Anya wins! Josh doesn't win! It's the best Project Runway day ever!
Okay, calm down. Yes, part of the reason I'm excited Anya won is that she's just so gosh-darn likeable. And yes, the fact that she may be the single hottest human being on the planet probably didn't hurt either. But I do think that her win was deserved, particularly given what was overall a weak fashion week display by the entire quartet.
Start with Kimberly, who has been very hit-or-miss all season. That gown she closed with was great, and verged on being show-stopping (it fell a little strangely to my eye, which was all that stopped it). But beyond that? The Ivory piece was cool but a little disconnected from the rest of the show. That aquamarine tinfoil piece was just strange, and I didn't see what was cool or sexy about that tiny crafts-project cut-out in the pinkish dress. Most importantly, too many of the pieces just looked a little plain.
Viktor was always the big competition for Anya as far as I was concerned this season. He's one of the best technicians on the show, and he's consistently made pieces that -- while perhaps not as purely elegant as Anya's -- showed a good fashion eye and were always well-made. Unfortunately, he had (maybe his first) major stumble on the show's biggest stage. Those sheer black gowns were ugly. It's such a shame too, because those mirror pieces were great and the prints were wonderful. Jill and I actually disagreed that the first piece was anything to write home about (we both thought the skirt was a little Mad Men), but that gown? Probably the best piece of the entire show, for any designer. Oh, and way to show Josh how it's done with those purple pants.
Speaking of the devil, Josh's collection was better than I thought. I agree with Laura Bennett that when he keeps his color palette under control, he actually makes some very nice clothes. But there were some flops here too. The opening draped outfit made his model look preggers, and don't get me started on those vomit-inducing green bike shorts. Nina was right that they looked better photographed than they did on the runway, but when they walked -- gag me. The plastic pieces were genuinely cool, and he had a couple of outfits early that had a neat vintage vibe to them, but overall -- too much hot pink, too much lime green.
So that leaves us with Anya. And let's focus on the weaknesses first: it was relatively one-note, and it didn't show a lot of range. Against superior competition, I'd be inclined to give that a lot of weight. But the clothes themselves were beautiful. People are saying "Uli did it better", but I thought Uli deserved to win her season too. Her opening outfit set the tone of her show beautifully and mixed colors fantastically. The closing gown in black and white with the fuzzy edges was likewise fabulous. And I agree with the judges that Anya, more than any of the designers (except maybe Viktor) has a brand -- you can see her in every piece, and there is a woman (a particular type of woman with a particular type of body, to be sure) who absolutely wants all those pieces and wants to be her.
One thing I'd say in Anya's defense is that I do think, over the course of the show, she made a genuine effort to push herself as a designer and branch out -- with varying success, but more than you might expect given her relative novice status. Her first stab at Fashion Week was to try and really stretch beyond herself again, and she got nailed by it. So she said "you know what? This show is going to be Anya-being-Anya." And it worked. She makes beautiful clothes, she has a fantastic natural eye for design, and (with some construction lessons), I think she has a future.
Friday, October 28, 2011
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Black Support for Obama Remains Strong and Steady
The New York Times can barely contain its astonishment that Blacks aren't fleeing the President in droves:
Blacks are hurting in this economy (even more than other segments of American society). But they don't blame the President. They blame an extremist and unyielding Republican Party that is committed to protecting the rich and soaking the poor, that holds most Black voters in contempt as unthinking and still "on the plantation", and that made it its mission from inauguration day to destroy Barack Obama no matter the cost.
They're smart cookies. They know who to blame.
In a recent Pew Research Center poll, black voters preferred Mr. Obama 95 percent to 3 percent over Mitt Romney, “which is at least the margin he got in 2008,” said Michael Dimock, associate director for research at Pew. “There’s no erosion at all.”
Even more noteworthy, less than 10 percent of black voters in a New York Times/CBS News survey taken last month said that Mr. Obama had failed to meet their expectations as president, while nearly 3 in 10 said he had exceeded expectations. Among nonblack voters, 4 in 10 said he performed worse than expected, while only 5 percent said he had done better.
Blacks are hurting in this economy (even more than other segments of American society). But they don't blame the President. They blame an extremist and unyielding Republican Party that is committed to protecting the rich and soaking the poor, that holds most Black voters in contempt as unthinking and still "on the plantation", and that made it its mission from inauguration day to destroy Barack Obama no matter the cost.
They're smart cookies. They know who to blame.
AZ Governor Threatens Impeachment of Redistricting Comm. After it Refuses to Gerrymander
Shocking news out of Arizona, where Gov. Jan Brewer (R) is threatening impeachment proceedings against the state's non-partisan redistricting commission because it failed to sufficiently gerrymander the maps for Republicans. The map it released has 4 safe GOP seats, 2 safe Democratic seats, and three competitive ones -- hardly something Republicans should be bawling over.
But Arizona politics have of late taken a decided step towards the lawless, with Maricopa County sheriff Joe Arpaio leading the charge by issuing indictments of his political opponents (where "political" here includes judges trying to curb his reckless abuses of power). So far, it hasn't seemed to dampen Sheriff Joe's political popularity amongst Arizona Republicans; so why not take a page from his book by threatening to impeachment independent commissioners as a suasion mechanism?
But Arizona politics have of late taken a decided step towards the lawless, with Maricopa County sheriff Joe Arpaio leading the charge by issuing indictments of his political opponents (where "political" here includes judges trying to curb his reckless abuses of power). So far, it hasn't seemed to dampen Sheriff Joe's political popularity amongst Arizona Republicans; so why not take a page from his book by threatening to impeachment independent commissioners as a suasion mechanism?
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Zing!
I can't stand Jennifer Rubin, but I got to give her credit for the zing:
It helps that the target is Erick Erickson, of course.
"You want a Washington Post journalist to comment on an anti-Semitic screed by some blogger?" Rubin asked. "My arms are not long enough to punch down that far."
It helps that the target is Erick Erickson, of course.
Influential Roundup
I had class today, and one of my students remarked that the Derrick Bell piece I assigned (Serving Two Masters: Integration Ideals and Client Interests in School Desegregation Litigation, 85 Yale L.J. 470 (1976)) was one of his favorites of the year. Of course it was -- Bell was a brilliant thinker who will be missed.
* * *
Rush Limbaugh won't apologize to LRA victims after defending the terrorist cult group as simply a group of Christians that Obama wanted to oppress.
Tom Friedman assesses Barack Obama's foreign policy successes and failures.
The momentum to recall Scott Walker may have stalled, but it is still looking like a razor-tight race.
Some people have promoted this attack on nation-states as "the idea that will not die", but I'm supremely unconvinced. It is hardly the case that multi-ethnic states -- even those without weak governmental structures -- have been paragons of stability and harmony. And there are plenty of post-national movements that still have quite their share of blood on their hands.
San Francisco is a very, very strange place.
85-year old state senator releases a Rocky ad. Oh for cute.
Re: Occupy DC: "When the Jews show up, you know it's serious."
The mystery of why Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) is seen as some sort of wonk, rather than a nutjob hack, endures.
* * *
Rush Limbaugh won't apologize to LRA victims after defending the terrorist cult group as simply a group of Christians that Obama wanted to oppress.
Tom Friedman assesses Barack Obama's foreign policy successes and failures.
The momentum to recall Scott Walker may have stalled, but it is still looking like a razor-tight race.
Some people have promoted this attack on nation-states as "the idea that will not die", but I'm supremely unconvinced. It is hardly the case that multi-ethnic states -- even those without weak governmental structures -- have been paragons of stability and harmony. And there are plenty of post-national movements that still have quite their share of blood on their hands.
San Francisco is a very, very strange place.
85-year old state senator releases a Rocky ad. Oh for cute.
Re: Occupy DC: "When the Jews show up, you know it's serious."
The mystery of why Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) is seen as some sort of wonk, rather than a nutjob hack, endures.
Top IDF Officer Calls for Crackdown on "Price Tag" Militants
A top IDF officer is urging Israel to take a stiffer line on violent "price tag" settler activists, who have launched a wave of terrorist attacks on Palestinians (and some dovish Jews) in order to derail peace between Israel and Palestine. Other military figures joined and leveled criticism at high-profile Israeli right-wingers who sided with the extremists over the IDF and Israeli security interests.
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Post-Panel Roundup
The last post was originally meant to just be the intro blurb for a roundup, before it got all long and unwieldy. So I spun it off, and now the roundup gets its own post with its own brief, snazzy intro.
* * *
OneVoice brings in some high profile figures encouraging the development of grassroots momentum for a two-state solution.
Alyssa Rosenberg on the politics of Ellen Raskin novels. The Westing Game is one of my favorite books of all time, and one I can't wait to hand off to my kids.
A new paper shows the existence of racial bias in eBay transactions (specifically, baseball cards shown held by a dark-skinned hand sold for less than those held by a light-skinned hand).
This is probably behind a paywall for most of you, but if you have university access, I found this paper critiquing "moral minimalism" interesting (and I speak as someone who generally identifies as a moral minimalist). The cite is David L. Norton, Moral Minimalism and the Development of Moral Character, 13 Midwest Stud. Phil. 180 (1988).
Mah Rabu says something I've often wanted to stress: Defining Orthodox Judaism as "more religious" and other strands as "less religious" is kind of giving away the game. I'm not a Conservative Jew because I'm too lazy or uncommitted to Judaism to be an Orthodox Jew. I'm a Conservative Jew because I think we do Judaism right. If you're Reform or Reconstructionist, you should have the same confidence in your own beliefs. And while it's fine to experiment and figure out what's best for you, experimentation can and should draw from all sectors of the Jewish community.
Ta-Nehisi Coates hosts David Skeel talking about William Stuntz's views on jury nullification, with reference to Paul Butler. It's a good thing.
* * *
OneVoice brings in some high profile figures encouraging the development of grassroots momentum for a two-state solution.
Alyssa Rosenberg on the politics of Ellen Raskin novels. The Westing Game is one of my favorite books of all time, and one I can't wait to hand off to my kids.
A new paper shows the existence of racial bias in eBay transactions (specifically, baseball cards shown held by a dark-skinned hand sold for less than those held by a light-skinned hand).
This is probably behind a paywall for most of you, but if you have university access, I found this paper critiquing "moral minimalism" interesting (and I speak as someone who generally identifies as a moral minimalist). The cite is David L. Norton, Moral Minimalism and the Development of Moral Character, 13 Midwest Stud. Phil. 180 (1988).
Mah Rabu says something I've often wanted to stress: Defining Orthodox Judaism as "more religious" and other strands as "less religious" is kind of giving away the game. I'm not a Conservative Jew because I'm too lazy or uncommitted to Judaism to be an Orthodox Jew. I'm a Conservative Jew because I think we do Judaism right. If you're Reform or Reconstructionist, you should have the same confidence in your own beliefs. And while it's fine to experiment and figure out what's best for you, experimentation can and should draw from all sectors of the Jewish community.
Ta-Nehisi Coates hosts David Skeel talking about William Stuntz's views on jury nullification, with reference to Paul Butler. It's a good thing.
Post-Panel Recap
I spoke on a panel today. Myself and two other faculty members picked a case before the Supreme Court this term, and talked about it (background, analysis, predictions, etc.). I picked Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC, a fascinating case about the ministerial exception in the First Amendment.
Basically, the ministerial exception allows religious organizations more-or-less free rein in the hiring and firing of clergy -- particularly, as against anti-discrimination law. So, if a synagogue fires its Rabbi, and she alleges sex discrimination, that case is just thrown out irrespective of the facts. The rationale behind the exception is that the Free Exercise clause, if nothing else, requires that religious bodies be allowed to choose who serves as their own minister. The government in effect telling the synagogue "no, you have to hire/keep on this Rabbi to serve as your spiritual leader" is incompatible with First Amendment protections. And while one could make an argument that such logic cannot survive Employment Division of Oregon v. Smith (holding that the Free Exercise clause generally does not require religious exemptions from generally applicable laws), the ministerial exception appears to remain on steady footing.
There is a big caveat to the above, however: the ministerial exception has never been ratified by the Supreme Court. It is a creature of the federal appellate courts, and while every circuit now accepts its existence, until Hosanna-Tabor the Supreme Court never heard a case on the subject. The reason behind that isn't hard to see -- intuitive as the ministerial exception is in principle, it can be devilishly difficult to apply in practice. Who counts as a minister? How deep into the payroll does it extend?
Hosanna-Tabor deals with a teacher at a Christian school who, on the one hand, taught secular subjects and had an almost-exclusively secular job description, but on the other hand was considered a "called" teacher and a "commissioned minister" at the school and church, and did do some religious functions in addition to the school's intended mission as being infused with a spiritual mission from top to bottom. Should her ADA retaliation claim be barred on the exception? Saying yes means potentially excluding huge swaths of employees from the entire thrust of anti-discrimination law protections. Saying no means answering some exceptionally difficult line-drawing problems regarding who does count as a "minister", and risks entangling the court in religious doctrinal disputes that may be the key factual controversies in why a given employee was terminated.
The talk went quite well, though I continue to be unhappy at just how much my public speaking skills have degraded over the years. My fellows spoke on the warrantless GPS tracking case and the notorious fleeting expletives case (as a professor, one relishes the chance to use various swear words in an academically sanctioned setting in front of scores of students). So hopefully, a good time was had by all.
Basically, the ministerial exception allows religious organizations more-or-less free rein in the hiring and firing of clergy -- particularly, as against anti-discrimination law. So, if a synagogue fires its Rabbi, and she alleges sex discrimination, that case is just thrown out irrespective of the facts. The rationale behind the exception is that the Free Exercise clause, if nothing else, requires that religious bodies be allowed to choose who serves as their own minister. The government in effect telling the synagogue "no, you have to hire/keep on this Rabbi to serve as your spiritual leader" is incompatible with First Amendment protections. And while one could make an argument that such logic cannot survive Employment Division of Oregon v. Smith (holding that the Free Exercise clause generally does not require religious exemptions from generally applicable laws), the ministerial exception appears to remain on steady footing.
There is a big caveat to the above, however: the ministerial exception has never been ratified by the Supreme Court. It is a creature of the federal appellate courts, and while every circuit now accepts its existence, until Hosanna-Tabor the Supreme Court never heard a case on the subject. The reason behind that isn't hard to see -- intuitive as the ministerial exception is in principle, it can be devilishly difficult to apply in practice. Who counts as a minister? How deep into the payroll does it extend?
Hosanna-Tabor deals with a teacher at a Christian school who, on the one hand, taught secular subjects and had an almost-exclusively secular job description, but on the other hand was considered a "called" teacher and a "commissioned minister" at the school and church, and did do some religious functions in addition to the school's intended mission as being infused with a spiritual mission from top to bottom. Should her ADA retaliation claim be barred on the exception? Saying yes means potentially excluding huge swaths of employees from the entire thrust of anti-discrimination law protections. Saying no means answering some exceptionally difficult line-drawing problems regarding who does count as a "minister", and risks entangling the court in religious doctrinal disputes that may be the key factual controversies in why a given employee was terminated.
The talk went quite well, though I continue to be unhappy at just how much my public speaking skills have degraded over the years. My fellows spoke on the warrantless GPS tracking case and the notorious fleeting expletives case (as a professor, one relishes the chance to use various swear words in an academically sanctioned setting in front of scores of students). So hopefully, a good time was had by all.
The Bigot Crew and the Chosen Few
Deborah Orr's gratutiously nasty attack on Jews as a "chosen" people -- (deliberately?) misrepresenting the meaning of the concept in Jewish theology in order to present Jews as possessing a sense of communal superiority -- has been taking a ton of flack, and rightly so. It is a vicious piece of work that echoes anti-Semitic tropes of years past (and not so past), and deserves to be called out as such.
Particularly worth noting is a recent screed by a British BDS supporter who went into a "chosen people" tirade immediately following standard bromides about how he's not anti-Semitic, he has nothing against Israelis or Jews, he's really the best friend of Israelis and Jews, and in any event he's an anti-fascist so of course he can't be anti-Semitic. He then proceeded to go on an all-too-common bit about how a Jewish audience member (who I imagine questioned the legitimacy of BDS) "an absolute disgrace to the Jewish people", "a modern-day fascist" and "a modern-day Nazi" whose "friends in the media" are covering up Israeli crimes. And then, after being asked by another Jew in the vicinity whether he "felt better" after saying all that, he replied:
Yep -- friend of the Jews indeed. But it is worrisome that "chosenness" is now entering the lexicon as an attack on Jews qua Jews. It is a sign that many anti-Semites who make their home in anti-Zionists circles no longer feel the need for fig leafs. They can use identifiably Jewish -- not Israeli -- terms to attack identifiably Jewish -- not Israeli targets. And they can largely do so with impunity.
Particularly worth noting is a recent screed by a British BDS supporter who went into a "chosen people" tirade immediately following standard bromides about how he's not anti-Semitic, he has nothing against Israelis or Jews, he's really the best friend of Israelis and Jews, and in any event he's an anti-fascist so of course he can't be anti-Semitic. He then proceeded to go on an all-too-common bit about how a Jewish audience member (who I imagine questioned the legitimacy of BDS) "an absolute disgrace to the Jewish people", "a modern-day fascist" and "a modern-day Nazi" whose "friends in the media" are covering up Israeli crimes. And then, after being asked by another Jew in the vicinity whether he "felt better" after saying all that, he replied:
“Better than you, obviously. But then again you’re one of the chosen people so you might feel better than me, huh?”
Yep -- friend of the Jews indeed. But it is worrisome that "chosenness" is now entering the lexicon as an attack on Jews qua Jews. It is a sign that many anti-Semites who make their home in anti-Zionists circles no longer feel the need for fig leafs. They can use identifiably Jewish -- not Israeli -- terms to attack identifiably Jewish -- not Israeli targets. And they can largely do so with impunity.
Monday, October 24, 2011
Perry's Neo-Birtherism
Republican leaders are squirming as Texas Governor and presidential contender Rick Perry (R) once again questioned whether Barack Obama was born in the United States.
Though one would think that the release of Obama's long-form birth certificate would have quelled the "controversy" (indeed, it was what birthers claimed to have wanted all along), conspiracy theories die much harder deaths than that. And, true to form, birthers have regrouped under the simple explanation that the long-form birth certificate, like its short-form peer, is a fake. Perry, after a chat with birther doyen Donald Trump, offers that "I don’t have any idea" whether the document is genuine or not, thus giving perhaps the highest profile endorsement to the canard that there remains legitimate doubts regarding Obama's birthplace.
The irony is that I think at this stage in the game such conspiratorial nonsense hurts the GOP more than it helps (hence the nervousness by top Republican officials when confronted with Perry's comments). The worst case scenario for them, of course, is that Perry's birther flirtations help in the primary but make him toxic amongst the more, shall we say, "reality based community" of the general election electorate.
Though one would think that the release of Obama's long-form birth certificate would have quelled the "controversy" (indeed, it was what birthers claimed to have wanted all along), conspiracy theories die much harder deaths than that. And, true to form, birthers have regrouped under the simple explanation that the long-form birth certificate, like its short-form peer, is a fake. Perry, after a chat with birther doyen Donald Trump, offers that "I don’t have any idea" whether the document is genuine or not, thus giving perhaps the highest profile endorsement to the canard that there remains legitimate doubts regarding Obama's birthplace.
The irony is that I think at this stage in the game such conspiratorial nonsense hurts the GOP more than it helps (hence the nervousness by top Republican officials when confronted with Perry's comments). The worst case scenario for them, of course, is that Perry's birther flirtations help in the primary but make him toxic amongst the more, shall we say, "reality based community" of the general election electorate.
The Truman Show
Tablet Magazine has a neat profile up on Rachel Kleinfeld, founder of the Truman Project. The Truman Project is a left-of-center national security think tank meant to provide a counterbalance to conservative groups like the Heritage Foundation, and it has quickly established itself as a hot-spot for progressive national security thinkers.
Interestingly, Kleinfeld, an Alaska native, is the daughter of Andrew Kleinfeld, a federal court judge on the 9th Circuit. I know of Judge Kleinfeld, because he is a favorite amongst Federalist Society folk, and is a popular clerkship destination for truly devoted young conservative lawyers willing to spend a year in Fairbanks, Alaska. Judge Kleinfeld is conservative with a libertarian streak, albeit (like most Republican Jews) one whose familial roots are deeply Democratic. And now his daughter has returned to those roots as a doyen of the left's national security establishment. In a sense, it is reminiscent of Catherine MacKinnon, whose father was also a prominent conservative appeals court judge. And (heart-warmingly), in both cases from what I've heard father is quite proud and supportive of daughter, in spite of (presumed) political differences.
Finally, I would be remiss in linking to this profile without offering one of the funniest lines in it, provided by a leftist Truman Project skeptic critiquing their alleged MO: "It's a very testosterone-heavy approach, very, 'Fuck you, I'm a retired general and I have killed people with my bare hands and I will tell you that torture is bad.'" Partial to that type of epistemic credibility myself, I will nonetheless concede it made me smile.
Interestingly, Kleinfeld, an Alaska native, is the daughter of Andrew Kleinfeld, a federal court judge on the 9th Circuit. I know of Judge Kleinfeld, because he is a favorite amongst Federalist Society folk, and is a popular clerkship destination for truly devoted young conservative lawyers willing to spend a year in Fairbanks, Alaska. Judge Kleinfeld is conservative with a libertarian streak, albeit (like most Republican Jews) one whose familial roots are deeply Democratic. And now his daughter has returned to those roots as a doyen of the left's national security establishment. In a sense, it is reminiscent of Catherine MacKinnon, whose father was also a prominent conservative appeals court judge. And (heart-warmingly), in both cases from what I've heard father is quite proud and supportive of daughter, in spite of (presumed) political differences.
Finally, I would be remiss in linking to this profile without offering one of the funniest lines in it, provided by a leftist Truman Project skeptic critiquing their alleged MO: "It's a very testosterone-heavy approach, very, 'Fuck you, I'm a retired general and I have killed people with my bare hands and I will tell you that torture is bad.'" Partial to that type of epistemic credibility myself, I will nonetheless concede it made me smile.
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Video Game Night Roundup
I've been on a bit of a gamer kick recently. Borrowed Mass Effect, beat that the other day. Then I pre-ordered the new Assassin's Creed. Then I bought Mass Effect 2, Fight Night Champion, and Super Smash Bros. Brawl. I beat Fight Night just an hour ago.
* * *
Intriguing gambit: US goes to the WTO to argue that China's "great internet firewall" represents a restraint on free trade.
Hey remember when groups like the ZOA were aghast at the prospect of American Jews criticizing Israel? They lost that principle real quick.
Interesting bit on WaPo about Herman Cain's racial background.
Don't see this every day: Libertarian blogger asks whether we should abolish the corporate form.
* * *
Intriguing gambit: US goes to the WTO to argue that China's "great internet firewall" represents a restraint on free trade.
Hey remember when groups like the ZOA were aghast at the prospect of American Jews criticizing Israel? They lost that principle real quick.
Interesting bit on WaPo about Herman Cain's racial background.
Don't see this every day: Libertarian blogger asks whether we should abolish the corporate form.
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Falling into Laps
The Forward provides a brief profile of the most notorious anti-Semitic sign-waver at the Occupy Wall Street protests. Basically, he's a homeless man who long did things like hurl anti-Semitic abuse well before OWS started. So it was easy for him to stand around with his signs in Zuccotti Park. Fortunately, other members of OWS have taken to holding up signs next to him calling him a dick. Since the man has the same right to protest as anyone else, that's really all anyone can do.
Friday, October 21, 2011
They Step Up as We Step Down
President Barack Obama has announced the US will begin a complete withdrawal of American troops from Iraq, to be completed at the end of the year. This, of course, is another major accomplishment for the Obama administration, and we can all be glad that our troops are finally coming home.
Meanwhile, Turkey has just launched a major invasion of its own into Iraq, where it continues to battle Kurdish rebels seeking an independent homeland based in northern Iraq and eastern Turkey. The current Turkish Prime Minister has promised that Kurdish rebels will "drown in their own blood".
Fortunately, then, anti-war and anti-occupation groups can simply refocus their ire on Turkey, which is invading another sovereign country in an explicit bid to maintain political dominance over a disenfranchised minority group that simply wishes to express national self-determination. That is what will happen, right?
Meanwhile, Turkey has just launched a major invasion of its own into Iraq, where it continues to battle Kurdish rebels seeking an independent homeland based in northern Iraq and eastern Turkey. The current Turkish Prime Minister has promised that Kurdish rebels will "drown in their own blood".
Fortunately, then, anti-war and anti-occupation groups can simply refocus their ire on Turkey, which is invading another sovereign country in an explicit bid to maintain political dominance over a disenfranchised minority group that simply wishes to express national self-determination. That is what will happen, right?
Thursday, October 20, 2011
A Sort of Settlement Freeze?
It's not all it's cracked up to be, but it'd still be a big move:
The "government construction" thing is the qualifier -- much settlement construction comes on private land and is done by private developers. Still, the Ha'aretz article notes that Abbas needs something he can show to the Palestinian people in order to justify coming back to the table, and this might qualify. Moreover, mediators seemed surprised that Netanyahu was willing to take this step -- meaning that it might be just the sort of shakeup that the two parties need to get back down to brass tacks.
We can hope, anyway. The ball appears to be in Abbas' court -- hopefully, he'll decide to run with it instead of away from it.
UPDATE: Well darn.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he's willing to freeze government construction in West Bank settlements as well as all construction on government land there. In return, he needs an agreement by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to resume direct peace talks.
According to a senior Israeli official, Abbas has not yet responded, but he has been threatening to resign if there is no diplomatic progress in the next three months.
The "government construction" thing is the qualifier -- much settlement construction comes on private land and is done by private developers. Still, the Ha'aretz article notes that Abbas needs something he can show to the Palestinian people in order to justify coming back to the table, and this might qualify. Moreover, mediators seemed surprised that Netanyahu was willing to take this step -- meaning that it might be just the sort of shakeup that the two parties need to get back down to brass tacks.
We can hope, anyway. The ball appears to be in Abbas' court -- hopefully, he'll decide to run with it instead of away from it.
UPDATE: Well darn.
Dead Dictator's Society Roundup
Gaddafi is dead! But other things are happening as well:
* * *
Spencer Ackerman has advance copies of all the headlines that will flow from Gaddafi's death.
Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY) slashes back at the GOP for tying him to fringe anti-Semites in the Occupy Wall Street movement. The consensus amongst non-partisan observers is that anti-Semitic incidents in the movement are marginal (though obviously disturbing and quite sick).
Rich Santorum boldly stands against contraception.
Reflecting on the police shooting of a young Black man who proverbially "did everything right", E.J. Graff worries that her own son will be next.
Deborah Orr is a charming mix of nasty and dumb, but unfortunately this canard of "chosenness" as Jewish supremacism hardly is limited to her.
There's nothing more American than being a second-class citizen. Today, gay and lesbian Americans are the most American of all.
* * *
Spencer Ackerman has advance copies of all the headlines that will flow from Gaddafi's death.
Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY) slashes back at the GOP for tying him to fringe anti-Semites in the Occupy Wall Street movement. The consensus amongst non-partisan observers is that anti-Semitic incidents in the movement are marginal (though obviously disturbing and quite sick).
Rich Santorum boldly stands against contraception.
Reflecting on the police shooting of a young Black man who proverbially "did everything right", E.J. Graff worries that her own son will be next.
Deborah Orr is a charming mix of nasty and dumb, but unfortunately this canard of "chosenness" as Jewish supremacism hardly is limited to her.
There's nothing more American than being a second-class citizen. Today, gay and lesbian Americans are the most American of all.
Arab IDF Soldiers
I sometimes forget McSweeney's isn't just a humor magazine. They currently have an absolutely stellar piece up on Arab soldiers (mostly Bedouin and Druze) serving in the IDF.
The article makes a number of important points. On the one hand, it stresses that the army seems to be a genuinely inclusive social institution in Israel -- the author reports that Arab soldiers serving claim their service is the time they feel most like a true, equal Israeli. On the other hand, to the extent that army service promises enhanced opportunities for non-Jews after their tenure is complete, it seems to be failing. The government's abysmal treatment of the Bedouin community in particular -- a community which provides the IDF's elite desert trackers -- is simply shocking, and a disgrace to the veterans who have put their lives on the line for their country.
It is a piece I can't recommend highly enough.
The article makes a number of important points. On the one hand, it stresses that the army seems to be a genuinely inclusive social institution in Israel -- the author reports that Arab soldiers serving claim their service is the time they feel most like a true, equal Israeli. On the other hand, to the extent that army service promises enhanced opportunities for non-Jews after their tenure is complete, it seems to be failing. The government's abysmal treatment of the Bedouin community in particular -- a community which provides the IDF's elite desert trackers -- is simply shocking, and a disgrace to the veterans who have put their lives on the line for their country.
It is a piece I can't recommend highly enough.
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
The Restoration Project
In the New York Jewish Week, Ben Cohen has a good article up on "the scandal that wasn't". Put simply, Mearsheimer endorsed a book by a raging anti-Semite by the name of Gilad Atzmon. Atzmon is not a borderline case -- he is quite clear on his opposition to "Jewishness" of all stripes -- including anti-Zionist Jews (insofar as they have the temerity to identify as Jews). But while Mearsheimer did meet with a brief flurry of condemnation, the scandal, as White puts it, largely "petered out". It doesn't seem like Mearsheimer has been shamed in any way, or has been distanced any further from polite society than he was before. Cohen concludes:
This is the restoration -- the return of "anti-Semite" as a concept to the control of persons and groups generally hostile to the Jewish community. By and large, they would differ from their peers in not consciously adopting the labels (though occasionally you amazingly do see them flirting with it). But what they've done is retake control of the narrative. This runs counter to the general (proper) trend of the last several decades, in which the left has sought to give minority groups more control over how to characterize their victimization, and afforded them substantial (albeit not infinite) deference in when they declare themselves to be wounded.
We saw this with Alice Walker -- the presumed right to define Jewish lives for Jews, to tell Jews when they could and could not be legitimately aggrieved, to tell them what their past history was and what their present entitlements are. It is a restoration of power over Jewish lives. And it won't raise an eyebrow -- because non-Jewish domination over Jews is and always has been the proper state of the world, from which things like Israel are but infuriating anomalies.
So long as the target is Israel, or Zionism, or even Judaism as a set of ideas, anything goes; equally, any invocation of anti-Semitism on the part of critics is simply a smear to be dismissed.
Who, then, qualifies as an anti-Semite in John Mearsheimer’s world? One has to assume the bar is set very high: you would have to explicitly declare your hatred of Jews as individuals, for instance, or advocate that Jews should sit in separate subway cars. But if you use the Holocaust as a stick with which to beat the Jews, or slyly undermine its “narrative,” or assert that conspiracy theories bear some correspondence to reality, or argue that Jewish government officials are more suspect than others because of their dual loyalty to Israel, that’s not anti-Semitism, he would say — just an honest expression of legitimate opinions.
It’s worth remembering that when the term “anti-Semitism” was coined in 19th-century Germany, its authors were not Jews, but Jew-haters. They wore the badge of anti-Semitism with pride, creating political parties with such names as the “League of Anti-Semites.” The word was owned not by the victims, but by the perpetrators.
In that sense, nothing much has changed. The torrid controversies around anti-Semitism today indicate that the Jewish community has claimed neither the ownership nor the definition of the word. That’s why John Mearsheimer thinks his understanding of anti-Semitism is far superior to yours or mine. And that, you might say, is the greatest scandal of all.
This is the restoration -- the return of "anti-Semite" as a concept to the control of persons and groups generally hostile to the Jewish community. By and large, they would differ from their peers in not consciously adopting the labels (though occasionally you amazingly do see them flirting with it). But what they've done is retake control of the narrative. This runs counter to the general (proper) trend of the last several decades, in which the left has sought to give minority groups more control over how to characterize their victimization, and afforded them substantial (albeit not infinite) deference in when they declare themselves to be wounded.
We saw this with Alice Walker -- the presumed right to define Jewish lives for Jews, to tell Jews when they could and could not be legitimately aggrieved, to tell them what their past history was and what their present entitlements are. It is a restoration of power over Jewish lives. And it won't raise an eyebrow -- because non-Jewish domination over Jews is and always has been the proper state of the world, from which things like Israel are but infuriating anomalies.
Yay Disenfranchisement
A South Carolina GOP operative, Wesley Donehue, is taking some heat for tweeting "Nice! ... EXACTLY why we need Voter ID in SC" in response to an article entitled "SC voter ID law hits black precincts".
If you hit his feed, Donehue spends a lot of time moaning about how people didn't "read the follow-up" tweets. Basically, what those tweets focus on is that many of the people affected by the voter ID law may be students who originally hail from outside the state. This, he says, raises the prospect that they are trying to vote in two states (South Carolina, and their states of origin), which would be fraudulent.
And yes, that would be. The problem, though, is that while one can't legally vote in two states in the same election, one certainly can elect to vote in South Carolina elections exclusively as a student, even if one originally hails from another state. Donehue has no evidence that the former occurs, and the latter is perfectly legal. Ergo, Donehue is excited about suppressing legal (mostly Black) votes.
When I went to Carleton, for example, I sometimes voted in Maryland, and sometimes in Minnesota (never both at the same time, of course). I can do that, because I could credibly claim to be domiciled in either state, and the only legal requirement for being a "citizen" of a state is that one "resides" there. See U.S. Const. Amend. XIV ("All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.") (emphasis added). Students electing to register in the state where they live nine months of the year is perfectly valid and accepted practice, and well within the confines of the word "reside". And if they do so, they are legally as "South Carolinian" as Donehue is.
At times Donehue seems to admit that the only cognizable legal problem is not students originally from Georgia deciding to vote in South Carolina, but rather people voting in both states at once (other times he indicates that yes, his problem is with people legally voting in South Carolina when they originally hail from another state). While this has the advantage of keeping him on the right side of the constitution, it also has nothing to do with the law he's defending. The risk of double-voting occurs because one might be simultaneously registered in two states. When I registered to vote in Minnesota, there was nothing that canceled my Maryland registration -- or, for that matter, nothing that would let them know that I was ever registered in Maryland or anywhere else in the first place. If I had shown ID when I registered -- guess what? -- that's still true. Worse yet, most voter fraud that does occur happens through absentee ballots. Guess what isn't covered by voter ID laws? Yep -- absentee ballots.
Donehue's slipperiness between a valid but possibly non-existent "problem" that wouldn't be solved by the law in question anyway (double-voting), and an extant but perfectly legal phenomenon, the blocking of which is aptly called voter suppression (students voting where they go to college), should be an indicator that his analysis isn't exactly on the up-and-up. Whether that's because he really is excited at suppressing the Black vote, or because he's just not all that bright and doesn't understand how the constitution works with respect to residency, is an open question.
If you hit his feed, Donehue spends a lot of time moaning about how people didn't "read the follow-up" tweets. Basically, what those tweets focus on is that many of the people affected by the voter ID law may be students who originally hail from outside the state. This, he says, raises the prospect that they are trying to vote in two states (South Carolina, and their states of origin), which would be fraudulent.
And yes, that would be. The problem, though, is that while one can't legally vote in two states in the same election, one certainly can elect to vote in South Carolina elections exclusively as a student, even if one originally hails from another state. Donehue has no evidence that the former occurs, and the latter is perfectly legal. Ergo, Donehue is excited about suppressing legal (mostly Black) votes.
When I went to Carleton, for example, I sometimes voted in Maryland, and sometimes in Minnesota (never both at the same time, of course). I can do that, because I could credibly claim to be domiciled in either state, and the only legal requirement for being a "citizen" of a state is that one "resides" there. See U.S. Const. Amend. XIV ("All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.") (emphasis added). Students electing to register in the state where they live nine months of the year is perfectly valid and accepted practice, and well within the confines of the word "reside". And if they do so, they are legally as "South Carolinian" as Donehue is.
At times Donehue seems to admit that the only cognizable legal problem is not students originally from Georgia deciding to vote in South Carolina, but rather people voting in both states at once (other times he indicates that yes, his problem is with people legally voting in South Carolina when they originally hail from another state). While this has the advantage of keeping him on the right side of the constitution, it also has nothing to do with the law he's defending. The risk of double-voting occurs because one might be simultaneously registered in two states. When I registered to vote in Minnesota, there was nothing that canceled my Maryland registration -- or, for that matter, nothing that would let them know that I was ever registered in Maryland or anywhere else in the first place. If I had shown ID when I registered -- guess what? -- that's still true. Worse yet, most voter fraud that does occur happens through absentee ballots. Guess what isn't covered by voter ID laws? Yep -- absentee ballots.
Donehue's slipperiness between a valid but possibly non-existent "problem" that wouldn't be solved by the law in question anyway (double-voting), and an extant but perfectly legal phenomenon, the blocking of which is aptly called voter suppression (students voting where they go to college), should be an indicator that his analysis isn't exactly on the up-and-up. Whether that's because he really is excited at suppressing the Black vote, or because he's just not all that bright and doesn't understand how the constitution works with respect to residency, is an open question.
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Welcome Home, Gilad Shalit
After five years in captivity, Cpl. Gilad Shalit has returned home. Shalit's capture revealed some very dark things about a certain segment of pro-Palestinian activists (not to mention about Hamas, which held in violation of international law and basically incommunicando for the past five years), and his redemption from captivity is a joyous day. Even though there are reasons to be concerned about the utility of the deal that released him (and reasons to view it optimistically, as I'll explain below). But today is a day for happiness.
Still, it is important to try and tease out the implications of the prisoner exchange. The main argument against it, here made by Ilya Somin, is that by releasing Hamas prisoners Israel incentivizes future like kidnappings, thus causing a net loss. This, of course, is the standard reasoning behind a firm "don't negotiate with terrorists" position. And it's not exactly a stretch of a supposition -- various Palestinians, from Hamas officials to some of the released prisoners (this one a woman who tried to detonate a bomb after being admitted to Israel for medical treatment) -- have made just this claim (compare to Shalit, who upon release said of Palestinian prisoners: "I would be happy if they are released, on condition that they stop fighting against Israel.").
One could say this is Hamas exploiting an Israeli weakness. And in a sense, this is true -- but that is always the case when a terrorist organization is fighting a democracy. It is the same principle behind locating forces in residential areas and wearing civilian clothes -- it takes advantage of Israel's aversion to killing civilians and attempts to discriminate between combatants and non-combatants. Moral constraints often come at the expense of pure utilitarian concerns, and a clever (and amoral) enemy can exploit that. Still, one hopes that the adherence to norms of human dignity and solidarity can provide benefits of their own. The Israeli Supreme Court's mantra always stuck with me:
The fact of the matter is that -- some blustery rhetoric to the contrary notwithstanding -- Israel does negotiate with terrorists. It knows that, and Hamas knows that. And that means that any time Hamas has an Israeli captive, they have leverage over Israel. Yesterday, they had such a captive. Today, they don't. And even if they try and get another one, there is a window of time that just opened where Israel is in a stronger negotiating position than it was before, and I'm hopeful that will lead to good things.
Still, it is important to try and tease out the implications of the prisoner exchange. The main argument against it, here made by Ilya Somin, is that by releasing Hamas prisoners Israel incentivizes future like kidnappings, thus causing a net loss. This, of course, is the standard reasoning behind a firm "don't negotiate with terrorists" position. And it's not exactly a stretch of a supposition -- various Palestinians, from Hamas officials to some of the released prisoners (this one a woman who tried to detonate a bomb after being admitted to Israel for medical treatment) -- have made just this claim (compare to Shalit, who upon release said of Palestinian prisoners: "I would be happy if they are released, on condition that they stop fighting against Israel.").
One could say this is Hamas exploiting an Israeli weakness. And in a sense, this is true -- but that is always the case when a terrorist organization is fighting a democracy. It is the same principle behind locating forces in residential areas and wearing civilian clothes -- it takes advantage of Israel's aversion to killing civilians and attempts to discriminate between combatants and non-combatants. Moral constraints often come at the expense of pure utilitarian concerns, and a clever (and amoral) enemy can exploit that. Still, one hopes that the adherence to norms of human dignity and solidarity can provide benefits of their own. The Israeli Supreme Court's mantra always stuck with me:
This is the destiny of democracy, as not all means are acceptable to it, and not all practices employed by its enemies are open before it. Although a democracy must often fight with one hand tied behind its back, it nonetheless has the upper hand. Preserving the Rule of Law and recognition of an individual's liberty constitutes an important component in its understanding of security. At the end of the day, they strengthen its spirit and its strength and allow it to overcome its difficulties.
The fact of the matter is that -- some blustery rhetoric to the contrary notwithstanding -- Israel does negotiate with terrorists. It knows that, and Hamas knows that. And that means that any time Hamas has an Israeli captive, they have leverage over Israel. Yesterday, they had such a captive. Today, they don't. And even if they try and get another one, there is a window of time that just opened where Israel is in a stronger negotiating position than it was before, and I'm hopeful that will lead to good things.
Monday, October 17, 2011
The State Does Care When Speech is Disrupted
Osama Shabaik, one of the UC-Irvine students convicted of willfully disturbing a lawful assembly when they attempted to disrupt a speech by Israeli ambassador Michael Oren, has a column up on the Jerusalem Post protesting his conviction. It is a little strange.
Shabaik's conviction was predicated off the fact that he and his cohorts attempted to prevent Ambassador Oren from speaking at a lawfully constituted assembly. Shabaik half-heartedly tries to downplay this goal, but mostly owns up to it. His argument against the conviction centers mostly on the grounds that this form of disruption is the only effective way the protesters had of communicating their message.
Let's break this down a little. States entrench their power by "creating a framework within which non-state players can challenge state policies" (here presented in the devilish form of a question & answer session). These frameworks -- for simplicity's sake, let's call them "time, place, and manner" restrictions -- must be broken out of in order for citizen's voices to have a real effect. Hence, the speech had to be disrupted.
One perhaps notices right away that this is not particularly well-argued. Whether or not ordinary citizens can challenge state power from within or without the framework's the state sets up for hearing dissenting views would seem to depend on the structure of the framework itself. Even if the "poignant message" the protesters wished to send was not one that could be expressed through Q&A (say, "Ambassador Oren is representative of an evil so grave one cannot and should not converse with it rationally"), it's not clear why that message could not have been delivered via, say, picketing. I'm dubious that the expressive message of the protesters could not be put forward in a way that was non-disruptive of the speech.
But perhaps the claim is deeper -- Shabaik is making some sort of Nietzschian argument about the need to break free of state bondage, regardless of the content of the chains. This might or might not resolve another tension in Shabaik's argument (whether the "framework" being protested here is American -- since we're operating under American law after all -- or Israeli), but it does perhaps explain why disruption was "necessary" to fulfill the expressive needs of the protesters.
The problem here is that -- if the goal is to lash out against state-imposed rules regarding speech -- it is unclear why they expect the state to play ball. They want all the glory of rebelling against the state, but then they get all aggrieved that the state might not react kindly to it. They bite one hand of the state while expected to be shielded by the other. It's like Gollum -- "The state is our friend/We hates the state!" -- and more than a little weird.
Now, this is in a sense beating around the bush: the protesters had more than just expressive desires but substantive ones as well, one of which was to prevent Ambassador Oren from delivering his speech in a public forum. Contrary to Shabaik's assertion, this is something the government (and First Amendment values) can and should care quite a bit about. Indeed, while Shabaik blithely asserts that "rights can only be trampled upon and censored by the government, not by individuals", nobody actually believes that. While most constitutional entitlements are only enforceable against the government, most of what government does is to try and protect various rights and entitlements of the citizenry against private encroachment. We have the right not to be murdered, and so the state provides police. We have a right to be able to make the case for our preferred policy positions in the public forum, and so the state provides rules by which that debate can take place in a fair and open manner. And this is reflected in the law that Shabaik violated.*
One rationale behind "time, place, and manner" restrictions is that they give the state the tools to ensure all sides of hotly-contested issues have the opportunity to state their case and be heard. While we are willing to allow tremendous diversity in how any person elects to state their case, one thing we don't generally stand for is for them to forgo that role entirely in favor of simply trying to drown out the other. Shabaik quite wrongly argues that the First Amendment instead is some sort of codification of The Wretched of the Earth wherein those "without power" are given free reign to determine which voices can be heard and which ought be silenced. The First Amendment most certainly does not instantiate that principle. Its mantra is for "more speech, not enforced silence."
* It is worth admitting just how much of an embarrassment Arizona Free Enterprise Club v. Bennett is to this line of argument.
Shabaik's conviction was predicated off the fact that he and his cohorts attempted to prevent Ambassador Oren from speaking at a lawfully constituted assembly. Shabaik half-heartedly tries to downplay this goal, but mostly owns up to it. His argument against the conviction centers mostly on the grounds that this form of disruption is the only effective way the protesters had of communicating their message.
[Q]uestions and answers are not an effective form of protest against states, especially those engaged in war crimes and possible crimes against humanity. States enhance their power by creating a framework within which non-state players can challenge state policies. Due to an imbalance of power, to effect real change ordinary citizens must challenge state power outside of this framework. We did not wish to politely ask questions but rather to make a poignant statement. We came to protest Israel’s actions, and a Q & A session was not the means through which we wanted to act. An effective protest must voice its opposition in a manner that challenges the policies Oren represents and the framework through which those policies are propagated.
Let's break this down a little. States entrench their power by "creating a framework within which non-state players can challenge state policies" (here presented in the devilish form of a question & answer session). These frameworks -- for simplicity's sake, let's call them "time, place, and manner" restrictions -- must be broken out of in order for citizen's voices to have a real effect. Hence, the speech had to be disrupted.
One perhaps notices right away that this is not particularly well-argued. Whether or not ordinary citizens can challenge state power from within or without the framework's the state sets up for hearing dissenting views would seem to depend on the structure of the framework itself. Even if the "poignant message" the protesters wished to send was not one that could be expressed through Q&A (say, "Ambassador Oren is representative of an evil so grave one cannot and should not converse with it rationally"), it's not clear why that message could not have been delivered via, say, picketing. I'm dubious that the expressive message of the protesters could not be put forward in a way that was non-disruptive of the speech.
But perhaps the claim is deeper -- Shabaik is making some sort of Nietzschian argument about the need to break free of state bondage, regardless of the content of the chains. This might or might not resolve another tension in Shabaik's argument (whether the "framework" being protested here is American -- since we're operating under American law after all -- or Israeli), but it does perhaps explain why disruption was "necessary" to fulfill the expressive needs of the protesters.
The problem here is that -- if the goal is to lash out against state-imposed rules regarding speech -- it is unclear why they expect the state to play ball. They want all the glory of rebelling against the state, but then they get all aggrieved that the state might not react kindly to it. They bite one hand of the state while expected to be shielded by the other. It's like Gollum -- "The state is our friend/We hates the state!" -- and more than a little weird.
Now, this is in a sense beating around the bush: the protesters had more than just expressive desires but substantive ones as well, one of which was to prevent Ambassador Oren from delivering his speech in a public forum. Contrary to Shabaik's assertion, this is something the government (and First Amendment values) can and should care quite a bit about. Indeed, while Shabaik blithely asserts that "rights can only be trampled upon and censored by the government, not by individuals", nobody actually believes that. While most constitutional entitlements are only enforceable against the government, most of what government does is to try and protect various rights and entitlements of the citizenry against private encroachment. We have the right not to be murdered, and so the state provides police. We have a right to be able to make the case for our preferred policy positions in the public forum, and so the state provides rules by which that debate can take place in a fair and open manner. And this is reflected in the law that Shabaik violated.*
One rationale behind "time, place, and manner" restrictions is that they give the state the tools to ensure all sides of hotly-contested issues have the opportunity to state their case and be heard. While we are willing to allow tremendous diversity in how any person elects to state their case, one thing we don't generally stand for is for them to forgo that role entirely in favor of simply trying to drown out the other. Shabaik quite wrongly argues that the First Amendment instead is some sort of codification of The Wretched of the Earth wherein those "without power" are given free reign to determine which voices can be heard and which ought be silenced. The First Amendment most certainly does not instantiate that principle. Its mantra is for "more speech, not enforced silence."
* It is worth admitting just how much of an embarrassment Arizona Free Enterprise Club v. Bennett is to this line of argument.
Saturday, October 15, 2011
And The Award Goes To....
Rush Limbaugh, to my knowledge, is the first conservative to rise to the defense of the LRA on the grounds that they're "Christian". Hey, if you guys want to claim them -- more's the worse for you. But if I were Christian, I'd be extra motivated to ensure Joseph Kony either spends the rest of his life in prison or takes two to the head. Just sayin'.
Friday, October 14, 2011
Peretz Parody Alert
Marty Peretz lobs up a basically unsubstantiated hit piece on Elizabeth Warren, which argues ... well, it's difficult to figure out what it's arguing. It claims she made a mistake in bringing up Scott Brown's nude photoshoot, to which I say, yeah, probably. Then it kind of idly muses about whether Elizabeth Warren is or isn't attractive, and whether men do or don't like her. Buried three paragraphs from the end is the claim that Warren "say[s] obvious things" (such as? Alas, we have a whole political party predicated on the notion that asking a factory owner to contribute his fair share is Bolshevik, so I have no idea what is and isn't "obvious" to this polity).
And then finally, two paragraphs from the end, we are asked to wonder whether Warren knows anything about foreign policy. "Ask her about the Arab Spring, Israel, and the peace process, human rights and Africa, the American relationship with Venezuela." Hey, here's an idea Marty: Ask her about China! That will turn out well for you.
Now, I have to say, so far this is a pretty standard entry in the genre of intellectually vapid beltway punditry -- a mix of story-of-the-day (the Brown/Warren barbs over the nude shoot), smart-women-make-the-boys-cry (Hillary Clinton! Nancy Pelosi!), and unsupported babbling about whether Harvard Law Professors are really "qualified" to serve alongside the likes of Jeff Sessions in the US Senate.
But what puts it over the top is the final paragraph. Remember, this elephant of a non-sequitur comes right after Peretz complains about Warren's alleged lack of foreign policy chops:
Herman Cain. You just finished talking about the need to have thunk deep thoughts about foreign policy, and now you're waxing lyrical about Herman "Palestinian right of return" Cain? A guy who openly brags about his lack of knowledge on foreign affairs? Color me crazy, but I think there's a tension here.
Oh but yes, Cain "tells it like it is". He's bold enough to bravely tell largely White audiences that most Blacks are idiots who can't think for themselves. Surely, it is a minor miracle that the Republican Party finds that sort of Black man appealing (unless he displays the slightest bit of discomfort with the word "niggerhead". Then he's a race-baiter like all the rest).
And then finally, two paragraphs from the end, we are asked to wonder whether Warren knows anything about foreign policy. "Ask her about the Arab Spring, Israel, and the peace process, human rights and Africa, the American relationship with Venezuela." Hey, here's an idea Marty: Ask her about China! That will turn out well for you.
Now, I have to say, so far this is a pretty standard entry in the genre of intellectually vapid beltway punditry -- a mix of story-of-the-day (the Brown/Warren barbs over the nude shoot), smart-women-make-the-boys-cry (Hillary Clinton! Nancy Pelosi!), and unsupported babbling about whether Harvard Law Professors are really "qualified" to serve alongside the likes of Jeff Sessions in the US Senate.
But what puts it over the top is the final paragraph. Remember, this elephant of a non-sequitur comes right after Peretz complains about Warren's alleged lack of foreign policy chops:
And then there’s one of the Republican candidates for president, Herman Cain. “When the moon hits your eye … Like a big pizza pie. That’s amore.” He’s running second among all the professional politicians in the Republican race for president. Oh, yes, and he’s a black man. It can’t be. Republicans favoring a … a … a black man? Wow. There’s been very little about this phenomenon in the press. I’ve found no pretense in the man. He’s got common sense. He tells it like it is. Will someone write something serious about him?
Herman Cain. You just finished talking about the need to have thunk deep thoughts about foreign policy, and now you're waxing lyrical about Herman "Palestinian right of return" Cain? A guy who openly brags about his lack of knowledge on foreign affairs? Color me crazy, but I think there's a tension here.
Oh but yes, Cain "tells it like it is". He's bold enough to bravely tell largely White audiences that most Blacks are idiots who can't think for themselves. Surely, it is a minor miracle that the Republican Party finds that sort of Black man appealing (unless he displays the slightest bit of discomfort with the word "niggerhead". Then he's a race-baiter like all the rest).
Elected Officials FTW
The proposed "eviction" of Occupy Wall Street from Zuccotti Park (which -- and I didn't know this -- is apparently privately owned by a company called Brookfield Office Properties) is off after a change of heart from the company. And what caused this change of heart? Pressure from elected officials:
"Threatening" seems a bit hyperbolic -- when I think "threatening phone calls", I think bomb threats -- but the point is that elected officials stepped up to exercise leverage over a corporate actor on behalf of OWS. Which is a signal that OWS is recognized as an at least potentially powerful voting bloc, of the sort elected officials have to pay attention to. And thus OWS gets a victory.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is how the game is played. It's Stokely Carmichael and Charles Hamilton's basic story about how to move from the margins to the mainstream of political society. Show you've got some muscle behind you, and the politicos will listen. OWS is starting to show that and, lo and behold, folks are listening.
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said earlier Friday morning that Brookfield Office Properties -- the real-estate firm that owns Zuccotti Park, considered a home-base for protesters -- made the decision not to clear them out after the company was "inundated" with threatening calls from elected city officials.
The mayor said during his weekly commentary on New York's WOR Radio that he didn't know which officials allegedly made the threats, but that the company decided to work out some form of a negotiated settlement with protesters in the coming days.
Bloomberg added that while he lacked first-hand knowledge of the conversations, he was told the officials generally threatened to "make life more difficult" for the real-estate company.
"Threatening" seems a bit hyperbolic -- when I think "threatening phone calls", I think bomb threats -- but the point is that elected officials stepped up to exercise leverage over a corporate actor on behalf of OWS. Which is a signal that OWS is recognized as an at least potentially powerful voting bloc, of the sort elected officials have to pay attention to. And thus OWS gets a victory.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is how the game is played. It's Stokely Carmichael and Charles Hamilton's basic story about how to move from the margins to the mainstream of political society. Show you've got some muscle behind you, and the politicos will listen. OWS is starting to show that and, lo and behold, folks are listening.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
A Spoonful of Sugar
Seriously, what is wrong with these people?
Jewish terrorists pose a threat to Israeli security as much as they do to Palestine's. It's cutting off your nose to spite someone else's face. And the idea that releasing terrorists makes the pill "sweeter" -- ugh. It's pathological. Jewish Hamasniks.
Thankfully, the proposal appeared to get no traction, because even amongst the Keystone Kops that comprise the current Israeli government, there are indeed depths of idiocy they won't sink to. Still, Shas, what do we do with you?
Meanwhile, FM Avigdor Lieberman did something useful at the meeting -- he walked out (after voting no). I highly approve of this act, and hope he continues to absent himself from cabinet deliberations.
Aside from debating whether or not to vote for a prisoner exchange deal that would set Gilad Shalit free, several members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's cabinet offered several lines of action Israel could take following the deal's execution.
Standing head and shoulders above most were Interior Minister Eli Yishai of Shas and his party member Meshulam Nahari, who said Israel should consider releasing Jewish terrorists who carried out attacks against Palestinians.
"It's the right thing to do as part of the balances in Israel's society," Yishai said, adding that such a move would not "undo the releasing of hundreds of [Palestinian] prisoners, but it may sweeten the bitter pill."
Jewish terrorists pose a threat to Israeli security as much as they do to Palestine's. It's cutting off your nose to spite someone else's face. And the idea that releasing terrorists makes the pill "sweeter" -- ugh. It's pathological. Jewish Hamasniks.
Thankfully, the proposal appeared to get no traction, because even amongst the Keystone Kops that comprise the current Israeli government, there are indeed depths of idiocy they won't sink to. Still, Shas, what do we do with you?
Meanwhile, FM Avigdor Lieberman did something useful at the meeting -- he walked out (after voting no). I highly approve of this act, and hope he continues to absent himself from cabinet deliberations.
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Of Restrictions Actual and Desired
Clark Neily of the Institute for Justice is guest-blogging at the VC on the subject of "judicial engagement", which is one of those words conservatives use when they want to strike down disagreeable legislation while still keeping the term "activist" in their back pocket. Anyway, Neily's argument is that the court should as aggressively scrutinize whether a congressional act is sanctioned under a constitutional grant of power as they do when an act is said to violate a constitutional restriction on it.
For example, "[i]n cases involving favored constitutional values like free speech and avoiding suspect classifications, judges determine the government’s actual objectives and then evaluate the “fit” between those objectives and the means chosen to advance them." By contrast, Neily complains, in cases involving more general police power claims (interestingly, Neily does not appear to limit his case to federal enactments), courts are far more deferential, engaging only in a bare-bones "rational basis review". "Judicial engagement simply proposes that there should not be a category of cases in which courts totally abandon those inquiries — and the underlying jurisprudential convictions they reflect — as they often do." "[B]asic ... analytical consistency" demands it.
This is impressively atextual. "Free speech" is not just a "favored constitutional value". It is a constitutional restriction -- a thou shalt not right in the text. When courts apply strict standards of review to laws which seem to impinge on it, what they are in effect saying is that "this law appears to breach a constitutional proscription. So if it's going to fly in spite of that restriction, you better have a damn good reason for it." In effect, it is asking when we'll allow overriding social need to trump textual bars.
By contrast, constitutional clauses like the Commerce Clause are grant of power. It makes no sense to apply the same level of scrutiny to laws which facially violate the constitution to those that don't (of course, if the Court doesn't think a law impinges on free speech norms, we never get to strict review in the first place. The finding of a constitutional tension is a prerequisite to heightened judicial scrutiny). Neily is essentially importing in the key facet of the First and Fourteenth Amendments (their status as legal restrictions on governmental authority) into every constitutional clause by abstracting away from the text and calling everything a constitutional "value". While Neily might wish that constitutional grants of power were circumscribed more sharply than they are, the fact is that (particularly with respect to state governments) there is a presumed residual authority to act unless a law violates a particular block on power.
For example, "[i]n cases involving favored constitutional values like free speech and avoiding suspect classifications, judges determine the government’s actual objectives and then evaluate the “fit” between those objectives and the means chosen to advance them." By contrast, Neily complains, in cases involving more general police power claims (interestingly, Neily does not appear to limit his case to federal enactments), courts are far more deferential, engaging only in a bare-bones "rational basis review". "Judicial engagement simply proposes that there should not be a category of cases in which courts totally abandon those inquiries — and the underlying jurisprudential convictions they reflect — as they often do." "[B]asic ... analytical consistency" demands it.
This is impressively atextual. "Free speech" is not just a "favored constitutional value". It is a constitutional restriction -- a thou shalt not right in the text. When courts apply strict standards of review to laws which seem to impinge on it, what they are in effect saying is that "this law appears to breach a constitutional proscription. So if it's going to fly in spite of that restriction, you better have a damn good reason for it." In effect, it is asking when we'll allow overriding social need to trump textual bars.
By contrast, constitutional clauses like the Commerce Clause are grant of power. It makes no sense to apply the same level of scrutiny to laws which facially violate the constitution to those that don't (of course, if the Court doesn't think a law impinges on free speech norms, we never get to strict review in the first place. The finding of a constitutional tension is a prerequisite to heightened judicial scrutiny). Neily is essentially importing in the key facet of the First and Fourteenth Amendments (their status as legal restrictions on governmental authority) into every constitutional clause by abstracting away from the text and calling everything a constitutional "value". While Neily might wish that constitutional grants of power were circumscribed more sharply than they are, the fact is that (particularly with respect to state governments) there is a presumed residual authority to act unless a law violates a particular block on power.
Exodus Origins: The Making and Unmaking of a Myth
There is a Jewish proverb about a man who had been spreading malicious lies about one of his neighbors. Feeling guilty about it, he went to his Rabbi and asked what he could do for penance. The Rabbi told him:
"Take three pillows outside, and tear them open so the feathers are cast to the wind."
The man did so, and returned to the Rabbi. The Rabbi then instructed him to go out and collect all the feathers.
"But that's impossible! The feathers have been scattered; it would be impossible to track them all down."
The Rabbi nodded sadly, and remarked that this is the danger of telling lies -- even if one feels genuinely guilty and wishes to recant, it is unlikely that they every can be truly returned to their box.
Columbia Professor Rashid Khalidi has taken to delivering a speech where he purports to tell the true story behind Leon Uris' famous novel Exodus. Khalidi claims that the novel was "commissioned" by "Edward Gottleib ... one of the founders of the modern public relations industry" and "father of the American iteration of Zionism." Gottlieb hired Uris to write the book and sent him off to Israel to do so.
By all appearances, Khalidi's claim is a complete fabrication. Martin Kramer thoroughly breaks it down -- indeed, I have to say I've rarely read a more systematic rib-cracking than the one Kramer delivers to Khalidi on this point. The supposed connection between Gottlieb (who was, at most, a middling figure in the public relations industry and had little to do with the broader American Zionist movement) and Uris can now be found in several books, including one published by the University of California Press. My guess is that Khalidi was relying on these sources when making his claim. But all the claims trace back to a 1985 (several decades after Exodus was published) PR advice book which recounts the story in similar terms, as an anecdote to aspiring young PR professionals.
In terms of historical evidence, this is a very thin reed. And it stands alone: Gottlieb's name does not show up in Uris' papers, he is unknown to either of Uris' biographers, there is no contemporaneous evidence or documentation relating any connection between Gottlieb and Uris whatsoever. The author of the 1985 anecdote says that it was recounted to him by Gottlieb himself, but -- given the time lag, lack of corroboration, and the tendency for PR professionals to perhaps slightly exaggerate while self-promoting -- he admits that he cannot vouch for its accuracy. In fact, Gottlieb's chief assistant on matters related to Israel claims to have no knowledge of such a link between her boss and Uris, and firmly concludes that none exists. The odds that this story is true, in sum, is almost infinitesimally small.
So Khalidi is engaging in abysmal history to weave a typical narrative of Zionist perfidy and malignancy, and now it has been debunked. Which is good. And Khalidi is a trained historian, so that makes his terrible methodology all the more scandalous. But unfortunately, the genie probably still won't be returned to the bottle.
True historical research -- digging up primary source documents and interviewing surviving subjects -- is hard work, and work I personally find breathtakingly boring. It's one reason why going into the field of History never interested me. I know what good historical methodology is, but I don't practice it -- I'm reliant on actual historians to do their job right the first time. I assume that when someone like Khalidi tells a tale like this, that he got his information via true historical exploration (or at least relies on others who did) -- not simply taking a trade paperback at face value. The problem, though, is that every time such a story -- even if false -- is recounted by people with impressive-sounding Columbia University titles or prestigious university presses -- it provides another secondary source which the average person (myself included) generally relies upon in order to understand history.
"Take three pillows outside, and tear them open so the feathers are cast to the wind."
The man did so, and returned to the Rabbi. The Rabbi then instructed him to go out and collect all the feathers.
"But that's impossible! The feathers have been scattered; it would be impossible to track them all down."
The Rabbi nodded sadly, and remarked that this is the danger of telling lies -- even if one feels genuinely guilty and wishes to recant, it is unlikely that they every can be truly returned to their box.
Columbia Professor Rashid Khalidi has taken to delivering a speech where he purports to tell the true story behind Leon Uris' famous novel Exodus. Khalidi claims that the novel was "commissioned" by "Edward Gottleib ... one of the founders of the modern public relations industry" and "father of the American iteration of Zionism." Gottlieb hired Uris to write the book and sent him off to Israel to do so.
By all appearances, Khalidi's claim is a complete fabrication. Martin Kramer thoroughly breaks it down -- indeed, I have to say I've rarely read a more systematic rib-cracking than the one Kramer delivers to Khalidi on this point. The supposed connection between Gottlieb (who was, at most, a middling figure in the public relations industry and had little to do with the broader American Zionist movement) and Uris can now be found in several books, including one published by the University of California Press. My guess is that Khalidi was relying on these sources when making his claim. But all the claims trace back to a 1985 (several decades after Exodus was published) PR advice book which recounts the story in similar terms, as an anecdote to aspiring young PR professionals.
In terms of historical evidence, this is a very thin reed. And it stands alone: Gottlieb's name does not show up in Uris' papers, he is unknown to either of Uris' biographers, there is no contemporaneous evidence or documentation relating any connection between Gottlieb and Uris whatsoever. The author of the 1985 anecdote says that it was recounted to him by Gottlieb himself, but -- given the time lag, lack of corroboration, and the tendency for PR professionals to perhaps slightly exaggerate while self-promoting -- he admits that he cannot vouch for its accuracy. In fact, Gottlieb's chief assistant on matters related to Israel claims to have no knowledge of such a link between her boss and Uris, and firmly concludes that none exists. The odds that this story is true, in sum, is almost infinitesimally small.
So Khalidi is engaging in abysmal history to weave a typical narrative of Zionist perfidy and malignancy, and now it has been debunked. Which is good. And Khalidi is a trained historian, so that makes his terrible methodology all the more scandalous. But unfortunately, the genie probably still won't be returned to the bottle.
True historical research -- digging up primary source documents and interviewing surviving subjects -- is hard work, and work I personally find breathtakingly boring. It's one reason why going into the field of History never interested me. I know what good historical methodology is, but I don't practice it -- I'm reliant on actual historians to do their job right the first time. I assume that when someone like Khalidi tells a tale like this, that he got his information via true historical exploration (or at least relies on others who did) -- not simply taking a trade paperback at face value. The problem, though, is that every time such a story -- even if false -- is recounted by people with impressive-sounding Columbia University titles or prestigious university presses -- it provides another secondary source which the average person (myself included) generally relies upon in order to understand history.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
The New Peasant Class
One of the major questions that has floated around the "Occupy Wall Street" movement is the simple "what do they want?" Obviously, we can answer this in abstract terms: economic justice, easing of burdens on the lower and working classes, and (slightly more concretely) accountability for the people who got us into this mess in the first place (namely, Wall Street). But there has been very little in the way of specific policy proposals. Indeed, even the overall ideology is fuzzy -- supporters range from Ron Paulites (they are everywhere, aren't they) to socialists and communists, to mainstream unions, to some Democratic politicians, to relatively apolitical Americans who are simply overcome with frustration. My friend Matt Cole makes a decent defense of this mode of operation -- not making "demands" of the system but rather expressing itself in a more "aesthetic" or expressivist sense.
But Rorty Bomb has done some interesting work parsing the "We are the 99%" tumblr to try and figure out what the movement wants. And the results are sobering. OWS is not about mid-twentieth century liberalism -- increasing unionization leading to the suburban house and the two-car garage. Nor is it about socialist revolution -- smashing the capitalist state and redistributing power and dignity to the workers. What the 99% want, RB argues, is decidedly pre-modern -- bearing most in common with historical peasant revolts. They want to be free from the burden of crushing debt, have access to enough resources so they're not consistently living hand-to-mouth. That's it.
To people who think OWS is the first step to the opening a new horizon, this is profoundly demoralizing. There is nothing bold about these desires. They are ancient and basic; if anything, they are the result of people too downtrodden to dream of anything more.
But at the same time, the very simplicity of what is being asked for here also gives it greater moral punch. Surely, in a country as rich as ours, with the bounty we possess, we can give them this much.
But Rorty Bomb has done some interesting work parsing the "We are the 99%" tumblr to try and figure out what the movement wants. And the results are sobering. OWS is not about mid-twentieth century liberalism -- increasing unionization leading to the suburban house and the two-car garage. Nor is it about socialist revolution -- smashing the capitalist state and redistributing power and dignity to the workers. What the 99% want, RB argues, is decidedly pre-modern -- bearing most in common with historical peasant revolts. They want to be free from the burden of crushing debt, have access to enough resources so they're not consistently living hand-to-mouth. That's it.
To people who think OWS is the first step to the opening a new horizon, this is profoundly demoralizing. There is nothing bold about these desires. They are ancient and basic; if anything, they are the result of people too downtrodden to dream of anything more.
But at the same time, the very simplicity of what is being asked for here also gives it greater moral punch. Surely, in a country as rich as ours, with the bounty we possess, we can give them this much.
Monday, October 10, 2011
It's Judeo-Christian!
For my own health, I try to avoid paying attention to the Christian Right. This means that I didn't notice they had their big "value voters" summit this week, which in turn means I didn't notice it overlapped with Yom Kippur.
And Back Atcha!
The Chinese Restaurant Association sends thanks to the Jewish people for our Christmas-day patronage. We, in turn, thank the Chinese Restaurant community for being open that day and welcoming us with open arms.
Sunday, October 09, 2011
Project Runway PSA
If you're a Project Runway fan, I assume you've already discovered this, but in case you're like me and are late to the party ....
Laura Bennett has a Project Runway blog. It is incredible.
That is all.
Laura Bennett has a Project Runway blog. It is incredible.
That is all.
Friday, October 07, 2011
Children of the Corn
Everybody around here is sniffly and stuffy -- myself included. Apparently, it's not a virus. Rather, it's the ongoing corn harvest, which supposedly sets off allergies left and right. Including, it seems mine -- worse even than I had in Minnesota (where I believe my New Student Week group was worried I would actually keel over and die while working in St. Paul).
Now, I'm allergic to many things. Some of them (grass, cats) I've even managed to nail down. Mostly, it's a mystery when my eyes suddenly start running water or my skin breaks out in hives. But I'm pretty sure I'm not allergic to corn. I mean, I eat corn all the time. Corn syrup is in literally 85% of the food I eat. How could a corn harvest set off an allergic reaction.
Oh whatever. At least it will be over in ... a month? It takes a month to harvest all the corn.
God damnit. I miss Chicago.
Now, I'm allergic to many things. Some of them (grass, cats) I've even managed to nail down. Mostly, it's a mystery when my eyes suddenly start running water or my skin breaks out in hives. But I'm pretty sure I'm not allergic to corn. I mean, I eat corn all the time. Corn syrup is in literally 85% of the food I eat. How could a corn harvest set off an allergic reaction.
Oh whatever. At least it will be over in ... a month? It takes a month to harvest all the corn.
God damnit. I miss Chicago.
Thursday, October 06, 2011
RIP Derrick Bell
Derrick Bell -- civil rights warrior, pathbreaking law professor, founder of critical race theory, and tireless advocate for justice, has passed away at age 80.
I never met Derrick Bell. I had the opportunity once when he came to speak at Carleton, but I was going out of town. I remember pulling aside my roommate -- a Math major with zero interest in politics, law, race, or anything primarily expressed via words -- handing him my copy of And We Are Not Saved, and informing him that he was going to Professor Bell's talk and he was getting my book autographed. Which my (quite saintly) roommate proceeded to do, and I still have that book on my desk to this day.
Bell was a model to generations of students. He accomplished more in one lifetime than the average person could hope to do in three. I was introduced to him as an academic writer -- progenitor of "interest-convergence theory" and CRT founder -- but it is worth remembering that academia was really Bell's second career. He started off as an in-the-trenches warrior in the fight for civil rights, leading the NAACP in dozens of successful anti-segregation suits in the Jim Crow south. After a brief stint at the University of Southern California, Bell became the first tenured Black professor at Harvard. He eventually left Harvard in protest of their failure to hire a Black woman. The claim, as always, was that they couldn't find a "qualified" one. How they said that with a straight face to Bell -- who graduated from the decidedly non-elite University of Pittsburgh law school and proceeded to become one of the most influential scholars of the last quarter century -- is beyond me.
Rest in peace, professor. Be assured that your legacy lives on.
I never met Derrick Bell. I had the opportunity once when he came to speak at Carleton, but I was going out of town. I remember pulling aside my roommate -- a Math major with zero interest in politics, law, race, or anything primarily expressed via words -- handing him my copy of And We Are Not Saved, and informing him that he was going to Professor Bell's talk and he was getting my book autographed. Which my (quite saintly) roommate proceeded to do, and I still have that book on my desk to this day.
Bell was a model to generations of students. He accomplished more in one lifetime than the average person could hope to do in three. I was introduced to him as an academic writer -- progenitor of "interest-convergence theory" and CRT founder -- but it is worth remembering that academia was really Bell's second career. He started off as an in-the-trenches warrior in the fight for civil rights, leading the NAACP in dozens of successful anti-segregation suits in the Jim Crow south. After a brief stint at the University of Southern California, Bell became the first tenured Black professor at Harvard. He eventually left Harvard in protest of their failure to hire a Black woman. The claim, as always, was that they couldn't find a "qualified" one. How they said that with a straight face to Bell -- who graduated from the decidedly non-elite University of Pittsburgh law school and proceeded to become one of the most influential scholars of the last quarter century -- is beyond me.
Rest in peace, professor. Be assured that your legacy lives on.
Wednesday, October 05, 2011
Who Gave Steve King a Magic Lamp?
Ah, Steve King. The Republican from Iowa has graced the pages of my blog at several points as among the dumbest members of Congress -- defending the "mendacity" of Republican leaders, worrying that women will never have babies if we allow them access to birth control, and referring to America as a nation of slackers. And today, we get a new entry: pining for a return to 19th century voting rules, where only propertied (White) men could vote. You think I'm exaggerating:
King was making a "skin in the game" argument, and we'll put aside my general objections to that argument. I'm not 100% convinced that the only reason voting was restricted to white male property owners was that they, unlike the rest of the population, had "skin in the game". Call me a skeptic if you like.
But if the goal is to see America return to pre-Voting Rights Act electoral rules, King may be getting his wish. Check out this story from Tennessee, where a 96-year old Black woman who was able to vote during Jim Crow is facing disenfranchisement due to the state's draconian new voter ID requirement. The woman actually has a photo ID, just not one that counts under the law. So she went to get one that would qualify, but showing the clerk her (a) rent receipt, (b) lease copy, (c) voter registration card and (d) birth certificate wasn't enough to satisfy the clerk and get the card.
“[T]here was a time in American history when you had to be a male property owner in order to vote. The reason for that was, because they wanted the people who voted — that set the public policy, that decided on the taxes and the spending — to have some skin in the game."
King was making a "skin in the game" argument, and we'll put aside my general objections to that argument. I'm not 100% convinced that the only reason voting was restricted to white male property owners was that they, unlike the rest of the population, had "skin in the game". Call me a skeptic if you like.
But if the goal is to see America return to pre-Voting Rights Act electoral rules, King may be getting his wish. Check out this story from Tennessee, where a 96-year old Black woman who was able to vote during Jim Crow is facing disenfranchisement due to the state's draconian new voter ID requirement. The woman actually has a photo ID, just not one that counts under the law. So she went to get one that would qualify, but showing the clerk her (a) rent receipt, (b) lease copy, (c) voter registration card and (d) birth certificate wasn't enough to satisfy the clerk and get the card.
Tuesday, October 04, 2011
Rape and the Man on the Street
You know, I like the Harry's Place blog, but for whatever reason they are consistently terrible on the topic of rape. Today, HP co-blogger Libby T calls out as "hate speech" the following passage from Cath Elliot:
Libby claims that Elliot is saying that all men are rapists-in-the-closet -- awaiting only the right opportunity. This, to me, is a misreading so egregious one wonders if it is willful.
The italicized portion of Elliot's quote references the empirically true claim that rapists are not demographically different from the population at large. In our heads, we have a vision of the rapist as this sort of sociopathic, damaged person with wild eyes and unkempt hair. But that isn't the case. The fact is there is little distinguishing him from the average person on the street (other than, of course, that he's a rapist). This is the case with most other "moral monsters" -- the banality of evil, so to speak. This doesn't mean that most men secretly harbor a desire to rape. What it does mean is that those men who do rape do so not because they scarred, diseased, or otherwise marked off from the general population in any noticeable way. The explanation for their conduct has to come from elsewhere.
This leads to Elliot's bigger point. The advantage of reframing the image of the rapist into one of this deviant soul is that it absolves the community of any responsibility for creating what is sometimes called by feminists "rape culture". Instead, under this view, rapists rape because they are pure evildoers so committed to malice that they will overcome society's strongest taboos and proscriptions to satisfy their depravity.
What Elliot is arguing, though, is that many rapists lack the sense that they are doing anything wrong in the first place. They think that the dominant sexual ethos of our society in fact sanctions their behavior (compare my post on Jewish extremist violence from earlier today) -- and this belief, of course, runs stronger when we remember that most rapes are not of the archetypical "stranger in a dark alley" variety. Armed with a belief that "no means yes" or pushing away is just playing "hard to get", they think that they are engaging in normal, uncontroversial social action. They might recognize the existence of some technical or formal bar against rape, but probably don't conceive of themselves as violating it. And in terms of social stigma, they are quite confident that nobody will stand in their way. They see themselves, at worst, as ordinary men in extraordinary situations (if they even see themselves as wrongdoers at all).
None of this implies most men think this way. That isn't the problem. The problem is that the minority of men who do think this way are not being informed that their behavior is intolerable. Rather, the message (e.g., from the rape jokes that are Elliot's target) is that they're a hilarious, endearing embodiment of mainstream masculinity.
[R]apists don’t rape because they’re somehow evil or perverted or in any way particularly different from than the average man in the street: rapists rape because they can. Rapists rape because they know the odds are stacked in their favour, because they know the chances are they’ll get away with it. (Emphasis added by Libby)
Libby claims that Elliot is saying that all men are rapists-in-the-closet -- awaiting only the right opportunity. This, to me, is a misreading so egregious one wonders if it is willful.
The italicized portion of Elliot's quote references the empirically true claim that rapists are not demographically different from the population at large. In our heads, we have a vision of the rapist as this sort of sociopathic, damaged person with wild eyes and unkempt hair. But that isn't the case. The fact is there is little distinguishing him from the average person on the street (other than, of course, that he's a rapist). This is the case with most other "moral monsters" -- the banality of evil, so to speak. This doesn't mean that most men secretly harbor a desire to rape. What it does mean is that those men who do rape do so not because they scarred, diseased, or otherwise marked off from the general population in any noticeable way. The explanation for their conduct has to come from elsewhere.
This leads to Elliot's bigger point. The advantage of reframing the image of the rapist into one of this deviant soul is that it absolves the community of any responsibility for creating what is sometimes called by feminists "rape culture". Instead, under this view, rapists rape because they are pure evildoers so committed to malice that they will overcome society's strongest taboos and proscriptions to satisfy their depravity.
What Elliot is arguing, though, is that many rapists lack the sense that they are doing anything wrong in the first place. They think that the dominant sexual ethos of our society in fact sanctions their behavior (compare my post on Jewish extremist violence from earlier today) -- and this belief, of course, runs stronger when we remember that most rapes are not of the archetypical "stranger in a dark alley" variety. Armed with a belief that "no means yes" or pushing away is just playing "hard to get", they think that they are engaging in normal, uncontroversial social action. They might recognize the existence of some technical or formal bar against rape, but probably don't conceive of themselves as violating it. And in terms of social stigma, they are quite confident that nobody will stand in their way. They see themselves, at worst, as ordinary men in extraordinary situations (if they even see themselves as wrongdoers at all).
None of this implies most men think this way. That isn't the problem. The problem is that the minority of men who do think this way are not being informed that their behavior is intolerable. Rather, the message (e.g., from the rape jokes that are Elliot's target) is that they're a hilarious, endearing embodiment of mainstream masculinity.
"We Call Them Terrorists", Part II
A "price tag" attack by suspected Jewish extremists on an Israeli mosque has drawn condemnation from across the Israeli political spectrum. As well it should -- it is a despicable act that is an insult to Judaism as much as it is vicious to Muslims.
But the fact remains, the attack happened. And it is not a one-off: the "price tag" campaign is just that -- a campaign, promoted by extremist Jews who have decided "there are no innocents" and view the entire Muslim world as their targets. Jewish Hamasniks, in other words. And, like Hamas, they view themselves as authentic representatives of the faith and of their people. So the question is how to disabuse them of that notion.
A few years back, I wrote in defense of hate crimes laws that the perpetrators of anti-gay violence are morally indistinguishable from terrorists. Both are attacking not just to harm the particular victim, but also to send a message of hate to the group the victims are a part of (Jews, Muslims, Americans, or what have you). And part of the reason we have anti-terrorism laws is our recognition that this motivation is particularly malign and dangerous, and needs to be countered in the most forceful way possible.
In that post, I also talked about another reason why hate crimes laws are important: preventing the perpetrators from believing, even post-incarceration, that they were really speaking for the silent anti-gay majority. I drew the analogy to lynch cases, where, even if the perpetrators were prosecuted (and that was rare enough),
Crafting special legislation for that problem (the ban on lynching that failed so many times in Congress) was such a signal.
So returning to Israel. It is clear that the extremists who enact "price tag" policies are willing to go to jail. That, indeed, is something they're proud of -- something they say with strength. But what if, instead of just calling them criminals (which they are), Israeli political leaders also called them terrorists?
It's a perfectly apt descriptor: surely, if a Palestinian set fire to a Jewish synagogue with the stated desire for vengeance against Israel's Palestine policy, nobody would hesitate to append the label. But in Israel, "terrorist" has a particular moral weight -- it represents the crystalline distillation of the threats and perils Israel and Israelis face on a daily basis. It is the emblem of all it means to be "against Israel". One can go to jail and still be a civil disobedient, boldly defending the silent Israeli majority via one's courageous acts of arson. It is difficult to maintain that sense of communal backing when the community has given you the label terrorist.
UPDATE: I see the "terror" label has in fact started to come out amongst Israeli institutions: the Shin Bet referred to it as "Jewish terror", and Sephardic Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar also called the attack an act of "terrorism".
But the fact remains, the attack happened. And it is not a one-off: the "price tag" campaign is just that -- a campaign, promoted by extremist Jews who have decided "there are no innocents" and view the entire Muslim world as their targets. Jewish Hamasniks, in other words. And, like Hamas, they view themselves as authentic representatives of the faith and of their people. So the question is how to disabuse them of that notion.
A few years back, I wrote in defense of hate crimes laws that the perpetrators of anti-gay violence are morally indistinguishable from terrorists. Both are attacking not just to harm the particular victim, but also to send a message of hate to the group the victims are a part of (Jews, Muslims, Americans, or what have you). And part of the reason we have anti-terrorism laws is our recognition that this motivation is particularly malign and dangerous, and needs to be countered in the most forceful way possible.
In that post, I also talked about another reason why hate crimes laws are important: preventing the perpetrators from believing, even post-incarceration, that they were really speaking for the silent anti-gay majority. I drew the analogy to lynch cases, where, even if the perpetrators were prosecuted (and that was rare enough),
nothing was done to breakdown the notion that the motivation, too, was immoral. In such a context, it is so important to be very explicit in sending the opposing message. The South needed to be told--in the clearest possible way--that not only was murder wrong, but that the entire desire to force Black Americans into submission was reprehensible and rejected by the broader community.
Crafting special legislation for that problem (the ban on lynching that failed so many times in Congress) was such a signal.
So returning to Israel. It is clear that the extremists who enact "price tag" policies are willing to go to jail. That, indeed, is something they're proud of -- something they say with strength. But what if, instead of just calling them criminals (which they are), Israeli political leaders also called them terrorists?
It's a perfectly apt descriptor: surely, if a Palestinian set fire to a Jewish synagogue with the stated desire for vengeance against Israel's Palestine policy, nobody would hesitate to append the label. But in Israel, "terrorist" has a particular moral weight -- it represents the crystalline distillation of the threats and perils Israel and Israelis face on a daily basis. It is the emblem of all it means to be "against Israel". One can go to jail and still be a civil disobedient, boldly defending the silent Israeli majority via one's courageous acts of arson. It is difficult to maintain that sense of communal backing when the community has given you the label terrorist.
UPDATE: I see the "terror" label has in fact started to come out amongst Israeli institutions: the Shin Bet referred to it as "Jewish terror", and Sephardic Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar also called the attack an act of "terrorism".
Monday, October 03, 2011
Herman Cain and the Legacy of Booker T. Washington
Ta-Nehisi Coates has a characteristically excellent post on Herman Cain and ill-conceived comparisons to Booker T. Washington. The claim is that Washington, unlike more "protest" modeled Black leaders, emphasized a program of self-uplift which is absent amongst dependency-minded Black leaders today. That's descriptively so wrong on every level as to be insulting, but Coates also observes that Washington's defining characteristic was that he was a leader in the Black community. "He built a black institution, that educated black people, and took his message to black audience. In short, Washington was a legitimate organic black conservative, rooted in the black community, propelled forth by his relationship to that community."
Cain, on the other hand, targets his message not to Blacks but to White populists largely hostile to Blacks. Coates thus draws a different analogy, to one William Hannibal Thomas, who once wrote the following:
Thomas (who fought for the Union in the Civil War and was wounded in combat) had great appeal to White populists at the turn of the century, but his support within the Black community was virtually nil even as Washington was at his apex. The problem isn't that there is no Washingtonian tradition in the Black community (if anything, it is found more in quasi-nationalists like Rev. Jeremiah Wright). The problem is that Black people don't like to be lectured out by "leaders" whose only connection to the Black community writ large is to harangue them.
Cain, on the other hand, targets his message not to Blacks but to White populists largely hostile to Blacks. Coates thus draws a different analogy, to one William Hannibal Thomas, who once wrote the following:
The negro not only lacks a fair degree of intuitive knowledge, but so dense is his understanding that he blindly follows weird fantasies and hideous phantoms. So great is his predilection in this direction, that he appears incapable of understanding the difference between evidence and assertion, proof and surmise. These facts warrant the conclusion that negro intelligence is both superficial and delusive, because, though such people excel in recollections of a concrete object, their retentive memories do not enable them to make any valuable deductions, either from the object itself, or from their familiar experience with it.
Thomas (who fought for the Union in the Civil War and was wounded in combat) had great appeal to White populists at the turn of the century, but his support within the Black community was virtually nil even as Washington was at his apex. The problem isn't that there is no Washingtonian tradition in the Black community (if anything, it is found more in quasi-nationalists like Rev. Jeremiah Wright). The problem is that Black people don't like to be lectured out by "leaders" whose only connection to the Black community writ large is to harangue them.
Saturday, October 01, 2011
Boxing Roundup: 10/2/11
I didn't watch the cards from last night, so this only a recap of tonight's HBO action, plus two of the fights earlier today in Germany.
Yoan Pablo Hernandez (25-1, 13 KOs) TD6 Steve Cunningham (24-3, 12 KOs)
Poor Cunningham. He can't catch a break (even the AP article mislabels its photo -- Cunningham is landing the punch, not eating it). He's got the building blocks to be a star: he's charismatic, has a good back story, a cool nickname ("U.S.S." -- he's a Navy guy), has a physique like Conan the Barbarian, and tends to be in exciting fights despite not having the most pop on the block. But of course, he isn't a star, because he's a cruiserweight, and Americans don't care about cruiserweights. So he fights in Europe, where bad things happen.
And tonight, a bad thing happened against Hernandez. In the first round, Cunningham was dropped, hard. He barely made it to his feet before the count was up (in fact, Hernandez's corner protested the count was long), and was out of it even when he did rise. It could have been stopped there, but Micky Vann let it continue, and Cunningham escaped the round.
After that, though Cunningham steadied himself and took over the rest of the fight. However, there was a headbutt that opened up a gash high on Hernandez's forehead. It wasn't a bad cut -- while it was bloody, it wasn't in a particularly dangerous location and didn't seem to be affecting Hernandez's vision. But inexplicably, the fight was stopped after six. And that cut short Cunningham's rally, where he was starting from behind on the cards but picking up momentum. Even accounting for that, I had the fight 57-56 (four rounds to two) for Cunningham. 57-56 Hernandez also would have been acceptable. But 58-55? 59-54? Outrageous.
And let's return to the stoppage again. What was that about? Here's the ring doctor:
Umm...what? The cuts weren't dangerous. They could have run into the eyes (but apparently were not). Hernandez was "at a disadvantage" -- which is not the standard for stopping the fight. And it isn't the doctor's job to determine whether the clashes were "accidental" or not (I think the announcers had it right in saying it was "reckless"). This is just a textbook case of a doctor completely botching his role, and it turned what was shaping up to be a dramatic comeback into a controversial victory for the wrong fighter.
Grzegorz Proksa (26-0, 19 KOs) RTD3 Sebastian Sylvester (34-5-1, 16 KOs)
A star fades, a star is born. Sylvester, a long-time German veteran last seen losing his middleweight title to Daniel Geale, was now facing rising prospect Grzegorz Proksa. Proksa picked him a part until Sylvester quit on his stool (a mix of accumulated punishment and an actual, factual, serious cut).
Proksa definitely impressed tonight. He was cocky, particularly for an Eastern Europe fighter, boxing with his hands down and moving with a fluidity one does not associate with fighters from that region. A little Sergio Martinez-esque. But in any event, one can say Sylvester is past his prime, and maybe. But he was a titlist the fight before this, and this is still a definite feather in Proksa's hat. Count me as one who wants to see more.
Andy Lee (27-1, 19 KOs) UD10 Bryan Vera (19-6, 12 KOs)
A rematch of Lee's first professional loss, a slugfest which I recall watching as one of the great upsets of 2008. I did think, however, that the stoppage in the fight was premature. And the fact remains that Lee still had the tools to be a blue-chip prospect, while Vera is Vera -- a game but exceedingly limited brawler.
Tonight, Lee seemed more concerned with exorcising the demon than with dazzling the crowd, boxing his way to a wide decision. Anyone who fights with a modicum of skill -- and can avoid being muscled around -- can beat Vera, and Lee certainly meets both of those qualifications. He certainly looked better than he did in the first Vera fight, or even than he did against Craig McEwan (where he needed a come from behind knockout to win). But he didn't look great, and I'm still left wondering how high his ceiling is.
Sergio Martinez (48-2-2, 27 KOs) KO11 Darren Barker (23-1, 14 KOs)
Darren Barker got no respect entering this fight. Hell, even Michael Buffer mispronounced his name. But he certainly earned one by exceeding expectations, even though all that meant in this case was that he was soundly beaten instead of obliterated.
Though Martinez won by knockout and was in control, this was not his most scintillating performance (of course, it was the fight I elected to introduce my non-boxing fan dad to Martinez). He seemed a little tentative, and rather unwilling to lead. Martinez remains a natural counterpuncher, and Barker took away that part of his game by keeping a high guard and just walking in without throwing punches. Martinez didn't want to let go until Barker did, but Barker closed the gap enough where it largely neutralized Martinez's speed advantage. Unfortunately, Barker didn't throw many punches either, so Martinez's pot shots were winning the early rounds.
As the fight progressed, Barker began to open up more, and Martinez was happy to oblige. Still, little was landing flush and the fight looked headed to a decision. A combination in the 10th wobbled Barker, however, and Martinez kept up the pressure in the 11th. The final punch that ended the fight did not appear to connect flush -- grazing Barker's glove before landing behind the ear -- but it was an accumulation of punishment that saw Darren Barker go down and out for the count.
Martinez continues to be in a situation where there just aren't that many fights for him. Middleweight is a wasteland -- Andy Lee is a top 10 guy at this point, and Martinez would tear him apart. Junior middleweight isn't all that much better, though Cotto or Margarito lurk there, it's not clear Martinez brings enough coin to get them to the table. Larry Merchant asked about fighting Bernard Hopkins at 170 lbs, but Martinez (correctly) demurred, noting that weight was simply too high for him (he's comfortable at middleweight, but certainly not particularly big for the 160 lbs division). It's unfortunate, because he really does have star potential. He's just the wrong body size at the wrong time.
Yoan Pablo Hernandez (25-1, 13 KOs) TD6 Steve Cunningham (24-3, 12 KOs)
Poor Cunningham. He can't catch a break (even the AP article mislabels its photo -- Cunningham is landing the punch, not eating it). He's got the building blocks to be a star: he's charismatic, has a good back story, a cool nickname ("U.S.S." -- he's a Navy guy), has a physique like Conan the Barbarian, and tends to be in exciting fights despite not having the most pop on the block. But of course, he isn't a star, because he's a cruiserweight, and Americans don't care about cruiserweights. So he fights in Europe, where bad things happen.
And tonight, a bad thing happened against Hernandez. In the first round, Cunningham was dropped, hard. He barely made it to his feet before the count was up (in fact, Hernandez's corner protested the count was long), and was out of it even when he did rise. It could have been stopped there, but Micky Vann let it continue, and Cunningham escaped the round.
After that, though Cunningham steadied himself and took over the rest of the fight. However, there was a headbutt that opened up a gash high on Hernandez's forehead. It wasn't a bad cut -- while it was bloody, it wasn't in a particularly dangerous location and didn't seem to be affecting Hernandez's vision. But inexplicably, the fight was stopped after six. And that cut short Cunningham's rally, where he was starting from behind on the cards but picking up momentum. Even accounting for that, I had the fight 57-56 (four rounds to two) for Cunningham. 57-56 Hernandez also would have been acceptable. But 58-55? 59-54? Outrageous.
And let's return to the stoppage again. What was that about? Here's the ring doctor:
Ring doctor Walter Wagner said he recommended the fight be stopped.
"The cuts weren't dangerous but the blood could have run into the eyes and affected his vision. I think the head clashes that the referee felt were accidental weren't entirely accidental. You can have different opinions there. Hernandez was at a disadvantage from the cuts, so I gave the recommendation," Wagner said.
Umm...what? The cuts weren't dangerous. They could have run into the eyes (but apparently were not). Hernandez was "at a disadvantage" -- which is not the standard for stopping the fight. And it isn't the doctor's job to determine whether the clashes were "accidental" or not (I think the announcers had it right in saying it was "reckless"). This is just a textbook case of a doctor completely botching his role, and it turned what was shaping up to be a dramatic comeback into a controversial victory for the wrong fighter.
Grzegorz Proksa (26-0, 19 KOs) RTD3 Sebastian Sylvester (34-5-1, 16 KOs)
A star fades, a star is born. Sylvester, a long-time German veteran last seen losing his middleweight title to Daniel Geale, was now facing rising prospect Grzegorz Proksa. Proksa picked him a part until Sylvester quit on his stool (a mix of accumulated punishment and an actual, factual, serious cut).
Proksa definitely impressed tonight. He was cocky, particularly for an Eastern Europe fighter, boxing with his hands down and moving with a fluidity one does not associate with fighters from that region. A little Sergio Martinez-esque. But in any event, one can say Sylvester is past his prime, and maybe. But he was a titlist the fight before this, and this is still a definite feather in Proksa's hat. Count me as one who wants to see more.
Andy Lee (27-1, 19 KOs) UD10 Bryan Vera (19-6, 12 KOs)
A rematch of Lee's first professional loss, a slugfest which I recall watching as one of the great upsets of 2008. I did think, however, that the stoppage in the fight was premature. And the fact remains that Lee still had the tools to be a blue-chip prospect, while Vera is Vera -- a game but exceedingly limited brawler.
Tonight, Lee seemed more concerned with exorcising the demon than with dazzling the crowd, boxing his way to a wide decision. Anyone who fights with a modicum of skill -- and can avoid being muscled around -- can beat Vera, and Lee certainly meets both of those qualifications. He certainly looked better than he did in the first Vera fight, or even than he did against Craig McEwan (where he needed a come from behind knockout to win). But he didn't look great, and I'm still left wondering how high his ceiling is.
Sergio Martinez (48-2-2, 27 KOs) KO11 Darren Barker (23-1, 14 KOs)
Darren Barker got no respect entering this fight. Hell, even Michael Buffer mispronounced his name. But he certainly earned one by exceeding expectations, even though all that meant in this case was that he was soundly beaten instead of obliterated.
Though Martinez won by knockout and was in control, this was not his most scintillating performance (of course, it was the fight I elected to introduce my non-boxing fan dad to Martinez). He seemed a little tentative, and rather unwilling to lead. Martinez remains a natural counterpuncher, and Barker took away that part of his game by keeping a high guard and just walking in without throwing punches. Martinez didn't want to let go until Barker did, but Barker closed the gap enough where it largely neutralized Martinez's speed advantage. Unfortunately, Barker didn't throw many punches either, so Martinez's pot shots were winning the early rounds.
As the fight progressed, Barker began to open up more, and Martinez was happy to oblige. Still, little was landing flush and the fight looked headed to a decision. A combination in the 10th wobbled Barker, however, and Martinez kept up the pressure in the 11th. The final punch that ended the fight did not appear to connect flush -- grazing Barker's glove before landing behind the ear -- but it was an accumulation of punishment that saw Darren Barker go down and out for the count.
Martinez continues to be in a situation where there just aren't that many fights for him. Middleweight is a wasteland -- Andy Lee is a top 10 guy at this point, and Martinez would tear him apart. Junior middleweight isn't all that much better, though Cotto or Margarito lurk there, it's not clear Martinez brings enough coin to get them to the table. Larry Merchant asked about fighting Bernard Hopkins at 170 lbs, but Martinez (correctly) demurred, noting that weight was simply too high for him (he's comfortable at middleweight, but certainly not particularly big for the 160 lbs division). It's unfortunate, because he really does have star potential. He's just the wrong body size at the wrong time.
Friday, September 30, 2011
What's Scary and Not About Anwar Al-Awalki
Anwar Al-Awalki, an American citizen affiliated with al-Qaeda, has been killed in a drone strike. This has set off a torrential debate about the legality of such strikes.
What's odd is that there is something worrisome about Al-Awalki -- but not what's getting most of the attention. It's not that he's a citizen. It's not that he was killed. It's rather a deeper lacuna in the laws of warfare and how they work (and don't work) in international conflicts against an enemy like al-Qaeda.
Let's start at the beginning, though. The argument being put out by folks like Glenn Greenwald is that liberals who were deeply concerned about President Bush's detainment policies should be apoplectic now that Obama has killed a man. There's obviously something intuitively plausible about this (killing is more serious than even indefinite imprisonment), but as a matter of law I think it's rather obviously wrong. In an armed conflict, the right of a party to kill opposing combatants is not controversial (it is subject to many restrictions, but none relevant here); however, if the combatant is captured, a plethora of new legal obligations open up.
Take a very uncontroversial example: The United States and Germany are engaged in a conventional war. An American soldier sees a German soldier. He shoots and kills him. Obviously, there is no legal problem with that. That's just war. One doesn't need a warrant or a trial, or even give an opportunity to surrender. On the other hand, if the soldier is captured, then a great many legal protections open up. One cannot, for example, summarily execute the person whom 10 minutes ago one would have had every legal right to kill. In fact, if one wants to charge them with a crime or impose any sort of punitive sanctions (POW confinement is considered non-punitive and for that reason standards attached to it are relatively generous), one has to afford considerable procedural protections. This, of course, is reflective of the peculiar status of war: it's legally sanctioned killing of individuals who have probably not committed (much less been convicted of) a crime.
Notably, nothing in the above argument turns on whether the German soldier was an American citizen or not. And it's not clear why it should -- a citizen who is engaged in armed conflict for a foreign party should, in the midst of such hostilities, be treated as a member of that armed group. And that seems reflected in both the letter and structure of the relevant law. First, as Matt Yglesias observes, one can lose one's citizenship already by "Entering or serving in the armed forces of a foreign state engaged in hostilities against the U.S." (8 U.S.C. 1481(a)(3)) -- it is more or less a failure of updating that this doesn't encompass non-governmental military actors engaged in hostilities against the U.S.. Second, in Ex Parte Quirin, 317 U.S. 1 (1942), the Supreme Court in fact directly dealt with a situation where a German belligerent was also an American citizen.* Third, the Fifth Amendment doesn't restrict itself to citizens anyway (rather encompassing "persons") -- and that's good, for (as I'll explain below), the real worries about operations like this don't really become any less significant if the target is a non-citizen.
Andrew of Coffee House Talks tries to argue that because the Constitution carves out a specific crime of treason, an American citizen effectively can't be a military belligerent but must be charged with that particular crime. This is simply wrong: one can both be a combatant subject to the rules of warfare and a traitor. As explained above, once captured a person who has allegedly committed treason must be afforded constitutionally required procedural protections; but that does not mean they are somehow exempted from the normal (non-criminal) rules of war (the upshot of Andrew's argument is that every shot fired by the Union in the Civil War was illegal).
So the problem isn't that Al-Awalki was killed. And the problem isn't that Al-Awalki's a citizen. So what is the problem?
Two spring to mind. The first is whether Al-Awalki actually was a belligerent. Recall that this is basically the same worry that was most salient about the Bush administration's detainee policy -- there is no problem detaining actual enemy belligerents and neither is there a problem killing them, but there is a huge problem about doing those things to random innocent schmoes. But with Al-Awalki the controversy isn't really about that: nobody seems to dispute he was part of al-Qaeda, rather, the controversy seems to stem from his supposedly non-combat role. Now, as I understand it one can be part of an armed group while serving in a non-armed capacity (e.g., a radio operator or a quartermaster) and still be a valid target. But this is an area, though, where I simply don't know the relevant facts about Al-Awalki's role.
In any event, at best I can say that while Al-Awalki may not be the troublesome case, we can easily imagine a situation where the target denies being involved with al-Qaeda at all. And then we have a problem. In normal war, you know who the enemy is -- they wear a uniform. In fact, it's a breach of the laws of war not to. And that's because we want to make sure we can easily distinguish valid military targets from bystanders. But of course, al-Qaeda does not operate like that, and that makes things considerably more complex. We can say this is one more thing dickish about al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations who do not distinguish themselves from civilian populations, but (while that's 100% true), it doesn't actually resolve the problem.
The second problem is that the above analysis does not have a spatial restriction. It could easily apply to alleged al-Qaeda belligerents on American soil. And this is difficult. On the one hand, it can't be the case that once someone reaches American soil, we have to treat them as a criminal and not a belligerent (see, e.g., the Civil War, and Quirin for that matter). On the other hand, if Al-Awalki had stepped off the plane in New York City, I think we'd all agree the proper response is to try and arrest him, not shoot him in the face.
The best answer I can give is that in areas where America exercises police power (i.e., American soil), there should an extremely high presumption in favor of using the police power to arrest alleged enemy belligerents, excepting only if they are currently engaged in hostilities. I don't know if a presumption of that variety is encoded in current positive law (the Posse Comitatus Act comes closest). But there are certainly excellent prudential reasons to prefer this -- aside from the importance above of ensuring we get the right guy, where do get said guy there's more intelligence to be gained from a live mind than a dead body.
* The citizen (Haupt) was executed. I think Quirin is problematic, not because Haupt was a citizen, but because once the belligerents were confined the procedural protections accorded were too lax.
What's odd is that there is something worrisome about Al-Awalki -- but not what's getting most of the attention. It's not that he's a citizen. It's not that he was killed. It's rather a deeper lacuna in the laws of warfare and how they work (and don't work) in international conflicts against an enemy like al-Qaeda.
Let's start at the beginning, though. The argument being put out by folks like Glenn Greenwald is that liberals who were deeply concerned about President Bush's detainment policies should be apoplectic now that Obama has killed a man. There's obviously something intuitively plausible about this (killing is more serious than even indefinite imprisonment), but as a matter of law I think it's rather obviously wrong. In an armed conflict, the right of a party to kill opposing combatants is not controversial (it is subject to many restrictions, but none relevant here); however, if the combatant is captured, a plethora of new legal obligations open up.
Take a very uncontroversial example: The United States and Germany are engaged in a conventional war. An American soldier sees a German soldier. He shoots and kills him. Obviously, there is no legal problem with that. That's just war. One doesn't need a warrant or a trial, or even give an opportunity to surrender. On the other hand, if the soldier is captured, then a great many legal protections open up. One cannot, for example, summarily execute the person whom 10 minutes ago one would have had every legal right to kill. In fact, if one wants to charge them with a crime or impose any sort of punitive sanctions (POW confinement is considered non-punitive and for that reason standards attached to it are relatively generous), one has to afford considerable procedural protections. This, of course, is reflective of the peculiar status of war: it's legally sanctioned killing of individuals who have probably not committed (much less been convicted of) a crime.
Notably, nothing in the above argument turns on whether the German soldier was an American citizen or not. And it's not clear why it should -- a citizen who is engaged in armed conflict for a foreign party should, in the midst of such hostilities, be treated as a member of that armed group. And that seems reflected in both the letter and structure of the relevant law. First, as Matt Yglesias observes, one can lose one's citizenship already by "Entering or serving in the armed forces of a foreign state engaged in hostilities against the U.S." (8 U.S.C. 1481(a)(3)) -- it is more or less a failure of updating that this doesn't encompass non-governmental military actors engaged in hostilities against the U.S.. Second, in Ex Parte Quirin, 317 U.S. 1 (1942), the Supreme Court in fact directly dealt with a situation where a German belligerent was also an American citizen.* Third, the Fifth Amendment doesn't restrict itself to citizens anyway (rather encompassing "persons") -- and that's good, for (as I'll explain below), the real worries about operations like this don't really become any less significant if the target is a non-citizen.
Andrew of Coffee House Talks tries to argue that because the Constitution carves out a specific crime of treason, an American citizen effectively can't be a military belligerent but must be charged with that particular crime. This is simply wrong: one can both be a combatant subject to the rules of warfare and a traitor. As explained above, once captured a person who has allegedly committed treason must be afforded constitutionally required procedural protections; but that does not mean they are somehow exempted from the normal (non-criminal) rules of war (the upshot of Andrew's argument is that every shot fired by the Union in the Civil War was illegal).
So the problem isn't that Al-Awalki was killed. And the problem isn't that Al-Awalki's a citizen. So what is the problem?
Two spring to mind. The first is whether Al-Awalki actually was a belligerent. Recall that this is basically the same worry that was most salient about the Bush administration's detainee policy -- there is no problem detaining actual enemy belligerents and neither is there a problem killing them, but there is a huge problem about doing those things to random innocent schmoes. But with Al-Awalki the controversy isn't really about that: nobody seems to dispute he was part of al-Qaeda, rather, the controversy seems to stem from his supposedly non-combat role. Now, as I understand it one can be part of an armed group while serving in a non-armed capacity (e.g., a radio operator or a quartermaster) and still be a valid target. But this is an area, though, where I simply don't know the relevant facts about Al-Awalki's role.
In any event, at best I can say that while Al-Awalki may not be the troublesome case, we can easily imagine a situation where the target denies being involved with al-Qaeda at all. And then we have a problem. In normal war, you know who the enemy is -- they wear a uniform. In fact, it's a breach of the laws of war not to. And that's because we want to make sure we can easily distinguish valid military targets from bystanders. But of course, al-Qaeda does not operate like that, and that makes things considerably more complex. We can say this is one more thing dickish about al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations who do not distinguish themselves from civilian populations, but (while that's 100% true), it doesn't actually resolve the problem.
The second problem is that the above analysis does not have a spatial restriction. It could easily apply to alleged al-Qaeda belligerents on American soil. And this is difficult. On the one hand, it can't be the case that once someone reaches American soil, we have to treat them as a criminal and not a belligerent (see, e.g., the Civil War, and Quirin for that matter). On the other hand, if Al-Awalki had stepped off the plane in New York City, I think we'd all agree the proper response is to try and arrest him, not shoot him in the face.
The best answer I can give is that in areas where America exercises police power (i.e., American soil), there should an extremely high presumption in favor of using the police power to arrest alleged enemy belligerents, excepting only if they are currently engaged in hostilities. I don't know if a presumption of that variety is encoded in current positive law (the Posse Comitatus Act comes closest). But there are certainly excellent prudential reasons to prefer this -- aside from the importance above of ensuring we get the right guy, where do get said guy there's more intelligence to be gained from a live mind than a dead body.
* The citizen (Haupt) was executed. I think Quirin is problematic, not because Haupt was a citizen, but because once the belligerents were confined the procedural protections accorded were too lax.
Vicente Fox News
I think Mitt Romney has to be the odds-on favorite to win the GOP nomination. And when he does, this ad will guarantee that he'll be throttled amongst Latino voters.
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Never Before Has the Supreme Court Been Asked To Uphold The Acronym "PPACA"....
Commenting on the United States' cert petition in the PPACA litigation, the Justice Department wrote:
Randy Barnett replies:
For starters, I'm not sure what the argument is here. Does the Constitution change because Republicans threw a temper tantrum about this bill that was ... wait for it ... unprecedented in American legislative history? For that matter, I don't even know what it means to pass a law in a "partisan manner". It's hardly the case that Democrats acted to specifically prevent Republicans from joining the legislation, or locked them out of negotiations. Indeed, given the scope and breadth of GOP intransigence, I'd say they made (wait for it!) unprecedented efforts to include Republican voices. There are laws which were drafted specifically so as to "box out" the other party so they couldn't join on to an otherwise salutary policy accomplishment (e.g., The Unborn Victims of Violence Act). But PPACA wasn't anything like that.
But the entire subtext here is misleading. The Civil Rights Act was "bipartisan" primarily because America hadn't undergone the massive realignment whereby the South shifted from Democratic to Republican. But the fact that Southern Dixiecrats split ranks with their soon-to-be-ex-colleagues hardly implies anything about that law being less controversial at the time of passage. It just illustrates that we live in a political climate where party label more accurately reflects polarization.
Throughout history, there have been similar challenges to other landmark legislation such as the Social Security Act, the Civil Rights Act, and the Voting Rights Act, and all of those challenges failed. We believe the challenges to Affordable Care Act — like the one in the 11th Circuit — will also ultimately fail and that the Supreme Court will uphold the law.
Randy Barnett replies:
Each of those laws enjoyed bipartisan support when enacted; none were passed on a straight-line party vote. In fact, enacting so massive a social-welfare measure that affects every man, woman, and child in the United States in so partisan a manner was ... wait for it ... unprecedented.
For starters, I'm not sure what the argument is here. Does the Constitution change because Republicans threw a temper tantrum about this bill that was ... wait for it ... unprecedented in American legislative history? For that matter, I don't even know what it means to pass a law in a "partisan manner". It's hardly the case that Democrats acted to specifically prevent Republicans from joining the legislation, or locked them out of negotiations. Indeed, given the scope and breadth of GOP intransigence, I'd say they made (wait for it!) unprecedented efforts to include Republican voices. There are laws which were drafted specifically so as to "box out" the other party so they couldn't join on to an otherwise salutary policy accomplishment (e.g., The Unborn Victims of Violence Act). But PPACA wasn't anything like that.
But the entire subtext here is misleading. The Civil Rights Act was "bipartisan" primarily because America hadn't undergone the massive realignment whereby the South shifted from Democratic to Republican. But the fact that Southern Dixiecrats split ranks with their soon-to-be-ex-colleagues hardly implies anything about that law being less controversial at the time of passage. It just illustrates that we live in a political climate where party label more accurately reflects polarization.
Play Little Dumplings
This was a proposal to use recycled tires to create a children's playground for refugee children from Myanmar. As you can see, it appears to represent a terrifying squid-beast that the already-traumatized children are attempting to flee from as fast as their little legs can carry them.
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
DOMA Repeal Goes Bipartisan
The bill to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (Freudian slip -- I started to write "Defense Against Marriage Act) has obtained its first Republican co-sponsor -- and she ain't no backbencher. It's Rep. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and two decade House veteran. Certainly, this is a far more joyous occasion then the last time I talked about Rep. Ros-Lehtinen on my blog!
Kudos to the Floridian, and congratulations to the gay rights movement for this significant step forward.
Kudos to the Floridian, and congratulations to the gay rights movement for this significant step forward.
Race-Baiting is the Most Post-Racial Act of All
Shorter Roger Simon: The relevant locus point for thinking about race in America is a Black politician whose support amongst the Black community hovers around the Planck Constant. And you know he's "post-racial" because he likes to tell largely White audiences that most Black people can't think for themselves and remain "on the plantation."
Incidentally, Simon's general criticism of ethnically-affiliated institutions for historically marginalized groups (the column calls for the disbandment of the Congressional Black Caucus, which has "no justification any more, if [it] ever did.") would equally apply to, among other things, Cain's alma mater (Morehouse College) and the state of Israel.
Incidentally, Simon's general criticism of ethnically-affiliated institutions for historically marginalized groups (the column calls for the disbandment of the Congressional Black Caucus, which has "no justification any more, if [it] ever did.") would equally apply to, among other things, Cain's alma mater (Morehouse College) and the state of Israel.
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Sunday Punch Roundup
A bit of a rough weekend here, and unfortunately Jill is out of town.
* * *
Melissa Harris-Perry on why (some) White liberals are turning on Obama.
An interesting retrospective by the participants in the notorious "Stanford Prison Experiment."
After a Palestinian stone-thrower apparently caused a car accident which killed a Jewish settler and his infant child, settler militants are vowing revenge, with one extremist Rabbi proclaiming "There are no innocents in war."
Convicts told: Go to church or go to jail. It's not an Establishment Clause violation, the police chief argues, because you've got a choice!
The Marine Times cover on the repeal of DADT is, indeed, fantastic.
I thought the Herman Cain fad had passed, but apparently nobody thought to tell Florida.
This is from a few days back, but the new Union of Jewish Students (UK) campaign for a two state solution respecting the rights and dignity of Israelis and Palestinians alike looks very cool. I'm dubious that it will have any impact on campus radicals, but hopefully it can make a dent on the middle.
US gives high-powered military equipment to Mid-East ally fighting terrorist organization which seeks an independent homeland for a stateless, oppressed people.
Looks like Congressional Republicans have been reading my Comment.
* * *
Melissa Harris-Perry on why (some) White liberals are turning on Obama.
An interesting retrospective by the participants in the notorious "Stanford Prison Experiment."
After a Palestinian stone-thrower apparently caused a car accident which killed a Jewish settler and his infant child, settler militants are vowing revenge, with one extremist Rabbi proclaiming "There are no innocents in war."
Convicts told: Go to church or go to jail. It's not an Establishment Clause violation, the police chief argues, because you've got a choice!
The Marine Times cover on the repeal of DADT is, indeed, fantastic.
I thought the Herman Cain fad had passed, but apparently nobody thought to tell Florida.
This is from a few days back, but the new Union of Jewish Students (UK) campaign for a two state solution respecting the rights and dignity of Israelis and Palestinians alike looks very cool. I'm dubious that it will have any impact on campus radicals, but hopefully it can make a dent on the middle.
US gives high-powered military equipment to Mid-East ally fighting terrorist organization which seeks an independent homeland for a stateless, oppressed people.
Looks like Congressional Republicans have been reading my Comment.
Spain Recognizes Israel as Jewish State
In what is seen as a shocking turnaround, Spain -- traditionally considered one of the most pro-Palestinian EU states -- has announced that it recognizes Israel "as the embodiment of the project to create a homeland for the Jewish people." In accordance with this, Spain also asserted that the Palestinian refugee problem should be resolved in a way that does not threaten Israel's Jewish demographic character.
This comes in the midst of an aggressive push by the Palestinian Authority for statehood recognition at the UN. One of the reasons the UN bid bothers me is that the UN -- being institutionally biased -- is a forum in which Palestinians don't have to concede anything to be given everything they want. It is an end-run around negotiations, because a considerable portion of the UN membership body doesn't think Israel has rights in the first place. It's effectively cost-free for Palestine, as it garners a huge (albeit symbolic) victory in exchange for nothing on their end.
But Spain's action suggests that some of the more prominent states supporting Palestinian statehood are going to tell the PA what it needs to hear -- that is, that a final status agreement is going to include concessions that respect Jewish and Israeli rights too. In others words, if the PA is going to press the issue, every issue has to be pressed -- including those Palestinians would like not to think about.
This comes in the midst of an aggressive push by the Palestinian Authority for statehood recognition at the UN. One of the reasons the UN bid bothers me is that the UN -- being institutionally biased -- is a forum in which Palestinians don't have to concede anything to be given everything they want. It is an end-run around negotiations, because a considerable portion of the UN membership body doesn't think Israel has rights in the first place. It's effectively cost-free for Palestine, as it garners a huge (albeit symbolic) victory in exchange for nothing on their end.
But Spain's action suggests that some of the more prominent states supporting Palestinian statehood are going to tell the PA what it needs to hear -- that is, that a final status agreement is going to include concessions that respect Jewish and Israeli rights too. In others words, if the PA is going to press the issue, every issue has to be pressed -- including those Palestinians would like not to think about.
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