v a l l e j o n o c t u r n o

Young vs. Old

 

From How Things Work:

But here is what many professional commentators have chosen to spend their time and energy drawing our attention to instead: The annoying things that young people are saying and doing. Many people who hold prestigious and well-paid media jobs, and who control an influential megaphone at a time when that is of incredible importance, squander their time and ours with wheedling complaints about bullshit. Bret Stephens spends his column grinding familiar axes about campus protests and local DSA rallies; Pamela Paul complains about how stuff is being debated on campus at Stanford; Ross Douthat takes this opportunity to unleash some zingers against “woke-speak” among student groups about decolonization; even Michelle Goldberg, who is supposed to represent the left, focuses her column on… campus protests and local DSA rallies and how the angry kids on the left are not protesting in the proper way. These are the voices that dominate the opinion section of the most influential news organization in the English-speaking world. You will never find a more pathetic failure to rise to the occasion than this collection of navel-gazing cranks, the journalistic equivalent of suburbanites complaining about the annoying smell of smoke ruining their weekend dinner party as the city burns down around them.

Who is being childish here? Is it the young college students, appalled at genocide looming in front of their eyes, possessed with the overwhelming urge to do something, who—despite not possessing a PhD in global affairs—flood into the streets and rage against the atrocity? Or is it the well educated and highly placed and influential adults, granted positions of great importance, who, as a crisis unfolds, as civilians are murdered, as neighborhoods are bombed, as oppression and religion collide in war, use their time griping about the hotheadedness of the young people protesting in the streets? Which of these groups has more accurately identified what should be our current topic of attention—the young people whose focus is on the governments that possess militaries and missiles and are poised to cause thousands of deaths, or the adults whose focus is on how some college kid said something annoying at a DSA rally? Wake the fuck up. The adults in the room are everywhere proving the kids’ critique to be true.

Young people have a voice, but no power. Old people have a bigger voice, and all of the power. Guess which group has a greater responsibility not to waste the current moment moaning about petty bullshit? An inability to ignore the small annoyances of youth in order to welcome the indispensable purity of morality that young people give to us is not a mark of wisdom. It is evidence that one has maintained immaturity even as they have gotten older. It is proof that you have allowed age to shrink your moral universe, rather than expand and deepen it. It is, above all, a reason to think that you should stop talking for a minute and listen to what the angry young people are saying.

Yesterday, I was in Times Square for a rally in support of the endangered citizens of Palestine. Most of the people there were young. But there were also quite a few elderly people, some hobbling on canes, who had painfully dragged themselves out to stand and be a part off the supportive crowd. Because they knew it was important. Because they understood what is at stake. They were not there to compete with the young, to mutter snide takedowns of the speakers, to talk about why the rally should have been framed differently in order to attract the support of more moderate figures in Washington. They were there because people are dying. They had perspective. They had wisdom. I hope that we can all get there, one day.

The Benefits of Working for the Extreme Right

 

Eugene Robinson writes, linking ideology to the benefits of doing the bidding for the right:

Thanks to reporting this month by ProPublica, we now know that Thomas and his wife, Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, a hard-right Republican activist, have been treated to lavish vacations worth hundreds of thousands of dollars by Harlan Crow, a politically active Texas billionaire. These jaunts included a vacation in Indonesia in 2019 that involved flights on Crow’s private jet and an island-hopping tour on a superyacht — a nine-day trip that alone would have cost the couple more than $500,000. If they had paid for it themselves. Which they did not.

There were also other trips on Crow’s jet and frequent stays at properties he owns in the Adirondacks and in East Texas, according to ProPublica. Accompanying the Thomases as guests, at times, were conservative business executives and thought leaders.

And for some reason, Thomas failed to report any of these gifts — any of them — on the disclosure forms he is required to submit annually.

Nor did Thomas disclose the fact that Crow purchased the Georgia house the justice’s mother lives in, then made tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of improvements to the dwelling, ProPublica subsequently revealed.

We should have seen this coming. From 2003 to 2007, on his disclosure forms, Thomas checked the box labeled “none” for his wife’s income. During that period, Ginni Thomas earned more than $686,000 from the conservative Heritage Foundation. When called on the lie, Thomas said it was an error “due to a misunderstanding of the filing instructions.”

Likewise, regarding the trips he took at Crow’s expense, Thomas issued a statement claiming that early in his time on the Supreme Court, he “was advised that this sort of personal hospitality from close personal friends, who did not have business before the Court, was not reportable.”

Stop laughing. All right, yes, it is hilarious. Thomas expects the nation to take seriously his views on the subtlest contours of the Constitution. He also expects us to believe he cannot understand a clear and simple instruction on a disclosure form; that he sees no distinction between “personal hospitality” and trips halfway around the world by private jet; and that he sees nothing wrong about having a member of the board of the conservative American Enterprise Institute purchase and fix up his mother’s house.

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Dumb and Dumber in Florida

From  Paul Krugman in the NYT today:

Let’s talk, in particular, about the attack on education, especially but not only in Florida, which has become one of America’s leading laboratories of democratic erosion.

Republicans have made considerable political hay by denouncing the teaching of critical race theory; this strategy has succeeded even though most voters have no idea what that theory is and it isn’t actually being taught in public schools. But the facts in this case don’t matter, because denunciations of C.R.T. are basically a cover for a much bigger agenda: an attempt to stop schools from teaching anything that makes right-wingers uncomfortable.

I use that last word advisedly: There’s a bill advancing in the Florida Senate declaring that an individual “should not be made to feel discomfort, guilt, anguish or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race.” That is, the criterion for what can be taught isn’t “Is it true? Is it supported by the scholarly consensus?” but rather “Does it make certain constituencies uncomfortable?”

Anyone tempted to place an innocuous interpretation on this provision — maybe it’s just about not assigning collective guilt? — should read the text of the bill. Among other things, it cites as its two prime examples of things that must not happen in schools “denial or minimization of the Holocaust, and the teaching of critical race theory” — because suggesting that “racism is embedded in American society” (the bill’s definition of the theory) is just the same as denying that Hitler killed six million Jews.

What’s really striking, however, is the idea that schools should be prohibited from teaching anything that causes “discomfort” among students and their parents. If you imagine that the effects of applying this principle would be limited to teaching about race relations, you’re being utterly naïve.

For one thing, racism is far from being the only disturbing topic in American history. I’m sure that some students will find that the story of how we came to invade Iraq — or for that matter how we got involved in Vietnam — makes them uncomfortable. Ban those topics from the curriculum!

Then there’s the teaching of science. Most high schools do teach the theory of evolution, but leading Republican politicians are either evasive or actively deny the scientific consensus, presumably reflecting the G.O.P. base’s discomfort with the concept. Once the Florida standard takes hold, how long will teaching of evolution survive?

Illusions are Gone

Jonathan Cook from his blog, a post here ona topic that lately I've really not posted on:

Thomas Friedman’s recent column in the New York Times reflecting on Israel’s 11-day destruction of Gaza is a showcase for the delusions of liberal Zionism: a constellation of thought that has never looked so threadbare. It seems that every liberal newspaper needs a Thomas Friedman – the UK’s Guardian has Jonathan Freedland – whose role is to keep readers from considering realistic strategies for Israel-Palestine, however often and catastrophically the established ones have failed. In this case, Friedman’s plea for Joe Biden to preserve the ‘potential of a two-state solution’ barely conceals his real goal: resuscitating the discourse of an illusory ‘peace process’ from which everyone except liberal Zionists has moved on. His fear is that the debate is quietly shifting outside this framework – towards the recognition that Israel is a belligerent apartheid regime, and the conclusion that one democratic state for Palestinians and Jews is now the only viable solution.

For more than five decades, the two-state solution – of a large, ultra-militarized state for Israel, and a much smaller, demilitarized one for Palestinians – has been the sole paradigm of the Western political and media class. During these years, a Palestinian state failed to materialize despite (or more likely because of) various US-backed ‘peace processes’. While Americans and Europeans have consoled themselves with such fantasies, Israel has only paid them lip-service, enforcing a de facto one-state solution premised on Jewish supremacy over Palestinians, and consolidating its control over the entire territory.

But in recent years, Israel’s naked settler-colonial actions have imperiled that Western paradigm. It has become increasingly evident that Israel is incapable of making peace with the Palestinians because its state ideology – Zionism – is based on their removal or eradication. What history has taught us is that the only just and lasting way to end a ‘conflict’ between a native population and a settler-colonial movement is decolonization, plus the establishment of a single, shared, democratic state. Otherwise, the settlers continue to pursue their replacement strategies – which invariably include ethnic cleansing, communal segregation and genocide. These were precisely the tactics adopted by European colonists in the Americas, Africa, Australia and New Zealand. Friedman’s function in the Western media – conscious or not – is to obfuscate these historical lessons, tapping into a long legacy of unthinking colonial racism.

One of the central pillars of that legacy is an abiding fear of the native and his supposedly natural savagery. This has always been the unspoken assumption behind the interminable two-state ‘peace process’. A civilized and civilizing West tries to broker a ‘peace deal’ to protect Israel from the Palestinian hordes next door. But the Palestinians continuously ‘reject’ these peace overtures because of their savage nature – which is in turn presented as the reason why Israel must ethnically cleanse them and herd them into reservations, or Bantustans, away from Jewish settlers. Occasionally, Israel is forced to ‘retaliate’ – or defend itself from this savagery – in what becomes an endless ‘cycle of violence’. The West supports Israel with military aid and preferential trade, while watching with exasperation as the Palestinian leadership fails to discipline its people.

Friedman is an expert at exploiting this colonial mentality. He often avoids taking direct responsibility for his racist assumptions, attributing them to ‘centrist Democrats’ or other right-minded observers. Coded language is his stock in trade, serving to heighten the unease felt by western audiences as the natives try to regain a measure of control over their future. In some cases the prejudicial framing is overt, as with his concern about the threat of an ascendant Hamas to women’s and LGBTQ rights, couched in an identity politics he knows will resonate with NYT readers. But more often his framing is insidious, with terms like ‘decimate’ and ‘blow up’ deployed to cast Palestinians’ desire for self-determination as violent and menacing.  

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Non-violence activism is largely ignored

 

Always useful to elucidate causes of violence in a colonial structured situation, from Shadi Hamid at The Atlantic, let's face it facts and rationality aren't a strong suit of the US inhabitants:

In the case of the current situation in Gaza, the objective is not to carefully assess Hamas’s “grievances.” The group’s behavior is not particularly mysterious. Hamas leaders see anger against Israel building among ordinary Palestinians, and they see an opportunity to weaponize it. They send rockets across the border and invite destruction because they wish to project relevance and rally domestic support after years of diminished popularity. Hamas is not a bunch of crazed lunatics. Selfish, self-serving, and cavalier toward Palestinian life, its leaders are acting according to a traditional rational-actor model. Whether or not we like it, they believe they will benefit from the crisis—and they may, in reality, find themselves in a stronger position when this is over.

This is one step in the analysis, but it still doesn’t tell us much about why Palestinian anger had been rising in the first place. The progressive wing of the Democratic Party tends to emphasize the original “source” of the current violence. This source isn’t exactly a secret either. As The New York Times reported: “The trouble started on Monday, when a heavy-handed police raid at Jerusalem’s Al Aqsa Mosque—the third-holiest site in Islam, located atop a site also revered by Jews—set off an instant backlash.” Yet while the police raid was actually unfolding—during the final days of Ramadan and at such a sensitive site—I found only minimal coverage in mainstream outlets. I relied instead on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook accounts that were covering the raid and its aftermath in real time, although many were censored for “sensitive content.” The tragedy, upon other tragedies, is that the world seems to pay attention to Palestinians only when they use violence. Nonviolent activism goes largely ignored.  

Tensions had, in fact, been building for months, with the threatened eviction of Palestinian families from the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem. Smaller protests in the area, taking place at a steady clip for some time, grew larger. But even these details don’t capture the broader context. What is so important about Sheikh Jarrah, and why are Palestinian families being faced with eviction in the first place? As NBC News reported: “The expansion of Jewish settlements in Sheikh Jarrah, which is on land that helps form the final link in a settlement circle surrounding east Jerusalem—an area that Palestinians hope will be the capital of a future state.”

That aspiration matters, but seemingly not much to those who see Israel’s right to self-defense as the only truly salient issue. They don’t see the occupation itself—and what has flowed from it—as the original sin. And because they don’t recognize the centrality of the occupation, they don’t acknowledge what is so obvious to the other side: the basic fact of a lopsided power dynamic, in which Israel is the aggressor and Palestinians are the aggressed. This imbalance ought to matter—and not just for moral reasons. American policy makers, regardless of whether they see Palestinians as fully deserving of rights and dignity, should understand that wildly unequal power and capabilities make peace all but impossible. Absent international pressure, the more powerful actor has few incentives to offer substantive compromises and concessions to the weaker party.

The Biden administration is acting as if the past several years (or decades) have not happened. It is repeating the same mistakes as its predecessors, while hoping that a cease-fire can bring an end to hostilities and a return to calm. But until fundamental injustices—and Palestinian national aspirations—are addressed by ending an occupation that has lasted longer than my own existence, the calm will prove uneasy. Maybe that’s good enough for Biden. But it shouldn’t be.

Teachings

Here are some interesting rules to create writing or photography or painting or film, though at the site they are credited to John Cage they actually are from Corita Kent:

John Cage was an avant-garde composer whose work has left a lasting influence on contemporary music. (Thom York of Radiohead calls Cage one of his all-time heroes.) Cage's work included such experimentation as using a prepared piano (meaning objects are placed inside the piano to alter the sound) and a composition called 433, in which the musicians make no sounds at all for four minutes and thirty-three seconds.

RULE ONE: Find a place you trust, and then try trusting it for awhile.

RULE TWO: General duties of a studentpull everything out of your teacher; pull everything out of your fellow students.

RULE THREE: General duties of a teacherpull everything out of your students.

RULE FOUR: Consider everything an experiment.

RULE FIVE: Be self-disciplined: this means finding someone wise or smart and choosing to follow them. To be disciplined is to follow in a good way. To be self-disciplined is to follow in a better way.

RULE SIX: Nothing is a mistake. There's no win and no fail, there's only make.

RULE SEVEN: The only rule is work. If you work it will lead to something. It's the people who do all of the work all of the time who eventually catch on to things.

RULE EIGHT: Dont try to create and analyze at the same time. They're different processes.

RULE NINE: Be happy whenever you can manage it. Enjoy yourself. It's lighter than you think.

RULE TEN: We're breaking all the rules. Even our own rules. And how do we do that? By leaving plenty of room for X quantities.

HINTS: Always be around. Come or go to everything. Always go to classes. Read anything you can get your hands on. Look at movies carefully, often. Save everythingit might come in handy later.

From Corita Kent's book Learning by Heart: Teachings to Free the Creative Spirit.

In What Reality?

Charles Blow has to bring things back to reality-from the NY Times yesterday:

In what reality has tremendous progress been made on universal equality under the Trump administration? We have seen the largest racial protests in American history under the Trump administration. Trump has used massive force against these protesters. He has demonized them.

Former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley, an Indian-American woman, went even broader with her revisionism, saying, “In much of the Democratic Party, it’s now fashionable to say that America is racist. That is a lie. America is not a racist country.” She says this was personal to her as a “brown girl in a Black and white world.”

“Not a racist country?” What precisely does that mean? Was its founding caught up with enslavement? Yes. Were many of the men who signed the Declaration of Independence enslavers? Yes. Were some of our presidents enslavers? Yes. Were many of them white supremacists? Yes. Was lynching allowed, sometimes by law enforcement itself? Yes. Was Jim Crow legal in this country? Yes. Was mass incarceration a thing that the country engaged in? Yes. Are Black people still the recipients of worse treatment than white people on a broad range of metrics? Yes.

Now, is everyone in the country openly, consciously, maliciously racist? No. But, do they have to be? No. Has the country, and does the country, operate in a way that disadvantages Black people and advantages white ones? Absolutely.

These Black and brown people at the Republican convention know this, but they have a job to do: the erasure of racism, the clouding of it so that one way reasons it away.

This show had two audiences: educated suburbanites who don’t want to be labeled racist and to a lesser degree Black men who have been slipping a bit away from Democrats in recent elections.

The Collaborators

From Anne Applebaum's article on The Collaborators:

The three most important members of Trump’s Cabinet—Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and Attorney General William Barr—are all profoundly shaped by Vichyite apocalyptic thinking. All three are clever enough to understand what Trumpism really means, that it has nothing to do with God or faith, that it is self-serving, greedy, and unpatriotic. Nevertheless, a former member of the administration (one of the few who did decide to resign) told me that both Pence and Pompeo “have convinced themselves that they are in a biblical moment.” All of the things they care about—outlawing abortion and same-sex marriage, and (though this is never said out loud) maintaining a white majority in America—are under threat. Time is growing short. They believe that “we are approaching the Rapture, and this is a moment of deep religious significance.” Barr, in a speech at Notre Dame, has also described his belief that “militant secularists” are destroying America, that “irreligion and secular values are being forced on people of faith.” Whatever evil Trump does, whatever he damages or destroys, at least he enables Barr, Pence, and Pompeo to save America from a far worse fate. If you are convinced we are living in the End Times, then anything the president does can be forgiven.

Iris Murdoch Quote

"The best thing about being God would be making the heads”
— Iris Murdoch

Science Deniers

From Paul Krugman in the NYTimes:

About denial: Epidemiologists trying to get a handle on the coronavirus threat appear to have been caught off guard by the immediate politicization of their work, the claims that they were perpetrating a hoax designed to hurt Trump, or promote socialism, or something. But they should have expected that reaction, since climate scientists have faced the same accusations for years.

And while climate-change denial is a worldwide phenomenon, its epicenter is clearly here in America: Republicans are the world’s only major climate-denialist party.

Nor is climate science the only thing they reject; not one of the candidates contending for the G.O.P.’s 2016 nomination was willing to endorse the theory of evolution.

What lies behind Republican science denial? The answer seems to be a combination of fealty to special interests and fealty to evangelical Christian leaders like Jerry Falwell Jr., who dismissed the coronavirus as a plot against Trump, then reopened his university despite health officials’ warnings, and seems to have created his own personal viral hot spot.

The point, in any case, is that decades of science denial on multiple fronts set the stage for the virus denial that paralyzed U.S. policy during the crucial early weeks of the current pandemic.

About death: I still sometimes encounter people convinced that America has the world’s highest life expectancy. After all, aren’t we the world’s greatest nation? In fact, we have the lowest life expectancy among advanced countries, and the gap has been steadily widening for decades.

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