Progressives and the Julian Assange Rape Allegations

I thought I really had no meta-theoretical update to my previous comments on developments. Yet it turns out l that I did have something in mind, especially after seeing Richard Adams' essay at The Guardian, "#MooreandMe: the hashtag that roared." It's not easy, but I'm genuinely flabbergasted at progressives' uncritical and superficial response to Sady Doyle's campaign. And Adams here is just prostrate. It's almost comical. I'm picking him as he explains Michael Moore and Keith Olbermann's responses:

For a week, Moore didn't respond to the tide of protest. Olbermann did, foolishly and petulantly, only to make matters worse – boasting that "Feminism has no greater male supporter in TV news than me", and at one point proclaiming he was suspending his Twitter account "until/if this frenzy is stopped", although he failed to take his own good advice.

Other writers waded in and got caught in the fallout: the journalist Moe Tkacik posted at the Washington City Paper, describing #MooreandMe as "near-homicidal #rage" while naming the two women (something the Guardian and New York Times have avoided as a matter of policy), only for her editors to yank the piece. The blogging pioneer Dave Winer produced an artless car-crash of arguments that might have worked as parody. Naomi Wolf continued her upside-down defence of Assange – as can be heard in her debate with Jaclyn Friedman on Democracy Now. And so on.

In the end, though, it was Moore – without addressing #MooreandMe directly – who gave way, with his appearance on Rachel Maddow's show. Olbermann ...

RTWT at the link.

And notice Adams' mention of Moe Tkacik. I had a revealing Twitter exchange with her, and wrote it up here. What I like about her is that she wants to think things through --- to put intellect over ideology --- and to resist the obtuse and frequently mendacious herd mentality of the hardline feminists. That's something we don't see much of in political debates these days, and it takes a lot of courage. Moe of course paid with her job, and Sady Doyle's bleating non-apologies after the fact are now legend. And now I'm seeing this piece at New York Times, which is refreshing, "Is It Rape? It Depends on Who Is Asking" (via Echidne and Memeorandum):

Is it rape when you have sex with someone who didn’t tell you it was O.K., but told you it was O.K. earlier that night?

The allegations of sexual assault by two Swedish women against Julian Assange, the founder of the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, have raised a series of questions, some silly (Is a broken condom a criminal offense?), some preposterous (Were the two women on the C.I.A. payroll?), but at least one worth mulling: What, today, constitutes sexual violence?

According to a leaked police report, Swedish prosecutors want to question Mr. Assange on allegations of rape in only one of the two cases: The woman in question, a WikiLeaks groupie, let him spend the night at her apartment and had consensual sex with him at least once (reportedly with a condom). She then testified to falling asleep and being woken later by him penetrating her (without a condom).

She only went to the police days afterward, when she discovered by talking to another woman with whom Mr. Assange had stayed that the second woman, too, felt violated after he was reluctant to use a condom and then allegedly “did something” to make it break. (The allegation here is sexual molestation.)

In recent conversations, reactions among my girlfriends — all in their 30s, and most in steady, heterosexual relationships — were forceful, and almost unanimous.

“It cheapens rape,” one said.

“Why get the police into the bedroom over something like this? Grow up,” said another.

“He sounds really sleazy,” said a third, “but not exactly like a rapist.”

That's just the introduction (so RTWT). But this reminds me Andrea Grimes' essay, "Girl Talk: Who Will Rape Me?" Whereas those at the New York Times essay take the big picture, progressive feminists make essentially extremist arguments that in the end work primarily to shut down competing perspectives. And this is what I find so fascinating. I don't doubt that Assange may have committed rape (especially if he pinned down Ms. A). But to even raise the point is to summons the progressive left's neo-Stalinist commissars, most prominently Sady Doyle. Here's the query from a woman on Twitter I last night:

That's a really powerful question-cum-indictment, and it triggered a series of Tweets from Ms. Doyle (scroll down to December 28th). Basically, she claims she's a victim. After being called "hundreds of names" she snapped, because "I thought feminists had my back." The problem, of course, is that if you're the bully you can't expect folks to "have your back." If coercive power isn't enough, "friends" will defect. Ms. Sady's effective, though, and persistent. And she's obviously impressed loads of less aggressive women who wanted to be a part of the "movement." And apparently this movement is way more "revolutionary" than what Assange has on offer, at least to hear this guy Bill Weinberg make the case:

Demonizing "revolutionary feminism"

The most blatantly irritating thing is abject demonization of the women who have made the charges of sexual abuse against Assange. In any other context, the summary dismissal of a woman's rape accusations would be seen as utterly politically incorrect. But Assange gets away with anti-feminist rhetoric that would do Rush Limbaugh proud. In an interview now receiving widespread coverage in the British press (e.g. The Telegraph, Dec. 26), Assange says: "Sweden is the Saudi Arabia of feminism... I fell into a hornets' nest of revolutionary feminism." Assange added that one of the women who said she was assaulted took a "trophy photo" of him lying naked in her bed. (TMI, Julian.)

Especially sickening is Naomi Wolf, who sneers in Huffington Post at the international "Dating Police" that have snared Assange. Flaunting her supposed creds as a "longtime feminist activist" in the opening sentence, she writes that "Assange is accused of having consensual sex with two women, in one case using a condom that broke." A Dec. 17 account in The Guardian (based on Swedish police documents that were—ahem—leaked) paints a rather different picture. (E.g.: "She told police that she had tried a number of times to reach for a condom but Assange had stopped her by holding her arms and pinning her legs.") John Pilger, who presumably wasn't there when the putative leg-pinning took place, nonetheless told ABC Sydney on Dec. 8 the case against Assange is a "political stunt." Wolf's glib dismissal of the allegations is especially ironic in light of her own sexual harassment claims against Harold Bloom, which many had similarly dismissed as spurious (e.g. Meghan O'Rourke in Slate, Feb. 25, 2004).

I've covered much of this already, but Weinberg's links open to news windows, so cruise around.

There are still some commentators who continue to go big on WikiLeaks' power to destroy sovereign state power, especially Glenn Greenwald. He's gotten so hysterical that he's now gone after Wired Magazine with a series of sensational allegations essentially claiming that the magazine's a tool of the national security state. The editors have responded here: "Putting the Record Straight on the Lamo-Manning Chat Logs."

So here we can see the big picture coming together again. Radical feminists have put progressive solidarity against rape culture to the forefront of the cause. Meanwhile, an anarchist-libertarian-progressive alliance of sorts has been promoting WikiLeaks as the model of 21st century quasi-journalistic accountability. And to be sure, there's been some extremely revealing --- and perhaps even worthwhile --- findings with this last batch of cables. But for the most part we've seen something of a nihilistic destruction of ordered relations among states and their agents. Just yesterday we learned that WikiLeaks had compromise the opposition movement in Zimbabwe. See, "How WikiLeaks Just Set Back Democracy in Zimbabwe," and "Morgan Tsvangirai faces possible Zimbabwe treason charge." And some say WikiLeaks is here for good? At this point I'm simply hoping for Assange's extradition. He can go up on charges under the Espionage Act as far as I'm concerned. The outcome wouldn't make me any more likely to take serious the left's charges of a "CIA honey-trap operation."

Image Credit: American Digest.

The Moral Right Boycotts CPAC

"Shame on CPAC for defending the absurd proposition that one can be 'conservative' while embracing moral surrender – in this case the idea espoused by GOProud of the government granting 'rights' and benefits based on sinful sexual conduct long regarded as anathema to biblical and Judeo-Christian values..."

Peter LaBarbera, quoted at World Net Daily (via Memeorandum).

Additional commentary from Outside the Beltway and Dave Weigel.

I'll have more on this debate in the weeks ahead. I'll be heading to CPAC for one thing, and I expect this won't be the last we've heard about these issues. And don't miss The Other McCain's post on this as well.

Prince William and Kate Middleton to Do Without Butlers, Household Staff

At Telegraph UK, "We'll manage without butlers or servants, say Prince William and Kate Middleton":

His father famously employs almost 150 staff to cater for his every need, but Prince William has insisted he and Kate Middleton have no intention of taking on butlers or household staff when they begin married life in April.

Check the full story at the link.

Prince William intends to serve in the RAF Valley until 2013, and he wants to "shield" Ms. Middleton from the media swarm that surrounded his mother.

And I'd add that while I haven't blogged about this, there's been talk that their nuptials are a godsend not just for the monarchy, but for the institution of marriage itself. A recent Time cover story raised the point explicitly, with reference to the royals: "Who Needs Marriage? A Changing Institution." And interestingly, given this whole weeks-long #MooreandMe production, I'm a bit surprised at how approvingly --- if not a bit cautious --- Sady Doyle speaks of the institution at her essay, "What a British Royal Wedding Says About Marriage in America." My sense, frankly, is that Ms. Sady held back, if her writing at Tiger Beatdown is any clue. (Let's just say that she doesn't seem like the marrying kind, in any case, and that's putting it nicely.) Now, in my exchanges at Twitter, I was reassured that these feminists were not monolithic, and that the old-style Andrea Dworkin man-hating wasn't the issue (marriage is rape, remember). No, today's feminists are enlightened but sensitive to questions of male power and privilege. No doubt these are complicated things, but it's gotten to the point where feminists today expect that rape charges won't be taken seriously unless a woman is "hit over the head in some back alley by some drugged-out crazy f**k with a criminal history" before being beaten senseless behind a dumpster and then savagely raped. Hmm ... maybe this kinda woman's still be a little standoffish on the traditional white wedding thing of 'till death do us part.

In any case, Kate Middleton's a knockout. Congratulations to the royal couple, and here's to a happy and long-lasting marriage.

Let's Get Tough With Israel — Or the Palestinians?

From the letters to the editor at Los Angeles Times (in response to this article):

Palestinian- Israeli impasse

Re "Let's get tough with Israel," Opinion, Dec. 22

Yousef Munayyer is dead wrong. It's time to get tough with Arab terrorists, not with the only democracy in the Middle East.

He reiterates the myth of Palestinian refugees, warehoused in camps rather than settled among their prosperous brethren, more than 60 years after the Israeli war of independence. It's time for him, and for them, to move on.

When the Palestinians renounce violence, perhaps the peace process can begin again. Until then, the Israelis must continue their efforts to settle and pacify the land.

Daniel Fink

Beverly Hills

This is weird.

The letters at Los Angeles Times haven't been this good in some time. See my previous entry as well: "Americans Have Strayed From Our Core Values of Social Justice?"

Lady Gaga is Leni Riefenstahl Reincarnated!

Says this Daily Kos diarist with spelling problems (via Yankee Phil):

Tuesday Beauty Blogging

Via Theo Spark...

See also William at Pirate's Cove, as well as Bob Belvedere, Irish Cicero, Mind-Numbed Robot, WyBlog, Yankee Phil, and Zion's Trumpet.

The Homosexual Bourgeoisie

Jonah Goldberg argues for the bourgeoisification of the radical gay rights movement (via Ed Driscoll). Read the whole thing (the discussion of Rabbi Michael Lerner is killer), but I'm especially wiggin' at this passage ridiculing the hypocrisy on gay integration of the military:

Or look at the decision to let gays openly serve in the military through the eyes of a principled hater of all things military. From that perspective, gays have just been co-opted by the Man. Meanwhile, the folks who used "don't ask, don't tell" as an excuse to keep the military from recruiting on campuses just saw their argument go up in flames.

If you can't beat 'em join 'em, I guess.

Progressives Again Call for 'Revolutionary Justice' After GOP Comments on Unemployed

An update to "Progressives Cheer Mark Madoff Suicide as 'Revolutionary Justice' ."

Turns out that the DownWithTyranny! progressives are invoking revolutionary appeals again. A ten-point roster of GOP quotes on the unemployed and public benefits actually ends with Marie Antoinette's famous line, "Let them eat cake." And then the progressive response:

Now we know that Marie Antoinette was expressing the modern-day Republican philosophy centuries in advance. And what happened to her?

This is another one of those times where I take progressives at their word. Republicans aren't Bourbons, but radical leftists would love the same dénouement:

Via Memeorandum with more progressive extremism at Digby's.

Amanda Marcotte, Digby, and TBogg Nominated for 'Moore Award' at Daily Dish

Just saw this over at Memeorandum. Turns out voting is open for the annual Daily Dish awards, and Amanda Marcotte's currently in first place at one percent for the "Moore Award," which recognizes "divisive, bitter and intemperate left-wing rhetoric." Her nomination is here. I wrote about Amanda Marcotte yesterday, and I'm going to try to get her attention on Twitter later if she's back from holiday travels, which may be so by the looks of her review of "True Grit" at Pandagon (from a feminist perspective, of course). Digby and TBogg are also nominated, and while the former --- who's basically a blogging imitation of Frank Rich --- doesn't interact, TBogg's the occasional BFF of American Power. Misogynist and racist (and stupid), no doubt he and Amanda were made for each other. In August, TBogg demonstrated his divisive discourse by telling Bill Kristol to "Fuck off and die ... Seriously, just fuck off and die, you evil piece of shit."

Added: Idiot John Cole defends TBogg, and more:

I’m proposing that pretty much every one do what I’m about to do, which is to suggest that I think we all agree the world would be a much better place if Bill Kristol was dead. Let’s give Sully so many nominations he doesn’t know what to do with them.

And I found Digby's nomination, for "comparing right-wing media to facilitators of the Rwandan genocide," which illustrates my comparison to Frank Rich.

Obama Administration Slams Russia for New Khodorkovsky Verdict

At WSJ, "White House Criticizes Moscow Court":

The Obama administration, in an unusual public rebuke, condemned a Moscow court for finding oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his former partner guilty of embezzling, saying it appears to be “an abusive use of the legal system for improper ends.”

A Russian court has found Mr. Khodorkovsky, who once controlled the oil giant OAO Yukos, and business partner Platon Lebedev guilty of embezzling and laundering tens of billions of dollars. The case is seen as an effort by the Russian government to stifle Mr. Khodorkovsky’s political ambitions.

The Obama administration, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, have condemned the verdict, and said it raises questions about Russia’s commitment to the rule of law.

And at Telegraph UK, "Analysis: Khodorkovsky verdict confirms Putin's grip on power":

The political reality is that powerful people are determined to keep Mr Khodorkovsky behind bars.

Don't Text and Drive

At Mashable, "AT&T Documentary Takes on Texting-While-Driving."

I don't text and drive. I hate that others do. Should the state prohibit it? Of course, but check with the anarcho-commies like JBW for the "nanny state" whining (and the stoned Reason-oids as well, unfortunately).

Black Women and Rape

Interesting discussion, at New Model Minority:

Black men have been lynched and Black women have been raped, historically, in the US to maintain the hierarchical, racial, gendered, social order. This terror was particularly acute 1880′s-1920′s in the south, as the US tried to figure out what a post slavery nation would look like.

Historically Black women are seen as UNrapeable. Naturally lewd, lascivious, fast and promiscuous. The social system of slavery needed us to be seen this way to normalize the domination of our reproduction and our manual work during US chattel slavery.

Because Black women were the two-fer, we worked in the fields and gave birth to enslaved workers, our sexuality was and in many ways still is looked at in a very particular way, even in 2010.

My understanding of this comes from two books. The first is Terror in the Heart of Freedom: Citizenship, Sexual Violence, and the Meaning of Race in the Postemancipation South by Hannah Rosen and At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance – A New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power by Danielle McGuire.

The piece loses a little coherence as it continues, but RTWT: "Misogyny and Genius: Assange + R. Kelly."

I'll take that experience over the #MooreandMe totalitarians.

From the USS Abraham Lincoln

Via Theo Spark:

And here's something I wrote back in 2006:

I toured the USS Abraham Lincoln in 1999, which was opened to the public when, on its way back from the Persian Gulf, it stopped in Santa Barbara for a shore leave.

It's an incomparable feeling being atop an aircraft carrier. When I stood on the bow of that ship -- feeling the Lincoln's stout sturdiness -- I felt a sense of pride and security. Just over two years later, the U.S. would be attacked by terrorists on September 11, 2001. I appreciate the crew of the Abraham Lincoln, including the pilots of the F-14, -- and the rest of the U.S. military personnel -- who have put their lives on the line so that other Americans may continue to feel that same pride and security.

RELATED: Also from 2006, at USA Today, "Navy retires F-14, the coolest of cold warriors."

Terrorists Targeted U.S. Embassy in London

At Telegraph UK, "Christmas bomb plot: nine men remanded over plan to ‘blow up Big Ben and Westminster Abbey’." And LAT, "Nine terrorism suspects appear in London court":

Reporting from London — Nine men accused of terrorism and conspiracy to blow up high-profile targets that reportedly included the U.S. Embassy and the London Stock Exchange in a Christmas bombing campaign made their first appearance in a central London court Monday.

Most of the nine, ages 17 to 28, are of Bangladeshi origin. They were among 12 men arrested a week ago in three cities across Britain. Three were released without charge.

They were charged late Sunday after a weeklong interrogation by counter-terrorism police at a London police station. They appeared at the city's Westminster Magistrates' Court on Monday in three groups.

Anti-terrorism prosecutor Sue Hemming said the nine men were charged with preparing to commit terrorist acts or assisting in them.

The men were also accused of igniting and testing incendiary materials and downloading material for the preparation of acts of terrorism, Reuters news agency reported, and five of them were charged with possession of documents and records of potential use to terrorists. They will reappear in London's central criminal court, the Old Bailey, on Jan. 14.

The Guardian newspaper identified the nine as Nazam Hussain, 25, Usman Khan, 19, Mohibur Rahman, 26, and Abul Bosher Mohammed Shahjahan, 26, from Stoke-on-Trent in the Midlands area of England; Gurukanth Desai, 28, Omar Sharif Latif, 26, and Abdul Malik Miah, 24, who were detained in Cardiff, South Wales; and Mohammed Moksudur Rahman Chowdhury, 20, and Shah Mohammed Lutfar Rahman, 28, from London.

Though few details were revealed about the targets, the BBC reported that the men were accused of carrying out reconnaissance of high-profile targets, including the American Embassy and the London Stock Exchange.

Their arrest and charges come amid concerns about terrorism activity in Europe. On Dec. 11 a suicide bomber killed himself in an attack in Stockholm.

Moe Tkacik Responds

After a brief exchange, Moe Tkacik sent me a burst of tweets which combined to form something of a paragraph:

@AmPowerBlog omg how did I back off? There were a few tiny factual pts abt which I didn't feel like arguing in part due to solstice spirit ... always thought he was creepy but condom sabotage in consen sex not equiv of rape unless disease/impregnation is intent/result ... but! I'm not swedish law, and to me I realize this is largely abt language, and how precise and evocative you want words to be ... Guess I just dont want rape bcoming another "freedom",tho unsure what best evokes pantsless julian rubbing up agnst you/yr will ... I know and I commented bc i was surprised that was her reaction. By the end we kind of figured out where we differed...but ... also, no disrespect to naomi wolf, although "earth tones" etc etc. I found facts of case intriguing. Esp as someone who always ... wonders if it would have been a good idea to report my date rape? 90% of the time I think "no" but marcotte did make me think ... that since all that is likely to happen is he'll get a stern and semi-traumatic interrogation by police, everyone should do it ... pinning her down hpnd to Miss A right? Thought it was interesting that it didn't seem like she ever wld have gone to cops until ... younger miss W was so traumatized by the thing. Then ms A reexamined her own "worst sex ever" and (in my comic book imagination ... became filled with righteous rage on behalf of the sisterhood which is often not first thought when "worst sex ever" happens ... because young sluts are often too busy thinking "oh no am I a slut?" or "what slut disease do I have now?" Whereas old sluts ... are irritated but hardly traumatized, since let's be honest after a certain age no man can ever violate you like yr sexist boss ... anyway, I hadn't seen one dude committing two date rapes close enough for victims to confer. It was cool. There are worse probs ... and I can't tell you why the "CIA conspiracy" crap so angered the Lady Doyle set, bc obv the timing screamed "bitch(es)setmeup" ... but since Assange cant claim credit for stylish prose of cables or mindless violence of iraq footage,it doesn't really matter?

RELATED: "Rehabilitated Moe Tkacik Dishes on Robert Stacy McCain!"

Rehabilitated Moe Tkacik Dishes on Robert Stacy McCain!

Here's the dirt on Robert Stacy McCain's creds in the feminist blogosphere. We've got Amanda Marcotte dishing on the infamous "You buy the ticket, you take the ride" argument, and then we have Moe Tkacik's admission that McCain is the one Washington Times journalist that she "sometimes pays attention to because he's so radical."

What's amazing is that the #MooreandMe protest doesn't come up --- or at least not in the 25 minutes I watched. I stopped watching after that. The discussion devolved into gratuitous and surprisingly prurient sex talk, with an extremely selective commentary on the Julian Assange allegations. Note especially Moe's aggressive progressive feminist walk-back, since the discussion of her Washington City Paper piece is badly at odds with the reaction from Sady Doyle and her Twitter totalitarians. And Amanda Marcotte acknowledges so much at Pandagon:

I was ready for a fight, but Moe’s stance on both Wikileaks and the rape case changed considerably after that post, which also strangely includes ruminations on “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo”, as if you can really extrapolate much about Swedish culture from a single exploitation series that has a sort of feminist message buried in a bunch of unsettling rape imagery. But the chat was amicable, and we agreed on most things, and I think it was really interesting.

We'll have to take Amanda's word for it, that she was "ready for a fight." She doesn't look flush with adrenaline at the start of the clip, but then, with all due respect, I think she's a more reasonable woman than Sady Doyle --- and that's saying a lot.

RELATED: "Unwatchable BloggingHeadsTV Episode in Which I’m Mentioned."

Stand Up to China

And stand up for the defense budget.

Ambassador Bolton on Fox Business Channel:

Natalie Portman Pregnant!

And engaged!

Great commentary on Twitter:

Natalie Portman is beautiful, engaged, pregnant and has plenty of Oscar buzz going on. Pretty good time for her I'd say!

And here:

Natalie Portman is pregnant. Another dream dies.

Blizzard Time Lapse

At Geekosystem:

'Legitimacy War' and the Destruction of Israel

Professor Richard Falk demonstrates why anyone of genuine moral clarity can't take current fashions of international law seriously. At Al Jazeera, "The Palestinian 'Legitimacy War'":

Collective Justice

The underlying rationale is that aggressive war, crimes against humanity, and severe violations of the law of war and international humanitarian law are crimes against the whole of humanity, and not just the victim state or people. Although the Nuremberg Judgment was flawed, 'victors’ justice,' it generated global norms in the form of the Nuremberg Principles that are considered by international law consensus to be universally binding.

These ideas underlie the recent prosecution of geopolitical pariahs such as Saddam Hussein or Slobodan Milosevic, and several African tyrannical figures. But when it comes to the lead political actors, as understood by the American-led hegemonic hierarchy, the leadership of the rest of the world enjoys impunity, in effect, an exemption from accountability to international criminal law.

It is a prime instance of double standards that pervades current world order, perhaps, most prominently illustrated in relation to the veto power given permanent members of the UN Security Council or the Nonproliferation Regime Governing Nuclear Weaponry. Double standards severs any link between law as administered by the state system on a world level and pretensions of global justice. The challenge for those seeking global justice based on international law that treats equals equally is to overcome in every substantive setting double standards and impunity.

The world of sovereign states and the United Nations have not been able to mount such a challenge. Into this vacuum has moved a surging global civil society movement that got its start in the global fight against colonialism, especially, the Vietnam War, and moved forward dramatically as a result of the Anti-Apartheid Campaign ....

The Power of Solidarity

Various instruments have been relied upon, including boycott, divestment, and sanctions solidarity movements, informally constituted citizens’ war crimes tribunals (starting with the Russell Tribunal during the Vietnam War, and extended by the Permanent Peoples Tribunal in Rome, and in 2005 by the Iraq War Tribunal that held 20 sessions around the world, culminating in a final session in Istanbul), civil disobedience in various forms, especially refusals to serve in military operations that violate international law.

It was a coalition of civil society actors that created the political climate that somewhat surprisingly allowed the International Criminal Court to come into being in 2002, although unsurprisingly without the participants of the United States, Israel, and most of the senior members of the geopolitical first echelon.

It is against this background, that two contradictory developments are to be found that will be discussed in more detail in subsequent articles: the waging of an all out Legitimacy War against Israel on behalf of the Palestinian struggle for a just peace and a backlash campaign against what is called 'Lawfare' by Israeli hardliners. A Legitimacy War strategy seeks popular mobilization on the basis of nonviolent coercion to achieve political goals, relying on the relevance of international law and the accountability of those that act on behalf of states in the commission of crimes of state.

Legitimacy vs. Lawfare

The Goldstone Report illustrates this interface between a Legitimacy War and Lawfare, reinforcing Palestinian contentions of victimization as a result of Israel’s use of force as in the notorious Operation Cast Lead (2008-09) and driving Israel’s top leaders to venomous fury in their effort to discredit the distinguished jurist, Richard Goldstone, who headed the UN mission responsible for the report, and the findings so convincingly reached.

With Israeli impunity under growing threat there has been a special pressures placed on the United States to use its geopolitical muscle within the UN to maintain the mantle of impunity over the documented record of Israeli criminality, and to make sure that the UN remains a selective sanctuary for such outrageous grants of impunity. These issues of criminal accountability are on the front lines of the Legitimacy War, and provide the foundation for efforts throughout the world in relation to the growing BDS Campaign (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions).

There's more at the link.

And after you read that, check Elder of Ziyon, "Richard Falk Admits His Goal is to Destroy the Jewish State." And following the links takes us to an earlier article by Richard Falk, "The Palestinians Are Winning the Legitimacy War: Will It Matter?" And the key paragraph there:

The essence of this legitimacy war is to cast doubt on several dimensions of Israeli legitimacy: its status as a moral and law abiding actor, as an occupying power in relation to the Palestinian people, and with respect to its willingness to respect the United Nations and abide by international law. Those that wage such a legitimacy war seek to seize the high moral ground in relation to the underlying conflict, and on this basis, gain support for a variety of coercive, but non-violent initiatives designed to put pressure on Israel, on governments throughout the world and on the United Nations to deny normal participatory rights to Israel as a member of international society.

Eliminating Israel from the "legitimate" community of nations is what "collective justice" and the "power of solidarity" are all about. Some on the left are more open in their proclamations for Jewish extermination (Hezbollah's Nazrallah, for example), but people like Richard Falk are valuable to the world's anti-Semites in the provision of academic respectability for the global left's demands for a new Shoah. The enormity of evil inherent in the project is clear, but more so for those who recognize that the battle for truth in today's world is being fought on the field of Israel's continued existence in the Promised Land.

Hat Tip: Legal Insurrection.

Managing Internet Addiction

How do you do it?

If you're online a lot YOU WILL have urges to "check back in."

Katherine Ellison has a personal essay, with some draconian proposals, at LAT: "Hooked on the Internet":

In the time-honored tradition of Alcoholics Anonymous, I recently entrusted my fate to a higher power — specifically, to a new software program that shuts off my access to the Internet for a designated time.

I finally had to acknowledge that I was helpless in the face of my addiction, which has had me, especially in recent weeks, tapping my e-mail "refresh" button like a lab rat trying to get cocaine.

Read the whole thing.

The trick, I think, is to find a balance. If the Internet is interfering with work and family, the addiction might rate up there with substance abuse. Professional help wouldn't be out of the question.

I'm online too much, and I know it. At this point in my life I learn from it --- and get charged from it --- and hopefully I'm making an important contribution in some ways. That said, sometimes I want to walk away from blogging, my main activity. And yet, I'm balancing things much better of late than I did a few years ago. My entire family is wired as well, which reminds me of the country's sociological changes discussed in Dalton Conley's book, Elsewhere, U.S.A: How We Got from the Company Man, Family Dinners, and the Affluent Society to the Home Office, BlackBerry Moms,and Economic Anxiety.

I'm going to work on some personal changes, in any case, for example to do more professional writing.

As for advice, just be good to yourself and your work, and most of all be good and attentive to your loved ones. Blog posts, e-mail and Twitter can wait.

Spike the Cookies ...

.... Is progress?

At Newsweek, "Women and Whiskey: Why Not?":

This holiday season, there are plenty of ads that play up the same old narrative we’ve come to expect about whiskey as a man’s drink: guy wins over the disapproving father-in-law with Johnnie Walker, guys bond like brothers over a bottle of Bushmills. But between all of them, there’s a Christmas miracle of sorts: a whiskey ad aimed at women.

Spike the Cookies, a new campaign by Jack Daniels, encourages women to host whiskey-themed holiday parties that feature both baking and cocktails (the campaign provide recipes for both Jack and Ginger cookies and Jack and Ginger gimlets). It’s refreshing to see a campaign that addresses the fact that women might like whiskey, too -- and it's dissapointing that it's such an anomoly. After all, women have been drinking whiskey for years -- and some of them even leave the kitchen to do so.

With it’s heavy, smoky flavor, dark, heavy coloring whiskey (and related drinks, like scotch and rye), still carries the connotations of America’s early attitudes towards liquor – mainly, that women shouldn’t have any. “The association with manliness is related to a deep cultural appreciation of alcohol's dangers; having the strength and wisdom to confront and withstand those dangers is at the root of the association with manliness and of the "male bonding" associated with drinking together and shared intoxication,” says James S. Roberts, an associate professor of economics at Duke, in an email to NEWSWEEK. "And all this scales with the beverage consumed, with whiskey at the pinnacle.”

RTWT.

Argentine Protests Rattle Kirchner Administration

Awesome pics from a couple of weeks ago: "Villa Soldati, Buenos Aires: Violence Quelled With Involvement of Authorities".

And at WSJ:

BUENOS AIRES—A series of street clashes involving squatters is undermining support for President Cristina Kirchner and raising questions about her capacity to maintain order without her late husband and political partner, Nestor Kirchner.

Despite shaking up the top ranks of the police, Mrs. Kirchner hasn't been able to dislodge squatters from an athletic club and other high-profile sites in Buenos Aires. And since the first squatter incident took place at a park a month ago, there seems to be an increase of copycat land takeovers throughout Argentina, as well as other disturbances, including a riot at a busy Buenos Aires train station last week.

As a result of the growing public disorder, the level of disapproval with Mrs. Kirchner's administration shot up more than nine points, to 52.1%, in December from the prior month, according to a survey by the Management & Fit polling firm.

Mrs. Kirchner is still the front-runner in presidential elections in October 2011, partly because of a divided opposition, although she hasn't announced she'll seek a second term. But the government's halting and contradictory response to the security crisis has eroded some recent gains Mrs. Kirchner had made with middle-class voters, who had become more sympathetic to her after Mr. Kirchner died of a heart attack in October.

In response to the clashes, Mrs. Kirchner recently announced the creation of a new federal agency, the Ministry of Security, under the command of former defense minister Nilda Garre. She also ordered 6,000 military police to patrol greater Buenos Aires. But Mrs. Kirchner has prohibited police from carrying firearms at protests. Mrs. Kirchner is a leftist who has long criticized excesses by Argentine security forces.

See also NYT, "Conflict Over Squatters Divides Argentina."

Nicholas John Mead — 'How to Smear a Hero'

The link to Mead's blog is at my previous entry, "Julian Assange Trophy Sex." I loaded it in Firefox, so click over to the thread, which is fascinating. And remember, this is from last August:

The Pentagon’s open hostility towards WikiLeaks are well known and it’s quite possible this is a smear plot but it if is, it’s been pretty badly executed so far. It could just be a case of a woman who slept with him, possibly got her hopes up and then had sour grapes after she found out he’d also slept with another woman. It’s thought that the women either worked together or both had connections with the same organization that Assange did the speech for. At least one of the women, on realizing that Assange had slept with them both, may have felt rather upset that he’d “played around”. In their anger and hurt, it’s possible they may have taken the decision – or maybe even been coerced by outside forces – to smear him in revenge or alternatively, one of them convinced the other to make a joint accusation in return for something. It’s understood that the other woman involved is somewhat younger than __________. It’s hard to say anything more until and if Assange speaks publicly on exactly what happened on the nights in question. In the end, it may all come down to a question of what exactly the victims consider “molestation” and what exactly the law defines it as.

This guy Mead's a revolutionary communist. Among other things, his twitter page gushes with Noam Chomsky links, for example. And as of last Tuesday Mead remained fully in the Assange corner, "Assange concerned over 'natural justice' in Sweden."

George W. Bush: A Letter of Holiday Greetings

At Amazon's Kindle Post blog (via Glenn Reynolds).

How Was Your Christmas?

Via William Teach:

Ending the War to End All Wars

An essay from Margaret MacMillan, at New York Times:

NOT many people noticed at the time, but World War I ended this year. Well, in a sense it did: on Oct. 3, Germany finally paid off the interest on bonds that had been taken out by the shaky Weimar government in an effort to pay the war reparations imposed by the Treaty of Versailles.

While the amount, less than $100 million, was trivial by today’s standards, the payment brought to a close one of the most poisonous chapters of the 20th century. It also, unfortunately, brought back to life an insidious historical myth: that the reparations and other treaty measures were so odious that they made Adolf Hitler’s rise and World War II inevitable.

In truth, the reparations, as the name suggests, were not intended as a punishment. They were meant to repair the damage done, mainly to Belgium and France, by the German invasion and subsequent four years of fighting. They would also help the Allies pay off huge loans they had taken to finance the war, mainly from the United States. At the Paris peace talks of 1919, President Woodrow Wilson was very clear that there should be no punitive fines on the losers, only legitimate costs. The other major statesmen in Paris, Prime Ministers David Lloyd George of Britain and Georges Clemenceau of France, reluctantly agreed, and Germany equally reluctantly signed the treaty.

In Weimar Germany, a society deeply divided by class and politics, hatred of the “dictated peace” was widespread, and there was no shame in trying to escape its provisions. The final sum for reparations was not mentioned in the treaty — itself a humiliation in German eyes — but was eventually set in 1921 at 132 billion gold marks (about $442 billion in today’s terms). The fact is that Germany could have managed to pay, but for political reasons chose not to.

Some might recall that I wrote about this at the time: "Germany Pays Off Reparations Imposed at Versailles — 92 Years Later!"

Sex and WikiLeaks

An editorial at LAT.

After an extremely narrow background summary we get this:

These titillating and not-very-nice allegations involving the man who has distributed tens of thousands of secret State Department cables and documents to the news media are being discussed by people across the country and around the world, just as they once discussed the tiniest particulars of President Clinton's Oval Office trysts with Monica Lewinsky. And as they discuss the details, they're also raising serious questions about how sexual misconduct should be dealt with: Should a man be charged with rape for having sex without a condom? For having sex with a woman when she's asleep? In recent decades, Sweden's laws have grown increasingly protective of women's rights; are they too tough, or do they strike the right balance? Does it make sense that Sweden has three degrees of rape, including "less severe," which Assange is charged with and which is generally used when a person uses threats or mild force to have non-consensual sex?

RTWT.

Actually, as progressive feminists point out, the key issue really is consent. But when does that begin and end? What's the contextual nature of the consensual agreement, for example, if a woman changes her mind about intercourse at just about the time a guy's gonna to explode. Recall Cathy Young's essay, "Julian Assange, Feminism, and Rape":

Once, feminist reformers rightly fought against laws that required a rape victim to fight her attacker "to the utmost." But removing any element of actual or threatened force from the crime of rape makes it too easy to criminalize miscommunications and morning-after regrets. Should non-consent require a firm "Stop!" or does it cover a hesitant or coy "Maybe we should stop"—perhaps accompanied by actions that contradict the words? Is the man guilty of rape if the woman says early in the evening that she does not want to have sex, but does not rebuff his overtures later? Is the woman a rapist if the roles are reversed? Writing the "forcible" part out of the definition of rape makes it much more of a two-way street ....

Earlier generations of feminists argued that rape should be treated the same as any other violent crime: The victim should not be subjected to special standards of resistance or chastity. These days, the demand for special treatment is so blatant that some activists openly support abolishing the presumption of innocence for rape cases and requiring the accused to prove consent ... In an ironic twist, these activists actually seem to hold women in very little esteem: in their world, women are too timid to push a man away if he won't take no for an answer and too addled to know that they have been raped.

Sady Doyle dismissed Cathy Young's argument out of hand (feminist intellectual), and in so doing failed to notice the Young's article named the accusers. Doyle deleted her tweet to Young's article after blaming her mistake on the misogynist trolls.

These are bad people, as I always say.

RELATED: "What Line Did Sady Doyle Cross?"

Assange Rape Accuser Launched Lesbian Nightclub in 2007

More information surrounding the allegations: "Tonight Opens "Fever", Gotland's First Queer Club."

And some revealing screencaps here. Also, the "hidden cache of tweets."

And here's this from the comments at Nicholas Mead's thread, "How to Smear a Hero," at 4:40am on August 23:

The militant feminists in Norway and Sweden aren’t about equality – they’re against sex. They write things like ‘heterosexual sex is unnatural and demeaning’. That a woman shouldn’t be ‘penetrated’ because that’s ‘humiliating’. And stuff like that.

And here's an Al Jazeera interview with Karin Rosander, the director of communications for Sweden's prosecutor's office, from August:

RELATED: At The Nation, "The Case of Julian Assange."

Also, at WSJ, "Assange Memoir Sold in U.S., U.K.," and The Guardian, "Julian Assange to use £1m book deals for legal fight" (via Memeorandum). Plus, a dishy piece at New York Magazine, "Julian Assange Inks $1.5 Million WikiLeaks Tell-All Book Deal."

PREVIOUSLY:

* "#MooreandMe Feminists Target Jezebel, The Nation."

* "Get a Grip, Moe Tkacik."

* "Julian Assange Trophy Sex."

#MooreandMe Feminists Target Jezebel, The Nation

Here's the reply from Jessica Coen, Executive Editor of Jezebel, to the #MooreandMe campaign's demands for the removal of Anna Ardin's name and picture.

This is mostly the campaign of Jonathan McIntosh, who went to work on The Nation as well. But note how the Campus Women's Organization at the University of Pittsburgh dissed Coen's response as "childish and unreasonable."

Project much?

And Amadi, who dissed me previously as a "mansplainer," joined the attacks on Ms. Coen:

Jezebel as a feminist space has been questionable for awhile. Now we can be assured that it's not even a *decent* space. #MooreAndMe

Jezebel eventually capitulated.

And Sady Doyle chimes in on The Nation here.

The article's at the link: "The Case of Julian Assange."

PREVIOUSLY: "Get a Grip, Moe Tkacik," and, "Julian Assange Trophy Sex."

A Quest to Explain What Grades Really Mean

At NYT:

It could be a Zen koan: if everybody in the class gets an A, what does an A mean?

The answer: Not what it should, says Andrew Perrin, a sociologist at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. “An A should mean outstanding work; it should not be the default grade,” Mr. Perrin said. “If everyone gets an A for adequate completion of tasks, it cripples our ability to recognize exemplary scholarship.”

As part of the university’s long effort to clarify what grades really mean, Mr. Perrin now leads a committee that is working with the registrar on plans to add extra information — probably median grades, and perhaps more — to transcripts. In addition, they expect to post further statistics providing context online and give instructors data on how their grading compares with their colleagues’.

“It’s going to be modest and nowhere near enough to correct the problems,” Mr. Perrin said. “But it’s our judgment that it’s the best we can do now.”

RTWT.

The article cites RateMyProfessors, a resource so overrated and prone to abuse it's beyond ridiculous.

And no more than 35 percent A grades at Princeton? I'd be pleased to give 3 percent in most of my American Government classes. Grade inflation is the least of my worries, although I'm not scratching to maintain a teaching gig nor to maintain the enrollment at the college. Students complain, sure, but the sense of entitlement at college is proportionate to the prestige of the institution. Some of the most whiny students I encounter are those who've attended university or who'd been pampered in affluence. Disadvantaged students not only haven't been marinated in entitlement, they haven't been provided an education decent enough to give them voice in the first place. And that's not entirely the fault of the schools. Parents and the popular culture should come in for the bulk of the blame. Basic skills are non-existent for many of my students. They can't compose a decent sentence, much less a paragraph. I don't seem to stress it as much as I used to, in any case, since I've adapted my teaching to accommodate students, for their disinterest and for the academic deficiencies. I'd like to see more students reading books, on their own, and of their own interest.

I should write more on this ... perhaps later?

Stop30Billion-Seattle.org

A Memeorandum thread on the anti-Israel "Seattle Middle East Awareness Campaign," featuring Israpundit.

This is interesting:

If the Arabs succeed in wiping Israel off the map, they will not be punished by any Nuremberg court or any other agency; the only punishment they fear involves the consequences of failure. These consequences were not sufficiently severe in 1948, 1956, or 1967 to act as a deterrent. The other side of this coin is, however, that Israel can probably get away with simply removing the Palestinians in a relatively humane matter.

As an example, Israel could pack the Palestinians onto ships with whatever they can carry on their backs plus some money in the currency of whatever country to which they are to be sent. A “reverse Gaza flotilla” could drop them off in Turkey, which seems to like them and would doubtlessly be happy to accept a couple of hundred thousand of them. Saudi Arabia should be more than willing to extend Arab hospitality to another few hundred thousand fellow Muslims, and so on. This would remove the open sore that Israel’s enemies are currently using to bleed it dry, and are using an excuse for violence against Israel–much as Hitler used the Sudeten Germans to justify his attacks on Czechoslovakia.

The bottom line is that the Athenians’ observation in Thucydides’ Melian Dialogue is correct: “You know as well as we do that right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.” The fact that everybody knows about Athens while very few know about the Melians is yet another example of Hitler’s observation about the Armenians. Or, as a German proverb puts it, you must be either the hammer or the anvil; if you don’t do the beating, you will be beaten.

It is past time for Israel to become the hammer so it will no longer be the anvil. Israel must use its physical power to do what it can to protect its safety and security; the Palestinians, having chosen collectively to take the path of violence and hatred, will have to suffer what they must. If Israel fails in the basic duty of a sovereign state to protect its citizens and its own existence, a future Adolf Hitler may say, “Who remembers Israel?” and he will be just as correct as the original Hitler was about the Armenians. It is better that future historians say instead, “Who remembers the Palestinians?

And in case you missed it, Dave Swindle has the background on the Stop30Billion-Seattle campaign of hate: "Victory Over the Domestic Allies of Islamic Terror in Seattle!"

Julian Assange Trophy Sex

You can't make this stuff up.

The Australian's Sunday essay includes this summary: "ONE of the women claiming she was sexually assaulted by Julian Assange took a "trophy photo" of him lying naked in her bed, he says."

The article doesn't say which woman took the pic, but I'm guessing Anna Ardin, who threw a victory party for Assange and then made her home available for nearly a week afterwards. And The Australian uses the "Ms. A" identifier, but for the life of me I can't see the feminists' reasoning for not publishing the names except as a matter of power and control. Google it and see what I mean. Here's a story, for example, from last August when the allegations first came to light: "The Strangest Blog Thread Yet on the Swedish Charges, uh - Not Charges - Against Julian Assange." Added: That "blog thread" is found a Nicholas John Mead's blog, and I had to open it in Firefox to get it to load: "How to Smear a Hero." I'm working my way through the 1,240 comments, but so far the line runs heavily against the rape allegations. #MooreandMe has a lot of work to to --- among radical progressives especially!

RELATED: The Other McCain: "You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught."

Americans Have Strayed From Our Core Values of Social Justice?

From the letters to the editor at the Los Angeles Times:.

Thanks to Bilmes for articulating the deep-down challenge for Americans today.

What exactly are the values and priorities that underlie our legislation and voting?

Bilmes reminds us that the "president needs to lead the country in restoring our compassion and sanity." We would all do well to remember that the true values of a country are reflected in how it treats its most vulnerable citizens.

I believe we have strayed from our values of social justice by focusing on tax cuts for the rich and not on the common good.

Claire Marmion

Long Beach

The original Bilmes article is here.No doubt Ms. Marmion speaks for a large percentage of Americans who are either ignorant of our core values or they have abandoned them as "racist" and "hegemonic" vestiges of the "archaic" contstitutional order upon which this nation was founded.

RELATED: "Social Justice: Code for Communism."

Get a Grip, Moe Tkacik

The full post is here: "I don’t care if Moe Tkacik lost her job."

And from the comments:

I realize this is going to make me sound like a heartless bitch, but I think Moe needs to stop writing about the issue of rape. Full stop. Until she works some shit out and can be objective.

Hmm... Rape culture totalitarianism is the new objective (which remember replaces the old objective, the bastion of white hetero-male privilege).

MORE at the Other McCain, "More Assange-Related Feminist Meltdown."

'If Jerusalem falls, Amsterdam and New York will be next...'

Geert Wilders, quoted at Reuters (via New York Times).

Merry Christmas!

I'm seen here once again at The Spectrum Center. My oldest son and I took a quick trip to the mall to pick up some See's Candies for Christmas Day.

On the way back, we cruised through one of the neighborhoods not far from our home. This house in particular built some of the most elaborate Christmas decorations I've ever seen. The display is set to music. If you look over at the left-hand window above the garage, the sign says "104.7 FM," and then when you tune your radio you can listen to the music choreographed with the lightshow. Well done. Stuff like this reminds you that some folks really appreciate Christmas, even if it's a little short of the modesty side:

Richard Dawkins Slams Pope, Christianity on Christmas Eve

At least The Guardian titled the essay for what it is, "A Shameful Thought for the Day." Dawkins slams the Vatican's "obscene indulgences" and then goes after original sin, a foundation of Christian faith:

We've already had what little apology we are going to get (none in most cases) for the raped children, the Aids-sufferers in Africa, the centuries spent attacking Jews, science, women and "heretics", the indulgences and more modern (and tax-deductible) methods of fleecing the gullible to build the Vatican's vast fortune. So, no surprise that these weren't mentioned. But there's something else for which the pope should go to confession, and it's arguably the nastiest of all. I refer to the main doctrine of Christian theology itself, which was the centrepiece of what Ratzinger actually did say in his Thought for the Day.

"Christ destroyed death forever and restored life by means of his shameful death on the Cross."

More shameful than the death itself is the Christian theory that it was necessary. It was necessary because all humans are born in sin. Every tiny baby, too young to have a deed or a thought, is riddled with sin: original sin. Here's Thomas Aquinas:

". . . the original sin of all men was in Adam indeed, as in its principal cause, according to the words of the Apostle (Romans 5:12): "In whom all have sinned": whereas it is in the bodily semen, as in its instrumental cause, since it is by the active power of the semen that original sin together with human nature is transmitted to the child."

Adam (who never existed) bequeathed his "sin" in his bodily semen (charming notion) to all of humanity. That sin, with which every newborn baby is hideously stained (another charming notion), was so terrible that it could be forgiven only through the blood sacrifice of a scapegoat. But no ordinary scapegoat would do. The sin of humanity was so great that the only adequate sacrificial victim was God himself.

That's right. The creator of the universe, sublime inventor of mathematics, of relativistic space-time, of quarks and quanta, of life itself, Almighty God, who reads our every thought and hears our every prayer, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent God couldn't think of a better way to forgive us than to have himself tortured and executed. For heaven's sake, if he wanted to forgive us, why didn't he just forgive us? Who, after all, needed to be impressed by the blood and the agony? Nobody but himself.

The Pope's Christmas message is here, and at The Telegraph, "Pope Benedict XVI delivers BBC's Thought for the Day." Plus, from a commenter at The Guardian:

What Dawkins says about the abuses committed by the catholic church is true enough, but reading him one cannot help getting the impression that, given access to the levers of political power, and given the right sort of regime or the right sort of period (eg Russia in the 1930s) , he would happily turn churches into warehouses and put priests in labour camps. Just an impression though. I may be wrong...

No, sir, I don't think you're wrong.

RELATED: How atheists celebrate Christmas.

The Nativity of Jesus

The love the classic paintings of The Nativity.

At top, Geertgen tot Sint Jans, Nativity at Night (c.1490), and below, Gerard van Honthorst Adoration of the Shepherds (1622).

BONUS: A video for the modern age, "The Digital Story of the Nativity."

Christmas Greetings From Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

Via Theo Spark:

'Silent Night'

Ronan Tynan, on Fox & Friends earlier this week:

'Feliz Navidad'

From my good friend Megan Barth at JibJab, and also José Feliciano:

Orange County Storms

Orange County bore the brunt of the storm earlier this week. LAT has a report, "Major flooding in Laguna Beach, mudslides in canyons as storm bears down on L.A."

And here's the scene Wednesday afternoon as I was leaving Kohl's in Irvine: