Helen H. Moore's Blog, page 926
December 11, 2015
Noam Chomsky on Paris attacks: “If you want to end it, the first question you ask is — why did it take place?”
How should Western leaders react to the terror attacks in Paris, renowned linguist and professor Noam Chomsky was asked by acTVism Munich host Zain Raza shortly after the attacks. "It depends what they want to do," Chomsky replied over a video feed at the event titled “Germany’s role in the European Union and International Affairs: Post War History, Present and Possible futures.” "Do they want to encourage further terrorism, or do they want to end that kind of terrorism? That’s the choice," he said of European and U.S. leaders. "If you want to end it, the first question you ask is: why did it take place? What were the immediate causes and what were the deeper roots? And then you try to address those." "The only information we have is the explanation given by ISIS," Chomsky began,"they say, if you bomb us we’ll attack you." "Well, that’s probably the reason," he concluded, asking "where did all this come from? The invasion of Iraq, the Wahabisation of Sunni Islam, the brutality of the Assad regime and so on." It is these root causes that must be addressed, Chomsky argued, "if you want to reduce the possibility of further attacks": 
How should Western leaders react to the terror attacks in Paris, renowned linguist and professor Noam Chomsky was asked by acTVism Munich host Zain Raza shortly after the attacks. "It depends what they want to do," Chomsky replied over a video feed at the event titled “Germany’s role in the European Union and International Affairs: Post War History, Present and Possible futures.” "Do they want to encourage further terrorism, or do they want to end that kind of terrorism? That’s the choice," he said of European and U.S. leaders. "If you want to end it, the first question you ask is: why did it take place? What were the immediate causes and what were the deeper roots? And then you try to address those." "The only information we have is the explanation given by ISIS," Chomsky began,"they say, if you bomb us we’ll attack you." "Well, that’s probably the reason," he concluded, asking "where did all this come from? The invasion of Iraq, the Wahabisation of Sunni Islam, the brutality of the Assad regime and so on." It is these root causes that must be addressed, Chomsky argued, "if you want to reduce the possibility of further attacks": How should Western leaders react to the terror attacks in Paris, renowned linguist and professor Noam Chomsky was asked by acTVism Munich host Zain Raza shortly after the attacks. "It depends what they want to do," Chomsky replied over a video feed at the event titled “Germany’s role in the European Union and International Affairs: Post War History, Present and Possible futures.” "Do they want to encourage further terrorism, or do they want to end that kind of terrorism? That’s the choice," he said of European and U.S. leaders. "If you want to end it, the first question you ask is: why did it take place? What were the immediate causes and what were the deeper roots? And then you try to address those." "The only information we have is the explanation given by ISIS," Chomsky began,"they say, if you bomb us we’ll attack you." "Well, that’s probably the reason," he concluded, asking "where did all this come from? The invasion of Iraq, the Wahabisation of Sunni Islam, the brutality of the Assad regime and so on." It is these root causes that must be addressed, Chomsky argued, "if you want to reduce the possibility of further attacks":
If on the other hand, you want to increase the attacks, you do exactly what President Hollande is announcing right now. Let’s bomb them more. Let’s destroy ISIS by military force. Probably impossible. But if it did happen, it’s pretty likely that something worse would emerge from it. Because the roots are not addressed. And they are real.Watch Chomsky's take on the Paris attack, via acTVism Munich below:
How should Western leaders react to the terror attacks in Paris, renowned linguist and professor Noam Chomsky was asked by acTVism Munich host Zain Raza shortly after the attacks. "It depends what they want to do," Chomsky replied over a video feed at the event titled “Germany’s role in the European Union and International Affairs: Post War History, Present and Possible futures.” "Do they want to encourage further terrorism, or do they want to end that kind of terrorism? That’s the choice," he said of European and U.S. leaders. "If you want to end it, the first question you ask is: why did it take place? What were the immediate causes and what were the deeper roots? And then you try to address those." "The only information we have is the explanation given by ISIS," Chomsky began,"they say, if you bomb us we’ll attack you." "Well, that’s probably the reason," he concluded, asking "where did all this come from? The invasion of Iraq, the Wahabisation of Sunni Islam, the brutality of the Assad regime and so on." It is these root causes that must be addressed, Chomsky argued, "if you want to reduce the possibility of further attacks": If on the other hand, you want to increase the attacks, you do exactly what President Hollande is announcing right now. Let’s bomb them more. Let’s destroy ISIS by military force. Probably impossible. But if it did happen, it’s pretty likely that something worse would emerge from it. Because the roots are not addressed. And they are real.Watch Chomsky's take on the Paris attack, via acTVism Munich below:
How should Western leaders react to the terror attacks in Paris, renowned linguist and professor Noam Chomsky was asked by acTVism Munich host Zain Raza shortly after the attacks. "It depends what they want to do," Chomsky replied over a video feed at the event titled “Germany’s role in the European Union and International Affairs: Post War History, Present and Possible futures.” "Do they want to encourage further terrorism, or do they want to end that kind of terrorism? That’s the choice," he said of European and U.S. leaders. "If you want to end it, the first question you ask is: why did it take place? What were the immediate causes and what were the deeper roots? And then you try to address those." "The only information we have is the explanation given by ISIS," Chomsky began,"they say, if you bomb us we’ll attack you." "Well, that’s probably the reason," he concluded, asking "where did all this come from? The invasion of Iraq, the Wahabisation of Sunni Islam, the brutality of the Assad regime and so on." It is these root causes that must be addressed, Chomsky argued, "if you want to reduce the possibility of further attacks": If on the other hand, you want to increase the attacks, you do exactly what President Hollande is announcing right now. Let’s bomb them more. Let’s destroy ISIS by military force. Probably impossible. But if it did happen, it’s pretty likely that something worse would emerge from it. Because the roots are not addressed. And they are real.Watch Chomsky's take on the Paris attack, via acTVism Munich below:
“This is half-arsed and half-baked”: Why are we still asking countries to reduce emissions — that’s Kyoto all over again
Strange bedfellows alert! What do ExxonMobil, four Nobel laureates, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, Russian aluminum magnate Oleg Deripask and renowned climate scientist James Hansen have in common? They all believe that putting a steadily rising tax or fee on greenhouse gas emissions – with at least some of the revenue used to offset increased energy costs for lower-income households – is the best way to combat climate change. Throughout the U.N. climate conference in Paris, diplomats, world leaders and CEOs are calling for a clear price on carbon. Already, 90 countries have committed to putting a price on fossil fuels, shifting the debate from if to how carbon will be priced. Calls for carbon fee plans are rapidly gaining ground over older emissions trading systems (ETS), also known as a cap-and-trade programs. The Problems With Emissions Trading The theory behind pricing carbon is simple: Increasing the cost of fossil fuels will make renewable energy sources more competitive. People will respond and buy the less expensive option. Many policymakers still think of cap-and-trade as the primary way to price carbon, because in 1997 a central feature of the Kyoto climate treaty was its requirement for countries to cap or reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. Kyoto promoted ETS and its Clean Development Mechanism as a way for developing nations with fewer emissions to sell certificates to allow industrial nations to offset their carbon pollution and meet their emissions cap. The greater the demand for offset certificates by industries, the more they were supposed to cost, thereby increasing the cost of carbon. But in most instances the markets haven’t worked too well. Ángel Gurría, secretary-general of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, speaking at the Paris launch of the Carbon Pricing Leadership Coalition, said, “Practically all of the other ETS [programs], including the seven pilots in China and [the] four times that we have attempted…in Europe, we have not been able to make it. We already know that taxes seem to work better than the ETS system.” Marc Breslow is the co-director of ClimateXChange, an organization working to pass carbon fee and rebate legislation in Massachusetts. In an interview he said that a decade ago he was “one of the main advocates” of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a cap-and-trade program in the Northeastern U.S. Although he supports both means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, he believes that a carbon fee “is simply more straightforward ... Running the periodic auctions of emission allowances is complex.” The auctions create “all kinds of speculation and people being forced to guess what future prices of emissions permits are going to be ... A fixed price enables businesses and consumers to plan better.” Breslow is also concerned that ETS can allow emission trading offsets. “In Europe it’s been a disaster.” He said that a large fraction of the offsets in the European Clean Development Mechanism, mostly done in the third world, “are bogus.” He added, “It requires a huge amount of effort” to make sure the offsets “are really worthwhile, principally because for every offset you need to ensure it meets a variety of criteria. The most difficult one is conditionality, a jargon term for 'would this have happened anyway' if you weren’t paying for it specifically as an offset. Would people have planted some trees or not cut down some trees anyway? [Determining conditionality] is very difficult and requires a lot of expensive monitoring.” Brent Newell, legal director of the Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment, works with environmental justice organizations that are opposed to California’s cap-and-trade program. California’s plan primarily regulates emissions at power plants, cement plants and refineries. According to Newell, they believe it “denies the communities living near those facilities the benefits of direct emissions reductions.” Newell said people do not consider there are other pollutants besides CO2 that come out of these plants that are toxic and have serious health implications on nearby communities. This could include asthma, cardio-pulmonary diseases and cancer. “If you’re breathing and live near one of these facilities you are being negatively affected,” said Newell. Newell is not alone in his concern for how emissions trade schemes impact the poor. In his recent encyclical Pope Francis says that the “strategy of buying and selling carbon credits can lead to a new form of speculation which would not help reduce the emission of polluting gases worldwide. This system … may simply become a ploy which permits maintaining the excessive consumption of some countries and sectors.” Half-Arsed and Half-Baked There is a rapidly growing movement to implement carbon taxes or fees as an alternative to ETS. James Hansen, a former NASA scientist, gained fame when he warned the U.S. Congress in 1988 that global warming had already begun and was a grave threat. Speaking in Paris, he said he was hearing “the same old thing as Kyoto [in 1997]. We are asking each country to cap emissions, or reduce emissions. Why are we talking about doing the same again? This is half-arsed and half-baked.” Hansen believes that the way to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions is to put a steadily rising fee on carbon, with the money raised given back to the public as dividends. He said, “Studies show that if you added $10 a ton to the price you would reduce [fossil fuel] energy use by 20 percent in 10 years, and 50 percent in 20 years. This is the only viable international approach. You cannot ask 190 countries to individually limit their emissions. “All it requires is two players: United States, China or the European Union – two out of the three. They would say we’re going to have a [carbon] fee and we’re going to put border duties on products from countries that don’t have it. The other party would join immediately, and so would most countries, because they would rather collect the money themselves.” Hansen added, “It’s not too complicated. It’s not that the problem cannot be solved but that it is not being solved. We need an honest, simple rising carbon fee.” Carbon Fee and Dividend The most vocal proponent of carbon fee and dividend is Citizens Climate Lobby (CCL), a grass-roots advocacy group that has been growing by leaps and bounds. You can think of its plan as a three-legged stool: 1) Put a steadily rising fee on U.S. greenhouse gas emission at the source (wellhead, mine, etc.); 2) distribute all of the revenue collected equally to U.S. households to compensate for a rising cost of energy; and 3) impose a border adjustment fee on products entering the U.S. from other countries that do not put a price on carbon. This will protect U.S. jobs and incentivize other countries to adopt similar plans. In 2010 when CCL held its first conference in Washington, D.C., it had 12 chapters. It now has 310 chapters and more than 23,000 supporters. It is rapidly approaching its goal of having a group in all 435 congressional districts. To date in 2015, its members have published more than 3,000 letters-to-the-editor and Op-Eds and have lobbied senators, representatives and their staffs close to 1,200 times. One of the reasons CCL stands out from other environmental organizations is that it acknowledges that a U.S. climate change solution must be supported by Republicans and Democrats, and it is willing to do the hard work of bringing Republicans on board first. Mark Reynolds, CCL’s executive director, said, "We're seeing a lot of opposition to the president's Clean Power Plan among congressional Republicans. That's understandable, because conservatives want less regulation, not more. But they can't just say "no" to EPA regulations without having an alternative plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions. The conservative alternative they should embrace is the market-based approach of a revenue-neutral fee on carbon.” He added, “If we give all the money back to households, we'll actually add jobs to the economy while we're cutting carbon." The Washington Post, in an editorial, agreed with Reynolds' position, saying a carbon tax is “an elegant policy Congress could immediately take off the shelf. It might take a few years to legislate a national carbon fee, but activists aren’t waiting for Washington to act. Environmentalists and businesses are forming coalitions at the state level. Breslow noted that in additions to Massachusetts, serious campaigns are underway in Rhode Island, Oregon, Washington state and Vermont. Efforts are also beginning in Minnesota, New York and Pennsylvania. Organizers are racing to see who gets their legislation adopted first. Regardless of the outcome of the Paris COP21 meeting the message is clear: If you want to prevent rising sea levels, become part of the rising tide of political support for a revenue-neutral carbon fee.
Don Kraus
is a senior fellow at
Citizens for Global Solutions
and a member of Citizens Climate Lobby.
They are as dangerous as Donald Trump: The monstrous foreign-policy lie that goes unreported by the mainstream media
Here is a good thought experiment: Would you rather a country bar you from entry or have that country bomb your house? This question has not occurred to President Obama, Hillary Clinton, the mainstream media, or bleeding heart liberals like Dick Cheney and Paul Ryan. The nation’s most powerful political leaders, and most influential commentators, seem to find great gratification by puffing out their chests, furrowing their brows, and condemning Donald Trump’s latest exhibition of stupidity – the idea of issuing an immigration ban on Muslims. Ryan was particularly indignant as he attempted to save his party’s already scarred and disfigured face from the ever escalating public relations nightmare that is the Trump candidacy. “What was proposed yesterday,” Ryan referred to Trump’s idea to ban Muslims while pointing his finger in the mode of a disciplinary school teacher, “is not what this country stands for.” Former Vice President Dick Cheney also questioned that Americanism of the proposal with his own variation on the familiar turn of phrase, claiming that such a ban would “go against everything we stand for.” President Obama, eager to join the fun, denounced Trump’s plan as “bigotry,” and encouraged Americans to “hold fast to our values.” The values for which America stands, and must hold fast, do not include a moratorium on Muslim immigration, but according to bipartisan consensus, they do include routinely killing Muslims in multiple countries. Since 2002, the United States has invaded and occupied two countries with predominantly Muslim populations – Iraq and Afghanistan – and on a weekly basis has bombed those same two countries, Somalia, Syria, Yemen, and Pakistan. The evidence is overwhelming that the majority of the bombing victims are innocent civilians. The Intercept recently obtained government documents acknowledging that ninety percent of drone strikes result in the loss of innocent life. The inevitability of civilian death from drone strike explains why Reprieve, a human rights organization, was able to empirically verify that even though America has targeted only 41 terrorists for “extrajudicial” assassination, it has killed 1,147 people. Hillary Clinton recently indicted the buffoonish antics of Trump as “playing right into the hands of ISIS.” The presidential frontrunner is likely referring to the recruitment device anti-Islamic rhetoric creates for terrorist organizations that thrive on the demented idea that the West is at war against their religion. Considering that bombs and missiles are deadlier weapons of war than the mouth of Donald Trump, her analysis would apply even more severely to the invasion of Libya she oversaw as Secretary of State, and the relentless bombing campaign her former boss manages from the White House. The death of family and friends likely inspires more hatred for the United States than the incoherent speeches – no matter how hateful – of a delusional real estate mogul. A Pew Research survey showed that fewer than half of Americans are concerned that drone strikes kill innocent people. The public’s tacit approval for the destruction of Muslim communities overseas might also draw the ire of people who have to live among the corpses and craters left after American drones fly through their skies. Donald Trump seems dangerous and ignorant. Reasonable people, most especially the small remainder of rational Republicans, are right to oppose him. At point of writing, however, Trump has not participated in the killing of any Muslims, innocent or otherwise. Obama, Cheney and Clinton cannot make the same claim. Americans, high and low, should proceed with caution when mentioning Muslims, human rights, and hospitality in the same sentence. Otherwise, the hypocrisy of criticizing mean words, while applauding or ignoring destructive actions might become rather obvious. The discipline of the American political and intellectual class is astonishing, considering that in all the bluster coming from and surrounding Trump, no one in the mainstream discusses the actual damage and wreckage resulting from American bombs, war, and invasion. To summarize the prevailing American ethic: It is wrong to say we should not let Muslims in the country. It is fine to kill them. People throughout the world, especially the victims, might begin to notice the inconsistency, and American officials and intellectuals might benefit from reacquainting themselves with the wisdom of children who recite rhymes about sticks and stones. 
Here is a good thought experiment: Would you rather a country bar you from entry or have that country bomb your house? This question has not occurred to President Obama, Hillary Clinton, the mainstream media, or bleeding heart liberals like Dick Cheney and Paul Ryan. The nation’s most powerful political leaders, and most influential commentators, seem to find great gratification by puffing out their chests, furrowing their brows, and condemning Donald Trump’s latest exhibition of stupidity – the idea of issuing an immigration ban on Muslims. Ryan was particularly indignant as he attempted to save his party’s already scarred and disfigured face from the ever escalating public relations nightmare that is the Trump candidacy. “What was proposed yesterday,” Ryan referred to Trump’s idea to ban Muslims while pointing his finger in the mode of a disciplinary school teacher, “is not what this country stands for.” Former Vice President Dick Cheney also questioned that Americanism of the proposal with his own variation on the familiar turn of phrase, claiming that such a ban would “go against everything we stand for.” President Obama, eager to join the fun, denounced Trump’s plan as “bigotry,” and encouraged Americans to “hold fast to our values.” The values for which America stands, and must hold fast, do not include a moratorium on Muslim immigration, but according to bipartisan consensus, they do include routinely killing Muslims in multiple countries. Since 2002, the United States has invaded and occupied two countries with predominantly Muslim populations – Iraq and Afghanistan – and on a weekly basis has bombed those same two countries, Somalia, Syria, Yemen, and Pakistan. The evidence is overwhelming that the majority of the bombing victims are innocent civilians. The Intercept recently obtained government documents acknowledging that ninety percent of drone strikes result in the loss of innocent life. The inevitability of civilian death from drone strike explains why Reprieve, a human rights organization, was able to empirically verify that even though America has targeted only 41 terrorists for “extrajudicial” assassination, it has killed 1,147 people. Hillary Clinton recently indicted the buffoonish antics of Trump as “playing right into the hands of ISIS.” The presidential frontrunner is likely referring to the recruitment device anti-Islamic rhetoric creates for terrorist organizations that thrive on the demented idea that the West is at war against their religion. Considering that bombs and missiles are deadlier weapons of war than the mouth of Donald Trump, her analysis would apply even more severely to the invasion of Libya she oversaw as Secretary of State, and the relentless bombing campaign her former boss manages from the White House. The death of family and friends likely inspires more hatred for the United States than the incoherent speeches – no matter how hateful – of a delusional real estate mogul. A Pew Research survey showed that fewer than half of Americans are concerned that drone strikes kill innocent people. The public’s tacit approval for the destruction of Muslim communities overseas might also draw the ire of people who have to live among the corpses and craters left after American drones fly through their skies. Donald Trump seems dangerous and ignorant. Reasonable people, most especially the small remainder of rational Republicans, are right to oppose him. At point of writing, however, Trump has not participated in the killing of any Muslims, innocent or otherwise. Obama, Cheney and Clinton cannot make the same claim. Americans, high and low, should proceed with caution when mentioning Muslims, human rights, and hospitality in the same sentence. Otherwise, the hypocrisy of criticizing mean words, while applauding or ignoring destructive actions might become rather obvious. The discipline of the American political and intellectual class is astonishing, considering that in all the bluster coming from and surrounding Trump, no one in the mainstream discusses the actual damage and wreckage resulting from American bombs, war, and invasion. To summarize the prevailing American ethic: It is wrong to say we should not let Muslims in the country. It is fine to kill them. People throughout the world, especially the victims, might begin to notice the inconsistency, and American officials and intellectuals might benefit from reacquainting themselves with the wisdom of children who recite rhymes about sticks and stones.
Here is a good thought experiment: Would you rather a country bar you from entry or have that country bomb your house? This question has not occurred to President Obama, Hillary Clinton, the mainstream media, or bleeding heart liberals like Dick Cheney and Paul Ryan. The nation’s most powerful political leaders, and most influential commentators, seem to find great gratification by puffing out their chests, furrowing their brows, and condemning Donald Trump’s latest exhibition of stupidity – the idea of issuing an immigration ban on Muslims. Ryan was particularly indignant as he attempted to save his party’s already scarred and disfigured face from the ever escalating public relations nightmare that is the Trump candidacy. “What was proposed yesterday,” Ryan referred to Trump’s idea to ban Muslims while pointing his finger in the mode of a disciplinary school teacher, “is not what this country stands for.” Former Vice President Dick Cheney also questioned that Americanism of the proposal with his own variation on the familiar turn of phrase, claiming that such a ban would “go against everything we stand for.” President Obama, eager to join the fun, denounced Trump’s plan as “bigotry,” and encouraged Americans to “hold fast to our values.” The values for which America stands, and must hold fast, do not include a moratorium on Muslim immigration, but according to bipartisan consensus, they do include routinely killing Muslims in multiple countries. Since 2002, the United States has invaded and occupied two countries with predominantly Muslim populations – Iraq and Afghanistan – and on a weekly basis has bombed those same two countries, Somalia, Syria, Yemen, and Pakistan. The evidence is overwhelming that the majority of the bombing victims are innocent civilians. The Intercept recently obtained government documents acknowledging that ninety percent of drone strikes result in the loss of innocent life. The inevitability of civilian death from drone strike explains why Reprieve, a human rights organization, was able to empirically verify that even though America has targeted only 41 terrorists for “extrajudicial” assassination, it has killed 1,147 people. Hillary Clinton recently indicted the buffoonish antics of Trump as “playing right into the hands of ISIS.” The presidential frontrunner is likely referring to the recruitment device anti-Islamic rhetoric creates for terrorist organizations that thrive on the demented idea that the West is at war against their religion. Considering that bombs and missiles are deadlier weapons of war than the mouth of Donald Trump, her analysis would apply even more severely to the invasion of Libya she oversaw as Secretary of State, and the relentless bombing campaign her former boss manages from the White House. The death of family and friends likely inspires more hatred for the United States than the incoherent speeches – no matter how hateful – of a delusional real estate mogul. A Pew Research survey showed that fewer than half of Americans are concerned that drone strikes kill innocent people. The public’s tacit approval for the destruction of Muslim communities overseas might also draw the ire of people who have to live among the corpses and craters left after American drones fly through their skies. Donald Trump seems dangerous and ignorant. Reasonable people, most especially the small remainder of rational Republicans, are right to oppose him. At point of writing, however, Trump has not participated in the killing of any Muslims, innocent or otherwise. Obama, Cheney and Clinton cannot make the same claim. Americans, high and low, should proceed with caution when mentioning Muslims, human rights, and hospitality in the same sentence. Otherwise, the hypocrisy of criticizing mean words, while applauding or ignoring destructive actions might become rather obvious. The discipline of the American political and intellectual class is astonishing, considering that in all the bluster coming from and surrounding Trump, no one in the mainstream discusses the actual damage and wreckage resulting from American bombs, war, and invasion. To summarize the prevailing American ethic: It is wrong to say we should not let Muslims in the country. It is fine to kill them. People throughout the world, especially the victims, might begin to notice the inconsistency, and American officials and intellectuals might benefit from reacquainting themselves with the wisdom of children who recite rhymes about sticks and stones.
The myth of the quiet Beatle: Time for Gen X to ease up on the George Harrison hype
The quiet Beatle has been less quiet lately – even more than a decade after his death. Martin Scorsese’s “Living in the Material World,” from 2011, made a strong case for George Harrison as a major player in the Beatles and as a deeply soulful figure who never quite got his due. “The basic purpose of this movie is to stick up for Harrison,” The Guardian wrote, “and for his unfashionable, unpretentious need for a spiritual purpose in his music and his life: and Scorsese's film suggests that alone in the Beatles, and perhaps alone in pop's premier league, Harrison was an authentic spiritual figure.” And now a concert film – from a 2014 tribute show at the Fonda Theater in Los Angeles – and accompanying album has been announced for February. Brian Wilson, Spoon’s Britt Daniels, Perry Farrell, Norah Jones, and others will be involved. (Even, oddly, Conan O’Brien, who plays “Old Brown Shoe.”) For some Gen X fans, George is the perfect Beatle, and it’s no coincidence that Xer musicians like Elliott Smith and Beck covered his songs. For an overlooked, often misunderstood generation, embracing the overlooked, often misunderstood Beatle – one frequently shoved aside on the band’s albums by John Lennon and Paul McCartney -- makes symbolic sense. So how major a musician was Harrison, in the end? The uncomfortable truth is that the narrative that George’s talents were somehow oppressed by the band’s dominant songwriting team breaks down when you look at the whole career. He did his best work during the Beatles years – songs like “If I Needed Someone,” “I Want to Tell You,” and “Taxman” from the band’s middle period are as good as later songs like “Something.” And his guitar playing on the band’s early records is crisp, understated, rockabilly-inspired – and as inventive as his later (and more celebrated) slide-guitar work. In short, when he was liberated by the band’s breakup, he immediately came up with one solo record -- “All Things Must Pass” -- with some great songs like “Isn’t It a Pity,” “My Sweet Lord,” Dylan’s “But Not For You” and a wonderfully warm sound. And it was followed by a lot of albums even more spotty than the other Beatles’ post-breakup work. He's an effectively vulnerable singer, and there are strong tunes dropped in here and there like “All Those Years Ago,” which is, ironically, a fond reminiscence of Lennon, a bandmate he often clashed with. (Lennon could be cruel and unfair about Harrison’s talent and had little patience for his spiritual yearnings.) Could it have worked out differently? Harrison was the first Beatle to release a solo album – “Wonderwall Music” came out in 1968 – and he’d been restless for years. McCartney said that the guitarist’s songs, after lagging, had become “at least as good as ours.” In the ‘80s, Michael Palin of Monty Python described Harrison as “recovering from being a Beatle.” But with the exception of the posthumous “Brainwashed” album, Harrison got less interesting the further he got from the group that purportedly held him back. And he allowed a lot of his work to be hellishly glossed up by ELO’s Jeff Lynne. The natural response to all this is that Lennon and McCartney had trouble matching the quality of their Beatles work post-breakup. Those two were a team much of the time even if their relationship was fraught and unstable. The George myth, by contrast, is that he was the deep loner who didn’t need a partnership, but freedom and independence. George Harrison was a serious musician and, by most accounts, a profound guy; it’s impossible to imagine the Beatles without him. He helped bring Indian music and the sitar to his old band and to the Anglo-American world in general. Let’s celebrate and respect the man and his legacy. I’m looking forward to “George Fest,” too. But it’s hard not to wish the legend of George as the Beatle who just needed to break free had a little more to it. 
The quiet Beatle has been less quiet lately – even more than a decade after his death. Martin Scorsese’s “Living in the Material World,” from 2011, made a strong case for George Harrison as a major player in the Beatles and as a deeply soulful figure who never quite got his due. “The basic purpose of this movie is to stick up for Harrison,” The Guardian wrote, “and for his unfashionable, unpretentious need for a spiritual purpose in his music and his life: and Scorsese's film suggests that alone in the Beatles, and perhaps alone in pop's premier league, Harrison was an authentic spiritual figure.” And now a concert film – from a 2014 tribute show at the Fonda Theater in Los Angeles – and accompanying album has been announced for February. Brian Wilson, Spoon’s Britt Daniels, Perry Farrell, Norah Jones, and others will be involved. (Even, oddly, Conan O’Brien, who plays “Old Brown Shoe.”) For some Gen X fans, George is the perfect Beatle, and it’s no coincidence that Xer musicians like Elliott Smith and Beck covered his songs. For an overlooked, often misunderstood generation, embracing the overlooked, often misunderstood Beatle – one frequently shoved aside on the band’s albums by John Lennon and Paul McCartney -- makes symbolic sense. So how major a musician was Harrison, in the end? The uncomfortable truth is that the narrative that George’s talents were somehow oppressed by the band’s dominant songwriting team breaks down when you look at the whole career. He did his best work during the Beatles years – songs like “If I Needed Someone,” “I Want to Tell You,” and “Taxman” from the band’s middle period are as good as later songs like “Something.” And his guitar playing on the band’s early records is crisp, understated, rockabilly-inspired – and as inventive as his later (and more celebrated) slide-guitar work. In short, when he was liberated by the band’s breakup, he immediately came up with one solo record -- “All Things Must Pass” -- with some great songs like “Isn’t It a Pity,” “My Sweet Lord,” Dylan’s “But Not For You” and a wonderfully warm sound. And it was followed by a lot of albums even more spotty than the other Beatles’ post-breakup work. He's an effectively vulnerable singer, and there are strong tunes dropped in here and there like “All Those Years Ago,” which is, ironically, a fond reminiscence of Lennon, a bandmate he often clashed with. (Lennon could be cruel and unfair about Harrison’s talent and had little patience for his spiritual yearnings.) Could it have worked out differently? Harrison was the first Beatle to release a solo album – “Wonderwall Music” came out in 1968 – and he’d been restless for years. McCartney said that the guitarist’s songs, after lagging, had become “at least as good as ours.” In the ‘80s, Michael Palin of Monty Python described Harrison as “recovering from being a Beatle.” But with the exception of the posthumous “Brainwashed” album, Harrison got less interesting the further he got from the group that purportedly held him back. And he allowed a lot of his work to be hellishly glossed up by ELO’s Jeff Lynne. The natural response to all this is that Lennon and McCartney had trouble matching the quality of their Beatles work post-breakup. Those two were a team much of the time even if their relationship was fraught and unstable. The George myth, by contrast, is that he was the deep loner who didn’t need a partnership, but freedom and independence. George Harrison was a serious musician and, by most accounts, a profound guy; it’s impossible to imagine the Beatles without him. He helped bring Indian music and the sitar to his old band and to the Anglo-American world in general. Let’s celebrate and respect the man and his legacy. I’m looking forward to “George Fest,” too. But it’s hard not to wish the legend of George as the Beatle who just needed to break free had a little more to it.
The quiet Beatle has been less quiet lately – even more than a decade after his death. Martin Scorsese’s “Living in the Material World,” from 2011, made a strong case for George Harrison as a major player in the Beatles and as a deeply soulful figure who never quite got his due. “The basic purpose of this movie is to stick up for Harrison,” The Guardian wrote, “and for his unfashionable, unpretentious need for a spiritual purpose in his music and his life: and Scorsese's film suggests that alone in the Beatles, and perhaps alone in pop's premier league, Harrison was an authentic spiritual figure.” And now a concert film – from a 2014 tribute show at the Fonda Theater in Los Angeles – and accompanying album has been announced for February. Brian Wilson, Spoon’s Britt Daniels, Perry Farrell, Norah Jones, and others will be involved. (Even, oddly, Conan O’Brien, who plays “Old Brown Shoe.”) For some Gen X fans, George is the perfect Beatle, and it’s no coincidence that Xer musicians like Elliott Smith and Beck covered his songs. For an overlooked, often misunderstood generation, embracing the overlooked, often misunderstood Beatle – one frequently shoved aside on the band’s albums by John Lennon and Paul McCartney -- makes symbolic sense. So how major a musician was Harrison, in the end? The uncomfortable truth is that the narrative that George’s talents were somehow oppressed by the band’s dominant songwriting team breaks down when you look at the whole career. He did his best work during the Beatles years – songs like “If I Needed Someone,” “I Want to Tell You,” and “Taxman” from the band’s middle period are as good as later songs like “Something.” And his guitar playing on the band’s early records is crisp, understated, rockabilly-inspired – and as inventive as his later (and more celebrated) slide-guitar work. In short, when he was liberated by the band’s breakup, he immediately came up with one solo record -- “All Things Must Pass” -- with some great songs like “Isn’t It a Pity,” “My Sweet Lord,” Dylan’s “But Not For You” and a wonderfully warm sound. And it was followed by a lot of albums even more spotty than the other Beatles’ post-breakup work. He's an effectively vulnerable singer, and there are strong tunes dropped in here and there like “All Those Years Ago,” which is, ironically, a fond reminiscence of Lennon, a bandmate he often clashed with. (Lennon could be cruel and unfair about Harrison’s talent and had little patience for his spiritual yearnings.) Could it have worked out differently? Harrison was the first Beatle to release a solo album – “Wonderwall Music” came out in 1968 – and he’d been restless for years. McCartney said that the guitarist’s songs, after lagging, had become “at least as good as ours.” In the ‘80s, Michael Palin of Monty Python described Harrison as “recovering from being a Beatle.” But with the exception of the posthumous “Brainwashed” album, Harrison got less interesting the further he got from the group that purportedly held him back. And he allowed a lot of his work to be hellishly glossed up by ELO’s Jeff Lynne. The natural response to all this is that Lennon and McCartney had trouble matching the quality of their Beatles work post-breakup. Those two were a team much of the time even if their relationship was fraught and unstable. The George myth, by contrast, is that he was the deep loner who didn’t need a partnership, but freedom and independence. George Harrison was a serious musician and, by most accounts, a profound guy; it’s impossible to imagine the Beatles without him. He helped bring Indian music and the sitar to his old band and to the Anglo-American world in general. Let’s celebrate and respect the man and his legacy. I’m looking forward to “George Fest,” too. But it’s hard not to wish the legend of George as the Beatle who just needed to break free had a little more to it.
Ben Carson throws a temper tantrum, threatens to leave the GOP
Ben Carson doesn't want to be forgotten. Left out of the headlines for weeks and watching his poll numbers plummet, the retired neurosurgeon is out threatening to leave the Republican Party after a new report outlined how party officials are grappling with the unfortunate potential reality of a Donald Trump nomination. “I assure you Donald Trump won’t be the only one leaving the party," Carson warned in a statement released by his campaign on Friday, responding to a new Washington Post report on a secret meeting led by Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to plot the prospects of a brokered convention in Cleveland come 2016. More than 20 party officials met near Capitol Hill on Monday for the private dinner to lay the groundwork for a potential floor fight, finally coming to grips with the very real possibility that Trump could become the Republican presidential nominee. "I pray that the report in the Post this morning was incorrect," the devout Seventh-day Adventist said. "If it is correct, every voter who is standing for change must know they are being betrayed. I won’t stand for it." He continued: “If the leaders of the Republican Party want to destroy the party, they should continue to hold meetings like the one described in the Washington Post this morning.” Carson, who has seen his one-time lead in Iowa evaporate while his rival, Trump, has only cemented his support in the state and nationally, attempted to borrow some of The Donald's swagger and make a forceful threat of his own: 
If this was the beginning of a plan to subvert the will of the voters and replaces it with the will of the political elite, I assure you Donald Trump will not be the only one leaving the party.
December 10, 2015
Cut it out, Democrats! Why Trump vs. Hillary isn’t the miracle you seem to think it is
"Is Trump Working For Hillary?" That's what a recent National Review article wondered aloud. "It’s not clear whether he set out intentionally to elect Hillary Clinton, but there is little question that he could not be fulfilling the role of Republican bogeyman to greater effect," the author, Mona Charen, wrote about Trump. Weird conspiracy theory aside—if that were the case, couldn't Trump have just, y'know, endorsed Hillary?—Charen's basic sentiment has been repeated widely as Trump has morphed from mere bigot to worse than Voldemort. Republicans have started pushing this framework in an attempt to scare voters away from Trump. "Donald Trump would be the dream opponent for the Democratic Party," Karl Rove opined in the Wall Street Journal. "Donald Trump is Hillary Clinton's Christmas gift wrapped under a tree," Carly Fiorina warned. Pop culture's also getting into this idea. "Saturday Night Live," for instance, opened its last show with a sketch where Trump recalled Clinton calling him on the phone and gleefully telling him that she hoped he would be her opponent in the general election. The idea that Trump is the Democrats' best weapon has been around for a while—consider this Washington Post article from July about Democrats "cheering" his candidacy. And it's perhaps understandable why some would see a Trump nomination as a boon to Hillary Clinton or anybody else who wants to block a Republican from the White House. But I hope that this line of thinking doesn't gain too much credence, because Donald Trump's candidacy is no gift to anyone. Nobody, even the most hardened Democratic partisans, should be gloating about his continued strength, because it's helping to plunge us into truly dangerous waters. A chilling Politico article highlighted some of the people who are profiting the most off of Trump's activities -- white supremacists and neo-Nazis:
Stormfront, the most prominent American white supremacist website, is upgrading its servers in part to cope with a Trump traffic spike. And former Louisiana Rep. David Duke reports that the businessman has given more Americans cover to speak out loud about white nationalism than at any time since his own political campaigns in the 1990s. [...] “Demoralization has been the biggest enemy and Trump is changing all that,” said Stormfront founder Don Black, who reports additional listeners and call volume to his phone-in radio show, in addition to the site’s traffic bump. Black predicts that the white nationalist forces set in motion by Trump will be a legacy that outlives the businessman’s political career. “He’s certainly creating a movement that will continue independently of him even if he does fold at some point.”Even Trump on his worst days would probably admit to himself that he didn't intend to strengthen the white nationalist movement with his candidacy, but that is precisely what he is doing. There's already evidence that white supremacists constitute the biggest domestic security threat in the United States. It's not outlandish to imagine that threat increasing in the wake of the leading Republican presidential candidate whipping up such an openly racist frenzy. The dangers posed to Muslims are all-too-obvious. A recent survey showed 56 percent of all Americans saying that Islam is incompatible with American values — and that poll was taken before the Paris or San Bernardino attacks and before Trump's fascist escalation. Broken down, the numbers are even worse: 76 percent of Republicans, 57 percent of independents and 43 percent of Democrats sided with the idea that you cannot be a Muslim and a decent American at the same time. If Trump were the nominee, these numbers would only increase. If he were the nominee, the media would treat Islamophobia as one side in the election campaign—even more so than it already does. Trump's fellow Republicans would rally around him. We'd be told that his bigotry wasn't so bad after all. It would be the biggest platform those ideas could possibly hope to occupy. It is hard to think of of a single outcome more damaging in electoral politics, short of Trump actually winning. And even if—as is far more likely—Trump doesn't become the Republican nominee, the damage wrought by his candidacy and the forces propelling it has already been considerable. Beyond the fact that there's no significant daylight between him and his GOP rivals on Islam, the climate of anti-Muslim racism we're living through is having real-world consequences. Just look at what happened to Saadiq Long, a Muslim American veteran who was falsely smeared by right-wing media as being an ISIS operative. There will be lots more where that came from. The Council on American Islamic Relations -- whose Washington office was evacuated on Thursday after receiving an envelope containing white powder -- has reported an "unprecedented" spike in Islamophobia after the Paris attacks. There will be lots more where that came from too, unless and until there is an all-out assault on this kind of racism. We have been here before. One of the most persistent ideas to crop up as Trump has gone on his rampage in the past few weeks has been the notion that his antics are "un-American." This is, of course, ridiculous. Racism has formed a core part of the American identity since the country was founded on the backs of slaves. Anti-immigrant hysteria has targeted group after group after group for hundreds of years. Wartime has only made things worse, as Japanese-Americans know all too well. This all goes for religion, too; Catholics, for instance, were once viewed with deep fear and loathing. So Trump is tapping into a familiar strain in American life. The only thing that has ever effectively countered this strain—that has ensured the advancement of progress in the U.S.—has been the continual resistance to it by determined movements of ordinary people. Anyone crossing their fingers for a Trump nomination should remember that. This stuff cannot be allowed to go on. It has to be fought and defeated. Nothing is more important."Is Trump Working For Hillary?" That's what a recent National Review article wondered aloud. "It’s not clear whether he set out intentionally to elect Hillary Clinton, but there is little question that he could not be fulfilling the role of Republican bogeyman to greater effect," the author, Mona Charen, wrote about Trump. Weird conspiracy theory aside—if that were the case, couldn't Trump have just, y'know, endorsed Hillary?—Charen's basic sentiment has been repeated widely as Trump has morphed from mere bigot to worse than Voldemort. Republicans have started pushing this framework in an attempt to scare voters away from Trump. "Donald Trump would be the dream opponent for the Democratic Party," Karl Rove opined in the Wall Street Journal. "Donald Trump is Hillary Clinton's Christmas gift wrapped under a tree," Carly Fiorina warned. Pop culture's also getting into this idea. "Saturday Night Live," for instance, opened its last show with a sketch where Trump recalled Clinton calling him on the phone and gleefully telling him that she hoped he would be her opponent in the general election. The idea that Trump is the Democrats' best weapon has been around for a while—consider this Washington Post article from July about Democrats "cheering" his candidacy. And it's perhaps understandable why some would see a Trump nomination as a boon to Hillary Clinton or anybody else who wants to block a Republican from the White House. But I hope that this line of thinking doesn't gain too much credence, because Donald Trump's candidacy is no gift to anyone. Nobody, even the most hardened Democratic partisans, should be gloating about his continued strength, because it's helping to plunge us into truly dangerous waters. A chilling Politico article highlighted some of the people who are profiting the most off of Trump's activities -- white supremacists and neo-Nazis:
Stormfront, the most prominent American white supremacist website, is upgrading its servers in part to cope with a Trump traffic spike. And former Louisiana Rep. David Duke reports that the businessman has given more Americans cover to speak out loud about white nationalism than at any time since his own political campaigns in the 1990s. [...] “Demoralization has been the biggest enemy and Trump is changing all that,” said Stormfront founder Don Black, who reports additional listeners and call volume to his phone-in radio show, in addition to the site’s traffic bump. Black predicts that the white nationalist forces set in motion by Trump will be a legacy that outlives the businessman’s political career. “He’s certainly creating a movement that will continue independently of him even if he does fold at some point.”Even Trump on his worst days would probably admit to himself that he didn't intend to strengthen the white nationalist movement with his candidacy, but that is precisely what he is doing. There's already evidence that white supremacists constitute the biggest domestic security threat in the United States. It's not outlandish to imagine that threat increasing in the wake of the leading Republican presidential candidate whipping up such an openly racist frenzy. The dangers posed to Muslims are all-too-obvious. A recent survey showed 56 percent of all Americans saying that Islam is incompatible with American values — and that poll was taken before the Paris or San Bernardino attacks and before Trump's fascist escalation. Broken down, the numbers are even worse: 76 percent of Republicans, 57 percent of independents and 43 percent of Democrats sided with the idea that you cannot be a Muslim and a decent American at the same time. If Trump were the nominee, these numbers would only increase. If he were the nominee, the media would treat Islamophobia as one side in the election campaign—even more so than it already does. Trump's fellow Republicans would rally around him. We'd be told that his bigotry wasn't so bad after all. It would be the biggest platform those ideas could possibly hope to occupy. It is hard to think of of a single outcome more damaging in electoral politics, short of Trump actually winning. And even if—as is far more likely—Trump doesn't become the Republican nominee, the damage wrought by his candidacy and the forces propelling it has already been considerable. Beyond the fact that there's no significant daylight between him and his GOP rivals on Islam, the climate of anti-Muslim racism we're living through is having real-world consequences. Just look at what happened to Saadiq Long, a Muslim American veteran who was falsely smeared by right-wing media as being an ISIS operative. There will be lots more where that came from. The Council on American Islamic Relations -- whose Washington office was evacuated on Thursday after receiving an envelope containing white powder -- has reported an "unprecedented" spike in Islamophobia after the Paris attacks. There will be lots more where that came from too, unless and until there is an all-out assault on this kind of racism. We have been here before. One of the most persistent ideas to crop up as Trump has gone on his rampage in the past few weeks has been the notion that his antics are "un-American." This is, of course, ridiculous. Racism has formed a core part of the American identity since the country was founded on the backs of slaves. Anti-immigrant hysteria has targeted group after group after group for hundreds of years. Wartime has only made things worse, as Japanese-Americans know all too well. This all goes for religion, too; Catholics, for instance, were once viewed with deep fear and loathing. So Trump is tapping into a familiar strain in American life. The only thing that has ever effectively countered this strain—that has ensured the advancement of progress in the U.S.—has been the continual resistance to it by determined movements of ordinary people. Anyone crossing their fingers for a Trump nomination should remember that. This stuff cannot be allowed to go on. It has to be fought and defeated. Nothing is more important.
“We will not be silent”: American Jews hit the streets during Hanukkah to fight Islamophobia and racism
This Hanukkah, Jews across the U.S. are taking to the street to rally against the Islamophobia and racism rampant in their communities. On each night in the eight-day-long religious holiday, Jewish activists are participating in protests against various forms of injustice in a campaign initiated by the Network Against Islamophobia, a project called for by national peace organization Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) to challenge anti-Muslim bigotry, along with Jews Against Islamophobia, a coalition of JVP-New York and the activist group Jews Say No! The demonstrations are being held in 15 cities throughout the country, including Chicago, Boston, Miami, Seattle, Atlanta. The first demonstration was held at New York City's Rockefeller Center on Sunday, Dec. 6, the first night of Hanukkah. Activists are conveying their commitments through signs in the shape of eight candles, which together comprise a symbolic menorah. A ninth sign, modeled after the shamash, or "helper" candle, reads "Jews against Islamophobia and racism — rekindling our commitment to justice." The eight pledges listed on the other candles are: We will not be silent about anti-Muslim and racist hate speech and hate crimes; We condemn state surveillance of the Muslim, Arab, and South Asian communities; We challenge, through our words and actions, institutionalized racism and state-sanctioned anti-Black violence; We protest the use of Islamophobia and anti-Arab racism to justify Israel’s repressive policies against Palestinians; We fight anti-Muslim profiling and racial profiling in all its forms; We call for an end to racist policing #SayHerName #BlackLivesMatter; We stand against U.S. policies driven by the “war on terror” that demonize Islam and devalue, target, and kill Muslims; and We welcome Syrian refugees and stand strong for immigrants’ rights and refugee rights. "Our goal in creating this action during Hanukkah and in creating the eight statements — which mark a rekindling of our commitments to justice — was to make visible the extent and multiple manifestations of Islamophobia and racism and to re-commit ourselves fully to this work," JVP activist Donna Nevel told Salon. "Intersections and connections are being made, not to create sameness but to strengthen the distinct, yet overlapping struggles for justice." Nevel is a founding member of both the Network Against Islamophobia and Jews Against Islamophobia. She was involved in the rallies in New York and Miami. "I believe that our role as members of the Jewish community is to continue to speak out as Jews opposed to Islamophobia; to continue in our work to expose the underlying issues and links related to Islamophobia and the politics of both Israel and the U.S.; to meaningfully engage with those who are living and experiencing racism and Islamophobia; and to be principled, consistent partners in this work," Nevel added. The nationwide protests vary in type. At the more traditional New York demonstration, there were readings from the rabbinical council and other statements, along with candle-lighting and singing. [caption id="attachment_14270422" align="aligncenter" width="620"]
JVP activists outside NYC's Rockefeller Center on the first night of Hanukkah (Credit: JVP-NY)[/caption] In Milwaukee, activists protested right-wing Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who was invited by the Milwaukee Jewish Federation to be honored by lighting the menorah. Rachel Buff, co-coordinator of Milwaukee JVP, told Salon that she and fellow members of the groups Jews for Refugee Relief thought his participation at the event was "wrong" and "ironic." "Gov. Walker has been among state governors opposing the resettlement of refugees from the Middle East in the United States," Buff said. "Grounded in a vicious Islamophobia, this anti-refugee sentiment fosters oppression and tyranny, the very things routed by the Maccabees in the Hanukkah story." [caption id="attachment_14270387" align="aligncenter" width="620"]
Milwaukee JVP Co-Coordinator Jodi Melamed protesting Gov. Scott Walker's anti-refugee policies (Credit: Milwaukee JVP)[/caption] Buff joined several other activists in bringing signs to the Milwaukee Jewish Federation Hanukkah celebration. Fellow Milwaukee JVP Co-Coordinator Jodi Melamed held a sign that read, "Anne Frank's visa application was turned down by the U.S. government," referring to the German-Jewish young girl who was killed, along with her family, in the Holocaust. "If [Frank] had been accepted she could have been a 77-year-old woman living in Boston today," Melamed's sign read. "Remember that when you hear all this anti-refugee rhetoric." Another Milwaukee JVP activist held a sign reading "Walker is a schmuck." In Miami, protesters gathered in front of the Torch of Friendship, in the downtown area. [caption id="attachment_14270416" align="aligncenter" width="620"]
JVP protesters on the third night of Hanukkah in Miami (Credit: JVP South Florida)[/caption] In Chicago, JVP activists will be protesting outside of the Jewish United Fund (JUF) on Dec. 10, condemning the organization for its partnership with the Chicago Police Department and the Israeli military, which are working together in counter-terrorism training programs that are frequently tied to increasingly violent clampdown on peaceful protests and the militarization of the streets. "As Jews, we are appalled that the JUF has enabled police militarism in Chicago by sponsoring trips to Israel for police leaders to 'share best practices and learn about Israel’s cutting-edge policing strategies and technologies' and 'bring the lessons home,'" JVP-Chicago said in a statement. "We cannot stand idly by as the JUF promotes these 'worst practices' of militarism and racism," JVP-Chicago continued. "The JUF, an institution that funds Jewish social service agencies in our city, is accountable to the community it purports to represent. As Black activist groups throughout Chicago have issued a call for an end to 'business as usual,' we believe it is our responsibility to stand with them." Salon reached out to the JUF, asking if it would like to respond to JVP's criticisms. Vice President Aaron Cohen said he was "appalled" at JVP's comments, which he called "spurious rationale." "This is nothing but a cynical maneuver intended to advance an anti-Israel and anti-Jewish federation agenda on the back of a relationship that has absolutely nothing to do with racism or criminal behavior in the Chicago Police Department," Cohen stated. "JUF and our local Jewish agencies, just like other ethnic and faith-based organizations, including Muslim ones, maintain strong ties with law enforcement at every level. The relationship centers on our role in enhancing security for synagogues, schools, JCCs, and other community institutions," Cohen added. "Our Muslim counterparts maintain the same sorts of relationships for exactly the same reasons—to keep communal institutions secure. Visits to the Israel police have been instructive parts of our relationship, and it is fair to say that lessons learned in Israel are also applied to help keep both mosques and synagogues safe in Chicago. By accusing a Jewish communal institution of complicity in criminal police behavior, JVP actually is endangering Jews." JVP National says its hopes, with the week of Hanukkah actions, to "challenge state-sanctioned Islamophobia and racism and to call for the United States to welcome refugees."
JVP activists outside NYC's Rockefeller Center on the first night of Hanukkah (Credit: JVP-NY)[/caption] In Milwaukee, activists protested right-wing Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who was invited by the Milwaukee Jewish Federation to be honored by lighting the menorah. Rachel Buff, co-coordinator of Milwaukee JVP, told Salon that she and fellow members of the groups Jews for Refugee Relief thought his participation at the event was "wrong" and "ironic." "Gov. Walker has been among state governors opposing the resettlement of refugees from the Middle East in the United States," Buff said. "Grounded in a vicious Islamophobia, this anti-refugee sentiment fosters oppression and tyranny, the very things routed by the Maccabees in the Hanukkah story." [caption id="attachment_14270387" align="aligncenter" width="620"] Milwaukee JVP Co-Coordinator Jodi Melamed protesting Gov. Scott Walker's anti-refugee policies (Credit: Milwaukee JVP)[/caption] Buff joined several other activists in bringing signs to the Milwaukee Jewish Federation Hanukkah celebration. Fellow Milwaukee JVP Co-Coordinator Jodi Melamed held a sign that read, "Anne Frank's visa application was turned down by the U.S. government," referring to the German-Jewish young girl who was killed, along with her family, in the Holocaust. "If [Frank] had been accepted she could have been a 77-year-old woman living in Boston today," Melamed's sign read. "Remember that when you hear all this anti-refugee rhetoric." Another Milwaukee JVP activist held a sign reading "Walker is a schmuck." In Miami, protesters gathered in front of the Torch of Friendship, in the downtown area. [caption id="attachment_14270416" align="aligncenter" width="620"] JVP protesters on the third night of Hanukkah in Miami (Credit: JVP South Florida)[/caption] In Chicago, JVP activists will be protesting outside of the Jewish United Fund (JUF) on Dec. 10, condemning the organization for its partnership with the Chicago Police Department and the Israeli military, which are working together in counter-terrorism training programs that are frequently tied to increasingly violent clampdown on peaceful protests and the militarization of the streets. "As Jews, we are appalled that the JUF has enabled police militarism in Chicago by sponsoring trips to Israel for police leaders to 'share best practices and learn about Israel’s cutting-edge policing strategies and technologies' and 'bring the lessons home,'" JVP-Chicago said in a statement. "We cannot stand idly by as the JUF promotes these 'worst practices' of militarism and racism," JVP-Chicago continued. "The JUF, an institution that funds Jewish social service agencies in our city, is accountable to the community it purports to represent. As Black activist groups throughout Chicago have issued a call for an end to 'business as usual,' we believe it is our responsibility to stand with them." Salon reached out to the JUF, asking if it would like to respond to JVP's criticisms. Vice President Aaron Cohen said he was "appalled" at JVP's comments, which he called "spurious rationale." "This is nothing but a cynical maneuver intended to advance an anti-Israel and anti-Jewish federation agenda on the back of a relationship that has absolutely nothing to do with racism or criminal behavior in the Chicago Police Department," Cohen stated. "JUF and our local Jewish agencies, just like other ethnic and faith-based organizations, including Muslim ones, maintain strong ties with law enforcement at every level. The relationship centers on our role in enhancing security for synagogues, schools, JCCs, and other community institutions," Cohen added. "Our Muslim counterparts maintain the same sorts of relationships for exactly the same reasons—to keep communal institutions secure. Visits to the Israel police have been instructive parts of our relationship, and it is fair to say that lessons learned in Israel are also applied to help keep both mosques and synagogues safe in Chicago. By accusing a Jewish communal institution of complicity in criminal police behavior, JVP actually is endangering Jews." JVP National says its hopes, with the week of Hanukkah actions, to "challenge state-sanctioned Islamophobia and racism and to call for the United States to welcome refugees." "We understand that the ongoing violence against Muslims and those perceived to be Muslim takes place in the context of ongoing and systemic Islamophobia and racism that are pervasive and deep within our society," explained Elly Bulkin, of Jews Against Islamophobia and the Network Against Islamophobia. "We are committed to challenging all forms of Islamophobia and racism in whatever ways we can."
Ted Cruz’s mean streak: How his “likability” campaign faces different battles than Hillary’s
Senator Ted Cruz is, apparently, trying to be “likable.” The New York Times has a front-page story about the new push: “Known for Making Enemies, Cruz Tries, Stiffly, To Make Friends.” It’s a problem that the likely Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, has had for a long time. (“You’re likable enough, Hillary,” Barack Obama told her when the two were running for the presidency in 2008.) But gender complicates things here. What do we expect from women in leadership positions? What makes a politician likable? How have things changed over the years? And what would it take for Ted Cruz to convince us he’s a fun guy to hang out with? Salon spoke to David Greenberg, a professor of history and journalism at Rutgers University. Greenberg is also the author of “Nixon’s Shadow: The History of An Image” and “Republic of Spin: An Inside History of the American Presidency,” due in January. The interview has been lightly edited for clarity. Ted Cruz is now chasing a quality that Hilary Clinton has long pursued, with varying success, for a long time. How far back have American voters expected their politicians to be likable? And how does gender change the terms of likability? Likability has been an issue for politicians going back at least to the early 20th century -- when we start getting the illusion of knowing their personalities, and we start seeing them in newsreels and seeing their pictures all over the place in tabloid newspapers, and hearing them on recordings and on the radio. Television especially fosters this illusion of intimacy – we feel like we know them as people. When of course we don’t. It’s a question of authenticity, which is a slightly different facet of the same set of concerns. I think, obviously, with gender we are still sorting out how we – and that goes for women as well as men – feel about women as political actors and political leaders. Because female politicians, at the national level especially, are so recent in this country. Yeah, exactly. Even though we’ve progressed a lot as a nation in our understanding of women’s roles, there’s still a lot of baggage there. Women face a much steeper challenge in becoming liked because so much of the expectation on women to be liked relies on either cutesiness, flirtatiousness, sensitivity, a certain empathic quality – which are often seen as in conflict with traditional qualities associated with strong leadership. So the burden on women is to be able to exhibit both of those clusters of personality traits. Typically women are seen as falling into one category or the other. To be a strong woman who has credibility on, say, national security issues can require a certain toughness or gruffness – qualities we don’t always associate with likable women in everyday life. These are broad stereotypes, of course, and there are many women who pull it off. But that’s at the core of the dilemma. To what extent is gender at the root of Hillary Clinton’s problems with this? I think it’s one of the issues at the root, but I wouldn’t reduce it all to gender. I think she is inherently a guarded person. Unlike her husband, or unlike other women who are more personally ebullient, she is someone who is naturally calculating, strategic-minded, suspicious of the media – for good reason. Someone whose experiences in public life have reinforced those tendencies. She struggles with the expectation that our politicians be spontaneous and unfiltered and off the cuff, even though that’s only something we sometimes say we want. So the likability issue comes up with her because she is not often enough given to spontaneity and warmth. Even though sometimes she shows that side of herself. To what extent do other countries play the gender issue differently? Margaret Thatcher and Angela Merkel are hard to see as conventionally likable or traditionally feminine. Certainly those women did not stress likability. They stressed strength, leadership, what we might with some degree of trepidation call a more masculine model of leadership. What would it take to make Ted Cruz likable? His staff seems dedicated to making it work, but I’m not sure it’s possible. Cruz’s problem – and it’s a problem for Chris Christie, and Giuliani a few years back – is they come to power, rise to prominence and popularity, precisely because of their mean streak. Because they’re seen as angry, they’re seen as not taking any b.s. from anyone… So again, in a different way, qualities of likability are at odds with the particular brand of leadership these men are purporting to offer. Cruz just strikes me as someone who is just authentically a kind of ornery person. And a know-it-all as well… Yeah. His skill is he’s very practiced and fluent, whether in debates or other public experiences. He’s articulate and bright – he’s capable of a certain self-discipline. He can send some signals, talk about biography, talk about personal traits… That’s another aspect of this – the question of humanizing candidates… I found in my research, articles saying, “This year in the 1920 election, the candidate with the better narrative, or the better story, is going to win.” Those do seem to sometimes work toward a more likable image. I’m thinking here of the Checkers speech. Nixon – who was one of the least likable politicians we’ve had in our history – really did pull it off. Cruz is, in his persona, somewhat Nixon-like. But Nixon pulled it off at the time – he talked about his wife and his daughters and his dog. You watch that speech today and it seems very phony and mawkish, and many liberals felt that way at the time. But it was overwhelmingly a popular speech. So it’s possible that with that Nixonian determination and practice, Cruz could talk about family, talk about personal experiences that tug at the heartstrings a little bit. And at least for a portion of the electorate that might not warm to his straight-up demeanor, he manages to reach them in ways he hasn’t so far. 
Senator Ted Cruz is, apparently, trying to be “likable.” The New York Times has a front-page story about the new push: “Known for Making Enemies, Cruz Tries, Stiffly, To Make Friends.” It’s a problem that the likely Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, has had for a long time. (“You’re likable enough, Hillary,” Barack Obama told her when the two were running for the presidency in 2008.) But gender complicates things here. What do we expect from women in leadership positions? What makes a politician likable? How have things changed over the years? And what would it take for Ted Cruz to convince us he’s a fun guy to hang out with? Salon spoke to David Greenberg, a professor of history and journalism at Rutgers University. Greenberg is also the author of “Nixon’s Shadow: The History of An Image” and “Republic of Spin: An Inside History of the American Presidency,” due in January. The interview has been lightly edited for clarity. Ted Cruz is now chasing a quality that Hilary Clinton has long pursued, with varying success, for a long time. How far back have American voters expected their politicians to be likable? And how does gender change the terms of likability? Likability has been an issue for politicians going back at least to the early 20th century -- when we start getting the illusion of knowing their personalities, and we start seeing them in newsreels and seeing their pictures all over the place in tabloid newspapers, and hearing them on recordings and on the radio. Television especially fosters this illusion of intimacy – we feel like we know them as people. When of course we don’t. It’s a question of authenticity, which is a slightly different facet of the same set of concerns. I think, obviously, with gender we are still sorting out how we – and that goes for women as well as men – feel about women as political actors and political leaders. Because female politicians, at the national level especially, are so recent in this country. Yeah, exactly. Even though we’ve progressed a lot as a nation in our understanding of women’s roles, there’s still a lot of baggage there. Women face a much steeper challenge in becoming liked because so much of the expectation on women to be liked relies on either cutesiness, flirtatiousness, sensitivity, a certain empathic quality – which are often seen as in conflict with traditional qualities associated with strong leadership. So the burden on women is to be able to exhibit both of those clusters of personality traits. Typically women are seen as falling into one category or the other. To be a strong woman who has credibility on, say, national security issues can require a certain toughness or gruffness – qualities we don’t always associate with likable women in everyday life. These are broad stereotypes, of course, and there are many women who pull it off. But that’s at the core of the dilemma. To what extent is gender at the root of Hillary Clinton’s problems with this? I think it’s one of the issues at the root, but I wouldn’t reduce it all to gender. I think she is inherently a guarded person. Unlike her husband, or unlike other women who are more personally ebullient, she is someone who is naturally calculating, strategic-minded, suspicious of the media – for good reason. Someone whose experiences in public life have reinforced those tendencies. She struggles with the expectation that our politicians be spontaneous and unfiltered and off the cuff, even though that’s only something we sometimes say we want. So the likability issue comes up with her because she is not often enough given to spontaneity and warmth. Even though sometimes she shows that side of herself. To what extent do other countries play the gender issue differently? Margaret Thatcher and Angela Merkel are hard to see as conventionally likable or traditionally feminine. Certainly those women did not stress likability. They stressed strength, leadership, what we might with some degree of trepidation call a more masculine model of leadership. What would it take to make Ted Cruz likable? His staff seems dedicated to making it work, but I’m not sure it’s possible. Cruz’s problem – and it’s a problem for Chris Christie, and Giuliani a few years back – is they come to power, rise to prominence and popularity, precisely because of their mean streak. Because they’re seen as angry, they’re seen as not taking any b.s. from anyone… So again, in a different way, qualities of likability are at odds with the particular brand of leadership these men are purporting to offer. Cruz just strikes me as someone who is just authentically a kind of ornery person. And a know-it-all as well… Yeah. His skill is he’s very practiced and fluent, whether in debates or other public experiences. He’s articulate and bright – he’s capable of a certain self-discipline. He can send some signals, talk about biography, talk about personal traits… That’s another aspect of this – the question of humanizing candidates… I found in my research, articles saying, “This year in the 1920 election, the candidate with the better narrative, or the better story, is going to win.” Those do seem to sometimes work toward a more likable image. I’m thinking here of the Checkers speech. Nixon – who was one of the least likable politicians we’ve had in our history – really did pull it off. Cruz is, in his persona, somewhat Nixon-like. But Nixon pulled it off at the time – he talked about his wife and his daughters and his dog. You watch that speech today and it seems very phony and mawkish, and many liberals felt that way at the time. But it was overwhelmingly a popular speech. So it’s possible that with that Nixonian determination and practice, Cruz could talk about family, talk about personal experiences that tug at the heartstrings a little bit. And at least for a portion of the electorate that might not warm to his straight-up demeanor, he manages to reach them in ways he hasn’t so far. Senator Ted Cruz is, apparently, trying to be “likable.” The New York Times has a front-page story about the new push: “Known for Making Enemies, Cruz Tries, Stiffly, To Make Friends.” It’s a problem that the likely Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, has had for a long time. (“You’re likable enough, Hillary,” Barack Obama told her when the two were running for the presidency in 2008.) But gender complicates things here. What do we expect from women in leadership positions? What makes a politician likable? How have things changed over the years? And what would it take for Ted Cruz to convince us he’s a fun guy to hang out with? Salon spoke to David Greenberg, a professor of history and journalism at Rutgers University. Greenberg is also the author of “Nixon’s Shadow: The History of An Image” and “Republic of Spin: An Inside History of the American Presidency,” due in January. The interview has been lightly edited for clarity. Ted Cruz is now chasing a quality that Hilary Clinton has long pursued, with varying success, for a long time. How far back have American voters expected their politicians to be likable? And how does gender change the terms of likability? Likability has been an issue for politicians going back at least to the early 20th century -- when we start getting the illusion of knowing their personalities, and we start seeing them in newsreels and seeing their pictures all over the place in tabloid newspapers, and hearing them on recordings and on the radio. Television especially fosters this illusion of intimacy – we feel like we know them as people. When of course we don’t. It’s a question of authenticity, which is a slightly different facet of the same set of concerns. I think, obviously, with gender we are still sorting out how we – and that goes for women as well as men – feel about women as political actors and political leaders. Because female politicians, at the national level especially, are so recent in this country. Yeah, exactly. Even though we’ve progressed a lot as a nation in our understanding of women’s roles, there’s still a lot of baggage there. Women face a much steeper challenge in becoming liked because so much of the expectation on women to be liked relies on either cutesiness, flirtatiousness, sensitivity, a certain empathic quality – which are often seen as in conflict with traditional qualities associated with strong leadership. So the burden on women is to be able to exhibit both of those clusters of personality traits. Typically women are seen as falling into one category or the other. To be a strong woman who has credibility on, say, national security issues can require a certain toughness or gruffness – qualities we don’t always associate with likable women in everyday life. These are broad stereotypes, of course, and there are many women who pull it off. But that’s at the core of the dilemma. To what extent is gender at the root of Hillary Clinton’s problems with this? I think it’s one of the issues at the root, but I wouldn’t reduce it all to gender. I think she is inherently a guarded person. Unlike her husband, or unlike other women who are more personally ebullient, she is someone who is naturally calculating, strategic-minded, suspicious of the media – for good reason. Someone whose experiences in public life have reinforced those tendencies. She struggles with the expectation that our politicians be spontaneous and unfiltered and off the cuff, even though that’s only something we sometimes say we want. So the likability issue comes up with her because she is not often enough given to spontaneity and warmth. Even though sometimes she shows that side of herself. To what extent do other countries play the gender issue differently? Margaret Thatcher and Angela Merkel are hard to see as conventionally likable or traditionally feminine. Certainly those women did not stress likability. They stressed strength, leadership, what we might with some degree of trepidation call a more masculine model of leadership. What would it take to make Ted Cruz likable? His staff seems dedicated to making it work, but I’m not sure it’s possible. Cruz’s problem – and it’s a problem for Chris Christie, and Giuliani a few years back – is they come to power, rise to prominence and popularity, precisely because of their mean streak. Because they’re seen as angry, they’re seen as not taking any b.s. from anyone… So again, in a different way, qualities of likability are at odds with the particular brand of leadership these men are purporting to offer. Cruz just strikes me as someone who is just authentically a kind of ornery person. And a know-it-all as well… Yeah. His skill is he’s very practiced and fluent, whether in debates or other public experiences. He’s articulate and bright – he’s capable of a certain self-discipline. He can send some signals, talk about biography, talk about personal traits… That’s another aspect of this – the question of humanizing candidates… I found in my research, articles saying, “This year in the 1920 election, the candidate with the better narrative, or the better story, is going to win.” Those do seem to sometimes work toward a more likable image. I’m thinking here of the Checkers speech. Nixon – who was one of the least likable politicians we’ve had in our history – really did pull it off. Cruz is, in his persona, somewhat Nixon-like. But Nixon pulled it off at the time – he talked about his wife and his daughters and his dog. You watch that speech today and it seems very phony and mawkish, and many liberals felt that way at the time. But it was overwhelmingly a popular speech. So it’s possible that with that Nixonian determination and practice, Cruz could talk about family, talk about personal experiences that tug at the heartstrings a little bit. And at least for a portion of the electorate that might not warm to his straight-up demeanor, he manages to reach them in ways he hasn’t so far.
Senator Ted Cruz is, apparently, trying to be “likable.” The New York Times has a front-page story about the new push: “Known for Making Enemies, Cruz Tries, Stiffly, To Make Friends.” It’s a problem that the likely Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, has had for a long time. (“You’re likable enough, Hillary,” Barack Obama told her when the two were running for the presidency in 2008.) But gender complicates things here. What do we expect from women in leadership positions? What makes a politician likable? How have things changed over the years? And what would it take for Ted Cruz to convince us he’s a fun guy to hang out with? Salon spoke to David Greenberg, a professor of history and journalism at Rutgers University. Greenberg is also the author of “Nixon’s Shadow: The History of An Image” and “Republic of Spin: An Inside History of the American Presidency,” due in January. The interview has been lightly edited for clarity. Ted Cruz is now chasing a quality that Hilary Clinton has long pursued, with varying success, for a long time. How far back have American voters expected their politicians to be likable? And how does gender change the terms of likability? Likability has been an issue for politicians going back at least to the early 20th century -- when we start getting the illusion of knowing their personalities, and we start seeing them in newsreels and seeing their pictures all over the place in tabloid newspapers, and hearing them on recordings and on the radio. Television especially fosters this illusion of intimacy – we feel like we know them as people. When of course we don’t. It’s a question of authenticity, which is a slightly different facet of the same set of concerns. I think, obviously, with gender we are still sorting out how we – and that goes for women as well as men – feel about women as political actors and political leaders. Because female politicians, at the national level especially, are so recent in this country. Yeah, exactly. Even though we’ve progressed a lot as a nation in our understanding of women’s roles, there’s still a lot of baggage there. Women face a much steeper challenge in becoming liked because so much of the expectation on women to be liked relies on either cutesiness, flirtatiousness, sensitivity, a certain empathic quality – which are often seen as in conflict with traditional qualities associated with strong leadership. So the burden on women is to be able to exhibit both of those clusters of personality traits. Typically women are seen as falling into one category or the other. To be a strong woman who has credibility on, say, national security issues can require a certain toughness or gruffness – qualities we don’t always associate with likable women in everyday life. These are broad stereotypes, of course, and there are many women who pull it off. But that’s at the core of the dilemma. To what extent is gender at the root of Hillary Clinton’s problems with this? I think it’s one of the issues at the root, but I wouldn’t reduce it all to gender. I think she is inherently a guarded person. Unlike her husband, or unlike other women who are more personally ebullient, she is someone who is naturally calculating, strategic-minded, suspicious of the media – for good reason. Someone whose experiences in public life have reinforced those tendencies. She struggles with the expectation that our politicians be spontaneous and unfiltered and off the cuff, even though that’s only something we sometimes say we want. So the likability issue comes up with her because she is not often enough given to spontaneity and warmth. Even though sometimes she shows that side of herself. To what extent do other countries play the gender issue differently? Margaret Thatcher and Angela Merkel are hard to see as conventionally likable or traditionally feminine. Certainly those women did not stress likability. They stressed strength, leadership, what we might with some degree of trepidation call a more masculine model of leadership. What would it take to make Ted Cruz likable? His staff seems dedicated to making it work, but I’m not sure it’s possible. Cruz’s problem – and it’s a problem for Chris Christie, and Giuliani a few years back – is they come to power, rise to prominence and popularity, precisely because of their mean streak. Because they’re seen as angry, they’re seen as not taking any b.s. from anyone… So again, in a different way, qualities of likability are at odds with the particular brand of leadership these men are purporting to offer. Cruz just strikes me as someone who is just authentically a kind of ornery person. And a know-it-all as well… Yeah. His skill is he’s very practiced and fluent, whether in debates or other public experiences. He’s articulate and bright – he’s capable of a certain self-discipline. He can send some signals, talk about biography, talk about personal traits… That’s another aspect of this – the question of humanizing candidates… I found in my research, articles saying, “This year in the 1920 election, the candidate with the better narrative, or the better story, is going to win.” Those do seem to sometimes work toward a more likable image. I’m thinking here of the Checkers speech. Nixon – who was one of the least likable politicians we’ve had in our history – really did pull it off. Cruz is, in his persona, somewhat Nixon-like. But Nixon pulled it off at the time – he talked about his wife and his daughters and his dog. You watch that speech today and it seems very phony and mawkish, and many liberals felt that way at the time. But it was overwhelmingly a popular speech. So it’s possible that with that Nixonian determination and practice, Cruz could talk about family, talk about personal experiences that tug at the heartstrings a little bit. And at least for a portion of the electorate that might not warm to his straight-up demeanor, he manages to reach them in ways he hasn’t so far. Senator Ted Cruz is, apparently, trying to be “likable.” The New York Times has a front-page story about the new push: “Known for Making Enemies, Cruz Tries, Stiffly, To Make Friends.” It’s a problem that the likely Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, has had for a long time. (“You’re likable enough, Hillary,” Barack Obama told her when the two were running for the presidency in 2008.) But gender complicates things here. What do we expect from women in leadership positions? What makes a politician likable? How have things changed over the years? And what would it take for Ted Cruz to convince us he’s a fun guy to hang out with? Salon spoke to David Greenberg, a professor of history and journalism at Rutgers University. Greenberg is also the author of “Nixon’s Shadow: The History of An Image” and “Republic of Spin: An Inside History of the American Presidency,” due in January. The interview has been lightly edited for clarity. Ted Cruz is now chasing a quality that Hilary Clinton has long pursued, with varying success, for a long time. How far back have American voters expected their politicians to be likable? And how does gender change the terms of likability? Likability has been an issue for politicians going back at least to the early 20th century -- when we start getting the illusion of knowing their personalities, and we start seeing them in newsreels and seeing their pictures all over the place in tabloid newspapers, and hearing them on recordings and on the radio. Television especially fosters this illusion of intimacy – we feel like we know them as people. When of course we don’t. It’s a question of authenticity, which is a slightly different facet of the same set of concerns. I think, obviously, with gender we are still sorting out how we – and that goes for women as well as men – feel about women as political actors and political leaders. Because female politicians, at the national level especially, are so recent in this country. Yeah, exactly. Even though we’ve progressed a lot as a nation in our understanding of women’s roles, there’s still a lot of baggage there. Women face a much steeper challenge in becoming liked because so much of the expectation on women to be liked relies on either cutesiness, flirtatiousness, sensitivity, a certain empathic quality – which are often seen as in conflict with traditional qualities associated with strong leadership. So the burden on women is to be able to exhibit both of those clusters of personality traits. Typically women are seen as falling into one category or the other. To be a strong woman who has credibility on, say, national security issues can require a certain toughness or gruffness – qualities we don’t always associate with likable women in everyday life. These are broad stereotypes, of course, and there are many women who pull it off. But that’s at the core of the dilemma. To what extent is gender at the root of Hillary Clinton’s problems with this? I think it’s one of the issues at the root, but I wouldn’t reduce it all to gender. I think she is inherently a guarded person. Unlike her husband, or unlike other women who are more personally ebullient, she is someone who is naturally calculating, strategic-minded, suspicious of the media – for good reason. Someone whose experiences in public life have reinforced those tendencies. She struggles with the expectation that our politicians be spontaneous and unfiltered and off the cuff, even though that’s only something we sometimes say we want. So the likability issue comes up with her because she is not often enough given to spontaneity and warmth. Even though sometimes she shows that side of herself. To what extent do other countries play the gender issue differently? Margaret Thatcher and Angela Merkel are hard to see as conventionally likable or traditionally feminine. Certainly those women did not stress likability. They stressed strength, leadership, what we might with some degree of trepidation call a more masculine model of leadership. What would it take to make Ted Cruz likable? His staff seems dedicated to making it work, but I’m not sure it’s possible. Cruz’s problem – and it’s a problem for Chris Christie, and Giuliani a few years back – is they come to power, rise to prominence and popularity, precisely because of their mean streak. Because they’re seen as angry, they’re seen as not taking any b.s. from anyone… So again, in a different way, qualities of likability are at odds with the particular brand of leadership these men are purporting to offer. Cruz just strikes me as someone who is just authentically a kind of ornery person. And a know-it-all as well… Yeah. His skill is he’s very practiced and fluent, whether in debates or other public experiences. He’s articulate and bright – he’s capable of a certain self-discipline. He can send some signals, talk about biography, talk about personal traits… That’s another aspect of this – the question of humanizing candidates… I found in my research, articles saying, “This year in the 1920 election, the candidate with the better narrative, or the better story, is going to win.” Those do seem to sometimes work toward a more likable image. I’m thinking here of the Checkers speech. Nixon – who was one of the least likable politicians we’ve had in our history – really did pull it off. Cruz is, in his persona, somewhat Nixon-like. But Nixon pulled it off at the time – he talked about his wife and his daughters and his dog. You watch that speech today and it seems very phony and mawkish, and many liberals felt that way at the time. But it was overwhelmingly a popular speech. So it’s possible that with that Nixonian determination and practice, Cruz could talk about family, talk about personal experiences that tug at the heartstrings a little bit. And at least for a portion of the electorate that might not warm to his straight-up demeanor, he manages to reach them in ways he hasn’t so far.
No, Trump isn’t the next Hitler: But his real historical comparison is still scary
If I were still in a mood to make jokes about the Trump campaign I’d say the makers of “Allegiance” and “The Man in the High Castle” both owe Donald Trump money for free publicity. The Philadelphia Daily News hailed Trump’s plan to ban all Muslim immigration--which would bring us back to the era of the openly racist Chinese Exclusion Act--with the barely-even-a-pun headline “The New Furor.” The New York Daily News, not to be outdone, showed Trump beheading the Statue of Liberty. Prominent Republicans have been coming out of the woodwork to bash Trump for escalating Republican discourse about immigration from veiled bigotry to open bigotry. The First Amendment-defying concept of applying a religious test to immigration is apparently a bridge too far even for the Dick Cheneys and Lindsey Grahams of the world. Twitter, of course, has been a-twittering nonstop. Jeff Bezos threatened to shoot him into space. J.K. Rowling weighed in, calling him a worse villain than Lord Voldemort. (A stretch, considering Donald Trump has not yet assassinated anyone nor created an army of mind-controlled slaves nor fused his soul to that of a giant man-eating serpent, though I guess we’ll see in 2016.) All of this naturally leads to the question: If everyone hates him so much, why are we so worried about him? Ross Douthat points out we haven’t even held our first primaries yet; Trump has yet to win a single actual election. Nate Silver, our nation’s election oracle, recently implored the media to “stop freaking out” about Trump’s position in opinion polls as the “Republican frontrunner.” Trump gets a lot of attention, but not that much support--his overwhelmingly “high unfavorables” basically mean the nation is split between a minority that backs Trump and a majority that hates him but hasn’t decided whom they’d prefer as president instead. As Silver says, “Nobody remotely like Trump has won a major-party nomination in the modern era”; for Trump to succeed, he’d have to beat the entire Republican Party apparatus lined up against him and thus prove that the party itself is ineffectual against a determined enough wealthy individual. People who’d like to think that the two parties are obsolete lick their chops at Trump’s headline-grabbing status for this reason, but for better or for worse that’s probably wishful thinking. To put it bluntly, Trump isn’t Hitler, not because Trump’s views aren’t as personally odious as Hitler’s were but because Trump doesn’t live in Hitler’s Germany and, to be blunt about it, he doesn’t have Hitler’s balls. The Adolf Hitler who took power in 1933 was a man who’d previously taken politics seriously enough to lead an armed revolution against the state and be imprisoned for it. His party already had a paramilitary wing (the SA) of organized, uniformed thugs who seriously thought of themselves as a rival to the existing military. He rose to power in a country that saw itself as a desperate underdog, having lost a major war and been forced to make massive reparation payments that crippled the economy. None of this describes Donald Trump. It’s impossible to imagine the effete reality-show billionaire at the head of a Beer Hall Putsch or going to prison as a martyr for his cause. His supporters are violent, frightening, boorish mobs but they’re nothing at all like an army, not even the ersatz army the SA were. And despite how ugly things have gotten in the United States during the War on Terror we are still comfortably the world’s wealthiest superpower; Weimar Germany would be lucky to have our problems. No, as disgusted as I am that a leading candidate for president can mouth fascist slogans and trumpet fascist ideals in 2015, I don’t seriously believe the America is Germany in 1933 or Trump is Adolf Hitler. That doesn’t mean I’m not scared. Because there is an example of a country a lot like America in 2015 that had a candidate in mind much like Trump--an ultra-rich dilettante who seemed to treat politics like a show and shoot his mouth off without any concern for actually winning, who did indeed “freak out” the chattering classes by skyrocketing in popularity against all common sense. That country is America in 1924, and that would-be candidate was Henry Ford. Like Trump, Ford vacillated about which party he even belonged to but seemed none the worse for wear for his shifting allegiances--his personal brand outshining the brand of whatever party he belonged to. Like Trump, Ford’s popularity was blamed on mass media--in 1924 that was the “movie mind” overstimulated by Hollywood features; in 2015 it’s apparently the fault of the “social media mind” of self-sustaining Internet outrage. Like Trump, Ford surged to national attention in 1924 because of the country’s deep disenchantment with the “serious” candidates, a sense that party politics was just a corrupt elite trading favors with each other--Trump, like Ford, somehow managed to be an “outsider” and to represent the “common man” despite being incredibly wealthy. And, like Trump, Ford was beloved by his fans because he was perceived as a straight-talker, a truth-teller, someone insulated enough by his wealth he didn’t have to recite polite fictions. Among serious pundits of the chattering classes, an eccentric billionaire who goes on rants about the Protocols of the Elders of Zion or Barack Obama’s forged birth certificate has disqualified himself from being taken seriously for office. Among voters who hate and resent the serious pundits of the chattering classes, those “fringe” views only underscore the billionaire’s “outsider” credentials. It may well be the case that Ford, had he not bowed out of running for the Republican nomination in 1924, would never have won a general election once enough people blasted the contents of his raving anti-Semitic newspaper the Dearborn Independent to a national stage--indeed, the Anti-Defamation League successfully shut down that newspaper with a boycott in 1927. It may be that historians are correct that Ford would never have made it that far into the election because, like most people who storm into presidential elections with no past political experience, he simply didn’t have the taste for politics. And it may be that the prospect of a President Trump is unlikely for the same reasons. Trump’s whole campaign has been a series of brash, trollish provocations followed by an impressively united backlash, from the Latino community speaking up about his mass-deportation plans to the uproar about his recent anti-Muslim comments. There’s plenty of speculation that Trump is, on some level, getting off on the attention that comes from being polarizing and doesn’t have the expertise or the personnel or even the attention span to do the serious work of winning the election. So no, if there were someone capable of plunging America into a fascist dystopian nightmare overnight, I don’t think Trump is the guy. The problem is, these things don’t happen overnight. Henry Ford, for all his rants about rooting out Jewish influence in America and blocking further Jewish immigration, never actually proposed violent ethnic cleansing or a Final Solution. What he did propose sparked enough anger among the American mainstream that he was forced to back off of his position and publicly apologize. But the rising star of Henry Ford’s political career in the 1920s aligned with the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan as an “Invisible Empire” throughout the United States. Ford paved the way for later anti-Semitic political figures like Father Coughlin and Charles Lindbergh. Most important, he pushed the Overton window far to the right on anti-Semitic politics. By openly espousing conspiracy theories that overtly named “international Jewry” as a menace to be rooted out, he allowed the harsh Immigration Act of 1924--which did not specifically exclude Jews by name, merely setting a quota for immigrants from southern and eastern Europe--to seem reasonable by comparison. He was a convenient figure for the later America First Committee to distance itself from: By expelling Henry Ford from their membership and embracing the more “moderate” Charles Lindbergh they were able to define the debate over entering World War II as one over how much the Jews were at fault for the war rather than whether they were. Ford never created a Nazi state in America. There were no overt policies of pogroms or concentration camps or genocide aimed at Jewish-American citizens here, although the 1920s and 1930s did see the peak of the Klan’s anti-Semitic terrorism. But Ford cheered the anti-immigration policies that kept Jewish people trapped in fascist states as anti-Semitic persecution continued to escalate. Lindbergh’s America First Committee successfully kept the United States out of World War II while pogroms racked Europe. Whether you held the “extreme” views of a Henry Ford or more “moderate” views, it had become politically normalized in America to declare excessive Jewish immigration a threat to American culture--normalized enough that in 1939 the U.S. turned away an ocean liner full of Jewish refugees, citing the 1924 law as justification for sending them back to the Nazis. All of this echoes ominously when you remember that, amid all the uproar about ISIS/Daesh proving the threat “Muslims” supposedly pose to our way of life, Daesh has far, far more victims in the Middle East than in the West--victims that just a few weeks ago U.S. governors were gleefully racing to deny asylum to in order to show their patriotism. But it goes further than that. Those fascists in Europe who were openly butchering a minority religious group they decided they could blame for all their problems? Several of them had read Henry Ford’s work and approved of it--his most extreme Dearborn Independent articles had been republished in Germany as “The International Jew.” One of his fans was a scrappy political prisoner named Adolf Hitler, who, after going to prison for insurrection in 1924 (the same year as Ford’s presidential run), wrote a prison memoir, “Mein Kampf,” that was largely based on “The International Jew.” In later years Hitler kept a full-size portrait of Ford by his desk and called Ford his “inspiration”--inspiring him not just in the field of mass-market production of inexpensive automobiles but also in the field of genocide. There is a story that after the war, when Henry Ford watched a newsreel depicting the horrors of the Nazi death camps in graphic detail--that is, when he was forced to confront the visceral reality of what his ideas led to when put in practice--he collapsed of a stroke and died shortly after. I don’t know if it’s true. I hope it is. As I said, I see Trump as far more Ford than Hitler. He gives no indication of understanding the implications of what he says, the bloody consequences that would result from a movement that truly embraced the vicious xenophobia and racism he lets fall out of his mouth on a daily basis. To him it’s just words. That doesn’t stop him from saying them. That doesn’t stop those words from entering the conversation and altering it, from turning our world into one where “Do you think all Muslims should be barred from entry to the United States?” or “Do you support a massive crackdown on Latino Americans to deport anyone without papers?” becomes a reasonable topic of debate. I don’t know where the chain of dominoes ends, who the Father Coughlin or Charles Lindbergh to Trump’s Henry Ford will be. But I do think that if we see another Hitler in the West any time soon, it’ll be someone who, whether or not he puts up that big portrait of Trump and calls him an “inspiration”--something that would tickle Trump pink, I’m sure--will approvingly cite Trump as an antecedent, one of the first men who had the courage to say what needed to be done. I hope it never comes to that. I hope Donald Trump never has to wrestle with the same horror that Henry Ford did, watching that stark black-and-white footage from Auschwitz. I hope his candidacy in 2016 is simply forgotten, a footnote in history. Somehow, though, I doubt we’ll get off that easy.
Citadel suspends eight cadets for wearing KKK-like white hoods to sing Christmas carols
The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina, was forced to suspend eight cadets on Thursday after photos of an apparent hazing ritual surfaced online showing the cadets donning all-white, with white pillowcases over their heads. "A social media posting, which I find offensive and disturbing, was brought to my attention this morning," retired Air Force Lt. Gen. John Rosa, the president of the college, said in a statement on Thursday announcing the immediate activation of suspension proceedings for at least eight cadets and investigation into the images. "Preliminary reports are cadets were singing Christmas carols as part of a 'Ghosts of Christmas Past' skit," he wrote in a Facebook post, adding that the costumes were pillowcases. "These images are not consistent with our core values of honor, duty and respect." According to Charleston station WCIV, the images were discovered by an African-American woman on the social media site Snapchat. "I screenshotted and decided to share because I was so offended," she wrote, posting the images to Facebook this week. "Was this their idea of some kind of joke?" WCIV reports the woman was later "threatened, harassed and offered money from numerous Citadel Cadets to take it offline in order to not 'ruin their lives.'" As ABC News notes, the Citadel has struggled with cadets donning KKK-like white sheets in the past: 
The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina, was forced to suspend eight cadets on Thursday after photos of an apparent hazing ritual surfaced online showing the cadets donning all-white, with white pillowcases over their heads. "A social media posting, which I find offensive and disturbing, was brought to my attention this morning," retired Air Force Lt. Gen. John Rosa, the president of the college, said in a statement on Thursday announcing the immediate activation of suspension proceedings for at least eight cadets and investigation into the images. "Preliminary reports are cadets were singing Christmas carols as part of a 'Ghosts of Christmas Past' skit," he wrote in a Facebook post, adding that the costumes were pillowcases. "These images are not consistent with our core values of honor, duty and respect." According to Charleston station WCIV, the images were discovered by an African-American woman on the social media site Snapchat. "I screenshotted and decided to share because I was so offended," she wrote, posting the images to Facebook this week. "Was this their idea of some kind of joke?" WCIV reports the woman was later "threatened, harassed and offered money from numerous Citadel Cadets to take it offline in order to not 'ruin their lives.'" As ABC News notes, the Citadel has struggled with cadets donning KKK-like white sheets in the past: The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina, was forced to suspend eight cadets on Thursday after photos of an apparent hazing ritual surfaced online showing the cadets donning all-white, with white pillowcases over their heads. "A social media posting, which I find offensive and disturbing, was brought to my attention this morning," retired Air Force Lt. Gen. John Rosa, the president of the college, said in a statement on Thursday announcing the immediate activation of suspension proceedings for at least eight cadets and investigation into the images. "Preliminary reports are cadets were singing Christmas carols as part of a 'Ghosts of Christmas Past' skit," he wrote in a Facebook post, adding that the costumes were pillowcases. "These images are not consistent with our core values of honor, duty and respect." According to Charleston station WCIV, the images were discovered by an African-American woman on the social media site Snapchat. "I screenshotted and decided to share because I was so offended," she wrote, posting the images to Facebook this week. "Was this their idea of some kind of joke?" WCIV reports the woman was later "threatened, harassed and offered money from numerous Citadel Cadets to take it offline in order to not 'ruin their lives.'" As ABC News notes, the Citadel has struggled with cadets donning KKK-like white sheets in the past: The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina, was forced to suspend eight cadets on Thursday after photos of an apparent hazing ritual surfaced online showing the cadets donning all-white, with white pillowcases over their heads. "A social media posting, which I find offensive and disturbing, was brought to my attention this morning," retired Air Force Lt. Gen. John Rosa, the president of the college, said in a statement on Thursday announcing the immediate activation of suspension proceedings for at least eight cadets and investigation into the images. "Preliminary reports are cadets were singing Christmas carols as part of a 'Ghosts of Christmas Past' skit," he wrote in a Facebook post, adding that the costumes were pillowcases. "These images are not consistent with our core values of honor, duty and respect." According to Charleston station WCIV, the images were discovered by an African-American woman on the social media site Snapchat. "I screenshotted and decided to share because I was so offended," she wrote, posting the images to Facebook this week. "Was this their idea of some kind of joke?" WCIV reports the woman was later "threatened, harassed and offered money from numerous Citadel Cadets to take it offline in order to not 'ruin their lives.'" As ABC News notes, the Citadel has struggled with cadets donning KKK-like white sheets in the past:
In 1986, five white cadets entered the room of a black cadet dressed in sheets and towels and left a charred paper cross. The black cadet left the college and later about 200 people, many of them black, marched in protest.The school is only a couple of miles away from the historically black Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church where nine people were fatally shot by a white gunman last June and Citadel leaders voted to remove the Confederate flag from the campus chapel shortly thereafter.
Why would anyone think that this is ok? Will the administration at The Citadel let this go? This picture is a disgrace... Posted by Citadel Minority-Alumni on Thursday, December 10, 2015
The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina, was forced to suspend eight cadets on Thursday after photos of an apparent hazing ritual surfaced online showing the cadets donning all-white, with white pillowcases over their heads. "A social media posting, which I find offensive and disturbing, was brought to my attention this morning," retired Air Force Lt. Gen. John Rosa, the president of the college, said in a statement on Thursday announcing the immediate activation of suspension proceedings for at least eight cadets and investigation into the images. "Preliminary reports are cadets were singing Christmas carols as part of a 'Ghosts of Christmas Past' skit," he wrote in a Facebook post, adding that the costumes were pillowcases. "These images are not consistent with our core values of honor, duty and respect." According to Charleston station WCIV, the images were discovered by an African-American woman on the social media site Snapchat. "I screenshotted and decided to share because I was so offended," she wrote, posting the images to Facebook this week. "Was this their idea of some kind of joke?" WCIV reports the woman was later "threatened, harassed and offered money from numerous Citadel Cadets to take it offline in order to not 'ruin their lives.'" As ABC News notes, the Citadel has struggled with cadets donning KKK-like white sheets in the past: In 1986, five white cadets entered the room of a black cadet dressed in sheets and towels and left a charred paper cross. The black cadet left the college and later about 200 people, many of them black, marched in protest.The school is only a couple of miles away from the historically black Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church where nine people were fatally shot by a white gunman last June and Citadel leaders voted to remove the Confederate flag from the campus chapel shortly thereafter.
Why would anyone think that this is ok? Will the administration at The Citadel let this go? This picture is a disgrace... Posted by Citadel Minority-Alumni on Thursday, December 10, 2015
The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina, was forced to suspend eight cadets on Thursday after photos of an apparent hazing ritual surfaced online showing the cadets donning all-white, with white pillowcases over their heads. "A social media posting, which I find offensive and disturbing, was brought to my attention this morning," retired Air Force Lt. Gen. John Rosa, the president of the college, said in a statement on Thursday announcing the immediate activation of suspension proceedings for at least eight cadets and investigation into the images. "Preliminary reports are cadets were singing Christmas carols as part of a 'Ghosts of Christmas Past' skit," he wrote in a Facebook post, adding that the costumes were pillowcases. "These images are not consistent with our core values of honor, duty and respect." According to Charleston station WCIV, the images were discovered by an African-American woman on the social media site Snapchat. "I screenshotted and decided to share because I was so offended," she wrote, posting the images to Facebook this week. "Was this their idea of some kind of joke?" WCIV reports the woman was later "threatened, harassed and offered money from numerous Citadel Cadets to take it offline in order to not 'ruin their lives.'" As ABC News notes, the Citadel has struggled with cadets donning KKK-like white sheets in the past: In 1986, five white cadets entered the room of a black cadet dressed in sheets and towels and left a charred paper cross. The black cadet left the college and later about 200 people, many of them black, marched in protest.The school is only a couple of miles away from the historically black Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church where nine people were fatally shot by a white gunman last June and Citadel leaders voted to remove the Confederate flag from the campus chapel shortly thereafter.
Why would anyone think that this is ok? Will the administration at The Citadel let this go? This picture is a disgrace... Posted by Citadel Minority-Alumni on Thursday, December 10, 2015
The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina, was forced to suspend eight cadets on Thursday after photos of an apparent hazing ritual surfaced online showing the cadets donning all-white, with white pillowcases over their heads. "A social media posting, which I find offensive and disturbing, was brought to my attention this morning," retired Air Force Lt. Gen. John Rosa, the president of the college, said in a statement on Thursday announcing the immediate activation of suspension proceedings for at least eight cadets and investigation into the images. "Preliminary reports are cadets were singing Christmas carols as part of a 'Ghosts of Christmas Past' skit," he wrote in a Facebook post, adding that the costumes were pillowcases. "These images are not consistent with our core values of honor, duty and respect." According to Charleston station WCIV, the images were discovered by an African-American woman on the social media site Snapchat. "I screenshotted and decided to share because I was so offended," she wrote, posting the images to Facebook this week. "Was this their idea of some kind of joke?" WCIV reports the woman was later "threatened, harassed and offered money from numerous Citadel Cadets to take it offline in order to not 'ruin their lives.'" As ABC News notes, the Citadel has struggled with cadets donning KKK-like white sheets in the past: In 1986, five white cadets entered the room of a black cadet dressed in sheets and towels and left a charred paper cross. The black cadet left the college and later about 200 people, many of them black, marched in protest.The school is only a couple of miles away from the historically black Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church where nine people were fatally shot by a white gunman last June and Citadel leaders voted to remove the Confederate flag from the campus chapel shortly thereafter.
Why would anyone think that this is ok? Will the administration at The Citadel let this go? This picture is a disgrace... Posted by Citadel Minority-Alumni on Thursday, December 10, 2015
