"Us Too-ism" at USC

You've probably heard about a brewing free speech incident at USC, where the provost canceled a planned speech by the student valedictorian that pertained to prior pro-Palestine/anti-Israel content on her social media profiles (I've seen conflicting reports on what was "her words" versus words on sites she was linking to). The USC administration insists that it is not opposed to the student's speech per se, but rather had vague "safety" objections. 

To that end, my main comment is that (a) the "safety" concerns smack of pretext and (b) if there are actually safety concerns sufficiently extreme so as to make it impossible for a South Asian Muslim student to deliver a speech, that is a five-alarm fire crisis for the state of free speech at USC that should be addressed with exactly that level of urgency. But again, my strong suspicion is that "safety" is a red herring here, and this is really USC preemptively bowing to pressure from various pro-Israel groups (some on campus, presumably some alumni/external actors as well) demanding the cancellation. I also endorse Paul Horwitz's thoughts on this (not just because he kindly links to some of my own recent work on campus speech regulation).

To me, though, the effort by some Jewish groups to cancel this student's speech smacks of what I've termed "us too-ism". "Us too-ism" is when one group that has a colorable claim of being marginalized or oppressed sees some sort of movement, practice, or trend that is demanded by or responsive to the needs of another marginalized group and reflexively demands that they receive it as well ("us too!"). The problem with "us too-ism" is that it's almost entirely reactive. It isn't motivated by some organically-generated understanding of what a group actually desires or what it feels it is lacking; it rather stems from a more abstract "this is how society shows it is responsive to oppressed groups, we are oppressed, therefore we must get this" logic. That this imagining of how other groups are being responded to is often caricatured or stereotyped only exacerbates the problem. If the metric for our equality is solely a 1:1 matching of what other groups are thought to get, and what other groups are thought to get is grossly exaggerated or misimagined, then what will be demanded by the "us too" contingent will inherently be unreasonable or excessive precisely because it's demanding mimicry of a "response" that largely exists in the minds of the "us too-ers".

In my other post, for example, I analyzed the "us too" concept with respect to the "Jewface" allegations surrounding non-Jewish Steve Carrell playing a Jewish character in the movie "The Patient". The rise of the "Jewface" complaint, at least with respect to male actors (I acknowledged Jewish women may be differently situated), did not seem to me to stem from an organic complaint of how Jews were being represented in Hollywood, or even a more inchoate sense of offense. Rather, it seemed to primarily be a copycat of complaints surrounding racial representation in cinema: racial minorities had been complaining about White actors being cast to play non-White characters as a form of racism, and that sufficed to mean that Jews should complain about non-Jewish actors being cast to play Jewish characters as a form of antisemitism.

The USC case, I think, may stem from something similar. Some Jews perceive, rightly or not (for my part, I think the perception is overstated albeit not stemming from nowhere, but again, it's the perception that matters here), that other minority groups demand and often receive the cancellation of "offensive" speakers at campus events and that receptivity to this demand is taken as a litmus test for the degree to which the campus is responsive to the minority group. Hence, Jews who also feel vulnerable on campus decide that they are entitled to this same treatment, and the degree to which the campus is receptive to their demands is the yardstick by which they can determine if their oppression is treated with equal seriousness compared to other campus groups making analogous claims.

As should be clear by now, I think this is a very bad way of going about things. I think the "perceived" demands of other groups are often in fact misperceived, and I think the purely reactive framework of us too-ism ends up occluding very important and necessary steps of self-reflection regarding what we actually want and what would actually make us feel secure on campus. It's hard to argue that the cancellation of this speech at USC has made Jewish students -- even those who do view their safety as Jews as intricately bound up in their Zionist self-identification -- any safer, and it's hard to argue that cancellation of the speech is actually a proportionate response to what harm (if there is any) this student might have caused. But again, "us too-ism" doesn't consider any of that -- its analysis starts and ends at what it imagines other analogous groups are getting, and so it can't surprise that the resultant conclusions are shallow and misdirected.

Who's Afraid of "Jewish" Steve Carrell? (Or, "Us Too-ism")

The JTA headline reads: "Creators of Hulu’s ‘The Patient’ defend casting Steve Carell as Jewish therapist in latest ‘Jewface’ flare-up". I hadn't heard of the story, let alone the "flare-up," so I was curious to see who was making what argument. Unfortunately, the article doesn't actually cite any live human being objecting to Carrell's casting, just a response to an apparently ambient "controversy" (the linked Variety article also doesn't name any specific critics). That said, I know that the "Jewface" controversy isn't completely made up out of thin air. I have seen real people level such concerns before.

Now I'll lay my cards on the table -- I'm not inherently bothered when non-Jewish actors are cast to play Jewish characters. Indeed, to some extent, I feel that some -- not all -- of the "Jewface" controversy is a sort of vulgar "us too-ism" that one sees substitute for genuine Jewish political engagement these days. 

What is "us too-ism"? Some Jews see a given political demand by another minority group (e.g., that Black actors should play Black characters), and then decide that if the powers-that-be don't give similar consideration to a Jewish parallel (Jewish actors playing Jewish characters), then it's proof that "Jews Don't Count" -- full stop. To be clear, it's not that there aren't valid parallels that can be drawn between the political demands of one group and another. But these parallels aren't automatic, and what defines "us too-ism" is that it doesn't pause to ask whether the Jewish community was actually organically bothered by the "exclusion" in the first place. The fact that another group has a demand suffices to make it into a Jewish entitlement as well -- if they're getting this accommodation, then by golly, "us too!" -- even if it never occurred to us to want it until we heard their demand. It's reactive rather than proactive, and often ends up confusing itself (e.g., simultaneously wanting "CRT for Jews" but also blaming "CRT" for why Jews don't count). 

In practice, "us too-ism" often occludes the rich specific history and context which generate organic demands for particular forms of cultural respect (e.g., that actors of X background should portray characters of that background), instead imagining them to stem from some inherent entitlement of "marginalized people" (and Jews are marginalized, so therefore, it fits "us too"). It flattens important points of distinction and differentiation across various social groups that are essential to understanding what actually is oppressing, hurting, or dominating any given group. That two groups are marginalized doesn't mean they're marginalized in the same way, and so it makes sense that a practice which deeply rankles members of marginalized group A doesn't significantly disturb group B. Normatively, it strikes me as self-defeating and self-victimizing to act as if that's a flaw in B's outlook. But at the extreme, "us too-ism" attacks Jews for not being offended by something, as if it is our obligation to feel marginalized by a phenomenon even if it doesn't actually bother us. This strikes me as a tremendously toxic obligation, and one I just refuse to abide by.

All that said, that something doesn't genuinely rankle me doesn't mean it might not do so for others, and I always want to be respectful of persons who do have thought-out arguments for why it is problematic for non-Jews to portray Jewish characters. I've heard these arguments aired more frequently in the context of Jewish actresses being passed over for Jewish parts (even as elsewhere in their careers they're typecast in particular roles because of their Jewishness), and since I'm situated differently vis-à-vis that debate I try to maintain a posture of open receptivity towards those arguments. Certainly, it strikes me as reasonable to care if Jewish actors and (perhaps especially?) actresses are not getting opportunities based on a too-Jewy/non-Jewy enough double bind where stereotypically Jewish features both exclude Jews from certain roles but then are accentuated or exaggerated in non-Jewish actors to Judaize them for the screen (see, e.g., the Bradley Cooper prosthetic nose controversy).

But beyond that, my primary concern is to care about the respectfulness of the representation far more than the personal identity of who is doing the representation. "Respectfulness", itself, is a site for contestation, and people can disagree. I like Rachel Brosnahan's Mrs. Maisel, and find her and Marvelous Mrs. Maisel an endearing portrayal of the sort of New York Jewish life that my parents were raised in. Others disagree, which, fine, but I defy anyone to say Midge Maisel is more offensive than Howard Wolowitz on The Big Bang Theory notwithstanding the fact that Simon Helberg is Jewish and Brosnahan isn't.

Basically, there are dimensions of this problem that are internal and external to the work. Externally, the question is whether Jewish actors and actresses face certain exclusions in the industry on account of their Jewishness -- exclusions which no doubt would make it extra-infuriating if they are later passed over for roles where their Jewish character would seem to be an asset. That was certainly the case for Jewish actors historically, the degree to which it continues to be so is an empirical question I don't know enough to register an opinion on. Internally, the question is whether there is something about being Jewish that is necessary to accurately or effectively portraying a given role in a respectful manner. To that, I say "no". Andre Braugher isn't gay, but his portrayal of Raymond Holt was rightly seen as a watershed performance. Stephanie Beatriz is bisexual, and the same was said for her performance as Rosa Diaz. Let a thousand flowers bloom.

But again, this is a subject where I'm happy to hear other opinions. That JTA and Variety couldn't actually name any critics of Carrell's casting can easily make one think that this "flare up" is a media invention. Is it? If anyone wants to come down to register their opposition to Carroll's casting on "Jewface" grounds, I'm glad to lend you my comment section.

"Us Too-ism" Turns Off the Normies

You may have heard that a group of Columbia University administrators were sacked after someone posted screenshots of text messages where they were snarking at a panel on campus antisemitism they were in the audience for.

When that story broke, I was (and largely remain) of two minds on this. On the one hand, all of us have snarky texts that ripped out of context probably look pretty bad -- this sort of policing really doesn't end well for anyone. On the other hand, university administrators have a pretty grim reputation right now of treating antisemitism claims as trivial annoyances by bad faith actors, and these messages fit into that paradigm. There's a fundamental trust problem: many Jews do not trust that Columbia administrators are interested in seriously tackling antisemitism, and see these texts as verifying that disdainful dismissal; many academics do not trust Columbia's leadership to respond to antisemitism complaints with anything but reflexive brute force, and see this response as yet more kowtowing to an unappeasable media feeding frenzy. Both camps, in all honesty, have reasons for their mistrust.

But that's not what I what to concentrate on here, exactly. Rather, I want to take stock of one response in particular -- that of Kevin Drum. I'm a longtime fan of Drum's writing, which I think is a good exemplar of reasonably thoughtful and well-informed center-left "normie" politics. Seeing how he was responding to Israel's Gaza campaign was a good barometer of what people not in the hothouse of terminally-online left politics were thinking; in particular, it suggested that the belief that the current Israeli government is a fundamentally bad actor is not one confined to the "usual suspects" on the far-left.

In any event, one component of the Columbia controversy was the claim that the administrators themselves indulged in an antisemitic "trope" -- the suggestion that the panelists were hyping up instances of antisemitism as a "fundraising" opportunity allegedly feeding into claims about Jewish greed and/or perfidy. To this, Drum gave the textual equivalent of a giant eyeroll. He explained that he's long been suspicious of the word "tropes", which he said "in practice [is] used exclusively to imply someone has said something vaguely offensive without having the receipts." And this case, for him, fell squarely into that category:

I took a look at these text messages a couple of weeks ago and came away believing there wasn't much there. Since then the entire text conversation has been released, but it doesn't change things. During a panel discussion about antisemitism, the three deans in question shared private texts that you could fairly describe as snarky or irreverent. But that's about it.

To the Columbia administration, however, which was under siege from outraged alumni demanding that the three deans (plus a fourth) be fired immediately, the texts conveyed "a lack of seriousness about the concerns and the experiences of members of our Jewish community."

This is precisely backward. What the deans did was fail to show unconditional earnestness and obeisance toward every last grievance lodged by a particular community, no matter how ridiculous or overstated. This is apparently the price of admission to progressive society these days.

This whole thing is bonkers. The grievances of specific communities deserve to be given fair consideration, but they don't automatically demand absolute deference. In this case, the deans privately exhibited moderate skepticism toward a few of the claims from the panelists, some of it expressed a little bit caustically. None of it could reasonably be called antisemitic, and at most they deserve a verbal reprimand. Instead they're all out of jobs.

Drum thinks that antisemitism allegations here are thin gruel. Maybe you disagree. But one argument I've often heard, as against the claim that Columbia is overreacting here, is to say in essence "maybe so, but that ship has sailed -- every other group gets this sort of response when they claim to be the victims of discrimination, so it's only right that we the Jews do too." It's a version of what I've termed "us too-ism", and I've already outlined many of its pitfalls, not the least of which is the fact that the perception of what "every other group gets" is often not matched by reality. 

But Drum's reaction illuminates yet another problem: for many of the people who do perceive that this is what colleges "normally" do, they don't view that as a good thing. They view it as a bad, toxic practice they at best generally roll their eyes at. Indeed, I suspect most of the "normie" center-leftish Jewish commentators take that general perspective: when we're not talking about antisemitism, they view this sort of heavy-handed administrative response as indicative of wokeness gone wild, which is why when we are talking about antisemitism they defend similar behavior not on its own merits but rather via the us-too bank shot of "well, it's what everyone else gets." The problem is that when non-Jewish normies see this happening, they don't think "aha -- now the chickens have come home to roost, for the Jews also get to claim this bounty!" They think "oh great, yet another instance of overzealous activists peddling a grievance scoring one for cancel culture," and just slot Jews and anti-antisemitism politics into their mental category of "minorities who face some genuine discrimination but are taking things too far."

Again, all of this is aside from whether Drum is right "on the merits" to dismiss the antisemitism angle here. The point, rather, is to emphasize yet another problem with the "us too" argument -- more often than not, its reception outside the Jewish community is not going to be "well, fair is fair"; it's going to be to associate Jews with whatever malformed and exaggerated perception of identity politics gone wild already prevails within the broader public. It still might be a hit worth taking if one genuinely can defend the practices and arguments in question on their own merits, without relying on the crutch of what other groups are imagined to get. But if one's main basis for trying to draw blood is simply the "us too" entitlement, then it's definitely a fool's errand.

How Awful They Must Be, To Compel Us To Do Such Dreadful Things

I'm writing this post today, because all indicators suggest that tomorrow will be a terrible day.

It is a hazard of being Jewish that the commemorations of our worst moments are, for too many, an opportunity to victimize us further. The flurry of October 7 events that seek to reframe the day away from Hamas' massacre and onto the claim of an Israeli genocide are a case in point -- they are rhetorical salvos against the right of Jews to even grieve, against anything that might suggest that they, too, are inside the communities of concern. Those who say "the genocide didn't begin on October 7" prove too much: if the genocide didn't begin on October 7, then October 7 is not a distinctive date for commemorating the genocide save for those who argue -- with varying degrees of explicitness -- that "the genocide" makes October 7 justifiable or even praiseworthy.

I make that point wholly cognizant of the fact that for others, it is the Palestinian people who cannot be allowed to count as people, whose grief can only be understood as so much performance and manipulation. It is the same basic moral disease, only goring a different ox, and nobody should confuse recognizing the reality of what's happening tomorrow with some sort of tout court denialism of Palestinians right to grieve. Yet one catastrophe amongst many over the past year has been the choice of too many to view acknowledgment of legitimate grief as a zero-sum phenomenon -- we can only truly be in solidarity with these folks if we commit to truly hating those folks.

As terrible as that conclusion is, in a sense it does not surprise me. Many Jews were shocked at how rapidly October 7 seemed to accelerate a sense of hatred against Jews and Israelis. How was it that many people, it seemed, appeared to hate Jews and Israelis more, and more passionately, and more vocally, in the aftermath of October 7 than they did before? But I was not that surprised. Indeed, I understood this response as quite rational -- at least, from a given point of view. If one is truly committed to a pure politics of solidarity, of uncritical defense and apologia of anything and everything occurring under your banner, then the only way to metabolize an atrocity like October 7 is to flee into a deeper cavern of hatred and dehumanization. "How awful they must be, to compel us to do such dreadful things." The more dreadful the thing, the more awful they must be; for surely we and ours would never engage in such murderous barbarism unless it was against the truly monstrous.

Lest anyone get too smug, this is the same basic impulse behind that sermon I heard last week in synagogue. The theme there, too, was to redirect the congregation's presumed aversion and revulsion towards the scenes of devastation in Gaza and in Lebanon, and explain why they actually showed the depths of our enemies' depravity -- they must be monsters indeed, to force those as righteous as us into such terrible acts. How awful they are, that they force us into such dreadful things. Or take that famous Golda Meir quote, "We can forgive the Arabs for killing our children. We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children." 

It's the same theme, repeated ad nauseum. Recall what Montesquieu said about the Spanish atrocities against the indigenous population of the Americas:

Once the Spainards had begun their cruelties, it became especially important to say that "it is impossible to suppose these creatures [the indigenous population] to be men, because allowing them to be men a suspicion might arise that we were not Christian." 

And so too here. An earlier generation predicted that "The Germans Will Never Forgive the Jews for Auschwitz." Now it seems that Palestine solidarity advocates will never forgive the Israelis for 10/7, and the pro-Israel community will never forgive the Palestinians for the war in Gaza. Over and over again, the last atrocity is used to justify the next atrocity, and everyone it seems must play along as a means of expressing "solidarity".

So I expect tomorrow to be a terrible day, and not wholly or even primarily because it commemorates another terrible day. It will be terrible because it be an exclamation mark upon a year's worth of usage of atrocity as its own justification, a terrible cycle of self-generating and self-affirming hatred. Somehow worse than "they did this horror to us, so we must do that horror unto them" (and that's bad enough!), it will be "we did this horror unto them, so we must construct an even more vile image of who they are in order to justify it."

All I will say -- in acknowledged futility -- is that these are choices. It does not have to be this way. We can choose a different path. We can allow for Jews to grieve without complication for those lives destroyed October 7. We can allow for Palestinians to grieve without complication for those lives destroyed in the war on Gaza. We can choose to use tomorrow, and any other day, as an opportunity to deepen empathy and encourage different choices.

If that feels futile, maybe it is. I can't fathom any way to make Bibi Netanyahu choose differently, or Yahya Sinwar, or Columbia's CUAD students, or criminal UCLA "counter-protesters", or Tom "bounce the rubble" Cotton", or Ali Khamenei, or MAGA-hat extremists or professors with paraglider pictures pinned to their profile pics. Their choice to pursue politics of antagonism and hatred and dehumanization may be forever beyond me. Or forget them -- there are all too many people in my immediate circles, friends and loved ones, who I already know I will never be able to make choose differently, and that impotent thought hurts me immeasurably.

But I can choose differently. You can choose differently. Each of us can be a little better than what's going on around us. And who knows? Maybe a lot of people being a little better will make a bigger difference than one might think.

So as hard as it is, try to avoid the awful things that will pervade tomorrow -- the many, many, many voices that will try to persuade you to turn towards hatred and antagonism and extremism. And equally importantly, resist the inclination to flee so far in the other direction that you just develop a polar opposite hatred, antagonism, and extremism. Commit, tomorrow, to a different choice. I'll try my best too. We won't be perfect. But it's the best way I can think of to truly commemorate such a terrible day.

It Ain't Just India Folks

Kevin Drum links to a report on a recent trip by a US congressional delegation to India, summed up as follows:

They spoke to a lot of Indian government people and the message from them was very clear, and in a nutshell it was this: We don't much care about America. He said they were very polite but almost indifferent. Maybe matter-of-fact is a better description. The conversation went something like this:

We consider ourselves as in competition with China for leadership in the new century. That's our focus and frankly, you have made it very difficult for us to deal with you. We find your approach to international affairs ridiculous. The invasion of Iraq was insane. You've encouraged the very things you say you were trying to fix — terrorism and instability. Your attitude to Iran is ridiculous. You need to engage with Iran. We are. We are bemused by your hypocrisy. You lecture the world about dealing with dictators and you deal with Pakistan. We are very sorry for your losses from the 9/11 terror attacks. Welcome to our world. You threaten us with sanctions for not signing the non-proliferation treaty, but you continue to be nuclear armed and to investigate new weapons. You expect us to neglect our own security because you want us to. We don't care about sanctions.

The meeting may be with India, but I doubt they're the only ones thinking along those lines. The world's tolerance for US hypocrisy on the global stage is rapidly waning, and the risk that either the EU or China could offer a challenge to US hegemony becomes more and more threatening as the US drives potential allies away.

The point isn't that the US can never assert itself unilaterally on the global stage. It can--and often it must. But the point is that that privilege comes with a responsibility to act multilaterally and within global institutions whenever possible. The US must build up a bank account of international credibility so that the world doesn't try to oppose the US at every opportunity. Christopher Layne, Associate Professor of International Politics at the University of Miami writes in the Spring 2002 edition of The Washington Quarterly that:

Being powerful is good in the international arena, but being too powerful is not. The reasoning behind this analysis is straightforward as well as the geopolitical equivalent to the law of physics that holds for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Simply put, the response to hegemony is the emergence of countervailing power. Because international politics is indeed a competitive, "self help" system, when too much power is concentrated in the hands of one state, others invariably fear for their own security. Each state fears that a hegemon will use its overwhelming power to aggrandize itself at that state's expense and will act defensively to offset the hegemon's power.

To prevent this occurrence, the US must be careful not to overreach. Other nation's concerns can be ameliorated if the US acts in a manner that is consistent with international norms and practices. But the US can no longer take their support for granted. The fear of unbridled US authority, coupled with the rise of alternative power spheres means the days of unrestricted US action are numbered.

War of Liberation

John Quiggin wades into the merits of describing the Iraq war as a "war of liberation." To summarize it, he agrees that Iraq qualified as a "war of liberation," but then gives several reservations to the premise of a "war of liberation" itself:

"The problem, rather, is with the whole idea of a “war of liberation”. Just as with the Christian doctrine of “just war”, the doctrine is so loose that it can easily be claimed by both sides in the same war. Most wars of liberation, like most wars of all kinds, have done more harm than good.
...
Another important observation, particularly relevant in the case of Iraq, is that, even if you conceive of a war as one of liberation, it is almost always necessary to ally yourself with people who have less noble aspirations. Nationalist Iraqis, seeking only the withdrawal of the occupying forces, have inevitably co-operated to some extent (how much is not clear) with terrorist jihadis, who want to use Iraq as a base for their own global operations. Supporters of the American war effort find themselves in coalition with all sorts of unsavory parties, from thugs like Allawi and (until a few months ago) crooks like Chalabhi, to anti-Muslim crusaders in the West. As a rule, the least scrupulous members of a coalition are the most successful in pursuing their goals."

These are all valid concerns. More than valid, actually, they are concerns which must be addressed seriously and comprehensively at the outset of the war. Is this really a "war of liberation," or is it a pretext for US realist interests? Who are we allying with, and are we going to be forced to cut a deal with the devil? How can we insure that the local populace won't turn against us? The fact that these questions exist does not, in itself, knock down the justification for "wars of liberation" in principle. The fact that these questions were ignored, however, is a powerful indictment of how the Bush administration chose to prosecute this war.

One of the sadder, and more dangerous, consequencs of Bush's bungling the war is that it might taint any further US humaniterean interventions in a way Somalia never could. Already, pro-war liberals such as myself have come under a lot of fire for their position. We are accused of being "Bush-lite," "sellouts," "imperialists," or worse. Politically, the risk that Democrats will attempt to become a party of isolationism and foreign weakness is great, though not inevitable. More important than political ramifications for any one party is the prospect that the US will partially or entirely withdraw from the global sphere. Obviously the US will never totally cut itself off from the world, we're far too intertwined and have too much at stake in global institutions to be able to practically do that. But an America that refuses to take military action to defend the world, or that foists that obligation entirely upon the UN and regional actors, is very feasible. This is a scary possibilty. Neither the UN nor any regional body has shown the political will, past propensity, or pragamatic capability to defuse conflict situations. The risk is that the world will intervene "just enough" to satisfy its obligations and soothe its conscience, while never devoting the resources necessary to actually stabilize restless warzones and rebuild shattered communities.

A world in which the global elites ignore the pain and suffering of the periphery is a world that will forever be buffetted by terrorism and backlash. The "fingers in the dike" that are preventing 3rd world resentment from exploding into a spate of violence against their more fortunate cohorts are twofold. The first is the overwhelming power disparity between the two regions. This hedge grows weaker every day, since WMD proliferation and terror tactics can neutralize traditional military power gaps. Jack Snyder, Professor of International Relations at Columbia University's Institute of War and Piece Studies points out that

"Precisely because America is so strong, weak states on America's hit list may increasingly conclude that weapons of mass destruction joined to terror tactics are the only feasible equalizer to its power. Despite America's aggregate power advantages, weaker opponents can get access to outside resources to sustain this kind of cost-imposing resistance. Even a state as weak and isolated as North Korea has been able to mount a credible deterrent..."["Imperial Temptations," The National Interest No. 71 (Spring 2003)

The relatively cheap availabilty of the components of WMDs makes nuclear/chemical/biological blackmail a reasonably foreseeable tactic by nations who otherwise could be marginalized or ignored. The prospect of even one nuclear weapon being set off on US soil probably will be enough to at least deter any overtly hostile US actions. And the use WMDs by non-state actors (like Al-Qaeda), who cannot be easily retailiated against and certainly can't be destroyed by a WMD counterattack, should be a sobering prospect. If proliferation becomes a reality and WMDs break loose from their relatively narrow (current) containment, US military hegemony will no longer be enough to protect us from harm.

The second "finger" is the perception, however frail, that the world does care, at some level, about the plight of the global periphery and will work to alleviate it. International institutions such as the UN, where the lowliest nations stand as equals with the US, Britian, and other powers, have done much to convince the global poor that they too are members of the world community, and as such they will be cared and provided for. If the US is seen as abandoning what--to the rest of the world--is a solemn commitment to work for the betterment of mankind, a sense of betrayal will quickly emerge, likely to be followed by resentment and hatred. With nothing to lose, the global poor will increasingly attack the US and the West as a protest against unfair and inequitable global policies. US withdrawal from global affairs is thus doubly dangerous: It increases the propensity of people to commit terrorism, while at the same time severely hampering our ability to maintain our military hegemony (by engaging in aggressive counterproliferation efforts).

This helps explain some of my outrage toward President Bush. When I tell local Republicans that I oppose Bush because I support the war in Iraq and an interventionist US foreign policy, they tend to stare at me agape. But it really is a perfectly sensible position. If one believes that actions such as the invasion in Iraq are (hopefully rarely) necessary actions to take in order to maintain a secure and just world, the fact that President Bush has made it unlikely that the US will ever take such an action again should be profoundly troubling. Somehow, the US is going to need to salvage its international credibilty in order to continue taking such actions, but Bush's needless arrogance and refusal to admit any error has made this well-nigh impossible. And if Iraq, God forbid, ends in a failure, no amount of US diplomacy or incentives will convince the world that such interventions are valid or advisable. President Bush's policies have put us on the edge of disaster, and unfortunately his tunnelvision and removal from reality only hasten the approaching catastrophe.

Rock and a Hard Place

Well, the Fallujah campaign is winding down. TNR's Iraq'd blog has the post-mortum. On the one hand, the US job is far from done. Fallujah may have been a step in the right direction, but it has also enflamed anti-US sentiment amongst the Sunnis. And our anti-insurgent strategy is rapidly starting to resemble whack-a-mole, bringing the bludgeon of US power down on the insurgents in Fallujah, only to watch them pop up in Mosul, then Sadr City...oy vey. Iraq'd notes:

"According to the Los Angeles Times, the U.S. military command met yesterday in Baghdad "to craft a strategy for using the momentum from a seemingly successful anti-insurgent battle in Fallouja to pacify other embattled Iraqi cities"; already air strikes have begun in Baquba. It may very well be that strikes at other insurgent bases can tamp down the insurgency during the two months before elections, but it is unlikely to destroy it: First, while the U.S. had months to prepare the invasion of Falluja, the inflammation of other cities, including once-a-model-of-success Mosul, appears to have caught the U.S. military somewhat off guard and will subsequently prompt a more ad hoc tactical strategy to reclaim those cities, if such operations occur. Second, it's unclear whether the 140,000 U.S. troops can sustain an operations tempo comparable to what seizing Falluja required. Third, reconstructing Falluja is a massive undertaking of a sort that the U.S. has proven unable to handle over 20 months of occupation, and to expand those needs around the country at this late hour represents a serious strain on resources. And finally, the elections themselves are extremely likely to represent a new level of Sunni disaffection with a now-formally Shia government, which risks replenishing the ranks of the insurgency."

So the US has to stay in Iraq to work out all of these problems, right? Well, yes, and no. While Allawi's government isn't really strong enough to stand on its own two feet yet, and certainly isn't competent enough to solve these problems on its own, it also isn't strong enough to continue to have a US presence. Iraq'd continues:

"With an insurgency on its doorstep, its long-deferred-and-now-realized aspirations for ruling Iraq at risk, and the feebleness of the Iraqi security forces on display, the Shia will have to decide what their relationship to the U.S. occupation is. Can it afford to ask the U.S. to leave--or to restrict missions against the insurgency in some fashion, or to set a date for ultimate withdrawal? Can it afford not to ask the U.S. to leave? There's good reason to believe that Dong's warning of woe unto the government that risks becoming a U.S. proxy won't apply so much to an elected Shia leadership: Unlike Ngo Dinh Diem or Iyad Allawi, the slate of candidates organized and blessed by Sistani will carry true legitimacy among the Shia who vote them in. But the longer the U.S. stays, the greater the risks that the average anti-occupation Shia will view the second interim government as too closely allied with the United States. And it can also become a rallying cry for the insurgency: Shia and American infidels have conspired to destroy Iraq, etc. Unless the Shia are prepared to wage and sustain (and presumably defeat) a civil war against the Sunni insurgents, they will have to figure out a way to cleave at least some Sunnis from the insurgency politically at a time when their very political ascendancy is most inflammatory to the Sunnis. (One way of doing this--pointing to Shia condemnation of the invasion of Falluja as an indicator of good faith--appears to be a foreclosed option now.) In terms of accomplishing that task, the U.S. presence in Iraq looks like a liability."

So let me get this straight. If we leave Iraq, then the insurgents re-entrenchment in Mosul, Hawijah, Sammara, and other cities will give them a strong base of attack against the Allawi government. Continuing Sunni resentment will prevent even an elected government from having legitimacy, so a civil war results. US interventionism is thus discredited, and chaos ensues. If we stay in Iraq, resentment towards US presence undercuts the legitimacy of the Allawi regime and pushes anti-occupation Shiites away from the government. At the same time, enraged Sunnis will also continue to press the attack, crippling the weakened Iraqi state. US interventionism is still discredited, and chaos still ensues.

Freedom is on the march...

Mirror, Mirror on The Wall

Who's the most moral of them all?

There has been chatter on the blogosphere about Amnesty's latest Human Rights report, posts that tie in nicely with my recent thoughts on the subject.

We start our journey over at Obsidian Wings, who links to a comment (the top one) in this Belmont Club post, which says the following:

It's odd, isn't it, how moral relativism works. A country like say, North Korea or Iran takes dissenters and throws them into the gulag and that's government policy. In the US when someone mistreats a prisoner there is an investigation and the individual wrong-doers face criminal sanctions... that's our government policy. And yet, somehow the two are equal. As bad as moral relativism is, though, it's the fact that those who indulge themselves in this sort of thinking aren't even aware there's a problem.

My own opinion is that most people are talking about a strawman when they refer to most forms of "moral relativism." That's neither here nor there at the moment, though (you can go here if you really want my in-depth analysis of "moral relativism" or, in my case, Perspectivism). But Obsidian Wings and I have essentially the same answer to this sort of critique. As he puts it:

All the shouting about "how dare they" criticize us strikes me as willfully blind to the way that, by proclaiming our moral superiority, we are asking to be held to a higher standard. It seems to me that Amnesty's point was that as the world's remaining superpower, the US bears a bigger responsibility than North Korea or Iran to set an example. So any critique that doesn't account for how the President declared himself qualified to preach to the rest of the world about such matters in his last Inaugural address, leaves a bit of a gap in how one is meant to interpret responsibility and credibility. I mean, it's human nature for problems to arise, but when so many problems are arising (G-bay, Bagram, Abu Ghraib, extradition, false arrests in the US, etc.) AND the president is still declaring we'll lead the way toward the end of tyranny, then I think AI and others have a right to suggest, because we're holding ourselves up as an example of a higher standard, that we're failing in equal measure to those holding themselves to a lower standard.

Or as I do:

To be clear, Amnesty is definitively NOT saying the US is the worst human rights violator in the world. That would be delusional, what with North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Belarus, etc etc to choose from. But none of those countries are seen as examples by the rest of the global community. For better or for worse, the US is a beacon. Other countries look to us to understand what freedom and democracy means. That is a privilege that the US has earned over years of being the world's most consistent shining light for humanity. But it comes with a heavy responsibility, to conduct ourselves within the most scrupulous ethical guidelines, to not take the easy way out, to try an elevate the status of moral behavior around the world rather than depressing it and/or trying to get away with the absolute bare minimum. When the world sees America the Free locking up persons in isolated detention camps with no trials, no attorneys, and no rights, is it any wonder that they go back and do the same?

OK, I'll lapse into relativism, but just for a second. It strikes me as all together plausible that who the actor is has some bearing on the morality of a given action. When a prominent sports star goes out and says "I use drugs, and you should too!" that's qualitatively different than some junkie on the street doing it. Why? Because he has influence. Nobody really objects to this sort of distinction, and those who do at least recognize that the taxonomy is real, even if they don't think it should be. Similarly, the US is the role model when it comes to human rights. Nobody looks at North Korea and then tries to justify their own abuses by saying Pyongyang does it too. But saying the US does it? That's a pretty powerful endorsement, when the field is freedom and liberty. And that's why the American rights abuses are far more dangerous to international stability that those of other countries. Fair? Maybe not. But it represents a social reality that has to be dealt with.

However, there is a flip side to that argument: the US still cannot be the sole (or even, I'd assert, primary) target of our moral indignation. For while the social reality that American rights abuses matter MORE (in the grand scheme of things) has to be dealt with, it is equally true that this social reality is not something America controls (or at the very least, it isn't one we want to rectify by NOT being the world's example for what it means to be protect human rights). On a pragmatic level, its important to hold the line on the United States because we know what the realistic implications of slippage are. However, on an ideological level, we still have a very real obligation to criticize, and sharply, the real monsters in our midst. And it is in that light that we need to take this Oxblog post very seriously:

The purpose of Khan's speech was to introduce and summarize AI's annual report on human rights. Before getting into what Khan did say, it is far important to observe what she didn't say, namely anything about North Korea, let alone Cuba or Syria. This sort of calculated ignorance constitutes nothing less than a betrayal of the millions and millions who suffer at the hands of the world's most reactionary dictatorships.
[...]
Of course, there is a chapter on Syria in AI's annual report. The same is true of Cuba and North Korea. But when the head of the organization singles out the US and UK for criticism, she lets the Cubans, Syrians and North Koreans know that they are not her biggest concern. It's exactly the same as when Bush singles out Egypt for criticism but lets Pakistan and Saudi Arabia slide.

Criticizing the US for Human Rights violations is important because it forces us to practice what we preach. Solely criticizing the US (or being hyperbolic) about it is counterproductive because it gives cover and moral legitimacy to the truly evil nations that exist--North Korea, Syria, Sudan, etc.. And when the Left gleefully seizes upon such statements as proof of how evil the US really is, it effectively dooms those most in need of aid and rescue.

As usual, the answer lies in the balance. Criticize the US for not setting an example, but still blast the Sudanese for creating a world where examples still need to be set. Either one, alone, represents a fatal blindspot in our moral judgment. Put both together, and there may yet be hope for progress.

UPDATE: Okay, I'll bite. How does this traffic jam really work?

Also, they may wish to be informed that the page they tell you to go to for "more information" appears not to exist. Is this some Nietzschean drama being performed on unwitting newbies, without our knowledge?

Left Cross

In my blog post "Left Hook", I linked to Peter Beihart's and Kevin Drum's posts on how liberals should respond to the threat of islamofascism. It attracted a fair bit of comments, including one pointing out that I can't spell "totalitarianism." I would make a defense that I had gotten very little sleep and was effectively braindead, but that would pretend that I can spell when I am awake. So I'll just lapse into fringe leftism for a moment and claim that grammar is an oppressive tool of the western capitalist imperialists. Hurray for playing to stereotypes!

There was only one explaination for why I had suddenly gotten real live commenters, and of course it was that Powerline had linked to me again! In deference to the fact that I doubt most Powerline readers want to read my enthusiastic endorsement of Jon Chait's "In Defense of Bush Hatred (again), I'll instead write on the dynamics of the left/right split with regards to terror, why I think the Democrats are better equipped to deal with the problem, and how they should go about doing it.

The key starting point for this conversation is the obvious: Republicans enjoy a tremendous advantage over Democrats when it comes to their perception on National Security. Grover Norquist described this as "Republicans are tough on crime to the point where they'll take away your civil liberties. Republicans are so tough on foreign policy that they'll flatten cities." But far from making the Republicans a stronger party on National Defense, it paradoxically makes them far weaker. Since Republicans enjoy a status quo advantage on National Security, they don't have to actually take any concrete actions (legislation, regulation, etc.) on the matter to "persuade" America they are tough. And because they don't have to, they don't, since many of the necessary pro-security actions are opposed by key donor bases (for example: strengthing security requirements at Chemical Plants is a clear defense necessity, but Republicans killed it because it served no political gain and would impose a cost requirement on a major business donor). By contrast, Democrats are seen as pacifistic and weak unless proven otherwise, so they are constantly forced to push pro-security intiatives to prove their security bona fides. Its no accident that the vast majority of Domestic Security reforms in the post 9/11 era--The DHS, The 9/11 Commission--were Democratic intiatives. Yet, the perceptual differences remain and plague Democrats at the ballot box. Since Republicans are seen as SO tough to the point that its considered possibly a flaw (IE, they're too reckless), attacks on Republicans from the Hawk side invariably fall flat. The GOP, dealing with a too good to be true reality that lets them reap all the benefits of being seen as pro-security without having to make the politically painful decisions that go along with it, has naturally taken a purely rhetorical stand on the matter: Lots of oratory on how Democrats don't care about our nation's defense, precious little action to actual make our country safer.

Furthermore, Conservatives are hindered with two philosophical burdens that hinder their ability to respond to their terror threat. The first is the desire for limited government. Conservatives generally believe in market-based solutions to problems. Indeed, the Bush administration fought against mandatory safety standards and terrorism insurance in vulnerable industries--power plants, chemical facilities, trucking, etc--on the grounds that "sufficient incentives exist in the private market to supply protection" [National Strategy for Homeland Security, July 2002]. However, in the March 3rd 2003 New Republic, Jonathan Chait explains why this logic doesn't hold water:

"At first glance, the administration's assumption that private industry has sufficiently strong incentives to shore itself up against terrorism appears sensible enough--nobody wants their property to be blown up, after all. This logic works perfectly well when it comes to encouraging private industry to guard against, say, burglary, where the victim bears the entire cost of the crime. But, as Brookings' Peter Orszag has noted, businesses hit by terrorism would not bear the entire cost themselves. First, they have every reason to expect a government bailout, like the airlines received after September 11. Second, some firms have interdependent security, which means their security precautions are worthless unless all their competitors follow suit. (The bomb that destroyed Pan Am Flight 103 over Scotland in 1988 was transferred to Pan Am after being initially checked through another airline.) Terrorist strikes upon a private business impose costs, both psychological and economic, upon the entire country. So, while a business owner may have no interest in spending more money to prevent terrorism than to prevent, say, an electrical fire, the nation's interest is quite different. For all these reasons, the logic of individual incentive breaks down when it comes to terrorism. "

The problems posed by terrorism are unique and grave in that they mandate government responses, ones that, yes, at times might require government regulation and intervention. But the GOP's business donor base and ideological resistance to government initiatives provide immense barriers to implementing the necessary security reforms.

The second philosophical problem for the GOP is their historical skepticism of the ability to for government to change minds. Again, their reticence to use government as a tool for spreading liberal and democratic values prevents them from hitting the root cause of terror, the state-sponsered oppression of millions of people around the world. Anyone who listened to GOP complaints about US operations in the Balkans surely understands that Republican committment to US peacekeeping and democratization operations is shallow at best. Laudably, the Bush administration and fellow Republicans pushed aside their qualms and did make the effort in Iraq to spread democratic values--originally. However, a mix of inexperience, hubris, and mistrust of US motives by Iraqi citizens (compounded by US missteps) led to the "hearts and minds" effort largely ending in failure. As of result of this, many Republicans are returning to form, voicing skepticism at the ability of the US to innoculate the people of Iraq and the world with western values and recommending that we abandon the effort and revert back to, at the very least, a realist foreign policy. This response is perhaps the worst that the US could take right now, but unfortunately it is also the one most consistant with the GOP's ideological roots.

What Republicans don't understand is that Iraqi mistrust of US democratization efforts isn't because of any hostility on the part of the Iraqi's to democracy per se. It speaks volumes about the character of the Iraqi people that the most powerful national figure, Ayatollah Ali Sistani, is also a committed democrat. Rather, the mistrust stems from a mistrust of motives, Iraqi's know (from personal experience and from basic observation of their neighbors) that the US has been perfectly willing to subvert democratic institutions and install friendly dictators when it serves American economic and realist interests to do so. Furthermore, the US has usually coached these actions in the same pro-liberal, pro-democratic rhetoric that we hear from the Bush administration today (cite: Chile, Vietnam). Hence, Iraqi's are understandably paranoid that President Bush's committment to liberalization is a facade, and every misstep and misstatement by the US occupying regime only amplifies these fears. Worse yet, US tolerance and praise of other dictatorships (in Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, and elsewhere), compounds the problem. The GOP still can't quite grasp that anti-Americanism is a global problem with roots in the gap between US rhetoric and US action; a gap that has its roots in US realist policies in the Cold War.

Because the roots of global terror are reified by longstanding US realist practices, the US has precious little credibilty and very little room to make mistakes. The first step is to disentangle US strategic interests from those that are fundamentally opposed to human rights and democratization. This means, at the very least, a reduction in our dependence on Middle East oil (another move the GOP is ill-equipped to do) and far more aggressive support for liberal and democratic movements around the world. The dictators of the world must realize that "making nice with the US" will not immunize them if they are oppressing their own citizens. But this stick must be met with an equal assortment of carrots. States that embark on the path to democracy and liberalization should be rewarded with economic aid, governmental assistance, and developmental program. The creation of a "Marshall Plan" for subsaharan Africa--but tied to the implementation of governmental reforms--is long overdue (if it would make the realists feel any better, this would help check against Chinese hegemonic ambitions in the region). For this task, it is the liberals, with their starry-eyed idealism and their geniune committment to pushing western values that are more aptly suited to the task. But in order to do it, they will have to shake off the degrading and detrimental sector of the party that believes any exercise of US power is ontologically oppressive and imperialist. Furthermore, while international help and assistance should be sought after, liberals with have to realize that many nations are still wedded to isolationist and/or self-interested concerns and won't join. The hand should be extended to the world to join the US in our efforts. But international recognition should not and cannot be a prerequisite for American action.

These projects are ambitious--and expensive. They will require, at the very least, repeal of the Bush Tax Cuts and probably the sacrifice of other domestic priorities at home. But in the long run, the US is far better served when the world sees the US as a force for positive social change, rather than a distant observer unconcerned with, or worse, actively aiding, the oppression of millions of people around the world.

"Criminal Non-Intervention"

My old Feminist Theory professor has directed my attention to a short but very interesting paper on the subject of leftist opposition to American interventionism. It's by Harvard Women's Studies and History Professor Afsaneh Najmabadi, and it's titled "Must We Always Non-Intervene"? It raises precisely the type of questions that need to be discussed amongst those leftists reflexively opposed to an interventionist American foreign policy. It's very brief, but here's a taste just the same:

The dissident voices in this country (at least the ones with which I have engaged) have met this prospect with an orientation that could be summarized as: Oppose and Expose. This is a similar orientation to that taken toward the two recent American engagements with this part of the world; the Gulf War of 1990-91 and the campaign in Afghanistan against the Taliban. In both cases, this dissident American position came to be in conflict with those of the people who have lived and suffered under these regimes and who in both instances welcomed (and at times begged for) outside, including American and including military, interventions. The kind of social disintegration that the Ba'th or the Taliban had produced meant that internal forces opposing these regimes knew all too well that they were too weak on their own to get rid of them. No outside intervention meant continuing to live with (and die from) the intolerable brutalities of these regimes indefinitely. The American dissident position, therefore, was received by these forces (and is received currently by the Iraqi opposition) as worse than irrelevant: it is tantamount to criminal non-intervention. What here may seem the honorable position of opposing the war machine and military adventurism of one's own government, in this configuration, came at the price of other people continuing to suffer with no end in sight.

In all these instances, this opposition to war stance has been linked to another stance, that of exposing US government's history of prior support for the very forces that it then has set to overthrow, the Taliban and the Iraqi Ba'th. In the extreme, the Taliban and the Ba'th become mere creations of the all-powerful US government -- something verging on racist denial of any agency on the part of the people of the Near East to be able to even produce their own dictators. In any event, even if one were to agree on the total responsibility of the American government, that responsibility could just as easily and in fact more logically be invoked for a US intervention to set these past bad deeds to good for a change, instead of a non-interventionist stand. Why should Afghanis and Iraqis continue to suffer the consequences of terrible US foreign policy instead of expecting that government to take responsibility for its bad judgments and do some good? Without an interventionist orientation that is centered on the interests of the people of these regions, the exposition of prior US foreign policy by the voices of American dissidence over the war is received by Afghanis and Iraqis as hollow moralism at their expense. While they have been repeatedly betrayed by US government policies, Iraqi dissidents feel they have no other option but to seek its support for their struggle. Similarly, the great fear of Afghanis today is lack of long-term commitment by US government (and other international forces) to stay in Afghanistan and help their post-Taliban reconstruction. Why shouldn't the dissident energies in this country be focused on the kind of American intervention (one for the interests of Afghani or Iraqi people), rather than on a policy of non-intervention?
[...]
[O]ne may have to consider the terrible possibility that a policy that may be wise for internal US developments may not be good for Iraqis and Afghanis. One may have to openly say: sorry folks, but we have to abandon you. Yet I am not convinced that that desperate position is necessary, at least not until we have considered other options. I do not believe that opposition to the attack on civil liberties and immigrant rights has necessarily have to be linked with a non-interventionist policy. This is a link that the most hawkish and right-wing forces in this country have worked hard to forge in post-September 11th political landscape; the you-are-with-us-or-against-us mentality. It is critical to break apart this link. There is no reason why the opposition to the internal US developments cannot be linked with an interventionist policy that puts demands on the government over the terms of its interventions, and the consequent responsibility beyond the military aspects of intervention. [Emphasis Added]

I agree completely. I cannot say how many times I have written posts critical of appalling human rights violations done under the guise of the war on terror, and received responses (both liberal and conservative) which all assumed I was anti-war. We very well may fail in managing to have a foreign policy of liberation that does not stray into imperialism and mismanagement. But if that is the case, it is a failure, not some sort of vindication for the left. It is intellectually lazy to think otherwise.

Perhaps the Harvard Women's Studies Department is not exactly the place one might expect this sort ofchallengee to be coming from. But it's been my observation that even the liberal academia (including those professors in the much-maligned "identity politics" departments, such as this one) is nowhere near as narrow-minded and monolithic as it is made out to be by the conservative media. I doubt heavily that Professor Najmabadi is in the majority amongst her peers. But she is raising the right questions, and I hope to see her claims addressed in the near future.

What Will You Say "No" To?

We are still processing the fallout of the past week's brutal assault by Hamas on southern Israel, a vicious attack whose only tactical objection was the infliction of terror and death on a civilian population. At the moment, it appears that Israel has reestablished control over most if not all of its territory, but the situation remains fluid and the military and government response remains shockingly disorganized. We also don't know yet exactly how Israel plans to respond to Hamas' attack, but few seem to harbor hopes for anything that could be remotely characterized as positive.

Right now, it seems, we sit in the relative calm before -- or more accurately, between -- the storm. And so right now, those of us who rightfully are aghast at Hamas' wanton murder of Israeli civilians, and who've pledged to stand with Israel as a result, must force ourselves to think through a very difficult thought:

What will we say "no" to?

What form of Israeli retaliation or response to Hamas' sadistic campaign of slaughter we will commit to saying we won't support? This is not a roundabout way of saying Israel is not entitled to respond at all; a military response here is warranted and justified. But warranted and justified military responses still carry limits, and it's important to be clear about what those limits are even in the wake of an unimaginable atrocity.

Indeed, I say to those standing with Israel that we need to think about this right now because we just witnessed in real-time a catastrophic failure to grapple seriously with this question on the part of those who've pledge to stand with Palestinians and Palestine. Suddenly forced to decide whether, in the wake of occupation and besiegement, a Palestinian response of "a systemic campaign of house-to-house kidnappings, rapes, and executions" is a valid one, we saw far, far too many individuals unable to say "no" (or at least, say it with any level of decisiveness). This failure stems directly from the tempting broth that assures us that, if the provocation is severe enough and the injury severe enough, no amount of "response" could ever be disproportionate. And so we see that, if you refuse to let yourself think that anything could be "too far", there's no end to the depths of hell you may find yourself apologizing for.

For example, today the Israeli defense minister announced that one response Israel was committing to vis-a-vis Hamas was a "complete siege" upon the Gaza Strip, including a blockade on the delivery of food. Starvation of civilian populations is expressly forbidden as a violation of the laws of war. We can  consequently expect to hear, very shortly, calls from a variety of sources -- perhaps even the U.S. government -- that contravene Israel's announced policy of "complete siege", and insist that Israel cannot be permitted to block the entry of food, water, and medical supplies into the Gaza Strip. And we already know exactly one form of response that will be leveled at such calls: 

"How dare you tell Israel how it can respond to the unspeakable atrocity Hamas just committed? Hamas should have thought about food security in Gaza before it decided to slaughter Israeli civilians en masse! It's up to Hamas to free the hostages and submit to justice for their crimes; until they do that, any civilian deaths brought upon by Israel's blockade are on their heads, not ours."

There will, in short, be immeasurable pressure brought to bear to silence anyone who says "this is too much"; the waving of the bloody shirt of countless dead, dismembered, and abducted Israeli children and daring anyone to stare that bloodshed in the face and say "this is too much" in response.

Which is why it is so important to commit in advance to what we'll say in the thick of that inevitable discourse. If the Biden administration does step out and try to say "this choice -- not every choice, but this choice -- is too far", what will we say in the face of the inevitable backlash? How will navigate the hue and cry of those who are furious -- furious -- that anyone could have the temerity of telling Israel it is going too far? But the truth is that if your answer is to say "I'm sorry, but in this moment, at this time, in this situation, I cannot bring myself to tell Israel what it can and cannot do" -- then you've committed yourself to the same catastrophic failure we saw just days ago of those who could not, in the midst of sickening massacres, bring themselves to tell Palestinians what they could and could not do. It is the same failure of those who could not bring themselves to oppose Japanese internment after Pearl Harbor; the same as those who could not stand up for the rights of Muslims to build Mosques in New York after 9/11. No matter what flag you fly or how you think of yourself, you are cut from identical cloth.

The picture above is of Jacob Argamani. His daughter, Noa, was among those abducted by Hamas militants. Her kidnapping was broadcast, and even the description of it is sickening beyond words. These are the words Jacob spoke the other day, as her daughter's whereabouts remain unknown:

Let us make peace with our neighbors, in any way possible. I want there to be peace; I want my daughter to come back. Enough with the wars. They too have casualties, they too have captives, and they have mothers who weep. We are two peoples to one Father. Let’s make real peace.

If he can say it, then we can say it. But we have to commit to it now.

On Asking Jews To Be More Anti-Nazi

The second job I wanted to be when I grew up was a cartoonist (the first was omelet chef at a Marriott. Little kids have weird goals). I loved Calvin & Hobbes, and later Dilbert, Doonesbury, Foxtrot, The Boondocks, and many others. My ambition, alas, quickly foundered against the reality that I have no artistic talent whatsoever. But occasionally I still draw cartoons in my head (where their artistry and technical virtues are unimpeachable).

My most recent imagined cartoon is set in Auschwitz, 1944, where a portal opens up and a time-traveler steps through. It is a literal "Social Justice Warrior" -- from the future, armed to the teeth, and ready and eager to "punch some Nazis". After completing his task, some Jewish inmates approach to thank him for rescu--

BAM!

He clocks them too. "Did I say 'Zio-Nazis excepted'?"

I was thinking about this after reading this tweet by Ferrari Sheppard, where he says "Can't be anti Nazi pro Israel."

Can't be anti Nazi pro Israel.

— Ferrari Sheppard (@stopbeingfamous) August 13, 2017

I read that tweet, in turn, shortly after reading this thread by Sophie Ellman-Golan urging White Jews to "join" the fight against the neo-Nazi resurgence we saw in Charlottesville.

To white Jews alarmed by #Charlottesville: this is the movement. Join it. It will fight for us, but we have to fight for Black folks too.

— Sophie Ellman-Golan (@EgSophie) August 13, 2017

It is, she says, a fight Jewish institutions have been "shamefully late" in adopting as our own.

I reflect on this, and I'm torn. My thoughts are scattered; they fly all over the place.

Consider the ADL -- called out by name by Ellman-Golan. I recall excoriating them for selling out liberal Jews in their appalling silence on David Friedman's "kapo" comments. Then I think of the immense pressure the ADL has come under from the right, which accuses it of taking too hard a line on right-wing racism. I remember the shamefully equivocating tweet ADL chief Jonathan Greenblatt put out yesterday, drawing equivalence between Nazi and "antifa" violence. Then I remember the following tweet thread which was so much better. I also remember how a sizable chunk of the negative responses to Greenblatt's original equivocation somehow managed to work "Israel" into the message -- because that's what it's always about, isn't it? I consider how it seems many of the ADL's critics are eager, even happy, to infer the worst about it. They like the idea of "Jews who don't really oppose Nazis". They seem to revel in the idea that the Jews aren't anti-Nazi to their satisfaction.

The Jewish community -- institutionally and otherwise -- is a varied and diverse bunch. That variation and diversity applies as much to our presence in social justice organizing as anything else. The explanations for this diversity will be similarly varied.

After all, I, too, have written fusillades decrying the tepidity of many Jewish groups in calling out the ascendant tide of right-wing racism. So clearly I concur there's a problem here.

At the same time, I also think that there's something truly grating at the idea that Jews have to prove themselves "anti-Nazi." Mia Steinberg wrote something very telling about how this debate plays out for Jews: "Instead of 'would I have stood up to Nazis in WW2', the thought experiment for me has always been 'would I have survived?'" The Holocaust was not an arena for Jews to prove our moral valor, and when our reaction to Nazism doesn't adopt appropriately heroic tones that is not proof of Jewish "complicity" in anything. The celerity with which people seem eager to tell Jews we're the new Nazis, or we don't care about Nazis, or we're not responding to Nazis in a way that gives non-Jews sufficient confidence that we're really anti-Nazi, is degrading and infuriating.

Yet again -- I can't fully go down that road either. Surely, the groups like ZOA who have explicitly lined up behind the Trump/Bannon alt-right wing have no moral legs to stand upon. And even as I bow to no one in downplaying the seriousness of the growing clouds of antisemitism, Ellman-Golan is simply right -- I refuse to tolerate people denying this -- that in its current manifestation in the United States Black people are more violently targeted by the forces of White supremacy than are Jews. That doesn't mean Jews aren't targeted, and aren't targeted in ways that are worthy of genuine fear and concern. But it is not wrong for there to be a focus on racist violence, so long as that focus doesn't come via denying the reality of antisemitic violence.

But  (once more around, and here's where I really want to land) can we honestly say -- unblinking, looked-in-the-eye, full-stop -- that when Jews don't throw themselves into these movements that the primary explanation ought to be "because Jews don't care about Nazism"? Can we be so confident that the movements in question "will fight for us"? The fact of the matter is, too often Jews -- from Chicago Dyke March to Creating Change to Slutwalk -- do try to participate in these movements, and are cast out, or turned aside, or subjected to humiliating ideological litmus tests where we're guilty until proven anti-Zionist. That's part of the reason -- not the sole reason, but part of the story -- why I shy away from protest movements. I don't know that they "will fight for us". That is not something that simply can be wedged into our presuppositions as a demanded default. Much the opposite:

As a Jew, I can't completely cheer at these expressions of left-wing activism because I know there is a real and non-negligible risk that in that crowd someone wants to say the whole thing they're fighting against is a Zionist plot, and there is a real and non-negligible risk that if that person gets a hold of the mic and says so the crowd will erupt in cheers. 

It grates when this is denied, when people act as if the only reason Jews "don't show up" for social justice (to the extent that we don't) is because we're too indifferent or too fragile or too embedded in our own privilege to really care. Such a view doesn't take seriously real practices of exclusion; it assumes them away because it takes "they will fight for us" as an axiom rather than a (often quite dubious) proposition that must be demonstrated. It's the "why do all the black people sit together in the cafeteria" question of Jewish social activism. If Jews are "late" to the social activist party -- and I don't necessarily concede that we are -- perhaps part of the reason is that social convention requires a truly grotesque amount of preparation, costuming, covering, hedging, eliding, and self-effacing before the Jew is admitted through the doors. It's exhausting. And it's hard to blame people for not wanting to show up, when those requirements are allowed to persist unexamined.

Finally, when talking of these exclusions we should be clear that this is not even primarily, let alone solely, a POC thing. Indeed, Black people in America have consistently demonstrated their intolerance of antisemitism and their willingness to stand with Jews against antisemitism even in their own community. That history has to be part of the story too. The story of Black-Jewish relations simply isn't -- much as conservative hagiographers might wish it so -- one of self-sacrificing Jews altruistically defending civil rights only to be sold down the river by ungrateful African-Americans who dived headfirst into antisemitic conspiracy-mongering.

What it boils down to is this:

• Jews are genuinely threatened by the rise of the alt-right. This is a movement that affects us in a real, tangible way -- not as allies, not as "fragile" White people, but as a vulnerable group that is genuinely imperiled by these social forces. Acting as if Jews don't have skin in this game is a form of antisemitism denial.
• Currently, the tangible manifestations of extreme-right identity politics have a greater impact on the material conditions of black and brown lives than they do that of White Jews. That assessment in no way falsifies the first bullet point.
• All non-Jews, to varying degrees, benefit from the social privileges and prerogatives that exist under conditions of antisemitic domination. This assessment in no way falsifies the second bullet point, it merely establishes a kyriarchical relationship where (in the contemporary American context) racial domination has greater punch than also-extant antisemitic domination does.
• The relationship between (proximately-European) Jews and Whiteness is a complex one. Such Jews clearly do not enjoy an unadulterated White privilege (as the seething hatred of White supremacists makes clear). But it is also clear that we enjoy a great many of these privileges and prerogatives on a day-to-day basis. While possession of these privileges does not falsify the existence of antisemitism, neither does experiencing antisemitism falsify the existence of these privileges.
• Some Jewish groups have been derelict in their duties to combat this right-wing menace. It is our obligation as Jews to insist that our communal representatives fight against far-right extremist movements both because they threaten us as Jews and because they threat others -- Black people, brown people, queer people, and more -- who may or may not be Jewish.
• To the extent that some Whites Jews haven't partaken in anti-right resistance movements in the stock ways typically demanded of White allies, the explanations that apply to White people generally who don't "show up" are not always inapposite. But they are frequently incomplete, and a serious conversation needs to be had about the politics of antisemitic exclusion that afflicts Jews who very much do wish to be involved in left-wing activist spaces or otherwise participate in contemporary progressive politics. This conversation cannot take "they will fight for us" as an axiomatic entitlement.

Do these not fully fit together? Then they don't fully fit together. As I said, I'm torn. I don't claim to fully fit together on this.

The Desegregation Opinions: Kennedy's Concurrence

[Other posts in the series:

Law and Media Roundup

Reaction to Justice Thomas' concurrence

Reaction to Justice Breyer's dissent

Reaction to C.J. Roberts' opinion

Reaction to Justice Stevens' dissent

Reaction to Justice Kennedy's controlling concurrence

Opening thoughts (Parts I and II)]

The structure of these posts is to copy what I think are the key excerpts, then give my commentary at the bottom. This post is on Justice Kennedy's (controlling) concurrence.

Key excerpts:

"Diversity, depending on its meaning and definition, is a compelling educational goal a school district may pursue." (2-3)

Problem with the Louisville plan

"Jefferson County [Louisville] fails to make clear to this Court--even in the limited respects implicated by Joshua's initial assignment and transfer denial--whether in fact it relies on racial classifications in a manner narrowly tailored to the interest in question, rather than in the far-reaching, inconsistent, and ad hoc manner that a less forgiving reading of the record would suggest. When a court subjects governmental action to strict scrutiny, it cannot construe ambiguities in favor of the State." (5-6)

Problem with the Seattle plan

"As for the Seattle case, the school district has gone further in describing the methods and criteria used to determine assignment decisions on the basis of individual racial classifications. The district, nevertheless, has failed to make an adequate showing in at least one respect. It has failed to explain why, in a district composed of a diversity of races, with fewer than half of the students classified as "white," it has employed the crude racial categories of "white" and "non-white" as the basis for its assignment decisions.

The district has identified its purposes as follows: "(1) to promote the educational benefits of diverse school enrollments; (2) to reduce the potentially harmful effects of racial isolation by allowing students the opportunity to opt out of racially isolated schools; and (3) to make sure that racially segregated housing patterns did not prevent nonwhite students from having equitable access to the most popular over-subscribed schools." Id., at 19. Yet the school district does not explain how, in the context of its diverse student population, a blunt distinction between "white" and "non-white" furthers these goals. As the Court explains, "a school with 50 percent Asian-American students and 50 percent white students but no African-American, Native-American, or Latino students would qualify as balanced, while a school with 30 percent Asian-American, 25 percent African-American, 25 percent Latino, and 20 percent white students would not." (6)

Why Kennedy refuses to sign on the portion of the majority opinion which would codify color-blindness as an absolute constitutional principle

"Our Nation from the inception has sought to preserve and expand the promise of liberty and equality on which it was founded. Today we enjoy a society that is remarkable in its openness and opportunity. Yet our tradition is to go beyond present achievements, however significant, and to recognize and confront the flaws and injustices that remain. This is especially true when we seek assurance that opportunity is not denied on account of race. The enduring hope is that race should not matter; the reality is that too often it does.

This is by way of preface to my respectful submission that parts of the opinion by THE CHIEF JUSTICE imply an all-too-unyielding insistence that race cannot be a factor in instances when, in my view, it may be taken into account. The plurality opinion is too dismissive of the legitimate interest government has in ensuring all people have equal opportunity regardless of their race. The plurality's postulate that "[t]he way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race," ante, at 40–41, is not sufficient to decide these cases. Fifty years of experience since Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), should teach us that the problem before us defies so easy a solution. School districts can seek to reach Brown's objective of equal educational opportunity. The plurality opinion is at least open to the interpretation that the Constitution requires school districts to ignore the problem of de facto resegregation in schooling. I cannot endorse that conclusion. To the extent the plurality opinion suggests the Constitution mandates that state and local school authorities must accept the status quo of racial isolation in schools, it is, in my view, profoundly mistaken.

The statement by Justice Harlan that "[o]ur Constitution is color-blind" was most certainly justified in the context of his dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U. S. 537, 559 (1896). The Court's decision in that case was a grievous error it took far too long to overrule. Plessy, of course, concerned official classification by race applicable to all persons who sought to use railway carriages. And, as an aspiration, Justice Harlan's axiom must command our assent. In the real world, it is regrettable to say, it cannot be a universal constitutional principle.

In the administration of public schools by the state and local authorities it is permissible to consider the racial makeup of schools and to adopt general policies to encourage a diverse student body, one aspect of which is its racial composition. Cf. Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U. S. 306 (2003); id., at 387–388 (KENNEDY, J., dissenting). If school authorities are concerned that the student-body compositions of certain schools interfere with the objective of offering an equal educational opportunity to all of their students, they are free to devise race-conscious measures to address the problem in a general way and without treating each student in different fashion solely on the basis of a systematic, individual typing by race.

School boards may pursue the goal of bringing together students of diverse backgrounds and races through other means, including strategic site selection of new schools; drawing attendance zones with general recognition of the demographics of neighborhoods; allocating resources for special programs; recruiting students and faculty in a targeted fashion; and tracking enrollments, performance, and other statistics by race. These mechanisms are race conscious but do not lead to different treatment based on a classification that tells each student he or she is to be defined by race, so it is unlikely any of them would demand strict scrutiny to be found permissible." (7-9)

Noting that the de facto/de jure distinction means little to victims (he later goes on to explain why the distinction remains important)

From the standpoint of the victim, it is true, an injury stemming from racial prejudice can hurt as much when the demeaning treatment based on race identity stems from bias masked deep within the social order as when it is imposed by law. The distinction between government and private action, furthermore, can be amorphous both as a historical matter and as a matter of present-day finding of fact. Laws arise from a culture and vice versa. Neither can assign to the other all responsibility for persisting injustices." (15)

Discussing the claim that "if race is the problem, race is the solution."

"The dissent refers to an opinion filed by Judge Kozinski in one of the cases now before us, and that opinion relied upon an opinion filed by Chief Judge Boudin in a case presenting an issue similar to the one here. See post, at 35 (citing 426 F. 3d 1162, 1193–1196 (CA9 2005) (concurring opinion) (citing Comfort v. Lynn School Comm., 418 F. 3d 1, 27–29 (CA1 2005) (Boudin, C. J., concurring))). Though this may oversimplify the matter a bit, one of the main concerns underlying those opinions was this: If it is legitimate for school authorities to work to avoid racial isolation in their schools, must they do so only by indirection and general policies? Does the Constitution mandate this inefficient result? Why may the authorities not recognize the problem in candid fashion and solve it altogether through resort to direct assignments based on student racial classifications? So, the argument proceeds, if race is the problem, then perhaps race is the solution.

The argument ignores the dangers presented by individual classifications, dangers that are not as pressing when the same ends are achieved by more indirect means. When the government classifies an individual by race, it must first define what it means to be of a race. Who exactly is white and who is nonwhite? To be forced to live under a state-mandated racial label is inconsistent with the dignity of individuals in our society. And it is a label that an individual is powerless to change. Governmental classifications that command people to march in different directions based on racial typologies can cause a new divisiveness. The practice can lead to corrosive discourse, where race serves not as an element of our diverse heritage but instead as a bargaining chip in the political process. On the other hand race-conscious measures that do not rely on differential treatment based on individual classifications present these problems to a lesser degree.

The idea that if race is the problem, race is the instrument with which to solve it cannot be accepted as an analytical leap forward. And if this is a frustrating duality of the Equal Protection Clause it simply reflects the duality of our history and our attempts to promote freedom in a world that sometimes seems set against it. Under our Constitution the individual, child or adult, can find his own identity, can define her own persona, without state intervention that classifies on the basis of his race or the color of her skin." (16-17)

Conclusion

"This Nation has a moral and ethical obligation to fulfill its historic commitment to creating an integrated society that ensures equal opportunity for all of its children. A compelling interest exists in avoiding racial isolation, an interest that a school district, in its discretion and expertise, may choose to pursue." (17)

Commentary

First, let me congratulate Justice Kennedy on writing an opinion that, though it is on a topic I feel very strongly about and one that I disagree with him on, I find compelling and well-thought out. It seems clear that Justice Kennedy takes seriously the issues that motivate those of us who support race-conscious policies to bring about racial integration, and his rhetoric of "frustrating duality" seems to show that he does not dismiss the difficulties that even his own, moderate position, bring about. And, for my part, I do not dismiss the issues Justice Kennedy points out as to how defining race can lock people into identities and has troubling implications of its own. I also am pleased that Justice Kennedy kept the door open for race-conscious procedures in cases like this--a decision I was not hopeful for given his Grutter opinion and one that prevented this from being the absolutely crushing defeat for racial equality many of us were expecting. Kennedy's opinion is the controlling one, and it is very clear that race-conscious policies, so long as they are not along the line of individual race classification and assignment, are not unconstitutional.

I have a few problems, unsurprisingly, with his analysis. The first is an issue of clarity--in his objection to the Seattle program, he focuses on the fact that it divides students solely into "White/non-White", as opposed to a more finely tuned distinction. Point well taken, but if Seattle were to fix that, would it be okay? It doesn't seem like it would fall within Kennedy's stated objection to individual racial classification. The second problem is that Justice Kennedy seems to expect a lot out of school assignment plans. Most plans I know of are pretty simple, and don't even purport to be judging the kids along a meritocratic axis (I didn't go to Whitman because I was somehow "better" than a Churchill kid, I went there because I lived near it). Kennedy's demand for more holistic admission procedures may be sensible for college and universities, but it seems a bit much for high schools (are we going to have full-fledged applications for them too), and utterly out of the question for elementary schools. Third, Justice Kennedy doesn't sufficiently address the "race is the problem, so race is the solution" objection. The point about classification is, again, well-taken, but it doesn't seem like enough to win the day. People are raced in American society with or without the government's involvement. That's a train that's passed us by. So while there may be issues with that formulation, deciding now of all times to use that (altogether well-known problem) as an excuse for blocking well-thought out, solid policies of racial reform seems unreasonable. There's simply too much analysis behind this argument to be dismissed via one argument in a single paragraph.

But, as I said, it's difficult for me to get too angry, because Kennedy helped us dodge a bullet here. Now it's up to Seattle and Louisville to start developing plans within his guidelines that can continue us down the path to racial integration that Kennedy himself calls a "moral and ethical obligation."