History is going to repeat itself, isn’t it?

Read these old pre-WWII newspaper articles, in which a very nice American Quaker is arguing (to a conference of rabbis, no less) that if Jews throughout the world try to instill into the minds of Hitler and his supporters recognition of the ideals for which the race stands, and if Jews appeal to the German sense of justice and the German national conscience, I am sure the problem will be solved more effectively and earlier than otherwise.

It’s weird. The guy also repudiates the notion of boycotts, because that’s economic violence. Buy from fascists, because capitalism is a hell of a drug. There’s even an article from another person arguing that Hitler’s supporters aren’t racist, they’re just economically anxious.

We’ve been through all of this in the 1930s. Unthinking pacifism didn’t work then, it’s not going to work now.

A prosecutorial dilemma!

A prosecutor involved in trafficking cases in New York writes about what to expect in the new trial of Jeffrey Epstein. Basically, he’s screwed.

But, finally, it looks like justice will be served to Epstein in the form of new sex-trafficking charges filed by the formidable U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York.

Epstein has reportedly been arrested for trafficking dozens of minors in New York and Florida between 2002 and 2005. And this time, Epstein shouldn’t expect the ridiculous sweetheart deal he got the first time around.

Charges of federal sex trafficking carry mandatory minimums of 10-15 years on each count. Mandatory means mandatory. In other words, short of a cooperation agreement with the government—which in the SDNY famously means full cooperation against all possible other subjects and targets—Epstein will serve at least 10-15 years in prison (possibly more depending on the number of counts) if convicted.

He ought to be sweating, but that last paragraph brings up a legal problem. If convicted, Epstein is a horrible sleaze who has committed great evil, and yeah, he should be locked up. But should we complain if he gets a reduced sentence if he provides evidence that sends a host of other sleazy pervs tumbling down? He could, conceivably, be the downfall of people like Dershowitz and Clinton and Trump and other highly connected rich goons. Would that be worth turning an Epstein loose?

Also, the writer speculates that Barr could potentially meddle in the case to protect those same highly connected rich goons. What is our recourse if that kind of blatant corruption occurs?

This could be an interesting and revealing case. I’ve been conditioned by the last few decades of bullshit to expect that what will be revealed is only greater levels unscrupulous grift than ever I imagined. I guess that still fits the definition of “interesting”. I wish I lived in a less interesting country, though.

Wealthy math teacher faces justice

Jeffrey Epstein with some random people

Can it be? Will Jeffery Epstein get his comeuppance?

Billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein was arrested for allegedly sex trafficking dozens of minors in New York and Florida between 2002 and 2005, and will appear in court in New York on Monday, according to three law enforcement sources. Saturday’s arrest by the FBI-NYPD Crimes Against Children Task Force comes about 12 years after the 66-year-old financier essentially got a slap on the wrist for allegedly molesting dozens of underage girls in Florida.

The article also points out that it’s a mystery where he got his millions of dollars. He was a math teacher who broke bad into the lucrative world of hedge funds, but no one seems to know what he was doing, his employees were invisible, and he seems to have just one client. Something shady was going on, which makes me wonder if the reason he got such a sweetheart deal before is that he’s a key to unraveling a tangled web of nefarious activity by the rich and powerful.

Speaking of the rich and powerful, Alan Dershowitz sure seems to be sweating copiously suddenly.

Shameful Fourth of July to you all

I’m certainly not celebrating today. We’ve got more to regret than to praise.

We’re running concentration camps on our southern border. It’s not a recent aberration, either: we were enslaving people before we became a nation, we built this country on the labor of the barracoon. We slaughtered the native population and herded the survivors into reservations. My university was founded on the site of an Indian school, where children were ripped from their families and imprisoned to be taught White Man’s Ways; there’s a big sign outside the building where I work to remind me of that every day.

We’ve been at war since our founding. It’s easy to forget, since we civilians are kept fairly well insulated from the consequences, but if you’re one of the working poor drafted to fight, or worse, one of the targets of our wrath, you know it. Nowadays we do most of our killing remotely, with drones or bombers, so even the military suffers little pain.

We’ve elected a crude, ignorant boor to the presidency who is disgracing our nation before the eyes of the world. We have a state propaganda channel that funnels lies to the populace. The “newspaper of record” provides a mouthpiece to apologists for the status quo. We’re having a goddamn military parade in the capitol today. I’m torn between thinking that at least it honestly represents the spirit of the country and thinking it is deplorable and vile.

I’m expected to treat this as a holiday celebration?

I’m not going to. I’m waiting to celebrate the revolution that erases this stain.

Where to start learning about antifa

Mark Bray explains the history, goals, and philosophy of antifa in Teen Vogue. Every paragraph is a jewel, you should go read it. Just a taste:

Antifa grows out of a larger revolutionary politics that aspires toward creating a better world, but the primary motivation is to stop racists from organizing; doing that can take many forms, and so the tactical repertoire of anti-fascists is broad.

The vast majority of what they do does not entail any physical confrontation. They focus on researching white supremacists and neo-Nazis across different social media platforms, figuring out who their leaders are, what other groups they are networking with, [and] where they are trying to hold events, so they can contact hotels or local venues to get the owners to cancel the events and, if they refuse to cancel, organize a boycott or campaigns of public pressure against them. They also organize public education campaigns and form alliances with unions and social movements to organize large demonstrations. Part of it, however, and this is what gets the most attention, entails self-defense and, at times, confronting these groups before they can gain enough momentum to promote their politics.

At the Close the Camps protest in Morris, Minnesota

We had a good turnout, about 75 people.

We signed stuff. We’re sending a message to our Blue Dog Democratic representative, not that I expect he’ll give a damn.

We also read testimonials from kids in the camps, and also a list of the names of children who died in custody was read out. This was grim.

I learned something new, too: ICE is planning to open up “detention centers” all over the country, including nearby in Appleton, MN. You might want to find out if they’ll be creating concentration camps in your backyard, so you can start getting ready to protest.

If antifa has no recourse but violence, how can you condemn them for taking action?

Andy Ngo, faux-journalist and enabler of right-wing bigotry, got milkshaked the other day. I approve whole-heartedly of that kind of behavior. Portland Antifa even turned to mass production of vegan milkshakes as part of their protest of the Proud Boys and other fascist groups marching in the city.

Terrific! I’m all in favor of community action to make their contempt for bigots unambiguous and humiliating for the marchers. “Proud” Boys, my ass.

However, the response escalated. Here’s Ngo getting hosed down with milkshakes and silly string, when someone runs forward and clocks him hard. He was bleeding and went to an emergency room; this is serious violence.

Now I’m getting uncomfortable. Would I do this? No. But since everyone is currently very concerned about free speech, I think we need to be able to objectively discuss the pros of punching out fascist bigots. After all, any attempt to silence conversation about the virtues of antifa would be a violation of people’s free speech rights, and we can’t have that. I think also that Mr Ngo would want us to consider the benefits of seeing him punched in the face.

Here’s Mr Ngo “reporting” on an encounter between antifa and right-wing thugs. There is fighting on both sides, and it gets a bit ferocious. One of the fascists hits a protester, Heather Clark, so hard that he knocks her unconscious and breaks a cervical vertebra, an injury far worse than what Ngo experienced this weekend. Yet in his commentary on this event, he is unperturbed and even tries to justify it as deserved because Clark had disrupted a James Damore speaking event and damaged some sound equipment.

Hmm, interesting. What’s sauce for the goose is not sauce for the gander, I guess. If you google “Heather Clark antifa” you will find lots of right wing sites crowing triumphantly over the young woman getting seriously injured. Some of the same sites are now aghast that Ngo has been injured. I guess there’s a peculiar asymmetry at work here — punching antifa is heroic, but punching fascists is bad. You could flip that and say the same of antifa, that they think punching Nazis is heroic, but punching antifa is…except that what I’ve seen of antifa is that they expect to get hurt.

But OK, let’s not play tit-for-tat. Violence against fascists might righteously be opposed because it’s vigilanteism. It’s taking the law into your own hands. We oppose that, right? We believe in the rule of law?

Yes, except that there’s one problem here: the law is not enforcing the law. The Portland police clearly side with the Proud Boys and other such fascist groups, and have been refusing to arrest the right-wing provocateurs who are clearly descending on the city specifically to incite violence. The Portland police even disseminated the ludicrous claim that antifa had made the milkshakes loaded with quick-setting cement — there is no evidence of such a scheme, and it’s actually rather impractical. The police are defending fascists and also acting as their propaganda arm.

To make an argument against vigilanteism, one has to presuppose some trust in the law. That trust has evaporated. The police have been demonstrated time and again to be racist, discriminatory, and violent. Antifa would have nothing to do if the police were doing their job and peacefully removing the right-wing instigators from these events, but they aren’t, because they’re actually favoring them (or afraid of them, which is also a possibility). That precious rule of law is breaking down all across the country, so it becomes a righteous act to oppose wrong directly, without passing the responsibility on to an irresponsible police force.

A better argument might be that Andy Ngo, who is a scum-sucking bottom-dweller and champion of thuggery, has now become a cause celebre among the bigots. If the conflict had been confined to splashing him with dairy products, he would just be a joke right now, and that the blood and bruises are elevating his voice. I’d only ask, if that were true, why are Heather Clark’s injuries belittled, and why is Heather Heyer’s death not a crushing blow to the regressives?

I guess my bottom line is that absent a legitimate police force working to keep the peace, I’ll trust antifa to fight for right, more than I would the Proud Boys or neo-Nazis. I’d prefer more milkshakes and eggs over blood and broken bones, though.

Another twist: Seth Andrews wants Ryan Bell fired for not criticizing antifa. It’s weird how, under capitalism, economic violence is not considered harmful.

The Alaskan nightmare

We’re in that time of year when academics everywhere are waiting on budget news. Will we get that cost-of-living increase we were hoping for? Will our requests for new colleagues get funded? What will our supplies budget for next year look like? So we wait, knowing that the Republicans in the state legislature hate us and will be trying carve away as much as they can, not caring that we’ve already been pared to the bone.

Our Alaskan colleagues were in the midst of the same stress, when their Republican governor announced that he was using a line-item veto to kill 40% of the University of Alaska’s budget. That’s nothing but irresponsible butchery of the state university system.

Gov. Mike Dunleavy on Friday slashed $130 million in state support for the University of Alaska, a cut the UA president said could result in the elimination of academic programs, massive layoffs and tuition increases.

UA President Jim Johnsen said the university system will begin planning for the “devastating” and “unprecedented” reduction, while also advocating that the state Legislature overturn the governor’s line-item veto. State legislators have until July 12 to do so, but three-fourths of them would have to agree to throw out the governor’s cut.

“There’s no question this budget — if not overridden by the Legislature — would be devastating to the university and to our mission and to the state and to our economy now and for years to come,” Johnsen told the UA Board of Regents at an emergency meeting Friday.

We’re stretched thin already — I can’t imagine how we’d cope if told we had to slash 40% of our faculty. How would essential courses be taught? What would the value of a degree be if core disciplines were gutted? That’s the cost Alaskan colleges are being asked to pay. If this goes through, it’s going to take decades to repair the damage…if there’s a will to repair it at all.

It is short-sighted and stupid, too. Universities make major returns on the cost of investment. If nothing else, high-tech industries want a pool of educated workers, and they aren’t going to find them in Alaska.

Universities in Alaska certainly take on similar roles. According to a presentation from the Anchorage Economic Development Corporation’s Alaska Common Ground meeting:

  • the University of Alaska system provided $714 million (directly) and $402 million (indirectly) to the statewide economy (year 2012 numbers)
  • Alaska businesses rely on local talent from University of Alaska for their workforce needs as studies show that 68% of two-year graduates and 42% of four-year graduates remain in the state.
  • University of Alaska-Anchorage alone generated $40.2 million in research dollars in fiscal year 2016

It is clear that a 41% cut places all of these things at risk. It also threatens university leadership in serving the energy, seafood, natural resources, health, transportation and education sectors of the region. Candidly, gutting higher education will not be an effective tool for recruiting bright new talent and industries to the state either. In fact, it probably belongs on “a top 5 list” of how not to attract new people to the state.

How could this happen? Easy. Elect a Republican governor who sees his role as taking punitive fiscal action against anything he doesn’t like. Like most Republicans, he despises higher education, so he takes a knife to it. This isn’t the only time he’s been a brutal autocrat: he also vetoed $335,000 from the budget of the Alaska Supreme Court. Why? Because they made a ruling on abortion that he didn’t like.

“The legislative and executive branch are opposed to state-funded elective abortions; the only branch of government that insists on state-funded elective abortions is the Supreme Court,” Dunleavy’s administration wrote in a budget document released Friday. “The annual cost of elective abortions is reflected by this reduction.”

Mike Dunleavy is a man who firmly believes in the punitive power of bad leadership.