Let's Live For Today

The Grass Roots were one of those faceless 60s bands.  They had several Top 20 hits like Midnight Confessions,  Temptation Eyes, and Sooner Or Later, but I could not have picked them out of a lineup.  There's a good reason for that - the band was a concoction by producer Lou Adler and the songwriting duo of PF Sloan and Steve Barri (also responsible for Eve Of Destruction by Barry McGuire, Secret Agent Man by Johnny Rivers, and You Baby by The Turtles), who were on the prowl for existing bands willing to change their name to The Grass Roots and record Sloan/Barri songs.  They went through two abortive starts before, in 1967, persuading the band 13th Floor to change its name and even then, LA studio musicians (known as The Wrecking Crew) did much of the performing on the records.

I didn't care much for most of the band's music except for their first hit, Let's Live For Today, which was not composed by Barri and Sloan but was originally an Italian song for which Michael Julien wrote English lyrics.  Released in May 1967, Let's Live For Today made the Top Ten.


The guitarist in the 13th Floor and for The Grass Roots until the spring of 1969 was Creed Bratton.  If you've ever watched The Office you know Creed Bratton.  In that series Creed Bratton plays a very weird character named Creed Bratton who used to perform with The Grass Roots.  Apparently the real Creed is different from the character Creed Bratton who is completely amoral, may have murdered a man, and is likely insane.

Creed

Getting a movie sequel right is difficult.  Most times they are failures (see, for example, the very funny film The Hangover and then its two sour, laugh-deficient sequels).  It's even more difficult when it's the seventh, and probably last, in a series that began almost 40 years ago.

THC enjoyed the first Rocky (1976).  It was also the last he'd seen in a theater though he'd caught parts of most of the sequels on cable.  Having read a couple of favorable reviews he decided to see Creed.  He can report back that it is a very fine film, providing a satisfying conclusion to the series.

It turns out that the late Apollo Creed, Rocky's rival and then friend, had an illegitimate son, born after Apollo's death in Rocky IV (1985).  Bounced among foster homes the troubled Adonis is tracked down while in juvenile detention by Apollo's widow (Phylicia Rashad) and raised by her in a comfortable house in Los Angeles.  Though doing well in business, the young adult Adonis Creed is still full of anger and takes amateur fights across the border in Tijuana to work off his aggression.  Announcing to his mother his dissatisfaction with the business career path, he quits his job and heads off to Philadelphia to become a professional boxer and to meet the now nearly 70-year old Rocky who is still running the restaurant named after his late wife.

Are there predictable elements in the movie?  Yes, but everyone involved made some very smart choices in both the casting and the path of the story.  Michael B Jordan is excellent as Adonis, struggling with his emotions.  Tessa Thompson plays his girl friend but it is not just a role as "the girl"; she's an interesting character in her own right, portrayed with an interesting mix of strength and tenderness.  We stuck around to watch the credits so we could catch the name of the actress who so impressed us. And, of course, we have Sylvester Stallone who, after all these years, simply inhabits the character of Rocky.  It's a wonderful performance stripped of the cartoonish mannerisms which marred some the middle Rocky films.

The story carefully navigates the treacherous waters of all sequels and avoids going maudlin.  When there are choices in plot direction the film often avoids the obvious while still hitting all the right notes consistent with the best aspects of the series.  And it successfully gets to port with an ending that is perfect and will touch anyone who saw the original film so long ago.

Oh, and the fight scenes?  Among the best THC has ever seen.  You can feel the blows.   The cinematography and editing are excellent.  The film looks great.

Hail, Caeser! As Christian Parable

Sometimes a joke is just a joke, sometimes with the Coen Brothers it's also a joke but also something else, and sometimes there's a man . . . now, where was I?

On first seeing Hail, Caesar!, the 2016 film by the Coen Brothers, during its theatrical release, I seriously misunderestimated it.  You can find my initial take here.

Watching it on cable a few months later caused me to reassess and move it up a few notches in the Coen oeuvre.  This time I caught the underlying themes of faith v science and utopianism v practicality.  Here's my second take.

While my reassessment discussed issues of faith I think the film can be more explicitly seen as a Christian parable.  Being Jewish I'm out of my theological depth when it comes to Christianity but the Coen Brothers are in the same situation and it didn't stop them, so here goes.

In Hail, Ceasar! Jesus is embodied in Eddie Mannix, the general manager of the studio.  He is shown as devoted to his Catholic faith with frequent visits to his confessor.  In my prior post I wrote of Mannix:

"He's willing to tackle the tough job at the studio enduring constant strain, long hours, and separation from his family, sacrificing himself, rather than take what he sees as a simpler, less stressful role at Lockheed."

But, it's more than that.  Eddie is a man of faith.  Both the screenwriter communist study group and Lockheed represent pure materialism.  For the communists, materialism is a matter of Marxist creed; there is no place for spirituality in their world.  Or, as Baird Whitlock, the dimwit actor so well portrayed by George Clooney, who has been temporarily converted to their creed explains to Mannix:

"These guys were pretty interesting, though.  They've actually figured out the laws that dictate, well - everything, history, sociology, politics, morality.  Everything.  It's all in a book called Kapital." 

Here's Professor Marcuse explaining to Baird how it works (sorry for the bad sound synch):

 

It's a more benign materialism for the Lockheed executive; it's just the world he exists in.

Eddie Mannix is willing to give to Caesar (the studio owner) what is owed but no more.  But in doing so he will drive those driven solely by materialism (the communists) from the studio just as Jesus drove the materialists (moneychangers) from the Temple.  Art and creativity may generate material goods but they have a spiritual aspect too, as does the very act of creating it, which Eddie explains to Baird after slapping him around a bit:

"Shaddup.  You're gonna go out there and you're gonna finish "Hail Caesar!".  You're gonna give that speech at the feet of the penitent thief and you're gonna believe every word you say.  You're gonna do it because you're an actor and that's what you do.  Just like the director does what he does, and the writer and the script girl and the guy who claps the slate.  You're gonna do it because the picture has worth and you have worth if you serve the picture and you're never gonna forget that again."

And, after solving the problems of one day at the studio, Eddie returns to church, still struggling with a job offer from Lockheed that promises wealth, security, normal hours, and more time with his family.  From the confessional booth:

Eddie:   May I ask you something, Father?
Father:  Of course, my son.
Eddie:   If there's something that's easy . . . is that . . .
Father:  Easy?
Eddie:   Easy to do, easy to - an easy job - not a bad job, it's not bad.  But then there's another job, that's . . . that's not so easy.  In fact it's hard.  It's so hard, Father, sometimes I don't know if I can keep doing it.  But it seems right.
[Silence.  Then:]
Father:  God wants us to do what's right.

With that advice, Eddie's decision is made.  He will stay with the studio, bringing art and creativity in the world though it means dealing with misfits, idiots, gossips, incompetents, prima donnas, and, of course, materialists.  He sacrifices his personal happiness, and that of his family, to suffer on our behalf.

Or perhaps he's just a shallow man, afraid of new challenges, comfortable in doing what he does best, perhaps unconsciously avoiding the burden of family duties, all on behalf of creating trifles like Hail, Caesar! to please the public and his boss. 

Are The Parties Over?

In the wake of the election, both parties face critical questions going forward.  Both are in disarray, both headed in potentially dangerous directions.  During the course of 2020 I have become increasingly pessimistic about the outcome, not just because of what is happening within the parties but because of larger trends in American society.  We cannot survive as a functioning society if the outcome of every national election becomes a potential extinction moment for one party or the other. We need two viable parties with supporters that agree to some common set of rules.  That no longer exists. What happens next?

The Democrats

For the Democrats, it can be summed up simply - will it revert to the party of traditional liberals and progressives, like former New York Times writer and editor, Bari Weiss, or will it become the party of the intolerant totalitarian-minded haters who work for the New York Times and drove Bari Weiss out?

I don't use the word "totalitarian" lightly, preferring in past posts to refer to "authoritarian" tendencies.  On reflection, watching what has happened over the past few months and better understanding the academic theories driving the Woke, I think totalitarian is the more accurate word.  It is a totalizing philosophy that considers the personal as political.  It reaches everything in life, including one's private thoughts.  They will come for your job, they will destroy your career, they will deny you educational opportunities.  Everything in your life is in play.  It is an unending version of the Salem Witch Trials. You can read my Your Future series for more on this philosophy.

They feel threatened as long as everyone in society is not in accord with their beliefs.  And eliminating that threat requires complete control of society.  It reminds me of the scene in Godfather II, when Michael Corleone responds to Tom Hagen’s question about why Michael needed to continue to kill people when he’d already won his gangland war, “I don’t feel I have to wipe everyone out, Tom. Just my enemies“.   And anyone who does not agree with them is an enemy to the Woke.

U.S. Grant's observation in his Memoirs of the cause of the Civil War also comes to mind:

Prior to the time of these encroachments the great majority of the people of the North had no particular quarrel with slavery, so long as they were not forced to have it themselves.  But they were not willing to play the role of police for the South . . .  

The encroachments Grant refers to are the Fugitive Slave Act and other intrusions into the life of the North that the Southern slave owners insisted upon because they felt threatened.  The Identitarian Philosophy bear similarities to the attitude of the Southern aristocracy in the 1850s, which felt threatened by anything going on elsewhere in the United States that could be seen as undermining the legitimacy of its ruling philosophy.

During the decades leading up to the Civil War, that aristocracy became more aggressive in demanding the demolition of opposition to its rule.  It demanded, and actually undertook, censorship of abolitionist literature being transported by the postal service.  For several years it imposed a gag rule on the House, forbidding discussion of any resolutions regarding slavery.  In 1857, the Supreme Court gave us the first "Living Constitution" opinion in Dred Scott, rewriting American history in light of current conditions in order to meet the modern needs of a 19th century America, potentially opening up the entire country to slavery.

And we hear echoes of John C Calhoun in the Woke.  They agree completely with Calhoun's reinterpretation of American history which insisted that blacks were excluded from the American compact (that was the point of the 1619 Project), and we see Calhoun's nullification theory in action today in Progressive sanctuary cities where violent illegal aliens are privileged over the life and safety of law abiding Americans, including legal immigrants.  Now that I think about it, we can see the evolution of Southern views on slavery from a regrettable situation which would end someday to Calhoun's formulation of slavery as a "positive good", reflected in the change in language around abortion from Bill Clinton's "safe, rare, and legal" to its celebration today as a positive good not subject to any restriction.

It's why the New York Times and other media now run pieces explaining why the First Amendment needs rethinking; it's why media and the social media companies now classify and censor as hate speech, any opinions that do not align completely with the Woke creed. 

Do I think most Democratic voters support this philosophy?  No. But the party activists, including those who will fill Biden administration positions, do.  More dangerous for our future is how the events of this year revealed how many of our institutions are under the control of those who subscribe to this quasi-religious creed - look at our universities, the infiltration of these concepts into the K-12 system, the media's overwhelming support, the high tech oligarchs and their employees, public employee unions (particularly SEIU and teacher's unions), major foundations, and many large corporations.

Do I think Joe Biden supports this philosophy?  No, because I don't think he is capable anymore of understanding what is going on.  He thinks when he speaks of "systemic racism" that he means "being against racism", but the people around him know better, and it is those people I am worried about.

Can old-fashioned liberals mount a successful counter-offensive against this pernicious development?  We need a Democratic Party that turns away from the suppression of dissent, so I hope so, but have my doubts.  I now read a long list of liberals/progressives who understand the danger of Woke philosophy - Wesley Yang, Asra Nomani, Claire Lehmann, Zaid Jilani, James Lindsay, Glenn Loury, John McWhorter, Andrew Sullivan, Seerut Chawla, Bari Weiss, Inaya Folarin Iman, Mike Nayna, Colin Wright, Heather Heying, Chloe Valdary, Helen Pluckrose, Debra Soh, Bo Winegard, Bret Weinstein, Jody Shaw - they are impassioned and eloquent, but lack political influence.  It will require a lot more liberals waking up to the danger, a danger that will swallow them, not just the Right, if it prevails.

The Republicans

Three questions:

Can the post-Trump GOP find a path that rejects the coming attempt by the Romney/Sasse/Bush Remnants to regain control while avoiding falling into the fever swamp of crazies?

Will Donald Trump allow the growth of a non-Trump GOP which can tread that path?

Is there a candidate who can retain Trump's appeal to new voters and bring back some of the suburban voters alienated by Trump's personality and antics?

Unless the answer is yes to all, the GOP will have trouble sustaining its national viability.

The repulsive, impulsive, chaotic traits of Donald Trump contributed to his defeat.  But he also realigned the GOP and began creating a new coalition, drawing more than 10 million new voters in this election - more working class, more Hispanic, and with a start on adding black support.

The pre-Trump GOP of chamber of commerce friendliness, always scouting for foreign interventions to Make America Great Again, pretending to care about controlling immigration, afraid of taking on the underlying cultural issues, and running for the hills anytime it is accused of racism, is dead and any attempt to revive it will rip apart the party.  

Donald Trump's time is over.  The question is whether he recognizes it.  Does he want to run again? He will be closer to 79 than 78 on inauguration day in 2025.  I don't think he will wear well with the greater public.  He'll be tweeting and holding rallies and looking even crazier than before because he will not have any positive accomplishments to point to over the next four years to offset the nuttiness.  It would be a disaster if he runs in 2024.

Unfortunately, he retains a large personal following and will be influential if he chooses to be so, I fear a temptation too hard for him to resist.  Even if he ends up not running in 2024 but manages to smother the emergent of any potential successor more palatable to a larger part of the electorate it is a big problem for the future of the GOP and, worse case, it could tear the party apart if he remains a prominent figure.

And this is what I mean by the crazies:

Lin Wood

@LLinWood

CCP & 1000’s of US citizens worked together to try to steal 2020 election at top of ticket & selected down ballot races. Serbia, Canada, Venezuela, Cuba, CIA, George Soros, Bill Gates, Biden, Clinton Foundation & many national state & local officials from both parties involved.

A new and successful GOP will need to look closer to Trump on substance than to the old GOP.  It will be non-interventionist (and when action is needed it will be quick, overwhelming and decisive as with the Iranian Soleimani), engaged with the world but not subservient to international institutions, smart about taking on China from the perspective of protecting American security and jobs, less focused on tax rates for the wealthy but willing to take on the bureaucratic regulatory state, serious about border security and immigration policy, and willing to forcefully take on the educational, media, corporate and tech establishments, and confront those attempting to reracialize American society.  Can it be done?  Theoretically yes, but as a practical matter it will be difficult.  It will require politicians savvy enough to put a coalition together and smart enough to avoid the personal pitfalls associated with Trump.

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Looming behind all this is a fiscal crisis for the country somewhere down the road.  Our federal spending habits will prove unsustainable at some point.  The Democrats haven't cared and Trump's presidency allowed the GOP to stop pretending it cared.  It's like how the Democrats pretended to care about illegal immigration until they thought it politically safe to endorse open borders.  There is no visible solution since no one in national politics is serious about it so best not to think about the problem.

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There are some glimmers of hope, amidst the ruin.  I mentioned that I do not think the majority of Democratic voters, unlike party leadership and activists, support the Woke.  We got some evidence in California last month.  Californians gave nearly 2/3 of their votes to Biden, who carried the state by five million votes.  At the same time, they decisively defeated a ballot proposition proposed by the Democratic Party, and backed by public employee unions and tech oligarchs who outspent opponents 17-1, which would have eliminated the anti-discrimination provision of the California constitution.  The votes of Asians and Hispanics were key to defeating the proposition.  This was a direct rejection of the Woke attempt to re-racialize America.

Another ray of hope is how Democrats and the media have chosen to attack the Trump administration's actions to forbid training using race and sex stereotypes and scapegoating in the federal government and by government contractors and grantees.  Democrats and their media allies have deliberately and repeatedly lied in describing these actions as banning diversity training.  As explained in a prior post, Trump's order states it:

 . . .  does not prevent agencies, the United States Uniformed Services, or contractors from promoting racial, cultural, or ethnic diversity or inclusiveness

Democrats and media are lying in their description because they are aware that most Americans, across the political spectrum, would agree that Trump's action banning training based on racial hatred, stereotypes and designed to be divisive, is justified.  They would find it shocking that such actions are needed 56 years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act.

As to the Republicans, ask me in the middle of 2021, because it will take a few months before we get a glimpse as to whether the party can avoid the multiple pitfalls in its path, but the events of the past few weeks are not a good omen.

One further reflection helps me battle my increasing pessimism.  Growing up during the Cold War for the first 40 years of my life hovering in the background was the possibility of a nuclear war between the Soviet Union and the United States.  It was very difficult to see a path that could resolve matters short of ultimately some type of major conflict, whether planned or inadvertent.  I think anyone predicting in 1980 the tearing down of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the peaceful dissolution of the Soviet Union two years later would have been thought out of their minds.  Yet it happened to the surprise of most of us.  A reminder of the limits of our ability to predict the future and the contingent factor of unexpected events and singular personalities.

An Evening With Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Last night I attended a lecture at Yale sponsored by the William F Buckley Program (the goal of the program is "to promote intellectual diversity" at the school) and delivered by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, currently a fellow at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.  I’d been unaware of the scheduled lecture until reading about a controversy triggered by an open letter from Yale’s Muslim Student Association (MSA) which denounced the invitation to Hirsi Ali because of her alleged history of hate speech and intolerance as well as her lack of academic credentials to speak about the Islamic faith.  The letter backfired on the MSA when a number of the 35 other Yale student groups it claimed had endorsed the letter stated that they had done no such thing.

Since I'd read about Hirsi Ali over the years, though never read anything by her except maybe an op-ed here or there I decided to attend the event to hear her talk entitled "The Clash of Civilizations: Islam versus the West".  And also because I don't like being told what I should or should not listen to and remembered that last spring Brandeis University rescinded an offer to award her an honorary degree at commencement due to pressures from the same groups.

The evening consisted of a one hour talk by Hirsi Ali followed by 30 minutes of Q&A which was limited to questions submitted in writing by the audience.  There were no protests outside and the audience, which included students from the MSA, was polite and orderly.

Below is a summary of my notes which I have not tried to organize or to add my own interpretation except where clearly noted as "My Comment".

Before that, for those unfamiliar with her background; Hirsi Ali was born in Somalia in 1969.  Her father was a politician opposing the government who spent some time in exile.  Her family moved to Saudi Arabia in 1977 and shortly thereafter to Ethiopia and then Kenya.  She grew up in a Muslim household and as a girl underwent female genital mutilation, a practice she has decried as an adult.

In 1992, to avoid an arranged marriage she received political asylum in the Netherlands where she obtained a college degree and began learning several languages.  Horrified by the events of Sept 11, 2001 and increasingly dissatisfied with her religion she renounced Islam in 2002 becoming an atheist.  She became politically active and was elected to the Dutch Parliament in 2003.  In 2004 she worked with the Dutch director Theo van Gogh on Submission, a short film criticizing the Muslim treatment of women.  Later that year, van Gogh was shot, had his throat slit by an Islamist and was left lying dead in the street with a note pinned by a knife in his chest threatening Hirsi Ali with death.  Since that time she has lived with some level of security around her.

In 2005 a controversy erupted over whether her 1992 asylum application was accurate and she resigned from Parliament and a year later moved to the United States.  In 2005 Time Magazine named her as one of the 100 Most Influential People in the world and in 2006 her best selling autobiography Infidel was published.  In 2013 she became an American citizen.

The Lecture 

She complimented the President of Yale for his recent statements in support of free speech and contrasted it with Brandeis University’s decision to rescind heraward of an honorary degree last spring.

She spoke of the Brandeis incident and other commencement fiascoes at the same time and said they involved two phenomenon.  The first, which she called self inflicted, an excessive focus on any controversial or potentially offensive (to someone) speakers and second, in her case, the problem with Islam to listen to any criticism which she said takes advantage of the first concern.

Referring to the kidnapping of young girls by Boko Haram she said we (the West) show too much restraint in our response but praised the West’s use of diplomatic pressure to free the Sudanese woman who converted to Christianity.

She spoke about ISIS and said “I do not blame the President for showing restraint” and then said we need to finally figure out how we are fighting and what we are fighting.  Yes, we can militarily take out the ISIS leadership but what will we do about the next group, and there will be a next group.

It was significant that the United Arab Emirates ambassador to the US last week wrote in a Wall St Journal op-ed denouncing “Islamic extremism“, a term she said the Arab states had previously avoided.  She called it “a good step forward“.

We need to broaden the tools and methods to deal with this threat beyond just military action and surveillance. [MY COMMENT:  This was a theme she returned to several times].


She then moved to her broader themes.  First she took on those who attacked her for a lack of academics credentials and questioned why her experiences are relevant. [MY COMMENT:  You may find this unbelievable since the Left routinely elevates those with "authentic" experience as ones we simply must listen to, but when it is someone they don't like they are dismissed on those grounds].

In response she moved to what I thought the most powerful part of her talk:

She pointed out what happened to those well credentialed religious academics in Muslim societies who dissented in even minor ways from the historic teachings of Islam.  She ran through a list of 20th century Muslim academics who were exiled, forced to divorce their wives, recant and, in some cases, executed.

Hirsi Ali then spoke at length about her own experience growing up in East Africa.  Her family and community were Muslim but she described it as an Islam that “if you neglected some teachings you were left alone”.  There was not hostility between Sunni and Shiite and they got on well with their Christian neighbors, though she added they did hate the Jews, but they again, they never met any.  She said many Muslim, then and now, are “peaceful, loving people“.


This changed when she was 15 and a teacher (she referred to him as the Preacher Teacher) arrived in their community.  He had been trained somewhere in the Middle East, perhaps Saudi or Egypt and he preached intolerance and a language new to their ears.  He introduced the concepts of jihad and martyrdom, the subordinate role of women and the need to aspire to kill all Jews (not just those in Israel).

This, Ali emphasized, is the indoctrination process that it overlooked.  It must be addressed because this is “the cancer“.  These preachers are not just active in the Muslim world; they are here in the U.S. and U.K. [MY COMMENT:  She never said anything about how to address this other than the West needed to empower Islamic reformers and dissidents].

She then said that there is only one Islam but several different kinds of Muslims:

The first are the Preacher Teachers who focus on a core of Islam (submission to Allah) and preach hatred and intolerance along with their followers.
The second, whom she said are the majority of Muslims, are in cognitive dissonance.  They are horrified by and condemn the atrocities carried out by the first group in the name of Islam but they still believe in core Islamic beliefs.
The final group are the small minority of reformists and dissidents.  Ali places herself in the latter category.  She defined the dissidents as those who when confronted by a conflict between their conscience and the core creed of Islam choose their conscience.


She closed by addressing some questions to the Muslim students in the audience.  These included:
Why don’t you spend your time protesting the Preacher Teachers and their intolerance instead of protesting against people like me?
Why don’t Muslims protest against the image of the Koran sandwiched between two Kalashnikovs (the banner of Boko Haram)?
Why are Muslims silent about the murder of others by the intolerant ones (whether members of different Islamic sects or those of other faiths)?
She ended by saying that every day there is a headline that forces Muslims to chose between conscience and creed.

Q&A

Q. Is there too much focus on Islamic extremism?  What about colonialism and the evils of the West?

A. Colonialism is not unique to the Muslim world.  The Vietnamese and most African states were colonized but they are not waging jihad in response.  She also reminded the audience that Islam itself once was a colonial empire.


In response to another question (don’t have details in my notes) she again mentioned that using military means may be a necessity but our tools need to be broadened.

In response to a question about the Israeli-Palestinian conflicted she mentioned she had come across Palestinians who sincerely want a state that will co-exist peacefully with Israel but a second group see this as a religious war regardless of how the boundaries might be drawn.  She said the first group was in the minority but she hopes that in light of the other regional threats that the Arab nations might empower this group to seek a real peace.

The last question was why should we consider the problems of extremism in Islam as an indictment of the entire religion?  In her response she makes it clear that any “unreformed” religion is potentially a threat and said that in the West this reform had happened (she mentioned that even the Vatican had to make reforms in recent decades).  She mentioned visiting the Salem Witch Museum and seeing the texts used to condemn people for sorcery.  She said that’s where unreformed religions belong, in the museum.  The problem with Islam is that it is still in the 7th century and that increasing numbers of Muslims view the Koran and hadiths as a driving manual.


The dissidents and reformers must be empowered and must push for doctrinal change in Islam.  She pointed out that the huge demonstrations in Egypt overthrowing the Muslim Brotherhood were opposing the imposition of Sharia law as were the 2009 demonstrators in Iran.

She made three final remarks:

Reminded us that her community had no interest in jihad until the arrival of the Preacher Teacher.
We should not be in bed with the Saudis who spread intolerance.
“A world not led by America will be a really bad place to live in.” 

MY COMMENT:  Hirsi Ali said both that Islam is in the 7th century and that her community was fine practicing Islam until the arrival of the intolerant Preacher Teacher.  My sense is she would reconcile this by saying that Islam is a good faith "as long as you don't take it too seriously", a belief she would apply to all religions.  The universalist side of her message will make many uncomfortable.  For instance, along with opposing female genital mutilation she would also forbid the male circumcision practiced by Muslims and Jews.  She would also ban religious educational institutions.

I admire Hirsi Ali's courage and while I don't feel knowledgeable enough to comment on her religious critique of Islam it seems to me that her message about the instrumental role played by the fundamentalist preachers is correct.  However, while her message can be effective in the West, as a self described Islamic dissident and atheist it seems doubtful she will have any impact on the Muslim world and it is hard to see how a non-Islamic West can effectively empower Islamic reformers and dissidents.  This is a problem that makes taking on Communism look like child's play. 

Diversity

Diversity in itself is not our strength.   The Western philosophy and values that allow for Diversity, that was the root of our strength.   Western culture was what made us a coherent people regardless of race, or creed, or origin.   That’s what made us coherent.   And the belief in the supremacy of that Western culture propelled  our exceptionalism.  

- Samuel Huntington

Opinions

The Supreme Court recently held oral arguments on the affirmative action programs of Harvard and the University of North Carolina which, at least in the case of Harvard, where I'm familar with the data, has increased black and hispanic admissions while significantly limiting Asian admissions.  I expect the Court will overturn the diversity rationale first expressed by Justice Powell in the Bakke case (1978) and then made an explicit holding of the Court in the 2005 Grutter case, which provided cover for academic institutions to unleash the scourge of Division, Intolerance, and Exclusion (DIE).  While I believe that to be the correct constitutional conclusion, the reality is that the Court's ruling will not make a difference to the admission practices of the elite colleges and universities most committed to DIE.  There are quite a few potential ways to work around the Court's anticipated ruling in order to achieve the same goals which, in turn, will trigger more litigation.

Reading the transcript of the arguments led me to reread the opinions in Bakke and two aspects jumped out to me.

The first was Justice Powell's explanation of the purpose of "diversity", why it was important in the educational environment, and thus a permissible factor in admissions.  Excerpts:

The atmosphere of "speculation, experiment and creation"—so essential to the quality of higher education—is widely believed to be promoted by a diverse student body. As the Court noted in Keyishian, it is not too much to say that the "nation's future depends upon leaders trained through wide exposure" to the ideas and mores of students as diverse as this Nation of many peoples.

Thus, in arguing that its universities must be accorded the right to select those students who will contribute the most to the "robust exchange of ideas," petitioner invokes a countervailing constitutional interest, that of the First Amendment. In this light, petitioner must be viewed as seeking to achieve a goal that is of paramount importance in the fulfillment of its mission.

"The law school, the proving ground for legal learning and practice, cannot be effective in isolation from the individuals and institutions with which the law interacts. Few students and no one who has practiced law would choose to study in an academic vacuum, removed from the interplay of ideas and the exchange of views with which the law is concerned."

Ethnic diversity, however, is only one element in a range of factors a university properly may consider in attaining the goal of a heterogeneous student body. 

What is striking about Powell's rationale is that it appears no longer applicable in education, particularly in the elite colleges and universities.  His assumption is that ethnic and racial diversity, in and of itself, is an element in creating the "robust exchange of ideas".  Precisely the opposite is currently happening in academia.  What is important for students (and faculty) is complete conformity to a rigid set of ideas based upon race and gender being the sole lenses through which human experience and knowledge should be viewed.  Applicants, students, and faculty are increasingly being forced to pledge adherence to every element of the new creed, and dissent is immediately punished.  Classroom discussion, student group activities, outside speakers are all subject to a stifling conformity.

In light of the state of 21st century academia, Powell's concept of "diversity" has simply been nullified. On that basis alone, Grutter should be overturned.

The second thing that stood out was Justice Marshall's opinion.  Marshall's opinion is concerned solely with the situation of the Negro (his word) and the history of discrimination, pre- and post-Emancipation, experienced by that group.  After a lengthy recitation of that history, the Justice concludes;

 . . . these differences in the experience of the Negro make it difficult for me to accept that Negroes cannot be afforded greater protection under the Fourteenth Amendment where it is necessary to remedy the effects of past discrimination.

It is a view I have sympathy with, though the argument carries less power in 2022 than in 1978.  The unique aspects of the descendants of the freed slaves, and the discrimination they faced nationwide consistently until the post-Second World War era are at the heart of this.  In the July 2022 post Justice You Shall Pursue, I wrote about an interview with Charles Fain Lehman:

Two thoughts prompted by the interview:

The first is whether the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (CRA) was a mistake in not limiting its scope to the problem we were trying to remedy - the exclusion of black Americans from the full scope of legal rights of citizenship, as well as their de facto exclusion from large parts of American life.

During the debates over the 14th Amendment after the Civil War, an alternative was proposed simply stating:

All national and State laws shall be equally applicable to every citizen, and no discrimination shall be made on account of race and color.

It was overwhelmingly defeated in the Senate and instead we ended up with the more complex and legally ambiguous version of the Amendment we have now, in which we are still debating what "due process of law", "privileges and immunities of citizens" and "equal protection" mean 150 years later. 

The one sentence version was doomed to defeat because, at the time, white Americans would not accept social equality for blacks, but in the long-term I think it would have served us much better.  Was the same true of the CRA, which I've always considered one of the two greatest federal legislative achievements of the 20th century (the other being the 1965 Voting Rights Act)?  It is something recent events have led me to question. (1)

(1)  My point is not whether other groups should have civil rights, but perhaps we would have been better served focusing on the unique circumstances of those involuntary brought to America, held in servitude, and their descendants.  Whatever other groups may have faced, the degree, extent, and duration of discrimination against these people is unparalleled in our history.

Ironically, the elite academic institution focus on diversity has led to a highly disproportionate percentage of black admissions to be of first and second generation African immigrants or biracial applicants.  In some cases, as with Barack Obama, applicants fall in both categories.  This has been noticed by some black organizations who have called for preferences for those descended from slaves, in order to correct this imbalance. 

Unfortunately, all this is a diversion from the real issue - the failure of K-12 education to develop a pipeline of students for the institutions of higher learning.  The result is that the elite institutions are competing against each other for a small pool of black applicants.  Expanding that pool should be the focus.  There are a lot of theories about why this has happened but, unless and until it is solved, this issue will remain with us in one form or another.

On a side note, until rereading the case, I had not realized that arguing for the University of California was Archibald Cox, of Harvard Law School, and the Special Prosecutor fired by President Nixon in the Saturday Night Massacre of October 1973.

Will HBO Get Fahrenheit 451 Right?

. . . or will it miss the mark like Michael Bay when he made Pearl Harbor?

The cable channel has completed a remake of Ray Bradbury's classic 1951 novel to be broadcast later this year. The film's director, Ramin Bahrani, was recently interviewed:

“I think it’s pretty obvious, right?” Bahrani said when asked why Bradbury’s dystopian story is especially relevant in Trump’s America. The director, co-writer and executive producer of HBO’s adaptation of the novel spoke to reporter at the network’s panel during the Television Critics Association winter tour.

“We started working on this a year before the election,” Bahrani said. 

“Politically things are going in a very strange direction in terms of what is real and what is not real,” he continued. “I think we’ve been going in that direction for a long time, it’s just now kind of being revealed to us more clearly. So I think from a high level, that’s a problem.”
 
But Bahrani wasn’t ready to lay all the blame on the current president, adding that we as a culture have become beholden to technology and having information at our fingertips.

“I don’t want to focus so much on [Trump] because I don’t want to excuse the 30, 40 years prior to that. He’s just an exaggeration of it now,” Bahrani said.

The film stars Michael B Jordan who was outstanding in Creed, and Michael Shannon who shared his charming thoughts on Trump voters after the election:

"No offense to the seniors out there. My mom’s a senior citizen. But if you’re voting for Trump, it’s time for the urn."

When the interviewer confessed their parents had voted for Trump; Shannon swiftly responded, "F*ck ’em. You’re an orphan now. Don’t go home. Don’t go home for Thanksgiving or Christmas. Don’t talk to them at all. Silence speaks volumes."

Message: Don't burn books, burn people.

Given HBO's leftward drift over the past decade concern is warranted.  The cable giant's documentaries lean left, as do its "based on fact" series and it is the home of Bill Maher and VICE News (VICE is Vox for hipsters who don't like to read). Most recently, HBO announced Pod Save America, a series to debut in advance of the 2018 mid-term elections and hosted by Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett, and Tommy Vietor, President Obama's team of young and shallow speechwriters.  You may remember them laughing it up with Charlie Rose over their authorship of the immortal Obama promise/lie, "you can keep your plan if you like it".

In Fahrenheit 451, censorship doesn't start with the government; it starts with every minority taking out of books those pages that offend them and it is only at this point that the government moves in.  

Think about where censorship is coming from in today's America.  It is in the shutting down of opposition viewpoints on progressive college campuses; it is in groups "screening" works for major publishers to prevent viewpoints they oppose from seeing the light of day.  It is in calls for the removal of older books, movies and works of art that offend someone today.  Dystopian seems to be the preferred term by the left to describe "Trump's America" but if one looks at what is actually going on in society you would quickly realize that it is a projection by the left of its own vision of how America should be and who should be allowed to voice opinions.  For a summary of where we are today read Andrew Sullivan in New York Magazine on We All Live On Campus Now.

Bradbury, who died in 2012, saw the problem in its early stages.  By the late 1970s his own work was subjected to editing in order to sooth the sensibilities of various offended groups, prompting his coda to the 1979 edition of Fahrenheit 451: 

About two years ago, a letter arrived from a solemn young Vassar lady telling me how much she enjoyed reading my experiment in space mythology, The Martian Chronicles.
But, she added, wouldn’t it be a good idea, this late in time, to rewrite the book inserting more women’s characters and roles?

A few years before that I got a certain amount of mail concerning the same Martian book complaining that the blacks in the book were Uncle Toms and why didn’t I “do them over”?

Along about then came a note from a Southern white suggesting that I was prejudiced in favor of the blacks and the entire story should be dropped.

Two weeks ago my mountain of mail delivered forth a pipsqueak mouse of a letter from a well-known publishing house that wanted to reprint my story “The Fog Horn” in a high school reader.
In my story, I had described a lighthouse as hav­ing, late at night, an illumination coming from it that was a “God-Light.” Looking up at it from the view-point of any sea-creature one would have felt that one was in “the Presence.”
The editors had deleted “God-Light” and “in the Presence.”

Some five years back, the editors of yet another anthology for school readers put together a volume with some 400 (count ‘em) short stories in it. How do you cram 400 short stories by Twain, Irving, Poe, Maupassant and Bierce into one book?
Simplicity itself. Skin, debone, demarrow, scarify, melt, render down and destroy. Every adjective that counted, every verb that moved, every metaphor that weighed more than a mosquito—out! Every simile that would have made a sub-moron’s mouth twitch—gone! Any aside that explained the two-bit philosophy of a first-rate writer—lost!

Every story, slenderized, starved, bluepenciled, leeched and bled white, resembled every other story. Twain read like Poe read like Shakespeare read like Dostoevsky read like—in the finale—Edgar Guest. Every word of more than three syllables had been ra­zored. Every image that demanded so much as one instant’s attention—shot dead.
Do you begin to get the damned and incredible picture?

How did I react to all of the above?
By “firing” the whole lot.
By sending rejection slips to each and every one. By ticketing the assembly of idiots to the far reaches of hell.

The point is obvious. There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people run­ning about with lit matches. Every minority, be it Baptist / Unitarian, Irish / Italian / Octogenarian / Zen Buddhist, Zionist/Seventh-day Adventist, Women’s Lib/ Republican, Mattachine/ Four Square Gospel feels it has the will, the right, the duty to douse the kerosene, light the fuse. Every dimwit editor who sees himself as the source of all dreary blanc-mange plain porridge unleavened literature, licks his guillotine and eyes the neck of any author who dares to speak above a whisper or write above a nursery rhyme.

Fire-Captain Beatty, in my novel Fahrenheit 451, described how the books were burned first by minori­ties, each ripping a page or a paragraph from this book, then that, until the day came when the books were empty and the minds shut and the libraries closed forever.

“Shut the door, they’re coming through the win­dow, shut the window, they’re coming through the door,” are the words to an old song. They fit my life-style with newly arriving butcher/censors every month. Only six weeks ago, I discovered that, over the years, some cubby-hole editors at Ballantine Books, fearful of contaminating the young, had, bit by bit, censored some 75 separate sections from the novel. Students, reading the novel which, after all, deals with censorship and book-burning in the fu­ture, wrote to tell me of this exquisite irony. Judy-Lynn Del Rey, one of the new Ballantine editors, is having the entire book reset and republished this summer with all the damns and hells back in place.

A final test for old Job II here: I sent a play, Leviathan 99, off to a university theater a month ago. My play is based on the “Moby Dick” mythology, dedi­cated to Melville, and concerns a rocket crew and a blind space captain who venture forth to encounter a Great White Comet and destroy the destroyer. My drama premieres as an opera in Paris this autumn.
But, for now, the university wrote back that they hardly dared do my play—it had no women in it! And the ERA ladies on campus would descend with ball-bats if the drama department even tried!
Grinding my bicuspids into powder, I suggested that would mean, from now on, no more productions of Boys in the Band (no women), or The Women (no men). Or, counting heads, male and female, a good lot of Shakespeare that would never be seen again, especially if you count lines and find that all the good stuff went to the males!
I wrote back maybe they should do my play one week, and The Women the next. They probably thought I was joking, and I’m not sure that I wasn’t.

For it is a mad world and it will get madder if we allow the minorities, be they dwarf or giant, orangu­tan or dolphin, nuclear-head or water-conversation­ist, pro-computerologist or Neo-Luddite, simpleton or sage, to interfere with aesthetics. The real world is the playing ground for each and every group, to make or unmake laws. But the tip of the nose of my book or stories or poems is where their rights end and my territorial imperatives begin, run and rule. If Mor­mons do not like my plays, let them write their own. If the Irish hate my Dublin stories, let them rent type-writers. If teachers and grammar school editors find my jawbreaker sentences shatter their mushmilk teeth, let them eat stale cake dunked in weak tea of their own ungodly manufacture. If the Chicano intel­lectuals wish to re-cut my “Wonderful Ice Cream Suit” so it shapes “Zoot,” may the belt unravel and the pants fall.

For, let’s face it, digression is the soul of wit. Take philosophic asides away from Dante, Milton or Hamlet’s father’s ghost and what stays is dry bones. Laur­ence Sterne said it once: Digressions, incontestably, are the sunshine, the life, the soul of reading! Take them out and one cold eternal winter would reign in every page. Restore them to the writer—he steps forth like a bridegroom, bids them all-hail, brings in variety and forbids the appetite to fail.

In sum, do not insult me with the beheadings, finger-choppings or the lung-defiations you plan for my works. I need my head to shake or nod, my hand to wave or make into a fist, my lungs to shout or whis­per with. I will not go gently onto a shelf, degutted, to become a non-book.

All you umpires, back to the bleachers. Referees, hit the showers. It’s my game. I pitch, I hit, I catch. I run the bases. At sunset I’ve won or lost. At sunrise, I’m out again, giving it the old try.
And no one can help me. Not even you.

Rushmore

Good movie!

I did not watch President Trump's July 3 speech at Mt Rushmore because I can't stand watching or listening to him.

Then I heard the speech described as "dark and divisive" and defending the Confederate flag.

I thought to myself, why can't we have a President who talks like this instead of Trump?

Our Founders launched not only a revolution in government, but a revolution in the pursuit of justice, equality, liberty, and prosperity.  No nation has done more to advance the human condition than the United States of America.  And no people have done more to promote human progress than the citizens of our great nation.

It was all made possible by the courage of 56 patriots who gathered in Philadelphia 244 years ago and signed the Declaration of Independence.   They enshrined a divine truth that changed the world forever when they said: “…all men are created equal.”

These immortal words set in motion the unstoppable march of freedom.  Our Founders boldly declared that we are all endowed with the same divine rights — given [to] us by our Creator in Heaven.  And that which God has given us, we will allow no one, ever, to take away — ever. 

Oh, wait.  That is what Trump said!  After reading the media descriptions I decided I needed to actually read the darn thing and to my surprise it is probably the first speech given by the President with which I agree 100%!

He went on to say:

We believe in equal opportunity, equal justice, and equal treatment for citizens of every race, background, religion, and creed.  Every child, of every color — born and unborn — is made in the holy image of God.

We want free and open debate, not speech codes and cancel culture.

We embrace tolerance, not prejudice.

And he accurately pointed out the danger currently emerging in America, a danger threatening every decent American whatever their race, ethnicity or religion:

The radical ideology attacking our country advances under the banner of social justice.  But in truth, it would demolish both justice and society.  It would transform justice into an instrument of division and vengeance, and it would turn our free and inclusive society into a place of repression, domination, and exclusion.

That those in the media and elsewhere who actively promote divisiveness, racial hatred, and intolerance accuse the President of the same is merely a matter of projection for them.  It is what they are all about.

Then I saw Senator Tammy Duckworth state that the Mt Rushmore speech was about "dead traitors" so thinking I'd missed something I went back and reread the speech.  Here are all the people and groups named by the President during the speech (excluding the ones already on Rushmore):

U.S. Grant
Andrew Jackson
Martin Luther King
Frederick Douglass
Wild Bill Hickok
Buffalo Bill Cody
Wright Brothers
Tuskegee Airmen
Harriet Tubman
Clara Barton
Jesse Owens
George Patton
Louis Armstrong
Alan Shepard
Elvis
Mohammed Ali
Walt Whitman
Mark Twain
Irving Berlin
Ella Fitzgerald
Frank Sinatra
Bob Hope

I don't see any traitors?  Do you?

Go read the speech for yourself.

And yesterday the Trump Administration, which I've been repeatedly assured by progressives is racist, conducted the first execution of a federal prisoner in 17 years.  The person executed was a white supremacist.

Change Is Now

From The Byrds, one of my favorite bands in the 60s.  I still like the band and their music, but wanted to write about the lyrics in this song; how they relate to their times and today.

Here are the full lyrics.  Wait a minute!  Don't forget to enjoy the music - the drone bass, Roger McGuinn's guitar solo which sounds like it was beamed in from outer space, the (unusual for the time) country music interlude, and the harmonies.

Change is now, change is now
Things that seemed to be solid are not
All is now, all is now
The time that we have to live

 

Gather all that we can
Keep in harmony with love's sweet plan

 

Truth is real, truth is real
That which is not real does not exist
In and out roundabout
Dance to the day when fear it is gone

 

Gather all that we can
Keep in harmony with love's sweet plan

 

Change is now, change is now
Things that seemed to be solid are not
In and out roundabout
Dance to the day when fear it is gone
Fear it is gone

What does it mean?

Let's set the context.  The Notorious Byrd Brothers album was released in January 1968 and recorded in the second half of 1967, just after the birth of hippiedom during The Summer of Love, and its lyrics reflect that sensibility.

Change is now, change is now
Things that seemed to be solid are not
All is now, all is now
The time that we have to live

There was a sense we had entered a new era.  Not me, them.  I was about to turn 17 and though my hair grew longer in the late 60s and I loved the music, I never considered myself a hippie.  The old paradigm was gone ("things that seemed to be solid are not").  Everything was up for grabs ("all is now").    There is no past we need to know about, nothing to learn from experience, it's in our hands to create a New World. 

Gather all that we can
Keep in harmony with love's sweet plan

Everybody is welcome.  Get on the Love Train.  If we simply love each other, all will be well.  No more details needed.  Did I mention there's nothing to learn from the past?

Truth is real, truth is real
That which is not real does not exist
In and out roundabout
Dance to the day when fear it is gone

That first line is very intriguing.  Notice they don't say "science is real" or "I believe in science" (that would also have been harder to rhyme) that ridiculous slogan of the past few years.  It is "Truth" that is real.  There is a reality so maybe everything is not up for grabs.  And the truth they are referring to is not necessarily a materialistic or scientific one, in fact since they're hippies it probably isn't.  It's likely a spiritual truth, a truth that man cannot just create, though they would hesitate to specifically call Christian or Jewish.  Of course, as Tom Holland points out in Dominion, whether they acknowledge it or not, the Christian worldview which permeates our civilization, is the springboard for that truth. 

 

"That which is not real does not exist" tells us that reality and belief may be separate, reminding me of Philip K Dick's notion that "reality is that which still exists when you stop believing in it".   The phrase is also contra to the creed of today's New Racists who believe that the manipulation of language can, in and of itself, create a new reality.  It's why belief is so essential for the NRs, and any deviation is such a threat it requires expulsion and branding as a heretic.  The hippies, in contrast, were content with folks "doing their own thing"; there was no cult from which one could be expelled.

 

Dancing was very important to the hippies.  It was an individual rite, or sometimes a group rite, but not something for couples to do.  It was liberating and the act of dancing could bring about change.  And the most important change needed was drive fear away, so that love could fill the world.  It was a simple view and seemingly easy to accomplish, a perspective that Elvis Costello, the noted foreign policy realist, rejected in 1977 when he told us "fear is here to stay, love is here for a visit".

The phrase "fear it is gone" is repeated three times during the song.  One of the reasons I didn't care for the hippie ethos at the time was the simple mindedness required, the deliberate avoidance of deep thinking, a mindset that allowed naive people to be easily manipulated by charismatic figures with evil intent.

Or maybe I'm reading too much into the lyrics and it was just all about the drugs.

 

In any event, the placid dream of peace and love ended quickly.  The milk of human kindness had curdled by August of 1968 when Jefferson Airplane released its fourth album, Crown of Creation, with the title song's mixture of narcissism, self-righteousness, and intolerance:

In loyalty to their kind

They cannot tolerate our minds

In loyalty to our kind

We cannot tolerate their obstruction!

A sentiment that would fit well in 2023 America.

Things deteriorated quickly in the late 1960s and early 70s.  A year after Crown of Creation, the Airplane were preaching revolution, and the Black Panthers and Weathermen were rolling.  Peace and love were over.  The difference between that period and now was that the revolutionaries were mostly rejected by the institutions, though they were able to grab a beach head in academia which they would exploit over the next few decades.  Today, people with those more revolutionary, intolerant, and violent beliefs are the ones running the institutions.  We've gone from "Don't Trust The Man" to "Trust Authority and You're Fired If You Don't". It's why today is a much more dangerous time.  For my reflections and personal experience with that earlier period read The Company You Keep.

The Greediest Americans

It is amazing how many of the intelligentsia call it ‘greed’ to want to keep what you have earned, but not greed to want to take away what somebody else has earned, and let politicians use it to buy votes. – Thomas Sowell

Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are the greediest people in American history.  They promise to take trillions of dollars they did not earn from other people in order to give it to others in return for which the promised recipients will give them political power.  And since both believe in a political creed in which everything one does is political and in which the government has untrammeled authority it will be unprecedented power over the people of the United States.  In their world, individual liberty is conditional upon its conformance to their personal desires.  I can think of nothing more greedy.

Still Looking Good

It was the 1975 team that made me a Red Sox fan, and specifically these two guys, Fred Lynn and Jim Rice (along with El Tiante and Bill Lee).  I'd moved to the Boston area in August 1973 and was a National League and Mets fan.  But two things appealed to me about the Sox, (1) everyone in Boston hated the Yankees, which was part of the baseball creed in which I'd been raised, and (2) late in the '74 season rookies Lynn and Rice joined the club.  Of course, it helped they won the pennant in '75 and the greatest world series I'd seen, three games to four (don't forget Carlton Fisk and Bernie Carbo!).  Freddie won the Rookie of the Year and MVP awards, while Jim hit .309 with 22 homers before getting hit by a pitch and breaking his hand a week before the end of the season, causing him to miss the series.

It was also the season that the future Mrs THC and I attended our first Red Sox game together and saw Rice hit the longest home run I ever saw in person.

Here they are a couple of days ago in Springfield, Massachusetts; Jim at 70, Fred at 71, both looking good. 

Twins reunion …Jimmy looks great. … stories flying. ⁦@MGMSpringfield⁩ #Soxwinterweekend ⁦@NESN⁩ ⁦@RedSox⁩ pic.twitter.com/eAE2Q1kyMG

— Fred Lynn (@19fredlynn) January 21, 2024

Who Are We?

Yesterday the Louis D Brandeis Center and Jewish Americans For Fairness In Education (and its individual members, including two Berkeley Law School professors) filed a lawsuit in Federal Court against the University of California Berkeley, Berkeley Law School, and the Regents of the University of California.  The complaint alleges the defendants are in violations of the 14th Amendment and the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and asks the Court to issue injunctions requiring the University to enforce its own policies regarding discrimination and to end the hostile environment towards Jews on the Berkeley campus.

I can't opine on the legal merits but there are three aspects that caught my eye:

First is the nature of the allegations, many of which have been previously reported:

In spite of the recognition of anti-Zionism as a form of anti-Semitism, no fewer
than 23 Berkeley Law student organizations have enacted policies to discriminate against and
exclude Jewish students, faculty, and scholars. For example:
• To be a member of Women of Berkeley Law, the Queer Caucus at Berkeley, or the
Asian Pacific American Law Students Association, Jewish students must accede to
the groups’ support of the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions movement, which
seeks to dismantle the modern State of Israel;
• In order to volunteer to provide pro bono legal services through a number of
Berkeley Law Legal Services organizations, Jewish students must undergo a
“Palestine 101” training program that emphasizes the illegitimacy of the State of
Israel;
• And to speak to any of these student organizations, invited speakers must first
repudiate Zionism under a bylaw that prohibits speakers who hold Zionist views
(the “Exclusionary Bylaw”). In fact, the Berkeley Journal of Gender, Law, and
Justice, goes one step further, prohibiting Zionists not only from speaking to its
members but from publishing in its pages.

Second, the plaintiffs seek to use the University's own policies regarding discrimination by student organizations.  Interestingly, policies like this have been used at several academic institutions by leftists against Christian student religious groups, to force them to admit non-Christians to membership.

Third, and more significantly, is that the student organizations at the heart of the complaint because of their actions are not defendants in the lawsuit.  An argument they would surely raise if they were defendants (and they might seek to intervene as amici) is that the complaint improperly conflates Zionism with Judaism.  Rhetorically, they will ask if they would be forced to admit or engage with white supremacists and, if not, why should they be forced to do this with Zionists who are just another type of supremacist? And here's where things get tricky with definitions.  Remember that white people, including Jews, are, by definition, white supremacists.  One doesn't have to be George Wallace, Bull Connor, or David Duke to be a racist or white supremacist if you are white.  Unless you are actively antiracist you are a racist.  To be antiracist you must do the equivalent of what Jewish students are being asked at Berkeley - support the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions movement which calls for the dismantling of Israel.  As with Jews, these organizations will not engage with whites unless they are antiracist and support all the precepts of DEI; nuance and distinguishing between good and bad arguments and assertions is not allowed and if you persist you will be cast into the darkness.

It will be interesting to see how the arguments go around equating Jews with Zionism.  You can read the argument by the plaintiffs in the complaint.  We are already seeing how the defendants may respond with the pathetic Law School Dean, Erwin Chermerinsky who just two weeks ago wrote of his recent experiences with antisemitism at the Law School:

Two weeks ago, at a town hall, a student told me that what would make her feel safe in the law school would be “to get rid of the Zionists.” I have heard several times that I have been called “part of a Zionist conspiracy,” which echoes of antisemitic tropes that have been expressed for centuries.

Chermerinsky also denounced the very actions taken by the student organizations referenced in the complaint.  But now he tells us the complaint, "paints a picture of the law school that is stunningly inaccurate".  For more on the Dean read Equality Or Equity: Which Side Are You On?

As a practical matter, that the anti-Zionism positions are an effective ban on most Jewish students participating in the organizations and creating a hostile law school environment is clear; what the legal implications are less so.

Regardless of the outcome of the lawsuit, what is happening at Berkeley Law School is not much different from what is occurring at many American law schools at which traditions of equal protection under the law, due process, and individual constitutional protections are being subordinated to the new creed of DEI.  A generation of lawyers is being trained to regard the constitution as racist trash, and instructed on how to effectively dismantle it.

My Senator

Yes, this is THC's Senator (though the phrase "callow youth" also comes to mind), Chris Murphy (D-CT) explaining away the woes of the Affordable Care Act by whining that it was a tough job since "we were reordering one sixth of the American economy" and that "the only way to do it was to make it big".

That certainly is one way of looking at it. But perhaps THC is being unfair.  Perhaps we should have more empathy for the task of the legislator and regulator who must get everything just right in order to make that one-sixth of the economy operate like clockwork.  And for those who ceaselessly criticize those who are tirelessly working on our behalf - that irksome American public which does not appreciate all that is being done for them - we need only remember the sentiment of the Emperor Caligula when vexed once again by a stubborn Roman populace: 

Utinam populus Romanus unam cervicem haberet!
Would that the Roman people had but one neck!

  (Caligula, not a nice guy)
And certainly our public servants deserve a better class of citizens.  THC is sure that once they can reorder the rest of the economy they'll start working to ensure they have a citizenry worthy of them, or, in the alternative, arranging for that one neck (undoubtedly with advance publication of the proposal in the Code of Federal Regulations) and establishing a more suitable populace which will more tamely accept their guidance. 

Sen Murphy's sentiments merely echo themes of progressives that are now a century old, sentiments best captured in Franklin Roosevelt's Commonwealth Club speech of Sept. 23, 1932, given in the midst of his first presidential campaign. It is worth reading in full because it gives you the most undiluted picture of the Progressive mindset and, as an added attraction, comes complete with a Fractured Fairy Tale version of American history.

Let's enter the WAYBAC Machine and take a look at that speech:(Mr Peabody & his pet boy, Sherman, enter the WAYBAC Machine)

In FDR's view, the world of the Founders had disappeared by the beginning of the 20th century with the emergence of industrial America and thus their ideas about property and liberty were now outmoded.  The Progressives believed that in order for the United States to continue to compete as a great nation the social reforms of late 19th century Bismarckian Germany and the government-industry cooperative model of the new corporatist Italian state provided a better path forward.  It was a world where all that could be invented had already been invented; a world where the large corporations that existed would always exist and maintain their dominance (a generation later John Kenneth Galbraith would make the same argument with a different constellation of corporations in The Affluent Society and The New Industrial State), in other words, a static world in which the pie had been baked and now just needed to be cut up.  Under these circumstances it was time for the rule of the manager and administrator.  FDR summed it up this way:

A mere builder of more industrial plants, a creator of more railroad systems, and organizer of more corporations, is as likely to be a danger as a help. The day of the great promoter or the financial Titan, to whom we granted anything if only he would build, or develop, is over. Our task now is not discovery or exploitation of natural resources, or necessarily producing more goods. It is the soberer, less dramatic business of administering resources and plants already in hand, of seeking to reestablish foreign markets for our surplus production, of meeting the problem of under consumption, of adjusting production to consumption, of distributing wealth and products more equitably, of adapting existing economic organizations to the service of the people. The day of enlightened administration has come.

Take that Steve Jobs and Bill Gates!  No soup for you. 

The goal of this new process was simple then, and remains simple today for Progressives.  Provide regulators and the Executive Branch with enough authority to make the "right" decisions.  The substance of those decisions may change over time; the important part is that bureaucrats have the authority to tame this unruly economic system and the citizens who insist on acting in such a chaotic manner - as FDR put it, we can rely on the enlightened administrator.  That's why, as it turned out, the actual language of the Affordable Care Act, has mattered so little.  Whatever the Obama Administration hasn't liked it just ignores or unilaterally changes.  Maybe they'll get it wrong this time but there is always a more perfect regulation and a more perfect regulator to get it right the next time.

The idea that order needs to be imposed, and can be done so effectively by all-knowing regulators, was widespread in the New Deal and remains a touching, faith-based creed, today.  This distaste for the disorder created by the individual decisions of millions of citizens, along with some bizarre views on economics, can be seen in an excerpt from Justice Cardozo's dissent in Carter v Carter Coal Co (1936) in which the Court, in a 5-4 vote, found the Bituminous Coal Conservation Act of 1935 to be unconstitutional.  The Act was another attempt to set up a government, industry and union cartel to set prices and wages:

Overproduction was at a point where free competition had been degraded into anarchy. Prices had been cut so low that profit had become impossible for all except the lucky handful. . .
 
Congress was not condemned to inaction in the face of price wars and wage wars so pregnant with disaster. Commerce had been choked and burdened; its normal flow had been diverted from one state to another; there had been bankruptcy and waste and ruin alike for capital and for labor. The liberty protected by the Fifth Amendment does not include the right to persist in this anarchic riot.

What's missed is that those individual decisions by millions of people are an incredible example of spontaneous collective action whereas the nominal "collective" decisions by regulators and crony cartels on behalf of "the people" are actually made by very few persons. 

The "principles" other than control remain malleable though the New Deal principles look somewhat odd from today's perspective.  The New Dealers saw the need to reorganize both the industrial and agricultural sectors of society and it was upon these two pillars that their reforms were built. First, was the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) which created a cartel of industry and government and industry to regulate prices and create operating rules for every industry sector.  The Progressive idea was that prices were too low and needed to be raised in order for the country to end the Depression.  Doesn't sound like today's Progressives, but no matter, the real point is "who decides?" and "who controls?"  Fortunately, the law was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court thanks to Schechter Poultry Corp. v U.S. (1935) in which the government prosecuted a family of Kosher chicken sellers in Brooklyn who insisted that their customers should actually be able to select the chickens they wanted to buy.  You are reading that correctly - the new regulations required buyers to accept chickens only in blocks of a dozen or half-dozen because allowing them to select individual chickens would disrupt the market!

(It's all or nothing!)
The other pillar was the Agricultural Adjustment Act designed to accomplish the same goal - raise prices for the consumer.  As a result of the New Deal policies, millions of cattle and hogs were killed and their meat not allowed to be marketed in order to create more demand and raise prices at a time when millions of Americans were going hungry and a web of subsidies and growing restrictions established to reduce production and make food more expensive.

(Let's make it more expensive for the kids in order to increase corporate profits!)
Unfortunately the agricultural subsidy program has endured and in creating a new constituency for its benefits has ensnared politicians on both sides of the aisle, preventing any meaningful reform measures for 75 years.

While the specific type of Risorgimento intended by the NIRA was knocked off track by Schechter Poultry, later New Deal Supreme Court cases such as Carolene Products (1938) and Wickard v Filburn (1942) resulted in the Court dropping nearly all barriers to government regulation, except for certain Constitutional clauses which the Court still deemed worthy of protection.  As THC has pointed out before, the worst damage done to the Constitution in those years were all in cases where the government advocated for measures to improve the profitability of producers and to increase prices for consumers.  That is why THC says that the governing principle is about control, not about anything else; the details can change at any point as long as the right people continue to make the decisions. 

The result is today's upside-down Constitution. The original one presumed that rights remained with the people except to the extent those rights had been specifically delegated by the people (or the states) to the new federal government.  Today's Constitution, in the view of the predominant legal scholars, presumes that the default position is that the Federal Government, and for that matter, State governments except to the extent preempted by Federal action, can act as they see fit except for certain matters that have been delegated back to the people.  For instance, some sexual-related matters seem to have been delegated back, something the earlier Progressives would definitely not have approved of and, who knows, at some point that delegation may be revoked as academic theories change.

The best way to understand our current situation is that we are governed by the tenured liberal arts faculty of an Ivy League college which has the freedom to instruct students as they deem best and, when funds run low, to send out another tuition bill to the parents.

THC wonders what Senator Murphy next plans to "reorder".  THC knows who will get the tuition bill.