Another War Criminal Signs Books at Cody's

To be fair, it would be pretty damn hard to find a US President who isn't a war criminal. By my standards at least. Anyway, Clinton is a pretty smooth (slick? slimy?) politician and his cult of personality was definitely in full swing with the media testifying: Clinton-Mania Hits the Bay Area.

This visit came hot on the heels of Clinton's secretary of state Madeline Albright (also a war criminal). As with Albright, when Cody's brings these key American foreign policy makers for Bay Area liberals to fawn over, only a small number of people actually showed up to vocally protest.

You would think more protesters would show up, given how many people are opposed to the war in Iraq, and especially now that Michael Moore's screed is raging in the theatres ( if you are like me, you will like the movie but be disappointed that he selectively avoids criticism of democrats and is getting into bed with the wieners at MoveOn.org ). Especially given that Clinton has been DEFENDING Bush regarding foreign policy on Iraq (paving the way for Kerry to keep the occupation going, in my view). Ironic, aint it? Anyway, you would think more protesters would show up.

As for me, I did show up, I couldn't resist. At first, I busted out a boombox and began playing Phil Och's Love Me, I'm a Liberal (listen to a bit) to all the people waiting in line to get their books signed. I quickly realized that it was going over most of their heads. They were annoyed because obviously, if I wasn't there to wait in line with them like a chump, then I was no better than Bush. Or something. I got booed before they could even tell what I was playing :).

Anyway, all the bad vibes bummed me out, cuz its a really good song, and I thought, maybe Im giving these Clinton afficionados way too much credit. I mean, maybe they will need to read the book and learn that Bill Clinton was once a student listening to Phil Ochs and draft dodging and organizing anti-war (Vietnam) protests and whatever else. Incidentally, speaking of students, active ones at that, readers will be interested to note that I ran into Student Regent (for one more day) Matt Murray. Apparently he had to wait in line like all the other chumps while new ASUC president Misha Leybovich got to go in VIP style - he was dressed up awful nice and milling around with the other buff guys in suits (but they were working - secret service). Ouch for Matt!

So I put the boombox in the hands of a friend. I borrowed a friend's bullhorn and did a quick survey of the crowd and asked those in favor of the war to raise their hands. Noone in the damn crowd had the guts to raise their hands (there were actually a few war supporters maybe about 3 or 4 per 100, as I later learned). So I made a sign that said

Bill Clinton:

   “I have repeatedly defended President 

    Bush against the left on Iraq"			

SO, if you oppose the war in Iraq, let Bill 

know how you feel.  You’ve got about 7 seconds 

with him, long enough to tell him something like:

    “Oppose the war, Bill” 

    “Bush was wrong, Bill”

    “Lets bring the troops home”

Do it after he signs your book!   If the Bay 

Area doesn’t give him the message, who will?

I held this up and walked the line, getting into a bunch of really interesting discussions.

Some people became totally incoherent and basically attacked me outright. A lot of them debated whether Bill actually meant what he said (hee hee!), and whether there we had any reason to care about what a man like Clinton said publicly (funny, they were the ones standing in line for 3 hours with drool running down their faces and sweating under the weight of his 900 page book!). There was shitloads of cognitive dissonance and head shaking, even after I pointed out that all the Democrats voted for the war (and continue to do so), and that they, faithful Clinton fans, should really not be so surprised that Clinton would support the war, since, after all, he's a Democrat. More head shaking. Seems many of these people were in some serious denial. The point I made that seemed to convince the most people was when I asked folks if they seriously believe the troops will come home before the Democrats actually admit publicly that the war was a mistake.

Anyway, not everyone was negative, and a lot of people (maybe 50-80) nodded their heads and agreed to do it. One really nice guy even offered me his ticket and told me I should go in and talk to Clinton, which I politely declined. The most important thing, I think, was getting folks to address, to some degree, their own cognitive dissonance on the immorality of the war vs. their support for democrats (hopefully they can extend the analysis to other progressive issues).

The one big thing I learned is how incredibly affected folks are by mainstream propaganda, "leadership", and cults of personality. As an activist, I've decided that one needs to acknowledge and reaffirm the existence of these basic, non-subtle, totally anti-intellectual modes of behavior (herd mentality and aggressive idolatry) every once in a while just to maintain an idea of what you are working with (and against).
- posted by Mano Negra @ 5:01 PM |

 
Go Piss Off A Right-Winger...

...and see Fahrenheit 9/11. Please note that the first screening of Fahrenheit 9/11 will be at Landmark's California Theater on Center Street at 12:01AM on Friday (i.e., 12 hours from now).
- posted by Jon @ 11:38 AM |

 
New Legal Analysis on John Yoo's Torture Memos

Professor John Yoo's defenders on campus continue to provide the most pitiful arguments for their cause. One rocket scientist who calls himself "Meaty Fly" said "His interpretation kicks ass." Kicks ass? This isn't some Queens of the Stone Age CD we're talking about. It's not about liberals and conservatives. It's not about whether the Republican or the Democratic team gets more points. It's about good and evil, right and wrong, and how a professor allowed evil things to happen.

Anyhow, it's nice to know that the response to Yoo's memos from human rights lawyers, attorneys in the military JAG corps, and law professors have generally been unsympathetic to Yoo. My favorite site on the subject is Discourse.net, where Michael Froomkin has laid the rhetorical smackdown on Yoo's memos not once, but twice. But my favorite tidbit from Discourse.net is the comment from Bryan d'Pfaff who said, "What is wrong with US legal education, that it produces and rewards creatures such as Berkeley law professor John Yoo, who are all too willing to help shape policies that have deeply injured the worldwide reputation of our country?" (I predict that in the future that this comment will also apply to UCB alum/law student Rory Kennedy aka Angry Clam as well.)

I also enjoyed a great column on FindLaw that gets the Yoo memo out of the realm of the ivory tower and into a discussion of the real-world ethical implications of John Yoo's actions:

Some have claimed the controversy over Yoo's memo at Berkeley is simply an academic freedom/free speech issue, and urged that the answer is obvious: Yoo ought to be able to express whatever views he chooses. But Yoo did more than just express views; in writing the memo, he also offered counsel.

After all, Yoo's articles alone could have been used to justify Administration action, even if he had never worked for the government. What his memo added - as he was doubtless aware - was cover. It provides cover for the Administration, in the event there are future attempts to prosecute Administration members for war crimes.

It's as if Yoo provided a "technically correct" legal brief to Michael Jackson that enabled the King of Pop to molest little boys and get away with it. Even if Yoo's analysis was the most brilliant piece of legal analysis on God's green earth, the conduct it was designed to protect makes the memo inherently unethical.

And another thing, the attempt to paint the petition against Yoo as the greatest threat to academic freedom in modern times just doesn't wash. (If academic freedom was really what motivated campus conservatives, then why do they ally with Accuracy in Academia, which recently called for an FBI file to be started on Professor Hatem Bazian?) If Yoo weren't tenured, then the academic freedom argument might hold sway, but Yoo is tenured and the petition does not call for Yoo to be fired. Instead, it calls for Yoo to take voluntary action to recant his position or resign. Since the chances of that happening are between slim and none, the petition is at bottom nothing more than a symbolic expression of moral outrage, which is exactly what it should be. Yoo shouldn't be censored, but that doesn't mean he shouldn't be censured. Besides, if activists wanted to get serious and move beyond merely "symbolic" acts with regard to John Yoo, the best course of action would be to avoid academia altogether and initiate disbarment proceedings against him and all the other lawyers who contributed to the ass-covering memos that legitimized the prison abuses at Gitmo and Abu Ghraib.
- posted by Jon @ 3:42 PM |

 
We Own The Campus Now?

Daniel Frankenstein and Jesse Gabriel were both featured prominently in the recent East Bay Express article on anti-Semitism at Berkeley, which alleged that anti-Semitism was on the increase.

According to a May 2004 article posted by the New York chapter of the United Jewish Appeal, Daniel Frankenstein sang a much more upbeat tune than what appears in the recent East Bay Express article:

[Jesse] Gabriel, [Daniel] Frankenstein and Rebecca Simon, another Berkeley student, went to Washington to participate in the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's Saban National Political Leadership Training Seminar, an intensive program for 250 college students from 60 campuses.

"We were given the tools to take back the campus," Frankenstein said on a spring afternoon, seated in a shady spot at an outdoor caf near Berkeley's campus. ``Not only have we taken it back -- we own the campus now."

What do you mean "we" here? In my sociology department, we have several members of the Tikkun Community Network and Tzedek, in addition to several Israeli "sabras" enrolled in our graduate program. It's certainly news to them that "we" own the campus, whether "we" is defined as Jewish or Gentile.
- posted by Jon @ 5:57 PM |

 
Israel boosters grasping at straws

Knock-off corporate weekly rag, the East Bay Express, recently found itself in the service of Micki Wienberg. It was truly a shameful bit of yellow journalism.

It sparked a good deal of commentary after Calstuff linked to it. 2 of those blog posts are available here and here.

The Berkeley Daily Planet has a good piece that addresses the issue from a different perspective, and there will be a response published in the EB Express as well, just dont know when that will come out.

Obviously, I don't think theres a huge problem with anti-Semitism on campus, but I do think its Adam Weisberg's (ex. director at Berkeley Hillel) job to worry about anti-Semitism, regardless of whether its a serious problem or not, and when it rears its ugly head, its his job to DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.

Thus, if the East Bay Xpress had it right, and antisemitism was rampant on campus, you would assume that Adam would have DONE A BUNCH OF STUFF TO ADDRESS IT! The proper question to ask then, if you want to know if anti-Semitism is a problem, is WHAT HAS BERKELEY HILLEL DONE?

And the answer is, nothing, specifically, directly, to address anti-Semitism. I'm not counting press releases about the few hate crimes that have occured. Im talking about large scale anti-hate programming. Instead of doing anti-hate programming, they hired an "Israel Initiatives" coordinator to do promotional pro-Israel programming, chased Tzedek (pro-human rights jewish group) out of Hillel, and brought a bunch of fucked up speakers to campus to villify Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims.

For those of you that want specifics on the lovely little things Hillel has been up to recently, you can take a peek at this handout.
- posted by Mano Negra @ 4:08 PM |

 
BCR Senate Candidates Belong to Ministry with Christian Reconstructionist Ties

According to recent comments posted by Hovannes Abramyan on CalStuff, former Berkeley College Republican candidates for the Student Senate, Amaury Gallais and Paul LaFata, are both members of the church group, Victory Campus Ministries:

Amaury could only rely on VCM (Victory Campus Ministry), the church group both he and Paul belong to.

According to other web sites associated with Victory Campus Ministries (VCM), VCM is a ministry affiliated with the Morning Star Christian Church and Morning Star International. It is at this point that the genealogy of Victory Campus Ministries starts to get interesting. It appears that Morning Star International developed out of an association with Maranatha Campus Ministries, but Morning Star doesn't like to advertise that fact.

Morning Star literature has been scrubbed clean of any reference to Maranatha. Bios do not include prominent positions in Maranatha. Activity is not described as Maranatha-sponsored, although clearly dated before Maranatha disbanded and before Morning Star was formed.

Maranatha literature and the Post-Maranatha web site indulge heavily in unrepentant and revisionist history. No mention of a run-in with a committee of cult-watchers, of deprogrammer kidnappings, of the carnage of destroyed lives. Nor of mass staff resignations and numerous conference speakers refusing to return. Only the vaguest reference to constant turbulence and dissent within the board, and that attributed to the devil.

Maranatha founder Bob Weiner’s mild recanting is not found; neither is there any mention of repeated personal confrontations with friends and associates over disturbing Maranatha practices; his berserk, retaliatory stunts against former members; or his thousand-and-one denials, ostensible explanations, contradicting versions, straight-faced lies, and vicious recriminations.

Maranatha Campus Ministries had an interesting history during the 1980s, largely due to controversy surrounding its founder Bob Weiner:

Mr. Weiner has had some explaining to do lately. His exotic blend of Bible-thumping, born-again Christianity and conservative politics is drawing criticism from an increasing-number of angry parents, Maranatha dropouts and other religious leaders. They complain that Maranatha uses a form of mind control that isolated students from their parents and then guides decisions on such personal matters as career choices, politics and marriage.

Last year, a committee including Baptists, Presbyterians and other evangelical Christian groups finished a yearlong investigation of Maranatha, concluding that Mr. Weiner's religion "has an authoritarian orientation with potential negative consequences for members." The committee added, "We would not recommend this organization to anyone."

Please note that the above quote came from a 1985 article in the Wall Street Journal, not exactly a bastion of leftist journalism. According to a 1984 article in Christianity Today, Maranatha Campus Ministries was guilty of treating its members in an authoritarian manner:

Pastors exercise authority over members. They have controlled the selection of marriage partners. (Maranatha members are prohibited from dating. According to Weiner's "dating revelation," dating is a worldly method of selecting a mate). Some pastors have kept detailed records of members' financial contributions. Those who don't give enough have been admonished for having a "spirit of stinginess." In an extreme case at the University of Kentucky, there was a revelation that women were not to use tampons. To members, disobeying a pastor is tantamount to disobeying God.

According to researchers within the evangelical community, the excesses of Maranatha Campus Ministries related to authoritarian treatment of its membership were related to a 1970s trend in some conservative Christian circles called the shepherding movement, also known as the discipleship movement. In this movement, members would give authority over their lives to another church member who acted as a "shepherd" on their behalf. The relevance of the discipleship movement to today's campus politics in Berkeley is that "shepherding" represented a very effective method of mobilizing activists for right-wing causes. Morning Star International, the parent organization of Victory Campus Ministries, has distanced itself from some of the more extreme versions of Maranatha's discipleship methods, although according to this discussion group the practices of discipleship and shepherding may have been euphemistically renamed "accountability partnerships." Yet despite Bob Weiner's official noninvolvement in Morning Star International, this church web site affiliated with Morning Star International suggests that Morning Star International is still on friendly terms with Maranatha and Bob Weiner.

The connection between Bob Weiner and Victory Campus Ministries is most troubling, because of Weiner's connections to the Christian Reconstructionist movement, which favors abolishing the separation of church & state and replacing the current American system of law with one based on the Old Testament. (You know, bring back the stoning of adulterers, homosexuals, and children who are disobedient to their parents. That sort of thing.) To be specific, Maranatha founder Bob Weiner was a member of the steering committee that founded the theocratic Coalition on Revival. It is unclear whether Rice Broocks, the current leader of Morning Star International, subscribes to the same Christian Reconstructionist beliefs as his former mentor Bob Weiner, but the parallels are quite troubling.

Update: In response to Hovannes Abramyan's post on Res Ipsa, I wanted to clarify that Paul LaFata and Amaury Gallais are the only two Berkeley College Republican candidates to date that I can verify as members of Victory Campus Ministries. In addition, Paul LaFata was not a candidate in the most recent election, although he has campaigned for Senate under the BCR banner. I apologize if my headline led people to think otherwise.


- posted by Jon @ 6:17 PM |

 
Ronald Reagan, Berkeley Basher

Don't like the expensive tuition you and your parents have to pay. In a way, you have Ronald Reagan to thank for that. Before Reagan imposed tuition requirements on UC & CSU students, partially out of a desire to "punish" antiwar protesters and the Free Speech Movement, attendance at state universities was tuition-free. The Gropinator blog lets everyone know the score:

From the first day of his governorship, Reagan and higher education saw each other as the enemy. On inauguration day, Reagan's inept finance director, Gordon Smith, prematurely disclosed the governor's plan to impose a $400-a-year tuition at the university and a $200-a-year tuition at state colleges in addition to the 10 percent cuts. - Lou Cannon, Reagan, p148

Prior to this, California offered the best higher education system in the world to all qualified students. For free. Your parents didn’t have to be middle class, you just had to be smart and hardworking.

In his first run for governor, Reagan had promised a 10% across-the-board cut to all state spending, but in the end only made serious cuts to higher education. He also forced out UC President Clark Kerr, the genius architect of the system which offered UC slots to the top 10 or 12%, CSU slots to the top third of high school students, and community college to everyone, a plan that became a model for the world.

By 1963, as Kerr pointed out, California already had 36 percent of the nation's Nobel laureates in science and 20 percent of the members of the National Academy of Sciences, and had become "bait to be dangled in front of industry, with drawing power greater than low taxes or cheap labor." In 1964, Kerr recalled, twenty-eight of Berkeley's academic departments were rated in the top six in the nation, the first time that a UC campus topped Harvard in the American Council on Education ratings as "the best balanced distinguished university" on earth. - Schrag, Paradise Lost, p37

Kerr's master plan for education, executed under Governor Pat Brown, was no small feat for a laid-back state that grew exponentially after World War Two. But it happened. We had the best universities, and laid the foundation for much of the Silicon Valley technical innovation that currently propels the world economy.

Yet Governor Reagan managed to make higher education his only real cut. (You no doubt know that our current governor is following this ideological formula by shrinking our universities by tens of thousands of seats next year).

Another important detail is that Reagan accomplished the removal of Clark Kerr from the chancellorship by getting access to secret FBI files. According to a San Francisco Chronicle investigation of old FBI files, Reagan used FBI files to dig up "dirt" on Clark Kerr:

"Governor Reagan specifically requested any information on University President Clark Kerr, any subversive information on any of the University Regents and any information the FBI developed indicating a demonstration was to be held on the campus or at press conferences," an FBI memo said.

Some of his press conferences, the governor explained, could be "stacked with 'left wingers' who might make an attempt to embarrass him and the state government."

Reagan also asked for advance information on "any demonstrations against him or the university administrations."

Reagan could also be remarkably cavalier in his disregard for whether his authoritarian responses to student protests could lead to innocent people getting killed. As a result of the National Guard deployment at People's Park in 1969, one person died, one person was blinded, and approximately 120 people were injured. Another account of the People's Park demonstrations states that the National Guard dropped CS tear gas by helicopter, which "spread into the community, to children playing in the Strawberry Canyon recreation area on campus, to patients in the Cowell Hospital, and to students in several elementary and secondary schools near the area, all of whom suffered the effects of the CS gas." In fact, when journalists asked Reagan for his feelings on student protests, he replied, "If it takes a bloodbath, let's get it over with."

Unfortunately, past and current leaders in the Berkeley College Republicans look upon this aspect of Reagan's legacy a little too favorably. When a convention of college Republicans happened in Berkeley in 2003, former Cal Patriot editor-in-chief Steve Sexton promoted the event as the biggest Republican presence on campus since 1969 when Governor Ronald Reagan dispatched the National Guard to quell demonstrations over People's Park. Either Sexton's warped sense of humor leads him to believe that teargassing hippies is a real kneeslapper or he actually thinks that a military occupation would be worthwhile to achieve political "balance" on campus.

- posted by Jon @ 11:27 PM |

 
Reagan the Peacemonger?

Consider this a preemptive strike against the inevitable hagiographies about Ronald Reagan that will predominate in the California Patriot this fall. Besides, unlike a lot of the BCR peanut gallery who will be assembled to cheer in Reagan's name, I can honestly say I actually met the man. (By the way, Reagan was as personable as his reputation suggested he was.) Before Reagan's trademark patriotic optimism gets exploited to justify the current military operations in Iraq, I wanted to cite antiwar libertarian Justin Raimondo's recent discussion of Reagan's contributions to nuclear disarmament:

It was Reagan ... who reached an accommodation with the Soviet Union on arms control, moving in the opposite direction from the hardline policies advocated by the warlike neocons – who, right up to 1990, were still warning that Gorbachev and the Commies were pulling off an elaborate trick to snare the West and crack down on Soviet dissidents. Far from functioning as loyal Reaganites, the neocons, in their characteristically factional and manipulative fashion, constantly criticized Reagan in terms that would normally be reserved for one's bitter enemies.

Raimondo also notes that Reagan wisely pulled out of Lebanon in 1983 in response to the bombing of an Army barracks that killed 241 Marines. Unlike George W. Bush, when facts on the ground showed that an aggressive foreign policy was not in the country's national interest, Ronald Reagan actually did the right thing and changed course, instead of invoking platitudes about "steady leadership." I disagreed with a lot of Reagan's foreign policy (e.g., Iran-Contra, the School of the Americas, funding jihad in Afghanistan), but at least he never displayed the same imperviousness to new information, the same unwillingness to learn, as George W. Bush does today.


- posted by Jon @ 11:00 PM |

 
Professor Yoo's Memo Gets an F

On the right-leaning side of the Berkeley blogosphere, it's almost an article of faith that John Yoo is such a towering intellect in the field of international law that anybody who questions Yoo must be coming from a position of ignorance. What Yoo's Berkeley defenders fail to acknowledge is Yoo's profound inexperience of how international law is applied in a practical military context. The legal blog Scrivener's Error drives this point home in a brilliant critique:

If there is one thing that we should all have learned over the nearly four centuries since Gustavus Adolphus established the modern court-martial, it is that military law is meaningless when not in context. Regardless of any abstract attraction of Yoo's position, it is curiously contextless. It reflects only the abstract policy concerns of this administration. (It is also bad rhetoric in that it pays insufficient attention to alternative theories and courses of action, which is not appropriate in a document provided for the purpose of advising political decisionmakers.) It does not make a satisfactory effort to encompass the context of current interpretations of international law, such as the Balkan situation of the 1990s; of the history of US/Persian Gulf/Islamic/Arabic relations; or, most critically, of the history of US armed forces in asymmetric warfare (which is spotty at best).

If anything, Yoo's advice on junking the Geneva Convention was symptomatic of the Bush Administration's consistent foreign policy pattern of ignoring practical, cautious advice from members of the military in favor of Republican ideologues who ruthlessly pursued neoconservative objectives, consequences be damned. There are lawyers within the military itself who not only have knowledge of international law that matches or exceeds Yoo's, but who have practical, real-world knowledge of those laws that extends far beyond just writing law review articles about it. And if a peacenik like me is forced to look to the military as the voice of reason, you know we're in trouble.
- posted by Jon @ 8:55 PM |

 
Hugo's Post Election Round-Up, Part I

I've been busy, so I apologize for the delay. This will be a multipart post outlining my mistake, the bad, the good, and thoughts for the future.

My Mistake

Last year, I predicted that Student Action had died, much to the joy of the progressive and liberal community and campus conservatives alike. After this year's results, I have been shown incorrect in my analysis. CalSERVE lost 3 executive seats (2 by less than 50 votes, mind you) and a number of senate seats. Why?

The number one reason that my prediction turned out so poorly was my overestimation of several campus leaders. In short, I overestimated the characters of Misha, Rocky, and others of their type. This is not rhetoric, nor is it campaign season. This is an honest belief of mine shared by many. I, and I believe most of those I work with, are sincerely motivated by our beliefs. It is quite clear that CalSERVE says what it means and means what it says, often providing ample quotes to be thrown around in the conservative blogosphere by those who disagree with us.

At the end of last year, I saw a united anti-Student Action front (including CalSERVE, BCR, and "APPLE") that had come together against a common foe. Student Action represented all that was wrong with the political system. Run by opportunists soley interested in their resumes, Student Action had run the ASUC into the ground. The Jesse Gabriels had been able to throw themselves at the feet of the administrators (sad lesson 1: obsequious behavior may destroy the pride and humanity of person, but it earns powerful recommendations) while looting the ASUC and casting away its power and autonomy left and right.

I thought I saw those interested in issues and advancing those issues (even those I disagreed strongly with) had to come together to rid the campus of this cancer. I was wrong.

It pains me, but hindsight shows that Misha and Rocky, among others, are the worst kind of politicians. Any issue, any cause, any values that they may have espoused in the past appear as calculated to gather support. I hope that at one point, they truly believed what their former shadows stated. (Am I really such a horrible judge of character?)

The reader may at this point be wondering why I have progressed along this tangent. The reason is simply this: Student Action, the party of opportunists, survived solely because it recruited into itself a new breed of opportunists that outdid their predecessors in cunning, lack of integrity, and real political skill. I didn't see it coming. Now pessimistic, I will be more conservative in my analysis, more guarded in my judgments, and more wary of those who grasp for power.

...
- posted by Progressive @ 1:26 AM |

 
Anti-Semitism Watch

The pseudonymous "petty bourgeois" at Res Ipsa Loquitur recently made the following post:

ON THE FRONT LINES OF THE WAR AGAINST COLONIZATION: RANCH RESCUE

I have been applauding the efforts of the Barnett brothers in raising public awareness as to the problem along the border.

The post by Petty Bourgeois also included a link to the organization Ranch Rescue, which was recently responsible for an incident where a California man hit an El Salvadoran on the head with a gun butt after the Salvadoran tried to enter the U.S. via the Texas border. (By the way, if this is just a property rights issue as "petty bourgeois" insists, why is a Californian defending Texas property?) According to the Anti-Defamation League, the founder of Ranch Rescue has tried to recruit new members among the neo-Nazi National Alliance. To those not familiar with the history of the neo-Nazi movement, the National Alliance was founded by William Turner, the author of the Turner Diaries, which inspired the bombing of the federal building at Oklahoma City.

I have no evidence "petty bourgeois" is the slightest bit anti-Semitic, but he is praising a group that has ties to white nationalist and anti-Semitic organizations. Although a recent local news story primarily attributed anti-Semitism to leftists at Berkeley, it is important to realize that right-wing anti-Semitism is also alive and well. Anti-semites do exist on the left, but anti-Semitism on the right is no rarity either.
- posted by Jon @ 10:45 PM |

 
Stupid J-Council Tricks

I was reading Mike Davis's ruling in the LaFata v. Defend Affirmative Action Party rehearing, but I found this quote most interesting:

A unicameral system comprised of untrained, amateur jurists who cannot legally drink alcohol, let alone practice law cannot be expected to integrate legal opinions they are not academically equipped to utilize, especially when such opinions do not speak to the law they must interpret.

I agree Mike, but people in glass house shouldn't throw stones. Know what I mean? Mike then goes on to explain how the J-Council cannot be expected to use Supreme Court precedent in deciding. Mike then goes on to quote numerous classic Supreme Court cases ranging from Gitlow v. New York to Brandenburg v. Ohio. Mike's pseudo-legal opinion appears to serve two purposes: (1) make a vain attempt to appear like they actually gave due process to DAAP when this whole process has been a judicial sham; and (2) help Mike look good to the conservative legal cabal at the Federalist Society when he wants to go to law school. Mike avoids outside legal precedents when it is convenient for him to so, then re-adopts them when it suddenly becomes convenient again.

My right-wing "fan base" will also inevitably make the argument "But Luke Massie was being naughty..." blah blah blah... The problem with this line of (un)reasoning is that Luke Massie is neither a student nor a DAAP candidate. DAAP had 20 candidates, several of whom were disqualified without any knowledge or involvement in the activities that got them disqualified. This another area where J-Council interpretations have been inconsistent. When Misha Leybovich sent multiple spam emails, Student Action party was not considered responsible for Misha's actions (nor necessarily should it have been). But when a nonstudent associated with DAAP acts up before a very testy, insecure J-Council, the entire party gets the punishment. The air is so thick with hypocrisy and inconsistency here that you can slice it with a knife.
- posted by Jon @ 4:22 PM |

 
Right-Wing Berkeley Forgets, Progressive at Cal Remembers

Berkeley Vietnam Veterans Memorial Project
- posted by Jon @ 3:13 PM |

 
Don't Speak Too Soon

Errol Tremolada of the Patriot argued that the "Tunnel of Oppression" art project at Clerk Kerr was a complete lie:

There was another posting that read: “0 UC’s built, 2 CSU’s built, and over 100 prisons built.” Factually this is wrong as well, as construction for the new UC Merced is currently underway.

Given the current budget situation, you might want to take that back, Mr. Tremolada.
- posted by Jon @ 2:22 PM |