that when Limbaugh made his comments, McNabb’s Philadelphia Eagles were 2-3 at that point in the 2003 season. From that point until the Eagles loss in Super Bowl XXXIX, McNabb’s record as a starter was 21-5 [including playoffs, not including games he missed in 2004 with a broken ankle.] Even prior to Limbaugh’s comment, McNabb was 40-20 in games he’d started since 2000, his first full season as the Eagles starter. Plus, he’d taken the Eagles to the previous two NFC Championship games--and would go to the next two. The last quarterback to take his team to that many consecutive conference championship games was Kenny Stabler [five, with the Raiders, from 1973-77. The fact that he lost four of the five didn’t lead anyone to believe he was overrated.] Consider also that McNabb hadn’t been anointed as the coming of the black Johnny Unitas, John Elway, or even Brett Favre—those accolades were reserved for Michael Vick. [If only Rush had picked on him; an "I told you so" might have been slightly more credible.]
Whether Limbaugh’s comments about McNabb truly qualified as race-baiting—and he’s said worse, when discussing issues more salient than sports—was actually irrelevant; he made the mistake of thinking that he could turn a theoretically politically-neutral setting into a forum in which he could project his politics, and he thought either a] he would get away with it or b] become a martyr of free speech. [He also forgot from his previous foray into television that his act didn’t translate as well onscreen]. Instead, he was—to the extent he actually could possibly be—humbled. [The news regarding his Oxycontin addiction that followed not long after McNabbgate didn’t help his image any.]
However, Rush’s politics certainly should not serve as an automatic barrier to his entry to the NFL as an owner. If that were the case, I’d have some serious questions about Dallas' Jerry Jones’ associations with the likes of Saudi Arabia’s Prince Bandar, who touts himself as the #1 Cowboy fan, paints his private jet metallic blue and silver in tribute, and can be seen on the Dallas sidelines in telecasts of Super Bowl XXVII. Does that make Jerry Jones a terror-supporter? Doubtful. [Maybe Rush could use that soundbite in making his case.]
It is equally legitimate, however, for uber-demagogues Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson to pressure the NFL not to allow him into their ranks, even if their characterizations of him as another Marge Schott are—well—wide right. In America—where pro football is now the quintenssential American sport [if not “pastime”] and the adversarial system governs everything, Limbaugh should be at least grudgingly supportive of a free market of ideas, no matter how intellectually dishonest and vapid [accusations which at time can be lodged at him with some degree of accuracy], and no matter how they affect his pocketbook or business.
He can also do what he does best: take his case to the media and see if they are equally as “desirous that he succeed”.
Failing that, he can try suing the NFL. Good luck with that.
Friday, October 9, 2009
“It’s Not You”
Potential is a French word that means you aren’t worth a darn yet—Jeff Van Note
When I wrote about “teachable moments” this week following the awarding of the 2016 Olympics to Rio and the snub of Chicago, I made two aaumptions: one, that some sort of turning point had been reached in how the public at large related to the President; and two, that both sides of the political spectrum might change their tactics and point to this moment as the impetus.
That moment came and went faster than the President’s pretensions to “centrism” in his inaugural address . Unfortunately, I addressed the possibility of said “teachable moments” to both sides of the political spectrum in this county only. I forgot how much internationalist influence can really be brought to bear on this Administration, or, conversely, how bending to said internationalism is a, if not the, linchpin of how this Administration conducts its business.
The awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to President Obama is, when you think about it, not that much of a head-scratcher. A real skeptic would wonder what took the Nobel committee so long; why didn’t they just hand it to him after he won the election? [Better yet, why not split it up among all those who voted for him?]
As it stands, the Europeans—the ones who consider appeasement and abject prostration before all perceived and self-proclaimed victims of “Orientalism” [and others who have a stake in the promulgation of said political philosophy as the quasi-religion it has become]—wanted to make sure that Barack and the Dems stay the course.
The fear that Obama may take the Chicago “snub” personally was more trenchant than anyone could have realized, so this was someone’s way of making up for it.
The message?
“We still don’t like your country…but it isn’t your fault. We love YOU and what you’re trying to do. We can’t, and won’t, give your country any succor if we can help it…but take this instead, and you can consider yourself one of us.”
I can only hope that Obama is as smart as he’s been made out to be and sees through the ruse. But that would mean that I’m assuming that he’s been able to sift our country’s interests from everyone else’s [or his], and that may be giving him too much credit.
When I wrote about “teachable moments” this week following the awarding of the 2016 Olympics to Rio and the snub of Chicago, I made two aaumptions: one, that some sort of turning point had been reached in how the public at large related to the President; and two, that both sides of the political spectrum might change their tactics and point to this moment as the impetus.
That moment came and went faster than the President’s pretensions to “centrism” in his inaugural address . Unfortunately, I addressed the possibility of said “teachable moments” to both sides of the political spectrum in this county only. I forgot how much internationalist influence can really be brought to bear on this Administration, or, conversely, how bending to said internationalism is a, if not the, linchpin of how this Administration conducts its business.
The awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to President Obama is, when you think about it, not that much of a head-scratcher. A real skeptic would wonder what took the Nobel committee so long; why didn’t they just hand it to him after he won the election? [Better yet, why not split it up among all those who voted for him?]
As it stands, the Europeans—the ones who consider appeasement and abject prostration before all perceived and self-proclaimed victims of “Orientalism” [and others who have a stake in the promulgation of said political philosophy as the quasi-religion it has become]—wanted to make sure that Barack and the Dems stay the course.
The fear that Obama may take the Chicago “snub” personally was more trenchant than anyone could have realized, so this was someone’s way of making up for it.
The message?
“We still don’t like your country…but it isn’t your fault. We love YOU and what you’re trying to do. We can’t, and won’t, give your country any succor if we can help it…but take this instead, and you can consider yourself one of us.”
I can only hope that Obama is as smart as he’s been made out to be and sees through the ruse. But that would mean that I’m assuming that he’s been able to sift our country’s interests from everyone else’s [or his], and that may be giving him too much credit.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Why I Changed The Name
I discovered accidentally that there are two other "Cognitive Dissident"'s out there: 1) a band; 2) a group of bikers [who have a facebook group].
I didn't Google "Cognitive Dissident" when I started the blog because I was pretty sure I had come up with the name first, having coined the term in an essay I wrote in January of 1994 when I was auditioning for a column in the Daily Pennsylvanian [I didn't get it.]
However clever Cognitive Dissidents is/was, it's a mouthful, and in today's day and age, brevity is certainly the better part of valor, besides being the soul of wit. [Now if I could translate that skill to the essays...]
Just for the record: "Odd Cog" is a combination of a shortened synonym for "Cognitive Dissident", as well as a play on the Talmudism "Ad Ca'an", roughly translated as "The End", or "end quote", which I once Anglicized to Odd Con prior to this transformation. [It's also the name I record under. One day I'll release something.]
I didn't Google "Cognitive Dissident" when I started the blog because I was pretty sure I had come up with the name first, having coined the term in an essay I wrote in January of 1994 when I was auditioning for a column in the Daily Pennsylvanian [I didn't get it.]
However clever Cognitive Dissidents is/was, it's a mouthful, and in today's day and age, brevity is certainly the better part of valor, besides being the soul of wit. [Now if I could translate that skill to the essays...]
Just for the record: "Odd Cog" is a combination of a shortened synonym for "Cognitive Dissident", as well as a play on the Talmudism "Ad Ca'an", roughly translated as "The End", or "end quote", which I once Anglicized to Odd Con prior to this transformation. [It's also the name I record under. One day I'll release something.]
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Chicago Loses: A Teachable Moment?
When Ronald Regan took office in 1980, it was obvious that America was wallowing in an economic and foreign policy morass. Regardless of his Administration’s actual reversal of their predecessor’s policies, it was obvious that the outgoing Admininstration was at fault. A near perfect mirror-image of that historical moment existed, certainly after September 15, 2008 and continues to this day, despite conservatives’ insistence to the contrary.
Yet Obama may finally have overplayed his hand. One can understand how he has continued to forcefully insist on forcing “health-care reform”, having latched onto that particular policy as his legacy linchpin; despite his discovery that Congress is not an ACORN South Side Chapter community meeting, he still can at least portray to the public that he maintains a semblance of control over his domestic centerpiece.
However, his having found himself caught between the rock and the hard place of a nascent Iranian revolution and Iranian nuclear power, and simultaneously being unable to even pretend to disengage himself from the one element of the Bush Doctrine he can’t publicly disavow [nation building in Afghanistan, which is even less of a nation than Palestine], he finally takes his first real public humiliation when he goes to bat for his adopted hometown’s Olympic bid in an attempt to cash in on his ostensible international standing…and was rejected.
In theory, this was the teachable moment that conservatives might have been waiting for: the President who disingenuously assured us in his inauguration speech that he was governing from the center but instead pandered abroad to an array of international interests in the hope that sycophancy would yield a desired result instead finds that approach only leads to ridicule, and we get a chastened recentered President, a la Bill Clinton circa 1995.
This, however, is highly unlikely. And it will be conservatives’ fault.
The first is that, unlike Clinton in 1992-4, there is no semblance of a viable opposition that wants to do anything except froth at the mouth. Which is a shame, because this Administration seems intent upon somehow embarrassing itself into compliance, and it night happen if the “entertainers” in the opposition would shut up for five minutes. [Yes, Chairman Steele is right; say what you will about Al Franken, he had the brass to actually run for public office. Limbaugh/Beck/Palin et al probably don’t want to part with their lucrative paydays.]
The second is that, also unlike 1992-4, this Administration’s margin for error is HUGE; specifically, because of their unter-supermajority in both Houses, it would take a true catastrophe to make any immediate electoral impact, in 2010 or 2012. No matter how low the approval numbers sink, this country remembers the alternative all too well: the one they took 2 election cycles to vote out.
Either way, it seems the Limbaugh/Beck/Palin wing of the party will get at least half its wish: the President will fail. The other half? That he will actually get reelected, and the failures pile up—as does Limbaugh’s bank statements.
One begins to wonder if an inability or refusal to learn is a prerequisite for political [or, at least electoral] success.
Yet Obama may finally have overplayed his hand. One can understand how he has continued to forcefully insist on forcing “health-care reform”, having latched onto that particular policy as his legacy linchpin; despite his discovery that Congress is not an ACORN South Side Chapter community meeting, he still can at least portray to the public that he maintains a semblance of control over his domestic centerpiece.
However, his having found himself caught between the rock and the hard place of a nascent Iranian revolution and Iranian nuclear power, and simultaneously being unable to even pretend to disengage himself from the one element of the Bush Doctrine he can’t publicly disavow [nation building in Afghanistan, which is even less of a nation than Palestine], he finally takes his first real public humiliation when he goes to bat for his adopted hometown’s Olympic bid in an attempt to cash in on his ostensible international standing…and was rejected.
In theory, this was the teachable moment that conservatives might have been waiting for: the President who disingenuously assured us in his inauguration speech that he was governing from the center but instead pandered abroad to an array of international interests in the hope that sycophancy would yield a desired result instead finds that approach only leads to ridicule, and we get a chastened recentered President, a la Bill Clinton circa 1995.
This, however, is highly unlikely. And it will be conservatives’ fault.
The first is that, unlike Clinton in 1992-4, there is no semblance of a viable opposition that wants to do anything except froth at the mouth. Which is a shame, because this Administration seems intent upon somehow embarrassing itself into compliance, and it night happen if the “entertainers” in the opposition would shut up for five minutes. [Yes, Chairman Steele is right; say what you will about Al Franken, he had the brass to actually run for public office. Limbaugh/Beck/Palin et al probably don’t want to part with their lucrative paydays.]
The second is that, also unlike 1992-4, this Administration’s margin for error is HUGE; specifically, because of their unter-supermajority in both Houses, it would take a true catastrophe to make any immediate electoral impact, in 2010 or 2012. No matter how low the approval numbers sink, this country remembers the alternative all too well: the one they took 2 election cycles to vote out.
Either way, it seems the Limbaugh/Beck/Palin wing of the party will get at least half its wish: the President will fail. The other half? That he will actually get reelected, and the failures pile up—as does Limbaugh’s bank statements.
One begins to wonder if an inability or refusal to learn is a prerequisite for political [or, at least electoral] success.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Megan Fox
This girl is nothing more than the next Denise Richards.
And Richards at least got to play a Bond Girl [as a nuclear physicist, no less].
And Richards at least got to play a Bond Girl [as a nuclear physicist, no less].
Political Prisoner’s Dilemma
One wonders if the major players on the Left or Right would remember Psych 101, they’d recall that the “Tit-For-Tat” method of “Prisoner’s Dilemma” called for the first move to always be to “Cooperate”, and that every move thereafter mirror their counterparts’ move[s] [see: http://www.gametheory.net/dictionary/TitforTat.html]. Yet the Left seems to never get out of “cooperate” mode, and the Right demonstrates an inability to even consider the possibility of making that move.
Re the Left, Iran provides the most important illustration. Ironically, this Administration’s new foreign policy seems to have worked too well, particularly the combination of the insistence on merely suggesting condition-free dialogue with Iran in combination with going to Cairo and publicly TL’ing International Islamism, among other reason to come to terms with the fact that that it was going to stick around, whether or not it deserved to. Instead, the pseudo-theofascist Persia has responded to his overtures by amping up their misbehaviors. Complicating the situation—and further diminishing any reason for cooperation on anyone’s part with the regime—is the Iranian populace’ reaction to the recent stolen election. Ironically, as statements issued from people involved with the “negotiations” indicate, the Administration realizes its “cooperate” move is empty, but the increasingly fear the consequences of a “defect” move, even thought the consequences of delaying such a move increase the cost of its execution [and the likelihood of an Israeli attack].
[Which, to be fair, I would lay the lion’s share of the blame at the feet of the previous Administration for invading the wrong country. As I’ve said here repeatedly, I would agree with everything Dick Cheney has said about our conduct of the War on Terror—IF we had invaded Iran instead of Iraq. Instead, the invasion and subsequent messes allowed for the possibility that the “game” could be reset to “start” long enough for the incoming Administration to at least present ab initio a salient case for “cooperation”.]
Re the right, events [thankfully] beyond their control may be shaping up in a way that start the political winds blowing at least mildly in their direction...IF they manage to quelch their penchant for dontopedalogy for five minutes. [As prominent examples—and for later discussion—Glenn Beck misreads history, Sarah Palin continues to proudly display that she doesn’t know history, and Rush Limbaugh is laughing all the way to the bank.] In addition to the Iran corner he has backed himself into, Obama has overreached spectacularly on health care to the point that his own party has forced him to abandon the “public option”, at least publicly. Yet the Right continues to assume that stoking its most reactionary and least savory elements will increase the chances of Democrats self-immolation; instead, it allows bankrupt progressive policy to appear at least somewhat credible. If the Republicans were smart, they’d realize that self-destruction is in Democratic DNA and will show up sooner or later.
Failing that, maybe they should give the Israelis a call.
Re the Left, Iran provides the most important illustration. Ironically, this Administration’s new foreign policy seems to have worked too well, particularly the combination of the insistence on merely suggesting condition-free dialogue with Iran in combination with going to Cairo and publicly TL’ing International Islamism, among other reason to come to terms with the fact that that it was going to stick around, whether or not it deserved to. Instead, the pseudo-theofascist Persia has responded to his overtures by amping up their misbehaviors. Complicating the situation—and further diminishing any reason for cooperation on anyone’s part with the regime—is the Iranian populace’ reaction to the recent stolen election. Ironically, as statements issued from people involved with the “negotiations” indicate, the Administration realizes its “cooperate” move is empty, but the increasingly fear the consequences of a “defect” move, even thought the consequences of delaying such a move increase the cost of its execution [and the likelihood of an Israeli attack].
[Which, to be fair, I would lay the lion’s share of the blame at the feet of the previous Administration for invading the wrong country. As I’ve said here repeatedly, I would agree with everything Dick Cheney has said about our conduct of the War on Terror—IF we had invaded Iran instead of Iraq. Instead, the invasion and subsequent messes allowed for the possibility that the “game” could be reset to “start” long enough for the incoming Administration to at least present ab initio a salient case for “cooperation”.]
Re the right, events [thankfully] beyond their control may be shaping up in a way that start the political winds blowing at least mildly in their direction...IF they manage to quelch their penchant for dontopedalogy for five minutes. [As prominent examples—and for later discussion—Glenn Beck misreads history, Sarah Palin continues to proudly display that she doesn’t know history, and Rush Limbaugh is laughing all the way to the bank.] In addition to the Iran corner he has backed himself into, Obama has overreached spectacularly on health care to the point that his own party has forced him to abandon the “public option”, at least publicly. Yet the Right continues to assume that stoking its most reactionary and least savory elements will increase the chances of Democrats self-immolation; instead, it allows bankrupt progressive policy to appear at least somewhat credible. If the Republicans were smart, they’d realize that self-destruction is in Democratic DNA and will show up sooner or later.
Failing that, maybe they should give the Israelis a call.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Bill Maher, Ronald Dworkin, And The Real Health Care Debate
Bill Maher and Ronald Dworkin’s recent essays on Obamacare probably best illustrated where the real ideological positions are staked out: from the Left, Maher, whose main contention is that health care is a “service[/]institution[s] so vital to our nation” that it should be “exempt from market pressures” [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-maher/new-rule-not-everything-i_b_244050.html], and from the Right, Dworkin, whose counter-contention is that the resulting system of public medicine would be about as efficient as the public school system
[http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204683204574358281875211014.html].
Both are correct. And in this case, both are being equally hypocritical. To a certain point, each author’s respective thesis [at least, as I read them] serves to illustrate the point at which each one’s respective counterpart would be forced to think contradictory. {I’m sure they didn’t do this deliberately, but no matter.]
Maher’s point about removing the profit motive from health care exposes contradictions in the conservative arguments regarding lasseiz-faire, lessened governmental interference in personal affairs, and the concomitant “threat” of triage conducted by panels using progressive tenets as guidelines. Conservatives don’t want government interfering in their health care decisions? Sure; just ask Terri Schiavo or anyone with an unwanted pregnancy. Or, ask former Texas Gov. George W. Bush, who signed the 1999 Texas Futile Care Law, allowing health care workers to remove expensive life support for terminally ill patients if the patient or family is unable to pay the medical bills: a clear case of an economics-driven “death panel”.
Similarly, albeit from the opposite ideological direction, Dworkin’s public school analog is even more apt than he realizes, as it helps put the lie to the notion that health care, like the schools, will become a truly effectively administered public good if the profit motive is removed. Instead, it will be driven by various competing interest groups—particularly, unions—who will have a stake in ensuring the diversion of resources toward themselves and away from the people who need it: in the case of the schools, the children always come last; in the case of health care, the patients will. One system of “profiteering” will simply be replaced by another.
In the end, these two pundits clearly indicate that the health care imbroglio is really about anything but health care, per se; rather, it’s about how various pieces of the pie are to be distributed [or, re-distributed]. This is the main reason that, no matter how much effort Obama and the rest of the far left expends in “drag[ging] them to it” [Maher’s comment in another forum: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lBgpI2S4I4], “it”—healthcare—will never become the moral issue the left wants it to become, namely with a moral gravitas comparable to the abolition and civil rights movements, when “dragging” was called for.
The health care “debate”, then, is just an old-fashioned feeding frenzy in…drag.
[http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204683204574358281875211014.html].
Both are correct. And in this case, both are being equally hypocritical. To a certain point, each author’s respective thesis [at least, as I read them] serves to illustrate the point at which each one’s respective counterpart would be forced to think contradictory. {I’m sure they didn’t do this deliberately, but no matter.]
Maher’s point about removing the profit motive from health care exposes contradictions in the conservative arguments regarding lasseiz-faire, lessened governmental interference in personal affairs, and the concomitant “threat” of triage conducted by panels using progressive tenets as guidelines. Conservatives don’t want government interfering in their health care decisions? Sure; just ask Terri Schiavo or anyone with an unwanted pregnancy. Or, ask former Texas Gov. George W. Bush, who signed the 1999 Texas Futile Care Law, allowing health care workers to remove expensive life support for terminally ill patients if the patient or family is unable to pay the medical bills: a clear case of an economics-driven “death panel”.
Similarly, albeit from the opposite ideological direction, Dworkin’s public school analog is even more apt than he realizes, as it helps put the lie to the notion that health care, like the schools, will become a truly effectively administered public good if the profit motive is removed. Instead, it will be driven by various competing interest groups—particularly, unions—who will have a stake in ensuring the diversion of resources toward themselves and away from the people who need it: in the case of the schools, the children always come last; in the case of health care, the patients will. One system of “profiteering” will simply be replaced by another.
In the end, these two pundits clearly indicate that the health care imbroglio is really about anything but health care, per se; rather, it’s about how various pieces of the pie are to be distributed [or, re-distributed]. This is the main reason that, no matter how much effort Obama and the rest of the far left expends in “drag[ging] them to it” [Maher’s comment in another forum: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lBgpI2S4I4], “it”—healthcare—will never become the moral issue the left wants it to become, namely with a moral gravitas comparable to the abolition and civil rights movements, when “dragging” was called for.
The health care “debate”, then, is just an old-fashioned feeding frenzy in…drag.
Monday, August 31, 2009
More Republi-Karma: Dick Cheney vs Eric Holder
Usually I avoid employing overt religious references in these blog pages, mostly for reasons of [attempted] intellectual honesty, which would be well-nigh impossible owing to my admitted fierce Judeocentrism. I write another blog [“Yeshivas Ye-ush Mi-Da’as”] in which I constrain myself less in that regard.
Yet, when discussing the ongoing issue of the legality of “enhanced interrogations” that now threatens to become an all-out war between Justice and Intelligence [Panetta’s gonna protecting his territory--who woulda thunk it?] and viewing it from my perch as the paradigmatic self-hating conservative [where are the rest of ‘em?], I couldn’t resist using both Biblical and Talmudic references to [further] elucidate my position.
In fact, I don’t think I could have found a better way to explain it.
The verse that comes to mind is from II Kings 10:18: “And Jehu gathered the nation together, and said unto them, Ahab served Ba'al a little, but Yehu shall serve him much”.
The Babylonian Talmud [Tractate Pesachim folio 87b, for those who might actually want to look it up], based on a verse in Hosea [(1:3-4): “…for in a little while I will visit the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Yehu”] relates that, when Jehu’s descendants themselves proceeded to serve the Baal as Ahab had, Jehu’s slaughter of Ahab and his household was retroactively counted as murder, despite the fact that G-d himself had commanded Jehu to wipe out the house of Ahab—for the offense of Baal worship.
The lesson herein is that sometimes, to save a society at large, drastic action must be undertaken in which people will get hurt [or, in the parlance of Dirty Harry Callahan’s commanding officer, “get dead”, though doctrinaire pacifists usually are more perturbed by the infliction of pain rather than death, for unexplained reasons]; however, at the same time, the party inflicting the pain better be certain that they act on the side of the angels.
Dick Cheney may have been on the side of the angels in a case like this, even more than Abraham Lincoln was when he suspended habeas corpus in the months leading up to the Civil War: back then, Lincoln was fighting to preserve an ideal, and here Cheney was preventing apocalyptic mass murder. [And anyone who thinks that Islamic terrorism is anything but theologically-justified apocalyptic mass murder deserves to be their next victim.] That would have been the case—until the techniques were employed to further the prosecution of what was, for all intents and purposes, an economically-driven voluntary war. [If it was anything but that, a draft would have—or should have—been called.]
I have been open about favoring all sorts of “enhanced” methods of interrogation, and that the methods of eradicating piracy in the 18th and 19th centuries provide a much more salient analog for guidelines regarding the prosecution of “War on Terror” [or whatever its being called nowadays] that the Geneva Conventions, which in any case, certainly in their 1949 edition, serve as more of a “this is how we coulda/woulda/shoulda fought the last two world wars” than as a true legal mandate for militarily “playing nice”. I have been equally open about the need for some kind of legal repercussions for those employing the techniques described above—not because they shouldn’t be used when needed, but that they should absolutely not be used at any other time.
It’s doubtful that any legal action initiated by this Administration would be anything but politically motivated. However, Cheney and his ilk have no “kick”: when they applied these techniques to preserve their own political and material positions, they indicated they were playing the same game. You don’t get to be selective about the rules, particularly after you’ve been repeatedly called on it by the electorate.
Additionally, I don’t know if any conservatives—particularly those who believe G-d Himself is conservative—would appreciate the irony of one of their own sacred texts being used to teach them such a lesson. I would reckon they do—and don’t like it.
Yet, when discussing the ongoing issue of the legality of “enhanced interrogations” that now threatens to become an all-out war between Justice and Intelligence [Panetta’s gonna protecting his territory--who woulda thunk it?] and viewing it from my perch as the paradigmatic self-hating conservative [where are the rest of ‘em?], I couldn’t resist using both Biblical and Talmudic references to [further] elucidate my position.
In fact, I don’t think I could have found a better way to explain it.
The verse that comes to mind is from II Kings 10:18: “And Jehu gathered the nation together, and said unto them, Ahab served Ba'al a little, but Yehu shall serve him much”.
The Babylonian Talmud [Tractate Pesachim folio 87b, for those who might actually want to look it up], based on a verse in Hosea [(1:3-4): “…for in a little while I will visit the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Yehu”] relates that, when Jehu’s descendants themselves proceeded to serve the Baal as Ahab had, Jehu’s slaughter of Ahab and his household was retroactively counted as murder, despite the fact that G-d himself had commanded Jehu to wipe out the house of Ahab—for the offense of Baal worship.
The lesson herein is that sometimes, to save a society at large, drastic action must be undertaken in which people will get hurt [or, in the parlance of Dirty Harry Callahan’s commanding officer, “get dead”, though doctrinaire pacifists usually are more perturbed by the infliction of pain rather than death, for unexplained reasons]; however, at the same time, the party inflicting the pain better be certain that they act on the side of the angels.
Dick Cheney may have been on the side of the angels in a case like this, even more than Abraham Lincoln was when he suspended habeas corpus in the months leading up to the Civil War: back then, Lincoln was fighting to preserve an ideal, and here Cheney was preventing apocalyptic mass murder. [And anyone who thinks that Islamic terrorism is anything but theologically-justified apocalyptic mass murder deserves to be their next victim.] That would have been the case—until the techniques were employed to further the prosecution of what was, for all intents and purposes, an economically-driven voluntary war. [If it was anything but that, a draft would have—or should have—been called.]
I have been open about favoring all sorts of “enhanced” methods of interrogation, and that the methods of eradicating piracy in the 18th and 19th centuries provide a much more salient analog for guidelines regarding the prosecution of “War on Terror” [or whatever its being called nowadays] that the Geneva Conventions, which in any case, certainly in their 1949 edition, serve as more of a “this is how we coulda/woulda/shoulda fought the last two world wars” than as a true legal mandate for militarily “playing nice”. I have been equally open about the need for some kind of legal repercussions for those employing the techniques described above—not because they shouldn’t be used when needed, but that they should absolutely not be used at any other time.
It’s doubtful that any legal action initiated by this Administration would be anything but politically motivated. However, Cheney and his ilk have no “kick”: when they applied these techniques to preserve their own political and material positions, they indicated they were playing the same game. You don’t get to be selective about the rules, particularly after you’ve been repeatedly called on it by the electorate.
Additionally, I don’t know if any conservatives—particularly those who believe G-d Himself is conservative—would appreciate the irony of one of their own sacred texts being used to teach them such a lesson. I would reckon they do—and don’t like it.
Monday, August 17, 2009
Obamacare: Two-Strike Breaking Pitch
I’m 0-for-2. At least.
First, I was bamboozled by Sarah Palin and what she ostensibly represented…until I saw the Katie Couric interview and realized what she represented was the impossibility of her credibility as long as they were inexorably associated with such unadulterated brainlessness. Additionally, she also represented the inability of the GOP team to find good people to work for them, which would have portended another term of W.-like incompetence in a McCain administration; they wouldn’t have been able to execute, even if their principles were correct.
Then came Obama’s inaugural address, and I like everyone else except for the true doctrinaire right-wingers assumed from the combination of that speech and his Cabinet appointments of Rahm Emanuel, Larry Summers, Arne Duncan and their ilk that he planned to govern from the center, as opposed to adopting the ”socialist” and “pro-terrorist” policies the GOP tried to tag him with. Alas, the only one privy to the definition of said “Center” was the new President himself; more specifically, it seems as if he considers his policy regimen to be the true centrism.
While many on the right cried “socialism” with the stimulus package and the governmental net cast over the banking and automotive industry, even such free-market personages as Alan Greenspan had publically admitted that some intervention was needed, rendering that argument less than salient, so if the economic center had moved left, it had dome so on its own accord, if not a result of deregulatory-elicited messes. And, while certainly every foreign policy move Obama has made, from Gitmo to Cairo to Mary Robinson, belies any true centrist—even “realist”—mindset, and is a blatant attempt to centralize appeasement/”America First—In Guilt” policy, I would have been called on my politics being inexorably biased by my Judeocentrism. [Not that there’s anything wrong with that, or being Israel-centric; more that there are people who defend the state from Obama and his ilk better than I would, without necessarily preaching to the choir.]
That’s why Obamacare and its concomitant raising of the spectre of 1993 and 1994 theoretically had, at least initially, handed me—and other conservatives, self-hating and otherwise—a policy against which one could be truly opposed in principle. Never mind the nuances; this was going to involve an imposition of governmental control regarding issues of supply and demand where there was no real mandate for it. As Jon Meachem pointed in Newsweek, unlike social security or voting rights, universal health care doesn’t have the same sui generis moral imprimatur that would otherwise make it amenable to such a policy imposition; there was no reason that Obama wouldn’t fail as his attempt to become FDR and LBJ the way Bill Clinton did in 1994. Additionally, as David Gergen theorized in Rolling Stone, as Obamacare would be the one issue that could not be hung upon the previous administration with any degree of credibility, failure to implement it in at least some degree would lead to the Democrats being punished at the polls in 2010.
So, expecting a fastball down the middle [an Obamacare more or less analogous to Hillarycare], we get a breaking pitch way too close to take: Obama announces that the “public option” may be taken off the table.
Brilliant?
Not necessarily; it’s more that, people keep forgetting that Obama doesn’t feel like he owes anyone anything, so he can manipulate his policy to suit himself and his aim of keeping his [and liberals’] power. Those on the further left are angry, sure; but where else can they go? The conservative Democrats are more likely to support his legislation, and GOP’ers really now have lost possibly their most salient reason for continued intransigence [though one shouldn’t count against their propensity to continue as such.]
This guy will do anything to make sure he won’t lose, and he won’t even have to triangulate.
First, I was bamboozled by Sarah Palin and what she ostensibly represented…until I saw the Katie Couric interview and realized what she represented was the impossibility of her credibility as long as they were inexorably associated with such unadulterated brainlessness. Additionally, she also represented the inability of the GOP team to find good people to work for them, which would have portended another term of W.-like incompetence in a McCain administration; they wouldn’t have been able to execute, even if their principles were correct.
Then came Obama’s inaugural address, and I like everyone else except for the true doctrinaire right-wingers assumed from the combination of that speech and his Cabinet appointments of Rahm Emanuel, Larry Summers, Arne Duncan and their ilk that he planned to govern from the center, as opposed to adopting the ”socialist” and “pro-terrorist” policies the GOP tried to tag him with. Alas, the only one privy to the definition of said “Center” was the new President himself; more specifically, it seems as if he considers his policy regimen to be the true centrism.
While many on the right cried “socialism” with the stimulus package and the governmental net cast over the banking and automotive industry, even such free-market personages as Alan Greenspan had publically admitted that some intervention was needed, rendering that argument less than salient, so if the economic center had moved left, it had dome so on its own accord, if not a result of deregulatory-elicited messes. And, while certainly every foreign policy move Obama has made, from Gitmo to Cairo to Mary Robinson, belies any true centrist—even “realist”—mindset, and is a blatant attempt to centralize appeasement/”America First—In Guilt” policy, I would have been called on my politics being inexorably biased by my Judeocentrism. [Not that there’s anything wrong with that, or being Israel-centric; more that there are people who defend the state from Obama and his ilk better than I would, without necessarily preaching to the choir.]
That’s why Obamacare and its concomitant raising of the spectre of 1993 and 1994 theoretically had, at least initially, handed me—and other conservatives, self-hating and otherwise—a policy against which one could be truly opposed in principle. Never mind the nuances; this was going to involve an imposition of governmental control regarding issues of supply and demand where there was no real mandate for it. As Jon Meachem pointed in Newsweek, unlike social security or voting rights, universal health care doesn’t have the same sui generis moral imprimatur that would otherwise make it amenable to such a policy imposition; there was no reason that Obama wouldn’t fail as his attempt to become FDR and LBJ the way Bill Clinton did in 1994. Additionally, as David Gergen theorized in Rolling Stone, as Obamacare would be the one issue that could not be hung upon the previous administration with any degree of credibility, failure to implement it in at least some degree would lead to the Democrats being punished at the polls in 2010.
So, expecting a fastball down the middle [an Obamacare more or less analogous to Hillarycare], we get a breaking pitch way too close to take: Obama announces that the “public option” may be taken off the table.
Brilliant?
Not necessarily; it’s more that, people keep forgetting that Obama doesn’t feel like he owes anyone anything, so he can manipulate his policy to suit himself and his aim of keeping his [and liberals’] power. Those on the further left are angry, sure; but where else can they go? The conservative Democrats are more likely to support his legislation, and GOP’ers really now have lost possibly their most salient reason for continued intransigence [though one shouldn’t count against their propensity to continue as such.]
This guy will do anything to make sure he won’t lose, and he won’t even have to triangulate.
Sunday, August 2, 2009
I'm With Stupid. Gimme A Beer.
The incident at the home of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. and the President’s series of responses have been designated as Obama’s first “racial crisis”, as the proof that this Administration has not quite reached the level of “post-racial”.
While that might be somewhat of an exaggeration, the theories regarding the incident as a symptom of Obama’s messianic dirigible having sprung more than a few leaks, as evidenced by his poll numbers’ entering their post-steroid era.
The sad thing is, in this case, he may actually have been right. The officer was certainly within his bounds to answer the break-in call and question Prof. Gates, but once it had been established that the residence was, in fact, Prof. Gates’, the matter should have been left at that, irrespective of what ever tirade Prof. Gates may or may not have launched, short of an outright assault. Additionally, one would think that it would behoove police departments to actually know who the more prominent citizens in their neighborhoods are, particularly if they are prominent and connected ethnic minorities…and the police are on said person’s property WITH said individual in question present. [Did ANYONE learn ANYTHING from the OJ case?]
Of course, its no accident the loudest protests nationwide have come from police departments and their conservative leaning law-and-order allies, complaining of a possible “slippery-slope”: is our black President going to find all arrests of blacks “stupid”, ipso facto? Especially when the arresting officer was white? While that may not have been as explicitly stated as Obama’s “stupid” comment, the implication was pretty clear.
A perusal of a number of high-profile cases should indicate that we are far from that, particularly cases where an offending party AND officers on the case were both minorities and the complaints of a “racist” police action were just as shrill [most specifically, the incidents involving Patrick Dorismond and Sean Bell]. And, when Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney punched a [white] Capitol police officer in 2006 after he stopped her for not carrying the requisite ID, it was McKinney who was forced to apologize.
Of course, Obama wasn’t in office yet. And, as far as we know, McKinney isn’t the friend [or fundraiser…or Vineyard neighbor…] that Gates is. And that’s the point. An Obama frustrated by the fact that all his “Yes We Can”’s are eliciting equal and opposite “No You Don’ts”’s [especially from within his own party] reacted on a personal level to a question where the answer, if not the descriptive term used, was going to be a foregone conclusion, as were the partisan reactions to whatever comment he was going to make.
Ironically, it seems that, having been invited to beer with the President, Prof. Gates and Officer Crowley may become drinking buddies [bloggers’ “evidence” that the two may be distant cousins notwithstanding] after all this.
[Officer, this beer is courtesy of that gentlemen over there surrounded by heavily armed well dressed men with earpieces and sunglasses….]
While that might be somewhat of an exaggeration, the theories regarding the incident as a symptom of Obama’s messianic dirigible having sprung more than a few leaks, as evidenced by his poll numbers’ entering their post-steroid era.
The sad thing is, in this case, he may actually have been right. The officer was certainly within his bounds to answer the break-in call and question Prof. Gates, but once it had been established that the residence was, in fact, Prof. Gates’, the matter should have been left at that, irrespective of what ever tirade Prof. Gates may or may not have launched, short of an outright assault. Additionally, one would think that it would behoove police departments to actually know who the more prominent citizens in their neighborhoods are, particularly if they are prominent and connected ethnic minorities…and the police are on said person’s property WITH said individual in question present. [Did ANYONE learn ANYTHING from the OJ case?]
Of course, its no accident the loudest protests nationwide have come from police departments and their conservative leaning law-and-order allies, complaining of a possible “slippery-slope”: is our black President going to find all arrests of blacks “stupid”, ipso facto? Especially when the arresting officer was white? While that may not have been as explicitly stated as Obama’s “stupid” comment, the implication was pretty clear.
A perusal of a number of high-profile cases should indicate that we are far from that, particularly cases where an offending party AND officers on the case were both minorities and the complaints of a “racist” police action were just as shrill [most specifically, the incidents involving Patrick Dorismond and Sean Bell]. And, when Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney punched a [white] Capitol police officer in 2006 after he stopped her for not carrying the requisite ID, it was McKinney who was forced to apologize.
Of course, Obama wasn’t in office yet. And, as far as we know, McKinney isn’t the friend [or fundraiser…or Vineyard neighbor…] that Gates is. And that’s the point. An Obama frustrated by the fact that all his “Yes We Can”’s are eliciting equal and opposite “No You Don’ts”’s [especially from within his own party] reacted on a personal level to a question where the answer, if not the descriptive term used, was going to be a foregone conclusion, as were the partisan reactions to whatever comment he was going to make.
Ironically, it seems that, having been invited to beer with the President, Prof. Gates and Officer Crowley may become drinking buddies [bloggers’ “evidence” that the two may be distant cousins notwithstanding] after all this.
[Officer, this beer is courtesy of that gentlemen over there surrounded by heavily armed well dressed men with earpieces and sunglasses….]
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Republican Legacy Chain: Quayle….Dubya….Palin?
Soon-to-be-former Gov. Sarah Palin, quoting the Bible as she makes her ostensible exit, seems to have pulled off a neat trick: sticking to the script [the ultimate one, in this case] and, at the same time, departing from it [being unpredictable]. It’s highly likely that she doesn’t really appreciate the irony involved, but it doesn’t matter; what she has done is established that she will conduct the next phase of her political journey as a drama queen. This is the reverse of Nixon in ’62.
Obviously, the Republicans will need an electoral guinea pig in 2012. The choice Republicans face is whether an upcoming 2012 debacle will resemble Barry Goldwater’s 1964 loss to LBJ—which, for all intents and purposes, eventually became the starting locus for a four-decade conservative ascendancy—or, George McGovern’s 1972 trouncing at the hands of Richard Nixon, which did not do the same thing for the Democrats.
Neither the ’64 nor the ’72 scenario will deter Palin. This is likely because she’s self-delusive enough to think that she can win even with the current American political zeitgeist being what it is. However, she may vaguely senses that she has an opportunity to become a more salient historical figure, as opposed to the intellectually challenged cipher that sank John McCain.
There remain two other possible positive outcomes from Palin’s obvious early hat-toss, at least as far as conservatives are concerned. The first is that a debacle can be avoided if, like other chimerical early front-runners [see: Ted Kennedy in 1980, Gary Hart in 1987, Paul Tsongas/Jerry Brown in 1992, Howard Dean in 2004] she flames out soon enough for a more viable candidate to be presented, resulting in a more salient contest in 2012.
The second involves the aforementioned possibility of things getting so much worse than they are now [a cataclysmic economic collapse approaching 1930’s levels or a terror attack on American soil approaching the scale of 9/11] to the point that Obama’s administration is perceived to be even less competent than W.’s. If that happens, Palin might become the perfect candidate: any notion of conservative/Republican moderation will go right into the trashcan and we would be looking at an administration headed by a W.-Quayle hybrid.
And with Rush Limbaugh in the role of both Karl Rove and Dick Cheney.
Obviously, the Republicans will need an electoral guinea pig in 2012. The choice Republicans face is whether an upcoming 2012 debacle will resemble Barry Goldwater’s 1964 loss to LBJ—which, for all intents and purposes, eventually became the starting locus for a four-decade conservative ascendancy—or, George McGovern’s 1972 trouncing at the hands of Richard Nixon, which did not do the same thing for the Democrats.
Neither the ’64 nor the ’72 scenario will deter Palin. This is likely because she’s self-delusive enough to think that she can win even with the current American political zeitgeist being what it is. However, she may vaguely senses that she has an opportunity to become a more salient historical figure, as opposed to the intellectually challenged cipher that sank John McCain.
There remain two other possible positive outcomes from Palin’s obvious early hat-toss, at least as far as conservatives are concerned. The first is that a debacle can be avoided if, like other chimerical early front-runners [see: Ted Kennedy in 1980, Gary Hart in 1987, Paul Tsongas/Jerry Brown in 1992, Howard Dean in 2004] she flames out soon enough for a more viable candidate to be presented, resulting in a more salient contest in 2012.
The second involves the aforementioned possibility of things getting so much worse than they are now [a cataclysmic economic collapse approaching 1930’s levels or a terror attack on American soil approaching the scale of 9/11] to the point that Obama’s administration is perceived to be even less competent than W.’s. If that happens, Palin might become the perfect candidate: any notion of conservative/Republican moderation will go right into the trashcan and we would be looking at an administration headed by a W.-Quayle hybrid.
And with Rush Limbaugh in the role of both Karl Rove and Dick Cheney.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Sons Of Equivalences
[…because some equivalences are more equivalent than others, equivocally]
ITEM: GOV. SANFORD SAYS ARGENTINIAN MISTRESS HIS “SOUL MATE”
One has to admire Gov. Sanford’s non-repentant approach as almost refreshing in its chutzpah, particularly after the Clinton’s mess of denials and Spitzer’s wife-by-side mea culpa. One wonders [though certainly not too overly] how much of it can be directly attributed to his religious conservatism.
What it does further prove, however, is that conservative hypocrisy will always be more deserving of moral opprobrium than liberal hypocrisy. This is specifically because conservatives claim their principles are timeless and absolute, if not Divinely ordained, and therefore universally applicable; hence, betrayals are more trenchant. As much as liberals and progressives try to deify Marx, Hegel and their ilk, it will always be easier to chalk up a betrayal of said principles as a disagreement among men rather than a true “non serviam”.
ITEM: ANOTHER TRIUMPH OF SAIDISM
http://www.nypost.com/seven/06292009/postopinion/opedcolumnists/columbia_tenures_an_israel_basher_176594.htm
Much has been written about the case of Joseph Massad; it doesn’t surprise me that Columbia would resort to such under-the-table tactics to get his back on the faculty. However, this item really stands out:
In a recent work, "Desiring Arabs," Massad claimed to expose yet another plot against the Muslim world -- the "Gay International." He describes how a vast conspiracy of gay activists descended on Arab countries and endangered the lives of "practitioners of same-sex contact" by transforming them into "subjects who identify as 'homosexual' and 'gay.' " Nor is Massad fond of the women's rights movement, or "colonial feminism," as he calls it. He bristles at the attention paid to the Muslim practice of honor killings, which he likens to "crimes of passion," accusing women's groups of ignoring "rampant Western misogyny."
It just goes to show; you can be overtly homophobic and misogynist, but if you are an anti-Semitic non-Caucasian academic, all is forgiven. You can only expect so much. Somewhere in Hell, Edward Said must be smiling in between floggings.
ITEM: MADOFF GETS 150 YEARS
Consider that even if he lives to be 100, his sentence will be worth no more than 20% of what it originally was. Not quite the poetic justice anyone had in mind.
ITEM: JUSTICE THOMAS ONLY DISSENT IN STRIP SEARCH CASE
I hope no one is surprised; anyone remember what almost sank his nomination in the first place?
ITEM: GOV. SANFORD SAYS ARGENTINIAN MISTRESS HIS “SOUL MATE”
One has to admire Gov. Sanford’s non-repentant approach as almost refreshing in its chutzpah, particularly after the Clinton’s mess of denials and Spitzer’s wife-by-side mea culpa. One wonders [though certainly not too overly] how much of it can be directly attributed to his religious conservatism.
What it does further prove, however, is that conservative hypocrisy will always be more deserving of moral opprobrium than liberal hypocrisy. This is specifically because conservatives claim their principles are timeless and absolute, if not Divinely ordained, and therefore universally applicable; hence, betrayals are more trenchant. As much as liberals and progressives try to deify Marx, Hegel and their ilk, it will always be easier to chalk up a betrayal of said principles as a disagreement among men rather than a true “non serviam”.
ITEM: ANOTHER TRIUMPH OF SAIDISM
http://www.nypost.com/seven/06292009/postopinion/opedcolumnists/columbia_tenures_an_israel_basher_176594.htm
Much has been written about the case of Joseph Massad; it doesn’t surprise me that Columbia would resort to such under-the-table tactics to get his back on the faculty. However, this item really stands out:
In a recent work, "Desiring Arabs," Massad claimed to expose yet another plot against the Muslim world -- the "Gay International." He describes how a vast conspiracy of gay activists descended on Arab countries and endangered the lives of "practitioners of same-sex contact" by transforming them into "subjects who identify as 'homosexual' and 'gay.' " Nor is Massad fond of the women's rights movement, or "colonial feminism," as he calls it. He bristles at the attention paid to the Muslim practice of honor killings, which he likens to "crimes of passion," accusing women's groups of ignoring "rampant Western misogyny."
It just goes to show; you can be overtly homophobic and misogynist, but if you are an anti-Semitic non-Caucasian academic, all is forgiven. You can only expect so much. Somewhere in Hell, Edward Said must be smiling in between floggings.
ITEM: MADOFF GETS 150 YEARS
Consider that even if he lives to be 100, his sentence will be worth no more than 20% of what it originally was. Not quite the poetic justice anyone had in mind.
ITEM: JUSTICE THOMAS ONLY DISSENT IN STRIP SEARCH CASE
I hope no one is surprised; anyone remember what almost sank his nomination in the first place?
Friday, June 26, 2009
OK Kids, He’s Dead. You Can Come Out Now.
There’s an old Yiddish saying-"alleh maisim tzadikim"-which, loosely translated, means "all the dead are righteous", or more specifically, one should never speak ill of the dead, at least not the recently departed. Thankfully, not all Yiddishisms, no matter how salient, have the force of a commandment. Even if it had in this case, I would have gladly—and publicly—broken it. As I will do now.
Sometimes, pop culture gets it right. One of those cases was OJ Simpson. Once it became obvious that he was the most likely culprit in the murders of his ex-wife and Ron Goldman, the entire country knew, no matter what the outcome of the trial, that his celebrity was radioactive; never again would he be able to cash in on his status as a pop culture icon, now forever tarnished. In fact, the oft-made observations made at the time regarding the Black/White divide in reaction to the verdict, while salient, overlooked the fact that the Black “cheering” for him had less to do with OJ than the perception that a historical pattern of racial bias in the American justice system had played out in reverse for once. OJ remained as much a cultural pariah after the acquittal, even in the Black community.
Like OJ, Michael Jackson escaped legal retribution for his misbehavior. Unlike OJ somehow he was able to maintain his privileged position in the pop culture pantheon, to the point his recent comeback shows in London sold out in a ridiculously short amount of time, this despite committing the “original sin” of “just don’t get caught with a dead girl…or live boy.” Not only did he get away with it [at least] twice, but he even practically bragged about it on national television in Martin Bashir’s 2003 ABC documentary. While much of the eulogies offered regarding Jackson praised his ostensible bridging of Black and White culture, this much is certain: his supporters during his legal difficulties cut across all ethnic and racial lines. In that sense, Al Sharpton was correct.
What is even more baffling in the case of Jackson is that America—if not the world—seemed willing to forgive him the one crime that usually garners more social opprobrium than murder: homosexual pedophilia. [It’s amazing that, in all of the garment-rending on TV that almost rivaled Obama’s groveling in Cairo, the only pundit that didn’t completely sacrifice his credibility was Geraldo Rivera, who had the audacity to suggest that Jackson somehow brought this all on himself.]
In trying to explain how this could happen, one might begin with the argument that Michael Jackson’s contributions to pop culture at large far outweighed those of, say, OJ Simpson. While this is true, I would say Jackson's status is highly overrated. One should remember, his self-coronation as "King Of Pop" occurred around 1991, when his slide into musical irrelevancy became more slippery and, concomitantly, his more bizarre behavioral tendencies became more pronounced. Take away his work as a child star [certainly, overwhelmingly the product of others’ imaginations and talents, though one should not overlook the price Jackson himself paid], and his total musical irrelevance after 1991 [his Greatest Hits album sold poorly, and his only post-1991 album of all-new material—2001’s “Invincible”—was DOA], and you’re left with four salient albums. No one can take much away from Off The Wall and Thriller—except when one considers that the real “genius” behind those albums was Quincy Jones and his production skills. Even those couldn’t save “Bad” [certainly an appropriate title for an album with only one good song, "Smooth Criminal"], and “Dangerous” had the misfortune to come out at the time when the Seattle scene began to overtake the music business, rendering it irrelevant almost immediately upon release.
More sacrilegious from a pop culture point of view were the comparisons to Elvis and the Beatles. Uh, no. Everything Michael Jackson succeeded in—recording, dancing, video media—was equaled or surpassed by Presley and the Fab Four, who certainly made more than four relevant albums, and actually played instruments; not to mention none of them had the 15-year headstart in the business that Jackson did. Jackson came along at the right time; Elvis and the Beatles created the zeitgeists that defined their times. [I’d even argue that Jimi Hendrix’ and Prince’ musical contributions are way more important, if one uses a crossover criterion.]
Nevertheless, that fact may provide the first explanation as to why Jackson kept getting free passes: as we were continually reminded, we “grew up with him”. I suppose one can’t underestimate the power of nostalgia, but also that people bizarrely considered him almost as a “family member”. It becomes difficult to re-examine such a childhood icon with a more jaundiced eye, even when the behavior of said icon becomes increasingly inexplicable. In fact, the media's treatment of him as a freak, while accurate, may have eventually led everyone to simply shrug their shoulders even as his behavior advanced from the grotesque to the reprehensible [viz., dangling his "son" over a hotel balcony]. Consider also that Jackson’s celebrity colleagues almost to a person categorically denied the possibility that Jackson could ever hurt a child, add the almost divine currency attributed to celebrity pronouncements to the penchant for nostalgia, and Jackson’s shield became almost impenetrable. It even served to exaggerate his cultural importance, which circuitously reinforced said shield.
A second explanation, a two-fold observation regarding child psychology and general attitudes toward others’ children, may be the most disturbing. By all accounts, during Jackson’s 2005 molestation trial, defense attorney Thomas Mesereau brilliantly dissected the accuser’s and his mother’s testimony, enough to elicit the eventual acquittal. At the time, I had a theory that, if the situation became dire, Jackson’s defense team had a “nuclear” option: to claim that Jackson was emotionally no more mature than his alleged victims and therefore, as an emotional [if not sexual] 12-year-old, could not form the requisite criminal intent. It never came to that, even if the spectacle of Neverland Ranch ensured that it would not take a trained psychologist to come to the same conclusion. The fact that people were willing to air this “excuse” for Jackson at the expense of his victims indicated that, in line with all the reason delineated above, there was always something more important to consider than the welfare of someone else’s children. [I always thought this was one of the fatal flaws in public education: the notion that someone would willingly cover someone else’s kid’s tuition. But that’s for another time.]
To provide a perfect summing-up: one item in Jackson’s oeuvre repeatedly touted as one of his greatest achievements was the “Thriller” video where Jackson turns into a monster onscreen. One wonders whether Jackson was trying to tell us something. Apparently, no one was really paying attention.
No one wanted to.
Sometimes, pop culture gets it right. One of those cases was OJ Simpson. Once it became obvious that he was the most likely culprit in the murders of his ex-wife and Ron Goldman, the entire country knew, no matter what the outcome of the trial, that his celebrity was radioactive; never again would he be able to cash in on his status as a pop culture icon, now forever tarnished. In fact, the oft-made observations made at the time regarding the Black/White divide in reaction to the verdict, while salient, overlooked the fact that the Black “cheering” for him had less to do with OJ than the perception that a historical pattern of racial bias in the American justice system had played out in reverse for once. OJ remained as much a cultural pariah after the acquittal, even in the Black community.
Like OJ, Michael Jackson escaped legal retribution for his misbehavior. Unlike OJ somehow he was able to maintain his privileged position in the pop culture pantheon, to the point his recent comeback shows in London sold out in a ridiculously short amount of time, this despite committing the “original sin” of “just don’t get caught with a dead girl…or live boy.” Not only did he get away with it [at least] twice, but he even practically bragged about it on national television in Martin Bashir’s 2003 ABC documentary. While much of the eulogies offered regarding Jackson praised his ostensible bridging of Black and White culture, this much is certain: his supporters during his legal difficulties cut across all ethnic and racial lines. In that sense, Al Sharpton was correct.
What is even more baffling in the case of Jackson is that America—if not the world—seemed willing to forgive him the one crime that usually garners more social opprobrium than murder: homosexual pedophilia. [It’s amazing that, in all of the garment-rending on TV that almost rivaled Obama’s groveling in Cairo, the only pundit that didn’t completely sacrifice his credibility was Geraldo Rivera, who had the audacity to suggest that Jackson somehow brought this all on himself.]
In trying to explain how this could happen, one might begin with the argument that Michael Jackson’s contributions to pop culture at large far outweighed those of, say, OJ Simpson. While this is true, I would say Jackson's status is highly overrated. One should remember, his self-coronation as "King Of Pop" occurred around 1991, when his slide into musical irrelevancy became more slippery and, concomitantly, his more bizarre behavioral tendencies became more pronounced. Take away his work as a child star [certainly, overwhelmingly the product of others’ imaginations and talents, though one should not overlook the price Jackson himself paid], and his total musical irrelevance after 1991 [his Greatest Hits album sold poorly, and his only post-1991 album of all-new material—2001’s “Invincible”—was DOA], and you’re left with four salient albums. No one can take much away from Off The Wall and Thriller—except when one considers that the real “genius” behind those albums was Quincy Jones and his production skills. Even those couldn’t save “Bad” [certainly an appropriate title for an album with only one good song, "Smooth Criminal"], and “Dangerous” had the misfortune to come out at the time when the Seattle scene began to overtake the music business, rendering it irrelevant almost immediately upon release.
More sacrilegious from a pop culture point of view were the comparisons to Elvis and the Beatles. Uh, no. Everything Michael Jackson succeeded in—recording, dancing, video media—was equaled or surpassed by Presley and the Fab Four, who certainly made more than four relevant albums, and actually played instruments; not to mention none of them had the 15-year headstart in the business that Jackson did. Jackson came along at the right time; Elvis and the Beatles created the zeitgeists that defined their times. [I’d even argue that Jimi Hendrix’ and Prince’ musical contributions are way more important, if one uses a crossover criterion.]
Nevertheless, that fact may provide the first explanation as to why Jackson kept getting free passes: as we were continually reminded, we “grew up with him”. I suppose one can’t underestimate the power of nostalgia, but also that people bizarrely considered him almost as a “family member”. It becomes difficult to re-examine such a childhood icon with a more jaundiced eye, even when the behavior of said icon becomes increasingly inexplicable. In fact, the media's treatment of him as a freak, while accurate, may have eventually led everyone to simply shrug their shoulders even as his behavior advanced from the grotesque to the reprehensible [viz., dangling his "son" over a hotel balcony]. Consider also that Jackson’s celebrity colleagues almost to a person categorically denied the possibility that Jackson could ever hurt a child, add the almost divine currency attributed to celebrity pronouncements to the penchant for nostalgia, and Jackson’s shield became almost impenetrable. It even served to exaggerate his cultural importance, which circuitously reinforced said shield.
A second explanation, a two-fold observation regarding child psychology and general attitudes toward others’ children, may be the most disturbing. By all accounts, during Jackson’s 2005 molestation trial, defense attorney Thomas Mesereau brilliantly dissected the accuser’s and his mother’s testimony, enough to elicit the eventual acquittal. At the time, I had a theory that, if the situation became dire, Jackson’s defense team had a “nuclear” option: to claim that Jackson was emotionally no more mature than his alleged victims and therefore, as an emotional [if not sexual] 12-year-old, could not form the requisite criminal intent. It never came to that, even if the spectacle of Neverland Ranch ensured that it would not take a trained psychologist to come to the same conclusion. The fact that people were willing to air this “excuse” for Jackson at the expense of his victims indicated that, in line with all the reason delineated above, there was always something more important to consider than the welfare of someone else’s children. [I always thought this was one of the fatal flaws in public education: the notion that someone would willingly cover someone else’s kid’s tuition. But that’s for another time.]
To provide a perfect summing-up: one item in Jackson’s oeuvre repeatedly touted as one of his greatest achievements was the “Thriller” video where Jackson turns into a monster onscreen. One wonders whether Jackson was trying to tell us something. Apparently, no one was really paying attention.
No one wanted to.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Only If We're Stupid Enough To
The adage “my enemy’s enemy is my friend” is a way of life in the Middle East. In a similar vein there are occasions when your ideological opponents make your job easier.
Tony Judt has done that in an Op-Ed in today’s times where he dccries the possibility that West Bank settlements will ever be evacuated [see excerpt below. If you want to read the rest of the article, go to the link; I don’t fell particularly obligated to reprint his spurious allegations about the “legality” of Jewish civilians living East of the Green Line, despite the elevations of said allegations to truisms.]
Where mine and Judt’s premonitions—if not hopes—intersect is this:
There will never be a “contiguous”, “viable”, “Palestinian State” comprising the two distinct unrelated geographic entities of Gaza and the West Bank—as long as the Israelis aren’t stupid enough to create it themselves.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/22/opinion/22judt.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&th&emc=th&adxnnlx=1245672177-7tRWY 5da1m9/BS82Mmt3Q
excerpt from Fictions on the Ground By TONY JUDT June 22, 2009
Despite all the diplomatic talk of disbanding the settlements as a condition for peace, no one seriously believes that these communities — with their half a million residents, their urban installations, their privileged access to fertile land and water — will ever be removed. The Israeli authorities, whether left, right or center, have no intention of removing them, and neither Palestinians nor informed Americans harbor illusions on this score.
To be sure, it suits almost everyone to pretend otherwise — to point to the 2003 “road map” and speak of a final accord based on the 1967 frontiers. But such feigned obliviousness is the small change of political hypocrisy, the lubricant of diplomatic exchange that facilitates communication and compromise.
There are occasions, however, when political hypocrisy is its own nemesis, and this is one of them. Because the settlements will never go, and yet almost everyone likes to pretend otherwise, we have resolutely ignored the implications of what Israelis have long been proud to call “the facts on the ground.”
Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, knows this better than most. On June 14 he gave a much-anticipated speech in which he artfully blew smoke in the eyes of his American interlocutors. While offering to acknowledge the hypothetical existence of an eventual Palestinian state — on the explicit understanding that it exercise no control over its airspace and have no means of defending itself against aggression — he reiterated the only Israeli position that really matters: we won’t build illegal settlements but we reserve the right to expand “legal” ones according to their natural rate of growth.
The reassurances Mr. Netanyahu offered the settlers and their political constituency were as well received as ever, despite being couched in honeyed clichés directed at nervous American listeners. And the American news media, predictably, took the bait — uniformly emphasizing Mr. Netanyahu’s “support” for a Palestinian state and playing down everything else.
However, the real question now is whether President Obama will respond in a similar vein. He surely wants to. Nothing could better please the American president and his advisors than to be able to assert that, in the wake of his Cairo speech, even Mr. Netanyahu had shifted ground and was open to compromise. Thus Washington avoids a confrontation, for now, with its closest ally. But the uncomfortable reality is that the prime minister restated the unvarnished truth: His government has no intention of recognizing international law or opinion with respect to Israel’s land-grab in “Judea and Samaria.”
...[I]f I am right, and there is no realistic prospect of removing Israel’s settlements, then for the American government to agree that the mere nonexpansion of “authorized” settlements is a genuine step toward peace would be the worst possible outcome of the present diplomatic dance. No one else in the world believes this fairy tale; why should we? Israel’s political elite would breathe an unmerited sigh of relief, having once again pulled the wool over the eyes of its paymaster.
Tony Judt has done that in an Op-Ed in today’s times where he dccries the possibility that West Bank settlements will ever be evacuated [see excerpt below. If you want to read the rest of the article, go to the link; I don’t fell particularly obligated to reprint his spurious allegations about the “legality” of Jewish civilians living East of the Green Line, despite the elevations of said allegations to truisms.]
Where mine and Judt’s premonitions—if not hopes—intersect is this:
There will never be a “contiguous”, “viable”, “Palestinian State” comprising the two distinct unrelated geographic entities of Gaza and the West Bank—as long as the Israelis aren’t stupid enough to create it themselves.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/22/opinion/22judt.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&th&emc=th&adxnnlx=1245672177-7tRWY 5da1m9/BS82Mmt3Q
excerpt from Fictions on the Ground By TONY JUDT June 22, 2009
Despite all the diplomatic talk of disbanding the settlements as a condition for peace, no one seriously believes that these communities — with their half a million residents, their urban installations, their privileged access to fertile land and water — will ever be removed. The Israeli authorities, whether left, right or center, have no intention of removing them, and neither Palestinians nor informed Americans harbor illusions on this score.
To be sure, it suits almost everyone to pretend otherwise — to point to the 2003 “road map” and speak of a final accord based on the 1967 frontiers. But such feigned obliviousness is the small change of political hypocrisy, the lubricant of diplomatic exchange that facilitates communication and compromise.
There are occasions, however, when political hypocrisy is its own nemesis, and this is one of them. Because the settlements will never go, and yet almost everyone likes to pretend otherwise, we have resolutely ignored the implications of what Israelis have long been proud to call “the facts on the ground.”
Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, knows this better than most. On June 14 he gave a much-anticipated speech in which he artfully blew smoke in the eyes of his American interlocutors. While offering to acknowledge the hypothetical existence of an eventual Palestinian state — on the explicit understanding that it exercise no control over its airspace and have no means of defending itself against aggression — he reiterated the only Israeli position that really matters: we won’t build illegal settlements but we reserve the right to expand “legal” ones according to their natural rate of growth.
The reassurances Mr. Netanyahu offered the settlers and their political constituency were as well received as ever, despite being couched in honeyed clichés directed at nervous American listeners. And the American news media, predictably, took the bait — uniformly emphasizing Mr. Netanyahu’s “support” for a Palestinian state and playing down everything else.
However, the real question now is whether President Obama will respond in a similar vein. He surely wants to. Nothing could better please the American president and his advisors than to be able to assert that, in the wake of his Cairo speech, even Mr. Netanyahu had shifted ground and was open to compromise. Thus Washington avoids a confrontation, for now, with its closest ally. But the uncomfortable reality is that the prime minister restated the unvarnished truth: His government has no intention of recognizing international law or opinion with respect to Israel’s land-grab in “Judea and Samaria.”
...[I]f I am right, and there is no realistic prospect of removing Israel’s settlements, then for the American government to agree that the mere nonexpansion of “authorized” settlements is a genuine step toward peace would be the worst possible outcome of the present diplomatic dance. No one else in the world believes this fairy tale; why should we? Israel’s political elite would breathe an unmerited sigh of relief, having once again pulled the wool over the eyes of its paymaster.
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Teheran Eats Itself
For starters, you have to give Iran some credit. As a state that is undoubtedly theocratic, to hold elections that go beyond the Islamist tenet of “one man, one vote, once” might be considered an accomplishment, allegations of fraud notwithstanding. [As we know all too well, a polity need not be theocratic in nature to engage in voter fraud.]
As I’ve hinted at repeatedly in this forum, one of the reasons I am convinced that the American military misadventure in Iraq has been so damaging is that it has taken away resources that could have been used in operations against more dangerous players, like Iran. This would have been one such scenario, a perfect opportunity for the United States to use something other than simple diplomatic persuasion to better forward two of its stated interests: one, to better facilitate the viability of democratic institutions in the Middle East; and, two, to improve relations with the Islamic world. And, if we weren’t necessarily going to shore up an ostensibly duly elected Islamic regime, we could have taken advantage of an emerging power vacuum, reduce the influence of the Mullahs, and certainly done no worse than we’ve done in Iraq, especially since the initial crisis would have been of the Iranians’ own making.
As it is, the developing conflict provides an opportunity for the United States to experiment with it newly stated foreign policy approach of appeasing Islam, and to better gauge the possibilities inherent in an Islamic society tearing itself apart without it being our responsibility, as it became in Iraq. Obviously, American military options vis-a-vis influencing election outcomes are off the table. However, a wait-and-see approach with the most overt response being nothing more than the most lukewarm of diplomatic protests against the alleged electoral improprieties allows for the possibility that if Madma-dinejad is declared the winner and invited to form the next government, the Iranian streets will spill over and become too much for Tehran to handle.
The worst thing we can do, of course, is send Jimmy Carter to broker a compromise that maintains the status quo. That would serve as the strongest possible indicator of appeasement being US policy. One can only hope that option remains considered politically untenable.
As far as I’m concerned, though, the best possible outcome would be for the Israelis to take advantage of the bungled transmission of power and start bombing the nuclear sites now, or at least when it becomes increasingly clear that Tehran is too self-involved to truly present a unified response. One can expect that any aggressive Israeli action will unite the populace behind whoever is in power, because neither candidate is exactly philo-Semitic. However, taking advantage of the Persian power vacuum, while it would not mute the international diplomatic opprobrium that would emanate from all corners of the globe, would certainly serve to make any Iranian response less coherent and cohesive than it otherwise might be.
And, just like with Osirak in 1981, the world will thank the Israelis. [Under their breath, of course.]
As I’ve hinted at repeatedly in this forum, one of the reasons I am convinced that the American military misadventure in Iraq has been so damaging is that it has taken away resources that could have been used in operations against more dangerous players, like Iran. This would have been one such scenario, a perfect opportunity for the United States to use something other than simple diplomatic persuasion to better forward two of its stated interests: one, to better facilitate the viability of democratic institutions in the Middle East; and, two, to improve relations with the Islamic world. And, if we weren’t necessarily going to shore up an ostensibly duly elected Islamic regime, we could have taken advantage of an emerging power vacuum, reduce the influence of the Mullahs, and certainly done no worse than we’ve done in Iraq, especially since the initial crisis would have been of the Iranians’ own making.
As it is, the developing conflict provides an opportunity for the United States to experiment with it newly stated foreign policy approach of appeasing Islam, and to better gauge the possibilities inherent in an Islamic society tearing itself apart without it being our responsibility, as it became in Iraq. Obviously, American military options vis-a-vis influencing election outcomes are off the table. However, a wait-and-see approach with the most overt response being nothing more than the most lukewarm of diplomatic protests against the alleged electoral improprieties allows for the possibility that if Madma-dinejad is declared the winner and invited to form the next government, the Iranian streets will spill over and become too much for Tehran to handle.
The worst thing we can do, of course, is send Jimmy Carter to broker a compromise that maintains the status quo. That would serve as the strongest possible indicator of appeasement being US policy. One can only hope that option remains considered politically untenable.
As far as I’m concerned, though, the best possible outcome would be for the Israelis to take advantage of the bungled transmission of power and start bombing the nuclear sites now, or at least when it becomes increasingly clear that Tehran is too self-involved to truly present a unified response. One can expect that any aggressive Israeli action will unite the populace behind whoever is in power, because neither candidate is exactly philo-Semitic. However, taking advantage of the Persian power vacuum, while it would not mute the international diplomatic opprobrium that would emanate from all corners of the globe, would certainly serve to make any Iranian response less coherent and cohesive than it otherwise might be.
And, just like with Osirak in 1981, the world will thank the Israelis. [Under their breath, of course.]
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Obama In Cairo II: The Triumph Of Saidism
Much has been made of the fact that President Obama speech was so overtly reverent of Islam and Islamic history in his Cairo speech. In the June 9 Washington Times Frank Gaffney makes the argument that Obama should be termed America’s first “Muslim” president” the way Bill Clinton was America’s first “Black” President.
While Gaffney’s arguments are salient, I would posit that it was less the triumph of Obamaist Islam [or Muslim Obamaism?] as it was a triumph of Saidism: that is, the acceptance of Edward Said’s theses of “Orientalism” and the concomitant necessity of the West to accommodate itself to the Eastern cultures it had “misrepresented” and “oppressed” for its own benefit. One might notice a correlation between the election of a [true] Black US President and the implementation of a type of “affirmative action” vis-à-vis the Islamic world based on Said’s proscriptions, among other things.
A better explanation might be found in two books by Bruce Bawer, While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within and Surrender: Appeasing Islam, Sacrificing Freedom. Bawer, a gay man who moved originally to Amsterdam with his partner in the 1990’s due to fears that the Christian Right was going to turn America theocratic, found that Europe seemed to have resigned itself to an inevitable Islamic takeover of the continent, and the elites enforcing the rigid doctrines of political correctness seemed to be positioning themselves for favorable treatment in an eventual Eurabia.
One might wonder whether US policy is leaning in this direction. The only other explanation I can think of is that, by making accommodating overtures to the Muslim world, Obama hopes that the religion will “reform” and “Westernize” itself, much as Christianity did. However, when one remembers that a) it took Christianity nearly two millennia to do that and b) in this regard, Islam has been unmistakably devolving, one wonders if this has truly crossed anyone’s mind.
While Gaffney’s arguments are salient, I would posit that it was less the triumph of Obamaist Islam [or Muslim Obamaism?] as it was a triumph of Saidism: that is, the acceptance of Edward Said’s theses of “Orientalism” and the concomitant necessity of the West to accommodate itself to the Eastern cultures it had “misrepresented” and “oppressed” for its own benefit. One might notice a correlation between the election of a [true] Black US President and the implementation of a type of “affirmative action” vis-à-vis the Islamic world based on Said’s proscriptions, among other things.
A better explanation might be found in two books by Bruce Bawer, While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within and Surrender: Appeasing Islam, Sacrificing Freedom. Bawer, a gay man who moved originally to Amsterdam with his partner in the 1990’s due to fears that the Christian Right was going to turn America theocratic, found that Europe seemed to have resigned itself to an inevitable Islamic takeover of the continent, and the elites enforcing the rigid doctrines of political correctness seemed to be positioning themselves for favorable treatment in an eventual Eurabia.
One might wonder whether US policy is leaning in this direction. The only other explanation I can think of is that, by making accommodating overtures to the Muslim world, Obama hopes that the religion will “reform” and “Westernize” itself, much as Christianity did. However, when one remembers that a) it took Christianity nearly two millennia to do that and b) in this regard, Islam has been unmistakably devolving, one wonders if this has truly crossed anyone’s mind.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Obama in Cairo, Part I: A Real Paradigm Shift
If you’re pro-Israel [like I am], and your politics more or less revolve around issues most salient to the Middle East [like mine do], your worst nightmare has now come true.
In 1993, Time Magazine chose Yasser Arafat, F.W. de Klerk, Nelson Mandela, and Yitzhak Rabin as their “Men of the Year”, under the rubric “The Peacemakers”. This was no mere historical accident. It has long been a progressive truism—albeit a comparatively muted one—that Israel’s democracy was/is of the “herrenvelok” variety is analogous to South Africa’s apartheid regime, in degree is not in kind. [Whether the Israeli leadership was panicked into implementing the Oslo agreement in 1993 when they realized that a rapprochement was imminent in South Africa is an interesting matter of conjecture.]
This notion has had great currency in most of the free world [to say nothing of the “unfree” world], with until now, the exception of the United States. With the exception of the State Department—which still hasn’t gotten over the fact that it was overruled by President Truman in 1948 when he recognized the new independent State of Israel over its vehement objections—the US, at least in public, has for the most part, been Israel’s most steadfast ally, certainly for the last 40 years.
Specifically, the US was committed to the continued existence of Israel as THE Jewish State. President Obama’s speech in Cairo indicated that those days are now over.
While it’s certainly true that the United States’ policy regarding settlements [as evidenced by the American’s continued opposition to their existence, and characterization as such as “impediments to peace”] and Jerusalem [as evidenced by the longstanding refusal to move the American Embassy there], the tone of this speech, in combination with the rather deferential—if not outright servile—attitude toward Islam indicates that the scales have shifted.
One can say that United States policy is “equally accepting” of Jews and Palestinians’ “national rights” to the same piece of real estate. What this means is the United States’ new policy is to pressure Israel to “peacefully” vote itself out of existence as the Jewish State; the “Road Map” leads to a one-state solution.
For mostly obvious political reasons, this cannot be stated publicly. Yet. However, Winston Churchill’s formulation “The Jews are in Palestine [sic] by right, not by sufferance” has been reversed.
There is one hopeful development that has been overlooked. As it becomes increasingly clear to the Israeli populace that the rest of the world expected the Oslo process to lead to the eventual establishment of a “binational” state, the Israeli electorate has finally woken up to the idea that only they can truly look out for their own interests. In 1999, when Prime Minister Netanyahu stood up to American pressure and was turned out of office by the Israeli electorate, the political zeitgeist was different. Ten years later, most of Israel believes that peace has been given more than a chance, and that the Palestinians and their supporters are playing a zero-sum game.
The question of Israel’s existence will be answered ONLY by the Israelis themselves.
In 1993, Time Magazine chose Yasser Arafat, F.W. de Klerk, Nelson Mandela, and Yitzhak Rabin as their “Men of the Year”, under the rubric “The Peacemakers”. This was no mere historical accident. It has long been a progressive truism—albeit a comparatively muted one—that Israel’s democracy was/is of the “herrenvelok” variety is analogous to South Africa’s apartheid regime, in degree is not in kind. [Whether the Israeli leadership was panicked into implementing the Oslo agreement in 1993 when they realized that a rapprochement was imminent in South Africa is an interesting matter of conjecture.]
This notion has had great currency in most of the free world [to say nothing of the “unfree” world], with until now, the exception of the United States. With the exception of the State Department—which still hasn’t gotten over the fact that it was overruled by President Truman in 1948 when he recognized the new independent State of Israel over its vehement objections—the US, at least in public, has for the most part, been Israel’s most steadfast ally, certainly for the last 40 years.
Specifically, the US was committed to the continued existence of Israel as THE Jewish State. President Obama’s speech in Cairo indicated that those days are now over.
While it’s certainly true that the United States’ policy regarding settlements [as evidenced by the American’s continued opposition to their existence, and characterization as such as “impediments to peace”] and Jerusalem [as evidenced by the longstanding refusal to move the American Embassy there], the tone of this speech, in combination with the rather deferential—if not outright servile—attitude toward Islam indicates that the scales have shifted.
One can say that United States policy is “equally accepting” of Jews and Palestinians’ “national rights” to the same piece of real estate. What this means is the United States’ new policy is to pressure Israel to “peacefully” vote itself out of existence as the Jewish State; the “Road Map” leads to a one-state solution.
For mostly obvious political reasons, this cannot be stated publicly. Yet. However, Winston Churchill’s formulation “The Jews are in Palestine [sic] by right, not by sufferance” has been reversed.
There is one hopeful development that has been overlooked. As it becomes increasingly clear to the Israeli populace that the rest of the world expected the Oslo process to lead to the eventual establishment of a “binational” state, the Israeli electorate has finally woken up to the idea that only they can truly look out for their own interests. In 1999, when Prime Minister Netanyahu stood up to American pressure and was turned out of office by the Israeli electorate, the political zeitgeist was different. Ten years later, most of Israel believes that peace has been given more than a chance, and that the Palestinians and their supporters are playing a zero-sum game.
The question of Israel’s existence will be answered ONLY by the Israelis themselves.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Reality Check
In a time where the political winds have shifted enough that the Israel can seriously question whether the Unites States still considers it a bonafide ally, the following piece should serve as a reality check.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1243346480786&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
The simple truth can help bring peace
By MAX SINGER
An often-overlooked piece of Palestinian behavior is key to the pursuit of peace. The Palestinians teach their people that no Jewish kingdom ever existed in the land they call Palestine, and that there was never a Jewish temple on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
Presumably some Palestinians know these teachings are false, but for most they are "facts" learned in school and taken for granted. These falsehoods are deliberately spread by the Palestinian leadership. To publicly deny them is to be viewed as disloyal, and anyone who tries to assert the truth risks retribution.
This is not just a matter of ancient history - it's not merely an "alternative narrative" which needn't be contested because it's just talk. This false story helps explain the Palestinian refusal to make peace, because so long as Palestinians think the Jews were never here before, they will see Jews as a foreign colonial implant with no moral claim or right to the land. Modern Israel's claim to land in Palestine depends on the Jews' historic connection to the territory. Without this history, the nation of Israel would be merely foreign invaders, not a people who can be seen as returning home.
When a powerful foreigner comes and takes your territory just because he wants it, you have no honorable way to yield your rights. Accepting such a foreign invasion would be a cowardly sacrifice of honor. By insisting that this is what happened, the Palestinians' leaders are in effect burning their bridges behind them, so that their people will be forced by their honor to fight on, and prevented from making an honorable peace.
The Palestinian leadership's willingness to look foolish by denying well-known historic facts - including basic Christian history - demonstrates the importance to them of denying their people the moral and psychological basis for an honorable peace.
THE UNITED STATES CAN make an important step toward peace by publicly assuring the Palestinians that there were indeed ancient Jewish kingdoms in the land, and a Jewish temple on the Temple Mount before the birth of Muhammad. There are plenty of Muslim sources that the US can use to teach these facts.
Denial of the Jews' ancient connection to the land is much more important than Holocaust denial. Israel's claim to the land has nothing to do with the Holocaust. The international decision that Palestine should be a Jewish homeland was made by the League of Nations a generation before the Holocaust. Jews claim the land based on their continuous emotional and religious attachment to it since ancient times - not as compensation for six million dead.
Since Palestinians and other Arabs care about honor, we should make it possible for them to recognize that there can be an honorable peace with the Jews. (Although there would still be Muslim objections to Jewish rule in Israel.)
Israeli diplomats should call on the US to end the Palestinians' denial of history, even though the State Department apparently regards the truth as something offensive to Arabs.
What better public disagreement can Israel and the US have than a disagreement about whether to allow the Palestinians to continue denying Jewish history? What better diagnostic tool can there be to determine when Palestinians are truly ready to live with Israel than looking at whether they are willing to acknowledge the Jews' connection to the land?
The writer, a founder of the Hudson Institute, is a senior fellow there and at the BESA Center of Bar-Ilan University.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1243346480786&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
The simple truth can help bring peace
By MAX SINGER
An often-overlooked piece of Palestinian behavior is key to the pursuit of peace. The Palestinians teach their people that no Jewish kingdom ever existed in the land they call Palestine, and that there was never a Jewish temple on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
Presumably some Palestinians know these teachings are false, but for most they are "facts" learned in school and taken for granted. These falsehoods are deliberately spread by the Palestinian leadership. To publicly deny them is to be viewed as disloyal, and anyone who tries to assert the truth risks retribution.
This is not just a matter of ancient history - it's not merely an "alternative narrative" which needn't be contested because it's just talk. This false story helps explain the Palestinian refusal to make peace, because so long as Palestinians think the Jews were never here before, they will see Jews as a foreign colonial implant with no moral claim or right to the land. Modern Israel's claim to land in Palestine depends on the Jews' historic connection to the territory. Without this history, the nation of Israel would be merely foreign invaders, not a people who can be seen as returning home.
When a powerful foreigner comes and takes your territory just because he wants it, you have no honorable way to yield your rights. Accepting such a foreign invasion would be a cowardly sacrifice of honor. By insisting that this is what happened, the Palestinians' leaders are in effect burning their bridges behind them, so that their people will be forced by their honor to fight on, and prevented from making an honorable peace.
The Palestinian leadership's willingness to look foolish by denying well-known historic facts - including basic Christian history - demonstrates the importance to them of denying their people the moral and psychological basis for an honorable peace.
THE UNITED STATES CAN make an important step toward peace by publicly assuring the Palestinians that there were indeed ancient Jewish kingdoms in the land, and a Jewish temple on the Temple Mount before the birth of Muhammad. There are plenty of Muslim sources that the US can use to teach these facts.
Denial of the Jews' ancient connection to the land is much more important than Holocaust denial. Israel's claim to the land has nothing to do with the Holocaust. The international decision that Palestine should be a Jewish homeland was made by the League of Nations a generation before the Holocaust. Jews claim the land based on their continuous emotional and religious attachment to it since ancient times - not as compensation for six million dead.
Since Palestinians and other Arabs care about honor, we should make it possible for them to recognize that there can be an honorable peace with the Jews. (Although there would still be Muslim objections to Jewish rule in Israel.)
Israeli diplomats should call on the US to end the Palestinians' denial of history, even though the State Department apparently regards the truth as something offensive to Arabs.
What better public disagreement can Israel and the US have than a disagreement about whether to allow the Palestinians to continue denying Jewish history? What better diagnostic tool can there be to determine when Palestinians are truly ready to live with Israel than looking at whether they are willing to acknowledge the Jews' connection to the land?
The writer, a founder of the Hudson Institute, is a senior fellow there and at the BESA Center of Bar-Ilan University.
Friday, May 15, 2009
Equivalences
Congruence, as opposed to equivalence or approximation, is a relation which implies a kind of equivalence, though not complete equivalence. from Wikipedia
ITEM: Waterboarding, and CIA Torture Photos
The Obama Administration is discovering that it is impossible to be pacifistic when in power. Not that they haven’t tried, particularly through their craven appeasement of the Muslim World and their allies [Chavez, et al.]. Yet to a certain degree they realize we are at war; witness the “flip-flop” regarding the torture pics, which in a sense is comforting, because beyond the “hearts and minds” issue, someone realizes that the PR war is part of the war effort as a whole (something that the last Administration ignored).
Also, it interesting to see the Republicans grill Nancy Pelosi regarding when she knew about waterboarding, and her almost offhanded “I was for it before I was against it”; she knows that the Republicans tried this gambit with the Iraq War, and while it worked in 2004, it can only further highlight their complete lack of credibility on—well, just about anything.
ITEM: Non-Proliferation
In its attempt to TL the Government of Iran, the Obama Administration is trying to make equivalences between the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Iran’s drive toward arming themselves. Additionally, Obama has blindly pursued non-proliferation with a vigor unseen since JFK made it a personal crusade, and there is unspoken pressure on Israel because now rogue states can point to Israel’s “intransigence” on the issue.
I would hope that Obama is smart enough to realize that Israel’s policy of nuclear opacity provides enough of an indication that if they have it, it’s purely for defensive purposes. [OK, they have it, but that’s exactly the point.]
In contrast, when rogue states whose political philosophies are guided by a theology that MANDATES war to conquer and subdue the planet, and these rogue states actually “tout” the theological prestige that comes with the acquisition of nukes and other WMD, and then they threaten their use unfettered by any consideration other than eschatology…oh wait, I have to be careful here. Someone might think I’m talking about the Jews.
ITEM: Carrie Prejean, Obama, and Gay Marriage
Many conservatives are up in arms about the pressure brought to bear on the Miss Universe contestant for having the temerity to stand up for her beliefs. Plus, you hear, didn’t Obama say the same thing?
Not really. Context is everything. Prejean was definitely making a statement about what she thought was the moral incorrectness of gay marriage, and she probably would be equally against civil unions; Obama was more likely making a policy statement than a moral judgement. Political incorrectness combined with self-righteousness doesn’t make anyone popular.
Yet, while we deal with this topic, I would like to shatter one more “equivalence”: the notion that the reluctance to the powers-that-be to legalize gay marriage is as immoral as the now-discredited miscegenation laws that were on the books for so long. Actually, no; mixed couples risked imprisonment, and even sometimes exile from the state where said union was illegal. That won’t happen again. The legal disabilities imposed on gay couples may or may not be civil rights issues, but they certainly not as clear cut as that.
Item: Village Voice and NY Post Agree
http://www.villagevoice.com/2009-05-13/news/bloomberg-and-the-teachers-union/
Some might consider this the sign of the apocalypse, particularly if they work for any teachers’ unions. In a lead article in the Village Voice that looked more like a typical Post editorial excoriating UFT leader Randi Weingarten, Wayne Barrett unequivocally took sides against the unions: “the Mayor's campaigning is easy. So easy, he can roll over the union this time—and should.” For good measure, he even took a swipe at ACORN and linked them to failing schools. This in what most consider THE flagship organ of progressivism.
There may be hope for the children after all.
ITEM: Waterboarding, and CIA Torture Photos
The Obama Administration is discovering that it is impossible to be pacifistic when in power. Not that they haven’t tried, particularly through their craven appeasement of the Muslim World and their allies [Chavez, et al.]. Yet to a certain degree they realize we are at war; witness the “flip-flop” regarding the torture pics, which in a sense is comforting, because beyond the “hearts and minds” issue, someone realizes that the PR war is part of the war effort as a whole (something that the last Administration ignored).
Also, it interesting to see the Republicans grill Nancy Pelosi regarding when she knew about waterboarding, and her almost offhanded “I was for it before I was against it”; she knows that the Republicans tried this gambit with the Iraq War, and while it worked in 2004, it can only further highlight their complete lack of credibility on—well, just about anything.
ITEM: Non-Proliferation
In its attempt to TL the Government of Iran, the Obama Administration is trying to make equivalences between the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Iran’s drive toward arming themselves. Additionally, Obama has blindly pursued non-proliferation with a vigor unseen since JFK made it a personal crusade, and there is unspoken pressure on Israel because now rogue states can point to Israel’s “intransigence” on the issue.
I would hope that Obama is smart enough to realize that Israel’s policy of nuclear opacity provides enough of an indication that if they have it, it’s purely for defensive purposes. [OK, they have it, but that’s exactly the point.]
In contrast, when rogue states whose political philosophies are guided by a theology that MANDATES war to conquer and subdue the planet, and these rogue states actually “tout” the theological prestige that comes with the acquisition of nukes and other WMD, and then they threaten their use unfettered by any consideration other than eschatology…oh wait, I have to be careful here. Someone might think I’m talking about the Jews.
ITEM: Carrie Prejean, Obama, and Gay Marriage
Many conservatives are up in arms about the pressure brought to bear on the Miss Universe contestant for having the temerity to stand up for her beliefs. Plus, you hear, didn’t Obama say the same thing?
Not really. Context is everything. Prejean was definitely making a statement about what she thought was the moral incorrectness of gay marriage, and she probably would be equally against civil unions; Obama was more likely making a policy statement than a moral judgement. Political incorrectness combined with self-righteousness doesn’t make anyone popular.
Yet, while we deal with this topic, I would like to shatter one more “equivalence”: the notion that the reluctance to the powers-that-be to legalize gay marriage is as immoral as the now-discredited miscegenation laws that were on the books for so long. Actually, no; mixed couples risked imprisonment, and even sometimes exile from the state where said union was illegal. That won’t happen again. The legal disabilities imposed on gay couples may or may not be civil rights issues, but they certainly not as clear cut as that.
Item: Village Voice and NY Post Agree
http://www.villagevoice.com/2009-05-13/news/bloomberg-and-the-teachers-union/
Some might consider this the sign of the apocalypse, particularly if they work for any teachers’ unions. In a lead article in the Village Voice that looked more like a typical Post editorial excoriating UFT leader Randi Weingarten, Wayne Barrett unequivocally took sides against the unions: “the Mayor's campaigning is easy. So easy, he can roll over the union this time—and should.” For good measure, he even took a swipe at ACORN and linked them to failing schools. This in what most consider THE flagship organ of progressivism.
There may be hope for the children after all.
Friday, May 8, 2009
Empathy
You have to give President Obama credit.
He explicitly defined "quality of empathy" as "an essential ingredient for arriving at just decisions and outcomes…we need somebody who's got . . . the empathy to recognize what it's like to be a young, teenage mom; the empathy to understand what it's like to be poor or African American or gay or disabled or old." It might be the first time the word has been used specifically in this context, but the notion that one needs to “arriv[e] at just decisions and outcomes” is not; this was how then-President Johnson referred to “the next stage of civil rights” in 1965: “not just legal equity but human ability, not just equality as a right and a theory but equality as a fact and equality as a result.”
“Empathy” is a catch-all; in this case it doesn’t even have to be a code.
Obama may be correct in applying the term “empathy” as far as noting than no judge can be completely impartial, Justice Roberts’ when he comparison of judges to baseball umpires calling balls and strikes notwithstanding (especially since every baseball fan knows that every umpire employs a different strike zone). In fact, they are being equally disingenuous.
In fact, Obama’s 2007 statement that "the issues that come before the court are not sport” completely misses the point. In the current American political zeitgeist, that’s exactly what they have become. I’ve described this notion in various ways, from calling it “Acquisitionism” to comparing it to an NFL with only two teams. However, the notion of Empathy vs Impartiality—or, to put it in the political terms bandied about most regarding judges, Activism vs Constructionism—forced me to come to temrs with a new concept.
Justice may be blind; in the U.S., judges never are, and this can be attributed to our adversarial system. All judges are lawyers and act as such, even if they’re not supposed to. They have now also become politicians. Furthermore, they have been activist since Marbury v. Madison, and “legislated from the bench” since at least Brown v. Borad, but probably before. It has also been shown that “constructionism” regarding the Constitution is oxymoronic at best, when one sees how the same document can be used to uphold Plessy v Ferguson and its diametric opposite, Brown v Board, over a period of less than 60 years.
When one gets beyond all the partisan rancor, a look at the scorecard indicates that “partisan” judges get confirmed, usually by sizeable majorities. The most contentious appointment to have been confirmed was Clarence Thomas’ in 1991, and that had more to do with his alleged misbehavior than his propensities toward “natural” law and disavowal of the affirmative action process than got him into to law school in the first place. One could even make a case that Robert Bork was rejected not because he was an insufferable far-right moralist (which he was) but because he showed himself to be absolutely politically tone deaf. No one was going to give him points for being consistent. For what its worth, one should also remember is that the most “activist” Court since World War II (if not ever) was led by a former Republican Governor—Earl Warren—who had been appointed by a Republican President—Dwight Eisenhower.
The only empathy we need to have is for people who actually believe that the judicial process is supposed to be above all this. And we shouldn’t have much.
He explicitly defined "quality of empathy" as "an essential ingredient for arriving at just decisions and outcomes…we need somebody who's got . . . the empathy to recognize what it's like to be a young, teenage mom; the empathy to understand what it's like to be poor or African American or gay or disabled or old." It might be the first time the word has been used specifically in this context, but the notion that one needs to “arriv[e] at just decisions and outcomes” is not; this was how then-President Johnson referred to “the next stage of civil rights” in 1965: “not just legal equity but human ability, not just equality as a right and a theory but equality as a fact and equality as a result.”
“Empathy” is a catch-all; in this case it doesn’t even have to be a code.
Obama may be correct in applying the term “empathy” as far as noting than no judge can be completely impartial, Justice Roberts’ when he comparison of judges to baseball umpires calling balls and strikes notwithstanding (especially since every baseball fan knows that every umpire employs a different strike zone). In fact, they are being equally disingenuous.
In fact, Obama’s 2007 statement that "the issues that come before the court are not sport” completely misses the point. In the current American political zeitgeist, that’s exactly what they have become. I’ve described this notion in various ways, from calling it “Acquisitionism” to comparing it to an NFL with only two teams. However, the notion of Empathy vs Impartiality—or, to put it in the political terms bandied about most regarding judges, Activism vs Constructionism—forced me to come to temrs with a new concept.
Justice may be blind; in the U.S., judges never are, and this can be attributed to our adversarial system. All judges are lawyers and act as such, even if they’re not supposed to. They have now also become politicians. Furthermore, they have been activist since Marbury v. Madison, and “legislated from the bench” since at least Brown v. Borad, but probably before. It has also been shown that “constructionism” regarding the Constitution is oxymoronic at best, when one sees how the same document can be used to uphold Plessy v Ferguson and its diametric opposite, Brown v Board, over a period of less than 60 years.
When one gets beyond all the partisan rancor, a look at the scorecard indicates that “partisan” judges get confirmed, usually by sizeable majorities. The most contentious appointment to have been confirmed was Clarence Thomas’ in 1991, and that had more to do with his alleged misbehavior than his propensities toward “natural” law and disavowal of the affirmative action process than got him into to law school in the first place. One could even make a case that Robert Bork was rejected not because he was an insufferable far-right moralist (which he was) but because he showed himself to be absolutely politically tone deaf. No one was going to give him points for being consistent. For what its worth, one should also remember is that the most “activist” Court since World War II (if not ever) was led by a former Republican Governor—Earl Warren—who had been appointed by a Republican President—Dwight Eisenhower.
The only empathy we need to have is for people who actually believe that the judicial process is supposed to be above all this. And we shouldn’t have much.
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